Viborg

“ It was not business in the ordinary sense of the word that had brought Mr. Anderson to Viborg. He was engaged upon some researches into the Church history of Denmark, and it had come to his knowledge that in the Kigsarkiv of Viborg there were papers, saved from the fire, relating to the last days of Roman Catholicism in the country. He proposed, therefore, to spend a considerable time—perhaps as much as a fortnight or three weeks—in examining and copying these, and he hoped that the Golden Lion would be able to give him a room of sufficient size to serve alike as a bedroom and a study. ”

“ There are good hotels in Viborg—Preisler's and the Phœnix are all that can be desired. But my cousin whose experiences I have to tell you now, went to the Golden Lion the first time that he visited Viborg. ”

“ He was indeed the first Danish priest who took unto himself a wife. He was also the first of the reformers who used Danish instead of Latin in the church services, the “Even song” he introduced at Viborg being of great beauty. Tausen was certainly the most practically gifted of all the new native teachers. But he was stronger as a preacher and an agitator than as a writer, the pamphlets which he now issued from the press of his colleague the ex-priest Hans Vingaard, who settled down at Viborg as a printer, being little more than adaptations of Luther's opuscula. ”

“ Men from the Viborg now had searched every shore he might have reached had he survived the long, lonely journey over the breaking-up ice; and they found no trace of him. Eric's own record of his plan, and his promise to build cairns if he again reached land, certified to his disappearance forever.
When would Latham announce to Margaret that she could show no proof that Eric lived? When would he demand of her to redeem her word? So she waited, while slowly the Viborg worked its way south in the continuance of its hopeless search. ”

“ The mainland on the right bank of the Neva above its delta is known as the Viborg Side, and is connected with the main city by the Liteinyi, bridge, closely adjoining which are the buildings of the military academy of medicine and spacious hospitals. The small streets (many of them unpaved) , with numerous wooden houses, are inhabited by students and workmen; farther north are great textile and iron factories. ”

“ We first hear of him on the 1st of December 1525, when Frederick I. permitted him to settle at Viborg to teach young persons of the poorer classes “ whatever might be profitable.” On this occasion he is described as “ magister ” and no doubt got his degree abroad, where he seems to have been won for the Reformation. He sided with Hans Tausen when the latter first began to preach the gospel at Viborg, and Tausen, though himself only in priest's orders, shortly before he left the place, ordained Sadolin (1529) . ”

“ The wind will tell.
"The last of them I saw was Anna Dorthea, the pale hyacinth. She had become old and decrepit: that was about fifty years after she had left the castle. She lived the longest—she saw them all out."
"Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the dean's handsome house, built of red granite. The smoke rolled plentifully from its chimneys. The gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat on the balcony, and looked over their pretty garden on the brown heath. At what were they gazing? They were looking at the storks' nests, on a castle that was almost in ruins. ”

“ Another of my great amusements was to go for a sail in one or the other of my aunt’s boats on the Gulf; and at times we used to row ourselves—a form of exercise which has always appealed to me.
The Catholic Church at Viborg was very small; the congregation consisted of about three to four hundred soldiers and a few peasant women, picturesque with their bright coloured—generally red—handkerchiefs on their heads. Whenever I entered the church these soldiers lined up on either side of the aisle in my honour. I almost imagined I was the Empress! ”

“ In April a vessel was going up to Norway, and Jörgen was to go in it. He was in high spirits, and, according to Mrs. Brönne, he was so lively and good-humoured, it was quite a pleasure to see him.
"And it is quite a pleasure to see you also," said her husband. "Jörgen has enlivened all our winter evenings, and you with them; you have become young again, and really look quite handsome. You were formerly the prettiest girl in Viborg, and that is saying a great deal, for I have always thought the girls prettier there than anywhere else." ”

“ The next few months seem to have witnessed a revolution in Denmark: Earl Ulf appears to have summoned a national assembly at Viborg, an old sanctuary in the north central part of Jutland, where he announced that it was Canute's desire to have his young eight-year-old son chosen and proclaimed King of Denmark. With evident success he argued that the ancient kingdom, which always had had a ruler within its borders, was poorly served by the present arrangement of subjection to an absentee-king. He also called attention to the threatened invasion from the allied kingdoms of Norway and Sweden. ”

“ They went south to Denmark, to the trading town called Vebjörg (Viborg) ; they stayed there during the winter with Sigrhadd; they were three together there, Gisli, Vestein, and Bjalfi; they were good friends and exchanged many gifts. At this time Christianity 39had come into Denmark, and Gisli and his companions let themselves be prime-signed; it was a custom at that time much used by the men who were on trading journeys, for they could then hold free intercourse with the Christians. Early in the spring Bjalfi made his ship ready for Iceland. ”

“ There is a tumulus or barrow between Viborg and Holstebro. It is related that this barrow was formerly always covered with a blue mist, and that a copper kettle full of money was buried there. One night, however, two men dug down to the kettle, and seized it by the handle; but immediately wonderful things happened, with a view of preventing them from taking away the kettle and the money—first, they saw a black dog with a red hot tongue; next, a cock drawing a load of hay; then a carriage with four black horses. The men, however, pursued their occupation without uttering a word. ”

“ It has a good and safe harbour, has regular steam communication with Copenhagen, and is connected by rail with Viborg and the interior of the country. Agricultural produce, spirits, leather, and gloves are exported, and there are sugar refineries, and manufactures of wool, cotton, and tobacco. Population (1870) , 15,020. ”

“ The town itself was squat but amiable: small houses and large huts; the only place of note and dignity, the new town hall, which was greatly overshadowed by the big mill, and even by the two smaller ones flanking it north and south.
But Viking was full of men who had breathed the strong life of the hills, had stolen from Nature some of her brawny strength, and set themselves up before her as though a man were as great as a mountain and as good a thing to see. It was of such a man that Galt Roscoe was to tell us. ”

