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278
KRONBORG.
Chap. XVIII.
If in your early youth you have devoured the
‘Fabliaux et Contes,’ ‘King Arthur and the Knights
of his Round Table,’ and other legends of old Romaunce,
you will recognise in Holger Dansk,* or rather Augier
le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance. Some few
years since I brushed him up when I visited the ruins
of “La Joyeuse Garde” and the classic sands of Avalon,
on the coast of Brittany. The French romancers assert
him to be still confined at Avalon, together with King
Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchantments of
the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes from Iris
brow the Lethæan crown, when his services are required
to fight against the Paynim for the good and welfare of
Christendom.
Morgana, she of the Fafa, was own sister to our good
King Arthur. With other mighty fairies, she assisted
at the birth of Holger the Dane ; later she loved him.
Seduced by her blandishments, he espoused her: no
good ever comes of marrying an old woman, be she
mortal or fairy. Holger the Dane slumbers in the
dungeons of Kronborg, not at Avalon, as the French
would have it, no more than Kin«- Arthur, who we all
know received Christian burial at Glastonbury; but
French romancers do tell such wicked stories. Endless
are the traditions, numerous the ballads, of the exploits
of this the favourite hero of Danish story: when
invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting
first the promise of “ a good dinner and plenty to drink,”
* Oluf, called God-drcng, who reigned before King Ring, is by
Adam of Bremen supposed to be the real Holger Dansk: he
accompanied Charlemagne to the Holy Sepulchre, and helped to place
Prester John on the throne of India.
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