disseminated through camaraderie and through author’s travelogues to foreign lands. I speak my mind freely, and you Danes must get used to these free sounds. You will do that because you have a Scandinavian attachment to our proud mountainous land, the world’s primeval mountains!”
“A Danish rag would never talk like that,” said the Danish rag. “It’s not our nature. I know myself, and I’m like all our rags. We are so good natured and modest. We think too little of ourselves, and that doesn’t gain you anything, it’s true. But I like it. I think it’s completely charming. But, by the way, I can assure you that I very well know my own true worth. I just don’t talk about it. No one can accuse me of that failing. I’m soft and flexible, tolerate everything. I don’t envy anyone, and speak well of everyone. Except that there isn’t much good to be said for most others, but let them worry about it. I just make fun of it all because I’m very gifted myself.”
“Don’t speak to me in that soft gooey language of your flat country—it makes me sick!” said the Norwegian rag, and was able to get free from his bundle with help of the wind and move to a different pile.
Both rags were made into paper, and as chance would have it, the Norwegian rag became stationery on which a Norwegian wrote a faithful love letter to a Danish girl, and the Danish rag became a manuscript for a Danish ode in praise of Norway’s vigor and splendor.
So something good can come from rags, when they get away from their rag pile and are changed to truth and beauty. Then they shine with mutual understanding, and there’s a blessing in that.
That’s the story. It’s quite amusing and won’t offend anyone at all, except—the rags.
NOTE
1 Possibly a wordplay in the original since the Danish
LEGENDS
HOLGER THE DANE
THERE’S AN OLD CASTLE in Denmark called Kronborg. It lies right out by Oresund where every day big ships by the hundreds sail by—English, Russian, and Prussian. They greet the old castle with their cannons: “boom!” and the castle answers with cannons: “boom!” because that’s how cannons say “good day” and “many thanks.” No ships sail in winter when ice covers everything clear over to Sweden, but it’s really like a country road. Danish and Swedish flags wave, and Danes and Swedes say “good day” and “many thanks” to each other, but not with cannons. No, rather with friendly handshakes, and they get bread and pastries from each other because foreign food tastes best.
But the showpiece of it all is still old Kronborg castle. And under Kronborg in the deep dark cellar where no one goes sits Holger the Dane, dressed in iron and steel and resting his head on his strong arms. His long beard spreads out over the marble table, where it’s grown fast. He’s sleeping and dreaming, but in his dreams he sees everything that happens in Denmark. Every Christmas Eve an angel of God visits him and tells him that what he’s dreamed is true, and that he can sleep on because Denmark is not yet in any real danger. But if that were to happen, well, then old Holger the Dane would rise up so the table would crack when he pulled his beard towards him. Then he would come out swinging so you could hear it all over the world.
This story about Holger the Dane was being told to a little grandson by an old grandfather. The little boy knew that whatever his grandfather said was true. While the old man told his story, he was whittling a big wooden figure that was to represent Holger the Dane as a figurehead on a ship. The old man was a wood carver who carved figureheads for ships according to the ship’s name, and now he had carved Holger the Dane. He stood so straight and proudly with his long beard, and in one hand he held a big broad sword, and his other hand was leaning on the Danish coat-of-arms.
The old grandfather talked so much about remarkable Danish men and women that the little grandson at last thought that he knew just as much as Holger the Dane did, who could only dream about it, after all. And when the little boy went to bed he thought so much about it that he pressed his chin tightly into his comforter and felt that he had a long beard that had grown fast to it.
But the old grandfather continued his work and carved the last part, the Danish coat-of-arms, and then he was finished. He looked at his work and thought about everything that he had read and heard, and about what he had told the little boy that evening, and he nodded, wiped his glasses, put them on again, and said, “Well, Holger the Dane probably won’t come in my time, but that boy in the bed there may get to see him and be there when it really counts.” Then the old grandfather nodded, and the more he looked at his Holger the Dane, the clearer it became to him that he had made a really fine image. He thought it seemed to have color, and that the armor shone like iron and steel. The hearts in the Danish coat-of-arms became redder and redder, and the lions leaped with golden crowns on.
“That is really the most beautiful coat-of-arms in the world,” said the old man. “The lions are strength, and the hearts are gentleness and love.” He looked at the topmost lion and thought about King Canute,1 who added mighty England to Denmark’s realm. He looked at the second one and thought about Valdemar I,2 who unified Denmark and subdued the Slavic Wends. He looked at the third lion and thought about Margrethe I3 who united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, but as he looked at the red hearts they shone even brighter than before and became flames that moved, and his thoughts followed each of them.
The first flame led him into a narrow, dark prison. A prisoner was sitting there, a beautiful woman. It was Christian IV’s daughter, Leonora Christina Ulfeldt.4 The flame sat as a rose on her breast and flowered together with her heart. She was the noblest and best of all Danish women.
“Yes, that’s one heart in Denmark’s coat-of-arms,” said the old grandfather.
And his thoughts followed the flame that led him out onto the ocean where the cannons boomed, and ships were lying shrouded in smoke. The flames attached themselves like a royal ribbon on Huitfeldt’s5 chest as he saved the fleet by blowing up himself and his ship.
And the third flame led him to the miserable huts of Greenland where the pastor Hans Egede6 worked with love in word and deed. The flame was a star on his chest, a heart in the Danish coat-of-arms.
The old grandfather’s thoughts flew ahead of the flickering flame because his mind knew where the flame was going. In a peasant woman’s simple main room Frederick VI7 was writing his name with chalk on a beam. The flame moved on his chest and moved in his heart. His heart became a heart in Denmark’s coat-of-arms
