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Chap. XLVII. DANCING TO DEATH. 251
the Ditsmark combat, when the sacred banner of the
Danebrog was lost to the Danes for ever.
Observe that figure of a lady in a dark brocade dress
and tight corsage, with choking ruff. No beauty—Lady
Margaret Skovgaard is her name, a lady of great
possessions. She was young and fair, and loved the revel
and the dance. At a ball at Odense she danced with
twelve successive knights—branles, corantos, and what
not;—dances not like our calm meandering quadrilles
of the 19th century. She danced, and would not stop,
till she could no more, and fell exhausted, dead, at
the feet of the twelfth knight, her partner.* He—for
the age of chivalry was not yet over—caused, at his own
expense, this stone to be erected to her memory, and,
like the rivals Capulet and Montague, had it richly
gilt. “ Stuff and nonsense! ” cried fourth Christian,
when he saw it (he was elected to his throne in
Odense); “ bring me a tar-barrel. Take a brush and
tar the jade all over. I am not going to have my
devotions (Christian’s devotions!) disturbed by her
gold and glitter.” But Christian counted without his
host, old Time; for, after a lapse of more than two
centuries, the tar is peeling off, the gold reappearing,
and perhaps she will again rival the gingerbread of
the country fairs in her glittering finery. Scandalous
people declare that the Lady Margaret had refused to
lend money to Christian during her lifetime : it was on
this account that he revenged himself. For the credit
of St. Knud, all coffins are closed to the public, even
* In the description of Sanderumgaard, once in her possession,
I was considerably disgusted to find the following remark: “ If
Margaret Skovgaard did die from over-dancing, she was, at any rate,
turned seventy years of age.”
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