“ It was much pleasanter to look at Copenhagen which we were approaching than at my fellow humans. We were entering the harbor with a bright blue sky above and a twinkling, sparkling blue sea [204] about us. The spires and towers of the quaint old Danish capital seemed to beckon invitingly; and again I felt as if I were returning home. It is thrice delightful to return to a place. But I am not sure that I should feel such pleasure in returning to Christiania or Stockholm; Copenhagen, as I have said, has an unusual degree of personality and charm. ”

“ Tivoli is for all classes, and is the most popular place of amusement in Denmark. This delightful summer resort is the place of all others in which to study the jovial side of the Danish character. Even the King and his royal visitors occasionally pay visits, incognito, to these fascinating gardens, taking their "sixpenn'orth of fun" with the people, whose good manners would never allow them to take the slightest notice of their monarch when he is enjoying himself in this way. To children Tivoli is the ideal Sunday treat. ”

“ We pass up the Sound viewing the luxuriant cool green beech-woods of Denmark, and the pretty fishing villages lying in the foreground. Villas with charming gardens—their tiny rickety landing-stages, bathing sheds, and tethered boats, adding fascination to the homely scene—seem to welcome us to this land of fairy tales and the home of Hans Andersen.
The many towers and pinnacles of Copenhagen, with the golden dome of the Marble Church, flash a welcome as we steam into the magnificent harbour of this singularly well-favoured city. ”

“ Tivoli Park and the cafés, with many other like attractions, draw crowds of visitors, not only from every part of the small kingdom, but also from the very prosperous section of Sweden across the Sound, which was Danish till 1658, and has by no means lost its affection for the city that it knew as the capital of old.
Copenhagen is an epitome of Denmark herself, the prosperous metropolis of an extremely industrious and well-ordered community that likes to be amused. ”

“ A youth named Wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering stature? Meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness. For "Krage" in the Danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot uses the lopped timbers as supports, as if leaning on a ladder, and, gradually advancing to the higher parts, finds the shortest way to the top. ”

“ The Danish shores consist partly of ridges of sand; but more frequently they are diversified with cornfields, meadows, slopes, and are covered with rich wood, and villages, and villas, and summer palaces belonging to the king and the nobility, and denoting the vicinity of a great capital. The isles of Huen, Statholm, and Amak, appear in the widening channel; and at the distance of twenty miles from Elsinore stands Copenhagen in full view; the best city of the north, and one of the finest capitals of Europe, visible, with its stately spires, far off. ”

“ As you doubtless know, I have cousins in Copenhagen, but I did not write to them of my intended visit because I wished to make my first acquaintance with Denmark’s capital by independent exploration; therefore, at the Central Station I took a drosky for a hotel. And at the hotel I secured a comfortable room, supplied with a generous portion of windows and furnished in blues and greens and browns blended according to Danish ideas of the artistic. My exploration of Copenhagen began with my bed-room. I wish that you could see my bed and my stove, Cynthia; they are marvels to American eyes. ”

“ I thought, if the Lord opened the way, to send him into that country, to open the door of the gospel among them.
The spirit of the Lord seemed to lead me to this city, to commence my labors. From my first appointment my mind rested upon Copenhagen, as the best place in all Scandinavia to commence the work, and every thing has since strengthened my convictions. ”

“ Of course the old gentleman did not delay long in asking me why I had come to Copenhagen. That question is invariably asked you—ad nauseam, too—throughout the North of Europe. They begin at Hamburg, continue at Berlin, return to it in Denmark and Sweden, and end at St. Petersburg. If a man be not a commercial traveller, or a diplomatist, a spy, or a negotiator of forged bank-notes, these Northern people seem utterly bewildered as to his object in coming to such latitudes. ”

“ The contrast with Copenhagen was obvious; there the young sons of the middle classes were a burden on their families sometimes until they were thirty, had no enterprise, no money of their own to dispose of, were often glued, as it were, to the one town, where there was no promotion to look forward to and no wide prospect of any sort.
It was a long time since I had been so much struck by anything as by an expression that a Hamburg lady, who had been to Copenhagen and had stayed there some time, used about the young Danish men, namely, that they had l'apparence chétive. ”

“ As a town Wiborg is nothing to boast of. There is nothing very remarkable about any ordinary Finnish town, with the exception of the capital, Helsingfors, where all the best buildings are centered and built of stone. Most of the towns are modern and generally ugly, because, being of wood, they are so apt to be burnt down, that architects give neither time nor thought to their structural beauty, or, even when not so destroyed, the original houses—which seldom last over a hundred years—have fallen out of repair and been replaced by undecorative wooden structures. ”

“ I said that there were no beggars in the Old Town. There are indeed few in Denmark, where prosperity is very evenly distributed. It was, [Pg 129] nevertheless, there I encountered the slyest little beggar it was ever my fortune to come across. It was in one of the cemeteries of Copenhagen, where we had been to look up a friend’s grave, that we came upon a little girl, a child of ten, who was fashioning a little mound in the dust and putting a monument over it, a piece of a broken slate. ”

“ From time immemorial the isle of Gotland had been the staple of the Baltic trade, and its capital, Visby, whose burgesses were more than half German, the commercial intermediary between east and west, was the wealthiest city in northern Europe. In July 1361 Valdemar set sail from Denmark at the head of a great fleet, defeated a peasant army before Visby, and a few days later the burgesses of Visby made a breach in their walls through which the Danish monarch passed in triumph. The conquest of Gotland at once led to a war between Valdemar and Sweden allied with the Hanseatic towns ”