friends. Each of these is a school for all sorts of gossip, and as amusements cannot be numerous under such cir. cumstances, story and song must supply the means of passing away in an agreeable manner the social hours.

As to the stories which circulate on such occasions, they are chiefly such as relate to the marvellous. A church was built somewhere, and to the astonishment of the people, a vast crevice appeared in its walls. As often as it was filled, it reappeared, until a black cat was thrown in, when it closed at once and for ever! A rich and pious old lady built a church, and asked God that her life might last as long as her church should stand. Alas! she forgot to ask for perpetual youth. Death cut off generation after generation, and yet she lived. But at length she became so feeble that she ordered an oak coffin to be made, herself to be placed in it, and then to be laid in the church. Once every year she awoke-on Christmas,—and for an hour regarded the scene. And when approached by the priest, she regularly asked, "Does my church stand yet?" And when told that it did, she fell back into her coffin, exclaiming "Would to God that it were destroyed," and with a groan went to sleep for another year! In a certain part of Zealand, (in the neighborhood of Vordingborg) the inhabitants of some villages hear the neighing of the horses and barking of the dogs of Valdemar Atterdag, coursing through the air at the return of a fixed epoch, when the nights are dark as pitch; and with due care they place some oats and meat in dishes at their doors.

Several of these national stories have been used by Danish poets as the themes of dramatic or other poems. One of these is beautifully told by Oehlenschläger. It is not, however, a legend; it is a tale from real life. A poor fisherman lost his son in a storm, and became deranged by the affliction. Every day he would embark in his little boat and go out into the wide ocean. There he would

RUINS OF VALDEMAR'S CASTLE

This Castle is in the immediate vicinity of Vordingborg, in the south part of the island of Zealand. It was built by Valdemar I, and rebuilt by Valdemar IV, (Atterdag) and was one of his favorite residences.

beat a drum, with heavy blows, and call upon his son with a loud voice. "Come," he would say, come from thy retreat; swim to me; I will place thee by my side in my boat. And if thou art dead, I will give thee a tomb in the churchyard, a tomb amid flowers and shrubs. Thou wilt sleep better there than in the midst of the waves.' But he calls in vain; he looks in vain. When night comes, he returns to his home, saying, "I will go further to-morrow; my poor son has not heard me."

As to popular ballads, no country abounds more in them than Denmark. Their number is very great, and many of them are very beautiful. One of them, "KING CHRISTIAN,”* written by Evald, holds the same place among Danish songs, that Rule Britannia" does among those of Eng

land. The first stanza is as follows:-
:-

Were it necessary, we might quote portions of others, which are equally beautiful, if not quite as popular.

We were not born poets, nor have we ever felt, at any period of our lives, the divine afflatus of the Muses; and if we had, a steam-boat, with its noisy machinery, its clattering wheels, and its volumes of black smoke rolling away from its chimneys, is surely not a place very likely to excite to verses. But we have never yet visited these northern regions without feeling a melancholy interest in look

* Christian IV., in some respects the greatest of Denmark's kings, at least since the days of Valdemar I. Of his history, as well as of this national song, we have spoken in another place.

ing upon them as the land of the Scandinavian Scalds and Saga-men, of poets and warriors. The islands, as well as the continental portions of Denmark, form a portion of this vast Scandinavian region-which comprehended, as we have already stated, the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Over this entire region what an impenetrable veil hides from our view the transactions of many of the ages which preceded, as well as many of those which succeeded, the Christian epoch! All is buried in the profoundness of midnight darkness. We have only traditions, few, obscure, and unsatisfactory, in relation to these ages of barbarism. We only know that this entire extent of countries, greatly diversified in physical character, was peopled by tribes and nations which spoke essentially the same language, which worshipped the same gods, and employed in that worship the same bloody rites. But who were their most renowned chieftains, what examples did they, or their subjects, ever give, of noble virtue and goodness, as well as of noble daring; what, in detail, their manner of life,—these, and a hundred similar inquiries, which our hearts prompt us to make, are all made in vain; for interrogated antiquity answers not. The silence of the tomb reigns over the early history of all this region.

There is something so mysterious in the gloom which hangs over the distant past of these countries, that one almost approaches them with awe. We know something, but not enough to give us satisfaction. The little that we

do know is filled with horrible scenes, obscurely described, in the imperfect remains of Scandinavian legends-for of literature there is nothing relating to this early period,and by consequence but faintly and obscurely conceived by our minds. We would go further; we would penetrate into those scenes of the dark past; we would satisfy our excited desires by having a full vision of all its events; but alas, we are repelled from the dark barriers which se