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94
KORSØR.
Chap. VII.
you fly to the opposite—from Scylla to Charybdis—the
locomotives shriek, bustle, and roar. The earliest train
starts this morning at seven, by which we purpose to
travel. At five o’clock a newly arrived engine is trotted
out to exercise—too high mettled, I suppose, to run
alone: it makes a noise by far more disagreeable than
those already seasoned, and, until the metal becomes
well heated, hiccups, and spits, and snorts as though a
glass of wine had gone the wrong way, till you devoutly
wish it blown up altogether.
Of the ancient fortress of Taarnborg, on the site of
that founded, says tradition, by Svend Grathe, long
since sacked and destroyed by the Wendish pirates, one
small tower alone remains. During the wars of the
Counts in 1535, the inhabitants of Skjelskør, partizans
of Christian II., gained possession of this castle by
stratagem: presenting themselves as horse-dealers, they
demanded audience of the castellan, for the purpose
of discharging the custom-dues previous to embarkation
for Funen. On the appearance of the castellan they
immediately seized his person, and kept possession of
the castle for some years, until they were expelled by
the forces of Peter Skram, a celebrated noble of those
days, surnamed Vove-hals, or Risk-neck.
Skram is not a pretty name, I allow, but of very old
Jutland lineage, and answers to the French Balafré.
Peter Skram is one of the great authorities quoted for
the authenticity of the mermaid. He and his sailors
together are said to have taken captive one of these
syrens in a fiorde; and when they let her loose again,
as she dived beneath the water, she was heard to sing
out at the top of her voice, “ Te Deum laudamus.”
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