Driftwood from Scandinavia

Front matter

t DRIFTWOOD FROM SCANDINAVI A. pa- LADY WILDE. LONDON: RICHARD BEXTLEY AND SO N, in ©rtinsrg to &tx iWajcstg tfje ©men. 1884. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS. PART PAGE I. From Dublin to Denmark ... ... i II. Copenhagen ... ... ... ... 52 III. Copenhagen to Christiania ... ... 99 IV. From Christiania to Stockholm ... 145 V. Stockholm to Berlin, and Home by Hanover 229 .\ppendix. — On Scjvndin.wian Antiquities found in Ireland ... ... ... ... DRIFTWOOD from SCAN DI N AVI A.

Part I. From Dublin To Denmark

Ireland and Denmark were connected together a thousand years ago by many ties, as our legends, history, and antiquities testify. . Still, the two races remained entirely distinct, and fought and devastated and retaliated in many a fierce and cruel fashion with untiring animosity and inextinguishable hatred. After much hard fighting, the Danes at length obtained a firm footing on the east coast, and Dublin (Dubh-Linn, the city of the dark water) became exclusively a Danish city, where the powerful race of the Northmen ruled and reigned for nearly four hundred years. T Dublin Castle in its origin was a Danish fortress, the residence of the Danish kings of Dublin ; and the splendid Dublin Bay, circled round by its amphitheatre of hills, was filled with their hostile ships, ready to plunder and devastate all along the east coast, where they founded many settlements, and built the seaport towns of Wexford and Waterford, as their Danish names testify.

The Danes were the most terrible and un godly of pagans when they first came to our shores ; but through the influence of the Irish saints and holy men of the Church they were gradually Christianized, and evinced their zeal by founding new churches, though they still con tinued to plunder the old Irish abbeys whenever they had an opportunity. The first cathedral in Dublin, Christchurch, was built by the Danes, and a Danish bishop first held the see. But Christianity, even, did not soften this terrible race of pirates and sea-rovers. They still burned, devastated, and destroyed the beautiful abbeys, and the most precious manuscripts, for the Irish were a learned and literary people' at the time, while the Danes had not even the knowledge of letters ; and they plundered the graves of the kings, and carried off to Denmark countless treasures of torques, diadems, armlets, and cups of gold, many of which may still be seen at the present day in the National Museum at Copenhagen, and can be recognized by their peculiar ornamentation — the Opus Hibemicum, as it has been called.

Yet the Danes and Irish were enemies after the true old romantic fashion, love and war for ever alternating in the intercourse between them ; and many a strange tale is preserved in the Sagas of Irish heroes and lovers who sought glory or a bride at the Danish court. Marriages were frequent between the royal races on both sides ; the Irish princes taking wives of the fair daughters of the sea-kings, while the fierce Norsemen fell an easy prey to the dark-eyed daughters of Erin. The daughter of King Brian, the victor of Clontarf, was wedded to Sitric, the Danish King of Dublin ; though he afterwards divorced her, on suspicion of the queen having given information to her countrymen during the ereat conflict which brought such loss and ruin to the Danes. Magnus, the powerful King of Norway, had an Irish wife ; and a prince of Irish blood, Harold Gill6 by name, who had wedded a sea-king's daughter, was even elected to reign as king over Norway.

But the Irish always chafed under the insolence and tyranny of the fierce piratical Vikings, and the conflicts were unceasing between the two nations. It is just a thousand years ago since the first invaders appeared on our coast, under the great and terrible Turgesius, the Dane, with sixty ships and a host of pagan warriors, before whom nothing was sacred — priest nor temple, nor the cross of the Lord. Bitter was the yoke they laid upon the Irish, and to this day the peasants speak of the Danes with a weird fear and terror, as if they were demons. Yet, . fierce as they were, the beauty of the Irish maidens enthralled them. Even the terrible Turgesius himself fell under the influence of the tender passion. Having seen the daughter of the King of Meath, he loved her, and sent to demand her in marriage.

