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Chap. XVI.
MUSEUM: AGE OF IRON.
245
surface struck against the second horn and took it up.
Finding it to be of gold, he presented it to Count
Schack, owner of the land, who gave it to Christian VI.
The King sent the peasant 25Z., the value of the horn
being 500Z. The man was so delighted with His Majesty’s
liberality, that he wrote twice to thank the King for his
kindness.
The celebrated poet, Adam Oehlenschläger, composed
a funeral elegy on these horns, when they had been
stolen and melted down, so touching that it brought
tears into the eyes of all antiquaries who perused it.
For this reason I have not translated it, as it might have
been too much for the reader’s feelings.*
3. The Iron Age.—We now enter into the third period
of Scandinavian history—an era more difficult to describe
and puzzling to comprehend than the two preceding ages.
I do not myself believe that, as Christianity progressed
among the Northern nations (from a.d. 826 to a.d.
1000), native talent advanced with the civilization of
the country. Models were procured from foreign parts,
chiefly from the East: few were of original design. The
merchants of Scandinavia extended their commercial
expeditions to the city of Novgorod, at that time the
chief mart of Oriental and European traffic, exchanging
the ivory of the narwal and the amber of the Baltic
for the produce of the East.
The Varangian guard,f all-powerful like the Janissaries
* A model of one of these horns has been lately executed in silver
gilt by M. Dahl, of Østergade, and presented to the Museum of Northern
Antiquities by his Majesty King Frederic VII., and it is whispered that
the companion is likely to follow.
t The Varangian guard was chiefly formed of English Danes, who
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