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420
VEIRHØI.
Chap. XXVII.
Adeler, “ is the stone on which the bonfire is lighted by
the peasants on St. John’s eve—an old custom handed
down to us from the earliest time. It is a beautiful
sight; on every hill a fire is lighted. We can from
this spot count eighty or ninety at a time.” How this
bonfiring escaped the anathemas of the Reformed
Church I know not. The sacred well of St. Helena,
near Tidsvilde, whose waters effected most marvellous
cures, was a favourite place of pilgrimage to the simple
peasantry on St. John’s-day—a custom which, as well as
the erection of small crucifixes by the well’s side as
thank-offerings, continued long after the Reformation
was finally established in Denmark. In vain the
prelates forbade, under pain of punishment and fine, the
continuation of such Popish practices : it was of no use.
“ Why,” exclaimed the boers, “ should we pay for
doctor’s stuff when good St. Helena furnishes us with
water much more efficacious, free of all expense?”
As late as 1716 an edict from Roeskilde was published
forbidding the erection of these obnoxious crosses
under pain of I don’t know what. The bonfires were
winked at.
We returned to the castle to lunch; a charming
residence, fitted up with all possible comforts, nothing
too fine for use—family portraits and collection of stone
antiquities found in the barony itself. Then we visited
the gardens, rich in roses; in the potager I observed
a row of the Helleborus viridis. This plant is found
indigenous in some parts of England, near the ancient
hunting-lodges of our Plantagenet sovereigns, and was
Used in the days of archery for poisoning the
arrowheads.
But the “ Meiri ” is the glory of the place—new
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