The father consented, on condition that a retinue of maidens mig*ht accompany the bride. This request was granted, and on the appointed day Turgesius held high festival at his court, surrounded by his greatest warriors, and at the banquet he promised that to each of them should be given an Irish maiden for his guerdon and prize. The chiefs, filled with excitement and delight, flung their swords upon the table and awaited unarmed the coming of the bridal procession. The Irish, however, had planned a deep revenge. In place of the expected maidens, a band of comely youths, dressed as girls, but each with a sword concealed under the mantle, entered the hall along with the bride. Turgesius, struck with the beauty of the Irish princess, arose and seized her byi:he arm. Then the fifteen youths, throwing op their mantles, fell upon the unarmed revellers and slew them all, while the King of Meath himself seized upon Turgesius, and, in place of blessing the bridal, ordered him to be bound with chains and flung into the sea.

So ended the first Danish invasion. But the Vikinofs soon came ao-ain with renewed force, and burned and plundered as before, and tyrannized over the people, and taxed them so heavily (an ounce of gold for each man), that the rule of the Danes became a bitter and grievous burden upon the country, and so lasted for three hundred years. It was not till the eleventh century that the great king, Brian Boroma, finally broke the power ofthe Fair Gentiles," "the Strong Men of the Sea," as the Irish called them, at the memorable battle of Clontarf, fought and gained on Good Friday in the year 1014. A very memorable victory in every respect, considering, as an Irish chronicler observes, that the Norsemen were all clothed in chain armour, while the Irish fought only in their silken shirts. Many dramatic incidents are recorded of this battle.

The grandson of King Brian, a mere youth, was found dead on the field, with his hand tightly grasping the long fair hair of a Danish warrior he had killed. The aged monarch himself, being too old to lead the Irish army, remained in his tent praying, while his page kept watch at the tent door to give him tidings of the raging of the battle. When at length success was for the Irish, and the page announced that the Danes were flying in disorder to their ships, the old king fell on his knees, and, lifting high the crucifix, thanked God for the victory. At that moment Brudair, a Danish chief, flying from pursuit, rushed into the tent, and recog nizing the king, struck him down with his sword. But King Brian had still strength enough left to strike in return, and to slay his foe, before he fell dead himself in the hour of the national triumph.

Although the Danish yoke was quite broken at Clontarf, still the Danes held on, with varying fortune, for another hundred years or more, the Irish kings frequently getting possession of Dublin ; and Roderick O'Connor was even crowned there as King of Ireland, from which event Dublin took rank for the first time as the metropolis of the kingdom. The Danes still held a portion of the city ; but after the coming of the Anglo-Normans, both Normans and Irish joined forces against them, and by the close of the twelfth century the Danes were finally and for ever driven from Ireland, never more to hold rule or power in the country. Strongbow, the great Earl of Pembroke, took possession of Dublin in right of his wife, Eva, daughter of King Dermot, and the vice-regal rule commenced which has lasted ever since in the capital of Ireland.

The great earl lies buried in Christchurch Cathedral, where his effigy in armour on the tomb is the enduring sign and symbol of the fall of the Danes, and the rise of the Norman power in our country ; and the Earls of Pem broke still hold the best portion of the city, and the fairest lands around it, as their inheritance, from which they derive a princely income through rights descended from Eva and Strongbow. There are other historic memories also existing of the wars of the Danes. At Howth — called Ben-Eder by the Irish, but Howth or Hufved (Head) by the Danes — a great victory was gained on St. Lawrence's Day by Almeric de Tristan, a Norman knight, over the Danish Lord of Howth ; and in recompense King Henry of Eng land gave the lands and the title of Earl of Howth to the victor, who thenceforth took the name of St. Lawrence in honour of the event.

The name and the race remain to this day ; and the Earls of Howth still hold the lands, and dwell in their picturesque castle by the sea ; and the title has descended from father to son in an uninterrupted line for now seven hundred years. But since that one victory the family have led an uneventful life, and, it is said, have never lost or gained one rood of land since they first came into possession of the estates of the con quered Danish chief. It is remarkable, but not surprising, that the Danes should have left an ineffaceable impress on the Irish memory for rapine and cruelty. And this was shown strangely by the murmur that rose amongst the people when the coming' over of the Princess Alexandra to Dublin was first announced. " Why," they said, " should a Dane venture to come amongst them, a descendant of the ancient enemies of their race ?

