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Chap. XL.
STORY OF LIDEN KIRSTEN.
167
He now sends for Boris, condemns him to lose his
right hand and left foot, to be chained to the wall
at the porch of Vestervig Kloster, and there “ oculis
defossis ”—as the Sagas say—with his eyes dug out, to
pray once a day at the grave of his little Kirsten.
Boris lived eleven years chained in this manner to
the porch of Vestervig, and was afterwards interred in
the same grave as little Kirsten under the “ roses two.”*
In the year 1610 the grave was opened by order of the
amtman. The coffin was found to be divided into
two parts, each containing a skeleton, the one of a man,
the other of a woman.
According to popular tradition Queen Sofie did
have her way at last. She survived her king for many
a year, and espoused a Landgrave of Thuringia, who
soon divorced her. She did not however quit Denmark
without having first ridden her “ ganger graa ” over
the tombstone of her victim. The print of the
horseshoe, faintly visible to very sharp eyes, attests the fact,
near the very place where the stone is rent in twain.
Tradition as well as the Sagas also declare that
* If this story be true, Valdemar was later punished for his conduct
to Liden Kirsten in the fortunes of his own daughters, all three of
whom were repudiated by their husbands without any just cause.
The history of the youngest, Ingeborg, wife of Philip Augustus, is
too well known to need recounting. A volume has been lately
published in Danish, from the archives of the papal government, on this
vexed question, which had much better have never been brought to
light—evidence which in a modern divorce-court would have been
received with “ closed doors.” Ingeborg was fifteen years of age, and
is described as a “ sunshine of northern beauty.” She understood
not a word of French; and during the trial could only utter the
words, “Male, male France!” pointing with her finger, “Rome!
Rome ! ”— She lived in a convent at Soissons for nineteen years, and
was then taken back again by her husband—and apply to Rome she
did, as all men know.
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