Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XLVI - Ribe
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chap. XLVI.
FUNERAL OF MARSK STIG.
233
art my king, and I may be an outlaw: but I will make
many a Danish mother grieve for her son, and many a
wife widow yet! ” He then saluted the royal party and
retired. As we have before related, he seizes on Hjelm,
turns pirate, is excommunicated by the Pope, and
dies an outlaw. As he is not likely to appear much
more upon the scene, I may as well relate the story
of his funeral, celebrated in verse and chronicled in
the memory of the history-loving Danes.
Towards the close of the 13th century the servant
of the priest of Hindsholm in the island of Funen was,
towards dark, busily employed in cleaning hops, when
a farming man arrived breathless, declaring he had
seen a funeral enter the church—a rich funeral,
followed by a train of warriors. Much alarmed, for they
knew the church to be closed and the keys safe in the
priest’s house, they imagined it to be a phantom rising
from the sea.
One of the maids, who was betrothed to Mads Jyde,
a grim warrior of Marsk Stig’s band, declared she was
not afraid ; she would go and see herself what it really
was; so she fetched the key, and when she arrived at
the church-door she found the building filled with
armed men, the vizors of their helmets closed; her
own “huusbond,” i. e. the priest, her master, there,
with his hands tied behind his back, compelled, by
threats of a drawn sword, to read the funeral service.
Alarmed, she conceals herself, and, the service
concluded, the men break open an old vault, and deposit
the coffin therein. The priest is dismissed, an oath
being first exacted from all present never to reveal
what they had that night seen. When the
warrior
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