" But this last flicker of popular prejudice soon died out in the presence of the young princess. Her grace and charm at once won all hearts ; and when she appeared at the national races, dressed in green and wearing a bouquet of shamrocks, radiant in youth and beauty, the people grew quite delirious with admiration. All the wrongs and cruelties of Vikings and Berserkers were forgotten, and the princess entered the city, from which her an cestors had been expelled in blood and slaughter, seven hundred years before, under a triumphal arch, bearing as inscription and welcome Moore's pretty and appropriate words, set in a garland of flowers — ■ " Blessed for ever be her who relied Upon Erin's honour and Erin's pride. But all relationship between Ireland and Den mark, through love or fighting, literature or com merce, has long since ended.

Now not a Dane lives in Dublin. The race seems extinct ; not a Danish teacher can be had, and no passenger ship leaves an Irish port direct for Copenhagen, nor indeed for any other place, except the mails for England. We Irish only import coal and export cattle, and live wholly dependent on another people for the means of transit, should we desire a dinner in Paris or a cup of coffee at Madrid ; although centuries ago direct and constant intercourse was kept up, not only with Denmark, but also with France and Spain — a great wine trade being carried on between the latter country and Galway. As an ancient bard has noted — " Well I mind me of the Cosherings, where princes might dine, And we drank until nightfall the best seven sorts of wine." The South Sea Islanders are better off; they, at least, have a friendly raft or hollow tree to bear them from one island to another ; but we in Ireland seem now entirely without the energy to organize a line of passenger ships for ourselves, and with our splendid sea-coast, commanding the portals of both worlds, of Europe and of America, are yet wholly dependent upon England fora latch key, should we wish to leave our island prison.

Behold us, then, one lovely August morning, at the great hall door of the world, namely, Liverpool, en route to Copenhagen, via Hull, Hamburg, Altona, and Kiel, the shortest and cheapest line of travel. The steam-rush across England gives one a good idea of English scenery and industry — soft, pleasant, familiar, without any element of grandeur ; red towns in endless succession, each with its pretty church in the valley, tall chimney, wooded hills, and huge factories, grated like a prison ; broad fields, girdled with green hedges, deep dells, and sunny plains covered with crops and cattle. Truly a fair and fertile land, robed and carpeted with foliage and flowers, as if verdure were no trouble to the well-cultured soil of England. How admirably Mrs. Barrett Browning has described the homely beauty of the scene — " All the fields Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; The hills are crumpled plains, the plains parterres, As if God's finger touched, but did not press, In making England."

Yet it is, perhaps, a little monotonous : the grouping is identical throughout. By every stream rises a factory ; by the factory a church ; round the church gather the homes of the workers, and so a town is formed ; and in every town one sees the same stolid, low-typed face in man, the same worn, hardworked, ill-used look in woman. No sweet, idyllic faces anywhere — the ideal English type of Tennyson and Kingsley ; and no life is visible save round the factories. The wooded hills are silent, and scarcely a peasant is visible in the broad green fields. England is one great workshop, its symbols the furnace and the factory ; and the population seems divided but into two classes — masters and toilers, aristocrats and slaves. Fortunately for the picturesque, both classes must eat to live ; and so, furnace and factory are intercalated with those sunny plains and lovely hill-slopes that break like smiles over the ferru ginous and carbonized physiognomy of England.

At Rochfort we observed a beautiful old Gothic church in the valley. It must be an educa tion for the toiler even to look on it. Wigan, of course, was given over to the coal-demons ; air, earth, and human faces were all black as a vision of lost souls. But Rochdale blushed red beneath the scarlet cloth weaving for the warriors of the empire, while the next town paled beneath a shroud of white calico, like new fallen snow. Farther on they made the blankets ; and Todmor ton, the next town, no doubt excels in quilts, but has, besides, distinct claims to admiration. The land becomes more undulating, and a pretty picture is formed of the red town, the river, the church, and the rich wooded hills sloping upward to the purple air. At Wakefield, the stately capital of the fair and prosperous West Riding of Yorkshire, the hills are fringed with still richer foliage, and a lovely landscape opened out on every side, framed by the clear blue line of mountains that rise like battlements over the great grey city.

