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WE cast runes [1] here on the paper, and from the white ground the picture of Birger Jarl’s six hundred years old city rises before thee.
The runes roll, you see! Wood-grown rocky isles appear in the light, grey morning mist; numberless flocks of wild birds build their nests in safety here, where the fresh waters of the Mälaren rush into the salt sea. The Viking’s
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The clouds drive past -- the years too.
Hunters and fishermen erect themselves huts; -- it is again deserted here, where the sea-birds alone have their homes. What is it that so frightens these numberless flocks? the wild duck and sea-gull fly screaming about, there is a hammering and driving of piles. Oluf Skötkonge has large beams bored down into the ground, and strong iron chains fastened across the stream: "Thou art caught, Oluf Haraldson, [2] caught with the ships and crews, with which thou didst devastate the royal city Sigtuna; thou canst not escape from the closed Mälar lake!"
It is but the work of one night; the same
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The clouds go, and the years go! Do you see how the gables grow? there rise towers and forts. Birger Jarl makes the town of Stockholm a fortress; the warders stand with bow and arrow on the walls, reconnoitring over lake and fjord, over Brunkaberg sand-ridge. There were the sand-ridge slopes upwards from Rörstrand’s Lake they build Clara cloister, and between it and the town a street springs up: several more appear; they form an extensive city, which soon becomes the
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Roll, ye runes! see over Brunkaberg sand-ridge, where the Swedish people conquered the Danish host, there they raise the May-pole: it is midsummer-eve -- Gustavus Vasa makes his entry into Stockholm.
Around the May-pole there grow fruit and kitchen-gardens, houses and streets; they vanish in flames, they rise again; that gloomy fortress towards the tower is transformed into a palace, and the city stands magnificently with towers and draw-bridges. There grows a town by itself on the sand-ridge, a third springs up on the rock towards the south; the old
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Rays of beauty shoot forth into the world from Versailles’ painted divinity; they reach the Mälar’s strand into Tessin’s [4] palace, where art and science are invited as guests with the King, Gustavus the Third, whose effigy cast in bronze is raised on the strand before the splendid palace -- it is in our times. The acacia shades the palace’s high terrace on whose broad balustrades flowers send forth their perfume from Saxon porcelain; variegated silk curtains hang half-way down before the large glass windows; the floors are polished smooth as a mirror, and under the arch yonder, where the roses grow by the wall, the Endymion of Greece lives eternally in marble. As a guard of honour here, stand Fogelberg’s Odin, and Sergel’s Amor and Psyche.
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We now descend the broad, royal staircase, and before it, where, in by-gone times, Oluf Skötkonge stretched the iron chains across the mouth of the Mälar Lake, there is now a splendid bridge with shops above and the Streamparterre below: there we see the little steamer ’Nocken,’ [5] steering its way, filled with passengers from Diurgarden to the Streamparterre. And what is the Streamparterre? The Neapolitans would tell us: It is in miniature -- quite in miniature -- the Stockholmers’ "Villa Reale." The Hamburgers would say: It is in miniature -- quite in miniature -- the Stockholmers’ "Jungfernstieg."
It is a very little semi-circular island, on which the arches of the bridge rest; a garden full of flowers and trees, which we overlook from the high parapet of the bridge. Ladies and gentlemen promenade there; musicians play, families sit there in groups, and take refreshments in the vaulted halls under the bridge, and look out between the green trees over the open water, to the
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It is the bridge here that unites Stockholm with Nordmalen, where the greatest part of the fashionable world live, in two long Berlin-like streets; yet amongst all the great houses we will only visit one, and that is the theatre.
We will go on the stage itself -- it has an historical signification. Here, by the third side-scene from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there, close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and the motley group of harlequins, polichinellos, wild men, gods and goddesses with unmasked faces, pale and terrified crept together; the dancing ballet-farce had become a real tragedy.
This theatre is Jenny Lind’s childhood’s home. Here she has sung in the choruses when a little girl; here she first made her
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How beautiful it is to look out from the window up here, to look over the water and the Streamparterre to that great, magnificent palace, to Ladegaards land, with the large barracks, to Skipholmen and the rocks that rise straight up from the water, with Södermalm’s gardens, villas, streets, and church cupolas between the green trees: the ships lie there together, so many and so close, with their waving flags. The beautiful, that a poet’s eye sees, the world may also see! Roll, ye runes!
There sketches the whole varied prospect; a rainbow extends its arch like a frame around it. Only see! it is sunset, the sky becomes cloudy over Södermalm, the grey sky becomes darker and darker -- a pitch-dark ground -- and on it rests a double rainbow. The houses are
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The rainbow has placed one foot high up on Södermalm’s churchyard. Where the rainbow touches the earth, there lie treasures buried, is a popular belief here. The rainbow tests on a grave up there: Stagnalius rests here, Sweden’s most gifted singer, so young and so unhappy; and in the same grave lies Nicander, he who sang about King Enzio, and of "Lejonet i Oken;" [6] who sang with a bleeding heart: the
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We stand up here. What other city in the world has a better prospect over the salt fjord, over the fresh lake, over towers, cupolas, heaped-up houses, and a palace, which King Enzio himself might have built, and round about the dark, gloomy forests with oaks, pines and firs, so Scandinavian, dreaming in the declining sun? It is twilight; the night comes on, the lamps are lighted in the city below, the stars are
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We go down there, and in there, in the stilly eve. -- A world of spirits reigns within. See, in the vaulted isles, on carved wooden horses, sits armour, that was once borne by Magnus Ladelaas, Christian the Second, and Charles the Ninth. A thousand flags that once waved to the peal of music and the clang of arms, to the darted javelin and the cannon’s roar, moulder away here: they hang in long rags from the staff, and the staves lie cast aside, where the flag has long since become dust. Almost all the Kings of Sweden slumber in silver and copper coffins within these walls. From the altar aisle we look through the open-grated door, in between piled-up drums and hanging flags: here is preserved a bloody tunic, and in the coffin are the remains of Gustavus Adolphus. Who is that dead opposite
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How sacred it is here under this vaulted roof! The mightiest men of centuries are gathered together here, perishable as these moth-eaten flags -- mute and yet so eloquent. And without there is life and activity: the world goes on in its old course; generations change in the old houses; the houses change -- yet Stockholm is always the heart of Sweden, Birger’s city, whose features are continually renewed, continually beautified.
[1] "To cast runes" was, in the olden time, to exercise
witchcraft. When the apple, with ciphers cut in it,
rolled into the maiden’s lap, her heart and mind were
infatuated.
[2] Afterwards called Saint Oluf.
[3] Stock, signifies bulks, or beams; holms, i. e. islets,
or river islands; hence Stockholm.
[4] The architect Tessin.
[5] The water-sprite.
[6] "The Lion in the desert;" i. e. Napoleon.
The above contents can be inspected in scanned images:
127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140
Project Runeberg, Sat Dec 15 19:52:26 2012
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