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Chap. XXVIII.
SLAGELSE.
7
from the strand; the porpoises and fishes raise a loud
lament—even the rocks grieve. When the King hears
the fatal news, it shoots through his heart like a spear;
he wrings his fingers till they crack, and then curses
Refsnæs. “ Hereafter shall no hare or hart be found—
no tree shall henceforth live. On Refsnæs, where
flourished oak and beech, henceforth shall grow the
thorn and the brier—
“ With sorrow they conveyed him to Ringsted,
Saint Benedict’s church received the prince, 1231.”
The curse of Valdemar was well fulfilled : no hare of
the royal forest now exists; one solitary hawthorn,
loaded with snow-white flowers, twisted and gnarled like
those in Woodstock Park, alone attests the existence of
the former hunting-fields. Well too might King
Valdemar, and Denmark as one man, lament the death of
the heir-apparent (already elected in his father’s
lifetime),* sole offspring of good Queen Dagmar, for three
more vicious sovereigns than his half-brothers, sons of
Berengaria, never ascended the Danish throne.
“ Oh Denmark, had you known your grief,
You would have wept tears of very blood.”
SLAGELSE.
Five miles to Slagelse, where we first dine, and then
proceed in the cool of the evening by rail to
Copenhagen. Stagelse is a tidy little town, once of
considerable ecclesiastical eminence. The ancient proverb
runs—“ Roskild ringen, og Slagelse møgagen, fik aldrig
ende” (the ringing at Roeskilde and manuring at Slagelse
* 1231. Valdemar, Leonora, and her child, wore all buried at
Ringsted.
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