Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - LI - Island of Falster. Nykjøbing
<< 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.
Ch.it. LI. QUEEN SOPHIA AND THE PARSON’S WIFE.
313
goes by the name of “ Præste Kongen, from a wager
laid by the parson’s wife with the queen that she would
spin a thread out of a pound of flax so fine it should
reach from her parsonage to the palace gate. The lady
proceeded on her way till her flax was expended at the
house which bears her name. Queen Sophia was a
good ménagëre, and kept her maids as well as her
men in order, not sparing the whip when they deserved
correction:
“ Linde Herre skal have Eege svenne,”
“ A maitre de tilleul, domestique de chëne,”
was her motto. She died the richest queen in Europe ;
and though Christian IV. honoured and loved his
mother, yet to judge from his correspondence he was
quite alive to the advantages to be derived from his
inheritance.
Scarcely is she on her death-bed when the king
whites word “ they must take care to look after her
keys.”* He writes to his sister Augusta to send
down the jeweller to value the queen’s effects; orders
mourning for the children, wh’o are to travel to
Vord-ingborg to receive the “ widowed queen’s coffin they
are to wait for the corpse and get something to eat at
* Many of good Queen Sophia’s people lie buried in the church of
Nyk-jøbing. Such a “ maitresse femme” as was Queen Sophia ! Such rules
and regulations, such modesty and virtue among her maids ! such
propriety among her men ! Mrs. Øllegaard Penz, her noble housekeeper—her
place not then, as now, a sinecure—at the end of eleven years’ service
died, worn out by her troubles and domestic cares, and even now, aftt r
the lapse of two centuries and more, she can’t rest quiet in her grave.
She fidgets and fusses about the chateau of Fredskov, rattles the keys,
opens and shuts the drawers, rings the bells, winds up the clocks,
and dusts, dusts away, and will dust—so folks say—in sæcula
sæcu-lorum, so disgusted is she at the degeneracy of all Danish housemaids.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
