with ancient frescoes, and boasting perhaps the most remarkable carved font of our Norman period in all Europe, each subject represented under a trefoiled arch, surrounded with Runic inscriptions; the pedestal, too, is of great beauty, of serpent decoration. We pass by the fourth round church, that of Nylars, one of the largest; the country is here flat, sandy, and uninteresting. An hour's drive and we are again landed in Rønne.

CHAPTER LIV.

Return to Zealand -- Island of Bogø - King Valdemar and the Hanseatikers The Goose Tower - Goose carried off by King Erik — Castigation of the fair Cecilia - Herlufsholm the Harrow of Denmark -Old Bridget and the missing title-deeds- The gallant Admiral Trolle- Hvitfeldt the chronicler's Dance of Death.

MØEN.

October 11.-THE autumn is now far advanced; the leaves, undevoured by caterpillars, hang thinly to the trees; a feeling of damp pervades the forest and the klint; the bathing bower smells like a fungus; even the mushrooms are saturated with wet-wood-mushrooms, large enough to form dinner-tables to a marriageparty of Trolles or Nisses; they have now all turned black, and are quite uneatable. So we yawn, abuse the weather, and, thanking our stars the month of October is at last arrived, pay a farewell visit to the Stor Klint, slide once more into the numerous giants' chambers, pack up our clothes, and start, inwardly rejoicing, for Copenhagen.

ISLAND OF BØGO.

We again embark upon the "Zampa," bound from Stege to Vordingborg. Two ferry-boats meet us in the centre of the strait, by Kallehave; we bend our course through a world of little islands. The coast of Zealand is richly wooded; we pass by Bøgo, or the Isle of Beeches, celebrated in the annals of

old story, when every insil possessed her own rulers, and they each individually made war one against another; but we have had the same story elsewhere of the sowing of the beech-masts, so may pass it by: and then, suddenly, in the distance rises like a phare-though not half so useful-a tall, slender tower, the far-famed Goose Tower of the castle of Vordingborg.

VORDINGBORG.

We land at one English mile from the little town, once a city of note in the days of the Valdemerians, now a village, with its tower, its castle-site, alone remaining to test the truth of its earlier glories.

All the Valdemerians dwelt at Vordingborg Castle, and mightily affected it as a residence-it was the Windsor of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; in her own convent church, rich still in old carved altarpiece, was crowned King Christopher II. It was the apanage of our Prince George; at his death returned to the Crown; and was afterwards burnt to the ground, as is usual in Denmark. But the fun of the history of this château fort took place in the days of Queen Margaret's father, that "roi farceur," old Valdemar Atterdag. You recollect the story of the "amulet" taken by the prying

The sovereigns seem in the beginning to have been crowned anywhere and everywhere, and the earlier ones-Knud the Holy, Niels, &c. -not at all. Some of them-Magnus and Svend Grathe-received the crown of the German emperor. Valdemar I. is the first one crowned; some were crowned by the Archbishop of Lund. Knud was crowned at Ringsted; Christopher II. at Vordingborg, and Erik Glipping in Viborg. Erik of Pomerania was crowned at Calmar, and Christopher of Bavaria at Ribe. Gonerally on some Saint's day the coronation took place. First it was not customary to make knights, but Erik of Pomerania made one hundred and twenty-three on the occasion.

courtier from the breast of poor murdered Tove-how, driven well nigh demented by the affection of his sovereign, transferred from the corpse of the defunct mistress to himself, he flung the precious stone into a lake near Vordingborg, in which locality the affections of his master were henceforth concentrated.

It was in the period of their power and glory that the cities of the Hanseatic League, irritated at some real or imaginary injury, despatched each severally his envoy -seventy-seven they arrived together to declare war against the Danish sovereign. Loud laughed King

Valdemar when he was told of their arrival, and louder still when he heard that those of South Germany, fearing the inclemency of the Danish climate, had muffled up their persons in furs and skins, much after the manner of Greenlanders and Esquimaux. The king invites the embassy on the morrow to a state banquet in the riddersaal of the castle. The ambassadors arrive, seventy-seven in number, arranged according to precedence, and are conducted to the hall of state where the banquet is prepared. Sable and miniver, squirrel and humble catskin envelop the portly persons of the proud burghers of the important League. The king caused the stoves to be heaped with wood, and the hall to be heated like the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; have a carouse with his worthy envoys he would: the doors were locked, the wine-cup passed, the poor ambassadors in their heavy robes melt and suffocate, the king and his courtiers at their ease enjoy the fun; they drink, they revel, regardless of the sufferings of their guests, till nearly break of morn, when the envoys are released, with compliments, and orders to return the following day to a fresh banquet and receive