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THE RAGS |
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and the Danish rag became the manuscript for a Danish ode in praise of Norway's strength and grandeur.
Something good can come even out of rags, when they have been on the clothes-heap and the transformation into truth and beauty has taken place ; then they shine in good understanding, and in that there, is blessing.
That is the story; it is quite enjoyable, and need offend no one except—the rags. |
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V.ENOE AND GLiENOE
Once upon a time, there lay off the coast of Zealand, out from Holsteinborg, two wooded islands, Vaenoe and Glaenoe, with hamlets and farms on them ; they lay near the coast, they lay near each other, and now there is only one island.
One night it was dreadful weather; the sea rose as it had not risen within the memory of man; the storm grew worse ; it was Doomsday weather ; it sounded as if the earth were splitting, the church bells began to swing and rang without the aid of man.
That night Vaenoe vanished in the depths of the sea ; it was as if the island had never been. But many a summer night since then, with still, clear low-water, when the fisher was out spearing eels with a torch burning in the bows of his boat, he saw, with his sharp sight, deep down under him, Vaenoe with its white church-tower and the high church wall; * Vaenoe is waiting for Glaenoe,' says the legend ; he saw the island, he heard the church bells ringing down there ; but he made a mistake in that, it was assuredly the sound made by the many wild swans, which often lie on the water here ; they make sobbing and wailing sounds like a distant peal of bells.
There was a time when many old people on Glaenoe still remembered so well that stormy night, and that they themselves, when children, had at low tide driven between the two islands, as one at the present day drives over to Glaenoe from the coast of Zealand, not far from Holsteinborg; the water only comes half-way up the wheels. * Vaenoe |
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