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Chap XXX. HIMMELBJERG. 33
To the left stands the grande maitresse, a fat stumpy
old hill, tricked out in purple and yellow squares and
patches of roseate clover, red, purple, and yellow—very
bad taste if you will—but the grande maitresse never
knew how to dress herself; she gets her gown from that
dowdiest of all court milliners, old Mrs. Nature. Behind
Himmelbjerg stand her ladies, attired in green, fresh
and springlike, plumed in feathery beech—somewhat
sunburnt, it must be owned, from constant exposure to
the weather. One is distinguished from the rest, for
she bears from early times a fiery beacon on her crest,
lighted in the days of Skipper Clemens, and even in the
present century, to summon the land to arms to repel
the invader or suppress the øpror.* Last of all defile
before her a range of youthful hillocks: lowly they bow
before their queen, in their clothing of purple and
brown, relieved by garlands of golden broom, glistening
with crystallized sand, somewhat heavy; but travellers
can’t expect to find much “chic” in Jutland.
Mark well that point to the right, on the opposite
side of the Juul lake, a small promontory clothed with
wood: there, says tradition, once stood the towers of
Laven Castle. Here, in Pagan times, resided a petty
king, whose only daughter was wooed by a neighbouring
Smaa Konge like himself, but the father forbad the mar-
♦ Beacons are common enough in the Danish dominions, as we later
found. In former days it was the custom to “ send the Budstikke”
a small piece of wood with the name of the king cut at the two ends,
passed from man to man, to summon the people to war; a branch
of willow, burnt at either end, was also used. He who missed the
“ gathering” was hanged to the same branch of willow at the entrance
of his own field, and his house burnt to the ground. When at
Frederiksborg the king showed me a small piece of stone inscribed with Runic
characters—the only specimen, 1 believe, still in existence—which was
formerly used in the duchy of Slesvig fvr the same purpose.
VOL. II. D
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