Yorkshire made one think of the Bronte's, the wild, weird, gifted Irish race that flashed up a sudden light upon the age from the swamps and fens where they had found a home ; for though the West Riding is the garden of England, the region where the Brontes lived was a damp deso lation. I inquired about them from my fellow-travellers. "Yes, people said they were clever, and wrote books ; but no one had time to read books, only newspapers. Literature was a poor thing. What was the use of it all ? It never made any money." Such were the Yorkshire views on the great Bronte sisterhood. After passing Wakefield, the country becomes scant of trees, flat, bleak, and barren, and so con tinues till the broad Humber opens to view, thronged with the shipping of all nations ; and we reach Hull after a five hours' journey.

Hull is a strange old city, especially as we saw it on a fair-day. Booths lined the main street on both sides, every vendor vociferating his claims to notice ; while at night the scene was still more curious, for every booth erected a flaming torch, and men, mounted on tables, waved their long torches and gathered crowds round them by their clever sarcasm on rival exhibitors. One had a lungometer, and the Hullites rushed eagerly to test their breathing apparatus at sixpence a puff. Another had a weighing-machine, through which passed an endless line at a penny each, the audience applauding loudly the heaviest weight. Another had life-preserving pills. An immense crowd surrounded him, and stretched out im ploring hands. He was decidedly the favourite, and sixpences were rained upon his table ; while his fun, and amusing stories of the power of the pills to ward off old age, kept them in roars of laughter.

Others sold food of all kinds ; and especially must be noticed the Hull oysters, perfect in flavour, as large as a cheese-plate, and sold, with every condiment supplied, for one penny each. The men were universally arrayed in the white carter's frock, and yellow knee-breeches we see on the stage ; and with their red hair, floury faces, and broad accent, fully realized the typical York shireman of low comedy. Many pretty girls were in the crowd, fair and light-haired, with bright complexions and neat formed features, which gave one sufficient data from which to pronounce a highly favourable opinion of Yorkshire female beauty. At last, having exhausted the wonders of the vivacious old town, we went on board the Helen M'Gregor for the night — a capital vessel, from the cabins to the cookery — and by five o'clock next morning we were steaming right across to Ham burg, through the dense forests of foreign shipping, out into the calm waters of the German Ocean.

On board we found, as fellow-passengers, a handsome Hamburg family, several Hull merchants with the Yorkshire accent very pronounced, an alligator, an hyena, six Germans, and six monkeys, all bound for Berlin. This was the moment to commence ethnological speculations, and to study types. The Yorkshire men are short, stout and square, with fair, pleasant features. They differ altogether from the Celtic type in form, feature, colouring, and shape of the head ; but are very agreeable specimens of the Jutes and Angles that people Hull. Their accent, however, is wonderful. They seem to blow all the us through a trumpet. Ull for Hull ; Umber for Humber ; upe for up. I tried several times to repeat after them, " I'm goin' upe the Umber to Ull," but failed. My lungs were not equal to the effort. The Hamburg maidens had magnificent hair, and were full of sentiment ; and they recited poetry for me as we sat late on deck, and went into ecstasies over the glory of the stars and the night.

"Wunderschon, ach Wunderschon!" The Germans reminded me of our royal family — eyes, hair, shape of head, colouring, and line of feature all the same. The true Teuton type. It is not surprising, how ever, that our royal race is so Teutonic, considering that since James I. the royal line of descent has been entirely and exclusively German. Immense and continued eating goes on all day on board ; and we all meet at these pleasant meals, the alligator and other irrationals excepted, for no one thinks of being ill on this gentle sea. Next day we passed Heligoland (Holy Island), once belonging to Denmark, now part of our national property. But it is not worth much, being only a reef of rock, about two miles long ; and it is gradually sinking into the sea, with its population of puffins, and will one day finally disappear.

