Jutland - The Fishersman Family

A relation of the fisherman's family, who had been in easy
circumstances, was dead. The farm lay inland—"eastward, a little to
the north," it was said. The father and mother were both going, and
Jörgen was to accompany them. On leaving the sand-hills, they passed
over heaths and boggy lands, until they came to the green meadows
where Skjærumaa winds its way—the river with the numerous eels, where
the eel-mother with her daughters lived, those whom the cruel man
speared and cut in pieces, though there were men who had scarcely
treated their fellow-men better. Even Herr Buggé, the knight[15] who was
celebrated in the old song, was murdered by a wicked man; and though
he was himself called so good, he wished to put to death the builder
who had built for him his castle, with its tower and thick walls, just
where Jörgen and his foster-parents stood, where Skjærumaa falls into
the Nissumfiord. The sloping bank or ascent to the ramparts was still
to be seen, and red fragments of the walls still marked out the
circumference of the ancient building. Here had Herr Buggé, when the
builder had taken his departure, said to his squire—"Follow him, and
say, Master, the tower leans to one side. If he turns, slay him on the
spot, and take the money from him that he got from me; but, if he does
not turn, let him go on in peace." And the squire overtook the
builder, and said what he was ordered to say; and the builder replied,
"The tower does not lean to one side, but by and by there will come
from the westward one in a blue cloak, and he will make it bend." A
hundred years afterwards this prediction was fulfilled, for the German
Ocean rushed in, and the tower fell; but the then owner of the
property, Prebjörn Gyldenstierne, erected a habitation higher up, and
that stands now, and is called Nörre-Vosborg.

Jörgen, with his foster-parents, had to pass this place. Of every
little town hereabout he had heard stories during the long winter
evenings; now he saw the castle, with its double moats, its trees and
bushes, its ramparts overgrown with bracken. But the most beautiful
sight was the lofty linden trees, that filled the air with so sweet a
perfume. Towards the north-west, in a corner of the garden, stood a
large bush with flowers that were like winter's snow amidst summer's
green. It was an elder tree, the first Jörgen had ever seen in bloom.
That and the linden trees were always remembered[16] during his future
years as Denmark's sweetest perfume and beauty, which the soul of
childhood "for the old man laid by."