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302
GURRE.
Chap. XIX.
story. Pulled down for their materials! and by a king,
too, rich in the spoils of the Church.
The peasantry will relate to you many a legend
of Valdemar and Tovelil (the Rosamond of Danish
romance), here concealed in the stronghold of Gurre
Castle. I am sorry to destroy the illusion; but this
never was. Tovelil—the Tovelil of ballad and old tale
—was of earlier date. Erik the Pomeranian affected
his castle of Gurre; and in the late excavations made
by his present Majesty coins of his period were
discovered, with other relics, among the ruins.
The first decent coinage* Denmark ever possessed
was that of Erik the Pomeranian. The money of Queen
Margaret’s reign was disgraceful to any country even in
the fourteenth century—silver pieces stamped with the
effigy of majesty, as works of art inferior to the
contre-marcs of a Parisian theatre. In the absence of King
Erik in the Holy Land, our English Philippa, greatly
disgusted at the rhymes and pasquinades sung
throughout the land ridiculing the clipped money of the day,
took the matter in hand. Who should be a better judge
than she ?—her dowry one large gold rose-noble; and
at her own expense she produced a coinage creditable to
the country over which she reigned. It is curious to
relate, 9000 English nobles of the Queen’s dowry were
devoted to the re-purchase of Gothland, the last
refugeplace of her husband King Erik.
* Up to the period of King Svend, father of Canute the Great, no
coins were ever struck in Denmark, though frequently money is
discovered in England coined by the Vikings who settled themselves in the
northern counties 200 years previous to the reign of King Svend.
Anglo-Saxon and Cutie coins are generally dug up together, and by the
former the date of the “ finde ” is determined. Sometimes a coin is
found scratched over with Runic characters.
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