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216
EINGKJØBING.
Chap. XLIV.
men hard at work beating with all their might and
main; behind, a pile, mountain-high, of the refuse
straw, or whatever they call it. A cart drawn by one
horse, mounted by a bare-legged urchin, brings up the
material, which is tumbled over on to the floor; then,
as it falls, the fiddle strikes up a slow melody of marked
time, not unlike the well-known air of ‘ Roy’s Wife ’—
bang, bang, go the flails in correct continued measure.
Then when the heap is battered down he suddenly
changes to a more cheerful strain, strikes up a Scotch
reel, or something very like one. Bang, bang, go
the flails in a crescendo movement, the threshers
bursting out into a loud chorus every now and then,
shouting out like the dancers of the Highland fling.
This music relieves the weight of their labour—the
labourers seem to enjoy it, and work away con amore.
The harvest-home was to have taken place some two
days later, at which period there is much dancing and
“ storr gambell,” as the old ballads express it, which
may easily be translated by the most ignorant of
Scandinavian language as “ great gambols.”
The peasants dance a sort of reels interspersed with
the most intricate figures. According to the old custom,
one of the party sings the couplet of a ballad, something
like “ Liden Kirsten,” or “ Dronning Dagmar lies sick in
Ribe,”—most deadly lively; the rest of the party join in
chorus and then dance, after the manner of Brittany.
July 20th.—We commence by a country cultivated
in stripes—potatoes, corn, and buckwheat—followed
up by a long expanse of heath; pass to the right
Deiberg, where the gipsy tribe possess their own
peculiar forms; red kro in succession to red kro, till
we arrive at a network of running streams near the
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