The most primitive habits and customs still prevail here, unchanged, perhaps, from the time when our ancient mother, the goddess Hertha, had her most sacred altar in this holiest of holy islands. Two hours after we entered the Elbe, and all gathered on deck for the first view of Germany in the sunset light. A long, low stretch of land was visible to the right ; this, they tell me, is Hanover. Then a windmill, a stiff tree, and an oblong red house came in sight, of the precise form and colour of the toy Noah's arks. After wards we found that this " early Noah " architecture pervades the whole of Northern Europe. As we proceeded the arks began to agglutinate, and came on us in twos and threes. Stiff trees and windmills followed in their wake, and an asforeeate of these formed a town. " Is all Germany like this ?

" I exclaimed in disappointment ; but the golden-haired poetess of Hamburg bade me wait in patience, for the beautiful was at hand. Then night came on, and nothing was visible save ships glancing hither and thither like bright eyed monsters. Our vessel takes a pilot. We hear we shall arrive in the morning, and so we all subside into our respective cabins. But by six next morning all were on deck again, and truly the whole scene had changed. Beauty was, indeed, around us everywhere. The broad, magnificent river rolled its azure waves beneath an azure sky ; superb villas with colonnades and terraces bordered the shore, the green lawns sloping down to the water's edge, while to the back rose up higher and higher masses of deep, dark forest trees. These were the villas of the Hamburg merchants ; and no pleasanter spot could be found in all the world to grow rich in, or grow old in, than these villas ofthe Elbe.

So we sailed along till the silent palaces awoke into life. Children were playing on the lawns that dipped their green foliage in the river ; young girls leaned from the verandahs and played with the birds in their golden cages ; ladies sat and worked in the pretty garden pavilions. A panorama of Hamburg life was before us, rich, happy, and luxurious. So for a couple of hours we coasted along by villas, lawns, and wooded hills, till the crowded shipping told us we had at last reached the great merchant city. Our two days' voyage had been most prosperous. Not a wave was rough, and not one annoyance had ruffled our tempers or disturbed our enjoyment. The passage costs only two pounds ; but, in addition, fifteen shillings a day is charged for meals, whether you are sick, or starved, or strong and voracious as a sea-lion.

This seems a little hard ; but, after all, it saves time and numerical disputes, besides being decidedly conducive to energetic health and appetite ; for only a meanspirited constitution would allow itself to be taxed at such a rate without a corresponding benefit. All through the Baltic the same rule prevailed, and, in consequence, not a soul was ever missed from the five meals a day allowed to passengers in the pleasant little Baltic steamers. No disagreeable Custom-house forms, or uni forms, delayed our landing at Hamburg. Cabs in plenty, or droski, as they are called, were in waiting, some open, some closed, but all appointed as perfectly as a private carriage ; and we drove at once to the Hotel de l'Europe, said to be one of the finest in Europe, and fully deserving its fame. The Alster Lake is the peculiar feature of Hamburg.

It lies in the centre of the city, a kind of water square, bordered on three sides by magnificent houses and fine shops, space being left next the lake for a broad promenade and carriage drive, shadowed by trees. The fourth side joins the Elbe ; and gay steamers and fantastically painted boats are continually glancing over the surface of lake and river. One side, called the Jangfern Stieg, or Maiden's Walk, is especially fashionable, and here the Hotel de l'Europe is situated. Hamburg is the brightest and gayest of cities —people say also the wickedest — and from our windows we could look down on all its fashion and beauty enjoying the Alster promenade. The equipages are handsome, the houses superb, and the people eminently good-looking. The Vierland girls beautify the city in a remarkable manner, and are a pretty sight going to market, with their neat, wellshaped figures, dark kilted skirt, scarlet bodice laced over a snow-white shirt, and a mushroom straw hat, from beneath which gleams the most piquante of faces ; while at the back hang immense plaits of long yellow hair, tied with a huge black bow, which looks like ribbon, but on inspection I found was of dried fish-skin.

They carry their baskets suspended to a long pole over the shoulders, and the balancing of this pole gives an erect carriage and light elastic walk, with a rhythmic movement that adds to the highly dramatic effect. The servant-girls are also quite a painter's study, with their velvet coif, embroidered in gold ; or a round lace cap, no border in front, but a stiff curtain at back that stands out like wings. A long bright ribbon, pinned under the chin, keeps the cap in its place ; while the rich plaits of yellow hair that fall behind the ear support the immense gold earrings worn universally. A bright scarlet shawl is always flung over the market basket ; and to fling the shawl gracefully and carry it well is the highest step in art which all Hamburg maidens ambition to attain. Never have I seen so many pretty faces amongst the lower classes as in Hamburg.

