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Chap. LI.
THE LADY WHO COULD NOT DIE.
315
She resolved to build a very great and splendid church.
When the building was finished she ordered the altar
candles to be lighted; then proceeding in great state
through the aisle to the high altar, she fell down upon
her knees and prayed God, as a reward for her pious gift,
to let her live as long as her church was standing. Her
foolish prayer was granted. Her kinsmen and servants
died, but she outlived them all. At length she had
neither contemporary friends nor relations to speak to ;
she saw all their children become old and die, and then
again their children after them sink under the weight
of years,—still she lived on. By degrees she lost the
use of almost all her senses, and at last she only
recovered her power of speech once a year—each
Christ-mas-eve, for one single hour. She begged one Christmas
to be laid in an oaken coffin and placed in the church,
to try if she could not die there. They did as she
demanded, and her coffin was placed in the church, but
she has not been allowed to die to this day. Every
year at the appointed hour the parson comes to her, and
lifts up the heavy lid of the coffin. She slowly raises
herself till she sits erect in the coffin, when she asks, ‘*Is
my church still standing?” “ Yes,” answers the parson:
“ Would to God,” she exclaims, “ that my church were
burnt, for then would my wail end! ” Sighing, she once
more sinks back upon her hard pillow, the parson shuts
the coffin, and does not return until the Christmas
following.
We drive to Corselitze, a small country house,
half-farm, and then enter a lovely forest by the blue water’s
side. Midway between that small homestead and the
ferry of Grønsund we pass the little inn of Sølyst, a
favourite place of Sunday resort to the badauds of
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