Part 33 (1/2)
”Had you not particular days called Maerkedage, to which particular importance was attached?” asked Hardy.
”They were princ.i.p.ally the greater festivals of the Church, or on New Year's Day,” replied the Pastor. ”Thus, for instance, if the sun shone out so long on New Year's Day that a horse could be saddled, it was a sign of a fruitful year; also, if a girl or a young man wished to know whom she or he would marry, they write the names of suspected persons on different pieces of paper, and put them under their pillows on New Year's Eve, and the one thus dreamt of is the one selected; also, if a turf is cut from the churchyard New Year's Eve, the person who puts it on his or her head can see who will die in the year, as their ghosts will appear in the churchyard. There is also another means to the same end, and that is when people sit at a table New Year's Eve; those that will die in the year cast a shadow, but without a head. Tyge Brahe has particularized many days in the year as being unlucky, on which to attend to any business or to do anything important, but they are so numerous that they are not regarded.”
”Herr Pastor,” said Mrs. Hardy, ”you are tired with your walk about Nyborg, and your speaking so much in English; I wish to suggest a subject that will give you something to think of.”
”What may that be?” asked the Pastor.
”I have thought,” said Mrs. Hardy, ”that you might like to see us at home in England before the winter. John will leave at the end of August, and you might go with him. What I feel is, that I should like during the winter you should feel that your daughter is well cared for.”
”I will go,” said the Pastor; and he held out his hand to Mrs. Hardy in his Danish manner, and the matter was at an end. Mrs. Hardy's kindly tact always overcame him.
The visit to Svendborg entailed so much to see and explore, that it was not until late in the evening that the yacht was reached. The Pastor was, however, fresher than the evening before, possibly because they had not walked so much, but had driven.
”What we have seen at Svendborg, Herr Pastor, is very pretty,” said Mrs. Hardy, ”but it differs from an English landscape; and it is only by seeing both that you can realize the contrast.”
”That is very possible,” replied Pastor Lindal. ”The same landscape painted by different artists would make each their impression; how much more, then, would nature, with influences we cannot understand, produce different effects?”
Mrs. Hardy looked as if a fresh field of thought was opened to her, and her son observed his mother's look of surprise.
”I have been often astonished,” he said, ”to hear from Pastor Lindal and Helga a similar cast of thought that has given me something to think of for long after. I think it is the outcome of a natural singleness of thought we do not often meet.”
”I believe you are right, John,” said his mother. ”But possibly Herr Pastor can tell us a tradition of Svendborg;” and she raised her voice and addressed him.
”There is the tradition of St. Jrgen,” he said, ”or, as you call it in English, St. George and the dragon. The features of the story, of course, are the same; with us the tradition runs as follows:--There was a temple inhabited by a dragon, who issued from it and laid waste the country. Each day the monster craved a human life, until at last lots were drawn as to who should be the victim, and from this neither the king nor his family were exempt, and the lot fell on his only daughter. The king offered half his kingdom to any one who should destroy the dragon. A knight called Jrgen attempted to do so, by putting poisoned cakes in the dragon's way; but that availed nothing.
He then attacked it, and the monster retreated to Svendborg; but it again came forth, and a combat between the knight and the dragon ensued. The dragon was slain, and where its poisonous blood poured out no gra.s.s will grow. The combat is said to be delineated on the church bells. It is very probably only an echo of the Greek story of Perseus and Andromeda. You will observe the dragon in our tradition is said to have issued from a temple. We had no temples, the Greeks had.
”There are not many special traditions connected with Svendborg. There is the story of a n.o.ble lady who was murdered at Svendborg, but the murderers were men of rank, and the whole town agreed to pay blood-money, and some farms were apportioned to the murdered woman's relatives and a wooden cross set up over her grave; and it was agreed that when the wooden cross fell into decay, whoever first repaired it should possess the farm so apportioned. The consequence was that a wooden cross was always kept ready to repair the original cross. This story has many variations and is differently localized.”
”Are there not many proverbs with regard to the weather, or the like, in Denmark?” asked Hardy.
”There are, but they are identical with the English,” replied the Pastor. ”There are some that may be new; for instance, we say that there is always some sun on a Sat.u.r.day, that the poor may dry the clothes they wash. The farmers also say that if the priest takes his text from St. Luke in preaching his Sunday's sermon, it is sure to rain. Also, that a southerly wind is like a woman's anger, it always ends in weeping. Of days in the week we say, that if it rains on a Sunday and a Monday it will rain the whole week. Again, we say--
'Sndags Veir til Middag Er Ugens Veir til Fredag.'
'Sunday's weather to midday Is the week's weather to Friday.
There is another of the same character:
'Tirsdag giver Veir til Torsdag, Fredags Veir giver Sndags Veir, Lrdag har sit eget Veir, Mandag enten vaerre eller bedre.'
'Tuesday's weather is Thursday's weather, Friday's weather is Sunday's weather, Sat.u.r.day has its own weather, Monday is either worse or better.
The same, I believe, exists in England,” continued the Pastor, ”or at least very nearly allied to it.”
”It is so,” said Hardy.