Gay, bright, warm, sunny faces, and lithe elastic figures, round and vigorous, but never heavy. From the Alster promenade of fashion and beauty we went to the Bourse, " the silver soul of the town," and found it crowded ; not with statues of great men, for Hamburg has produced no great men, but with living, handsome, keen-eyed merchants, each worth his weight in gold. Jews abound in Hamburg. We visited the splendid synagogue, and but for the Hebrew inscriptions, and the absence of images, might have fancied ourselves in a Roman Catholic cathedral. The grand altar, the gigantic candelabra, and the incense-burners are the same. The Jewish school attached to the synagogue was filled with rows of young Israelites from three years old and upward, all busy over their Hebrew primers and Hebrew lesson-books.

Nothing can surpass the beauty of Jewish children, except the weird ugliness of Jewish old age. Angels and demons could not present a greater contrast. Any one of these children, with their large, liquid, oriental eyes, perfect profile, and rich masses of dark hair, would have made a glorious picture ; while in the street of the Jews at Frank fort, where the hideous old Jewish women are seated in rows at the door of their rag shops, one beholds something more terrible than even Dante dreamed of in the Inferno. Dress, style, opulence and splendour, are all to be seen at Hamburg, with much to interest that is mediæval and historical. There is St. Michael's Church, famed for its steeple ; and St. Peter's, where Marshal Davoust starved so many of the inhabitants to death in Napoleon's time, the memory of which cruelty is perpetuated by a large picture in the aisle ; where also are authentic portraits of the handsome, melancholy Melancthon, and the strong, massive-browed Luther.

The shops are magnificent, full of the most tempting and gorgeous wares in shawls and silks and ornaments ; but I abstained from purchasing, in the belief that in the royal cities of the North would be found articles still more tempting. In this I was mistaken. No northern capital, not even Berlin, can vie with the shops of Hamburg and Frankfort. At the table d'hote we found the cuisine excellent, especially the crayfish soup, the stewed mackerel, the potatoes fried with rusk crumbs, and the bread rolls of a fine white flour we do not seem to have in Ireland. These delicious rolls pervade all Germany, but we lost them in the Cattegat, where they were replaced by a hollow, delusive roll of burned crust and nothing inside. Happily we found them again at Berlin, and so on southward to Ostend, where they plunge into the German Ocean to rise up at Dover miserably transformed into the dry tasteless bread of England.

Here, too, we first met the memorable veal cutlet which M. Boucher de Perthes said pursued him remorselessly from the Elbe to the Gulf of Finland. We also can bear testimony to its ubiquity, for from that time, by steamboat or rail, in hotel or restaurant, still onward and onward as we journeyed, we never lost sight of it. The only difference being that, commencing at a just possible degree of facility of mastication at the German Ocean, it becomes harder and harder as we proceed northward, till at the Pole it must arrive at the condition of a flint flake ; and specimens of it may possibly be existing in our museums under that title. From Hamburg a droski lands you in half an hour at Altona — All-zu-nah (all too near), as the Hamburgers in jealousy and fear called the pretty little town where you take the rail to Kiel.

Here we found a dense crowd standing miser ably by bags and boxes awaiting the unknown terrors of the douane ; for we are now entering royal territory, and have left free trade and splendid republicanism behind us. Officials were plunging ruthless hands into every package, in search, apparently, of contraband books ; and every bag lay open with half-emerged contents, as if, as some sufferer has said, it had boiled over in its wrath. A horror came upon me at the prospect of mine being also subjected to the boiling process, and I watched keenly for the first overt act of aggression. At length an official approached, laid his hand clutchingly upon my box, and prepared to untie the cord. Then, strong in my innocence, I arose, and addressing the chief, assured him in a torrent of French, English, and German all combined, that I had nothing contraband, especially no books ; that I was a mere mass of ignor ance, travelling for amusement.