The Complete Fairy Tales & Other Stories
By Hans Christian Andersen - online book

Oxford Complete Illustrated Edition all his stories written between 1835 and 1872.

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728 A STORY FROM THE SAND-DUNES
castle had stood and whero Jiirgon had walked with his foster-parents after the burial feast .during the four happiest days of his ohildhood. He was led by the old path over the meadow to Vosborg ; and again the elder blossomed and the lofty limes smelt sweet, and it seemed but yesterday that ho had left the spot.
In the west wing of the oastle a staircase leads down to a spot below the entrance, and from thence there is aooess to a low vaulted cellar. Here Long Margaret had been imprisoned, and henoe she had been led away to the soaffold. She had oaten the hearts of tivo children, and had been undor the delusion that if she could obtain two more, sho would be able to lly, and to make herself invisible. In the oellar wall was a little narrow air-hole, but no window. The blooming lindens could not waft a breath of comforting Iragranoe into that abode, where all was dark and mouldy. Only a rough bench stood in the prison ; but * a good consoienoe is a soft pillow ', and consequently Jtirgen could sleep well.
Trie thiok oaken door was looked, and scoured on the outside by an iron bar ; but the goblin of superstition oan oreep through a key-holo in the baron's oastle just us into the fisherman's hut; and wherefore should he not oreep in here, where Jtirgen sat thinking of Long Margaret and her evil deeds ? Her last thought on the night before her execution had tilled this spaoe ; and all the magio oame into Jurgen's mind whioh tradition asserted to have been practised there in the old times, when Sir Svanwedel dwelt there. It was well known that the watoh-dog, whioh had its place on the drawbridge, was found every morning hanged in its own ohain over the railing. All tnis passed t hrough Jurgen's mind, and made him shudder ; but a sun­beam from without penetrated his heart even here : it was tho remembrance of the blooming elder and the fragrant limo trees
Ho was not left there long. They carried him off to the town of Ringkjtibing, where his imprisonment was just as hard.
Those times were not like ours. Hard measure was dealt out to the * oommon ' people ; and it was just after the days when farms were converted into knights' estates,