bay, and high up above stood a magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers.
From out the hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that there was a
continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king with a golden crown upon his
white head: that was King Hroar, near the fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is
now called. And up the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of
Denmark, hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and the
fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. "Do not forget the diet," said King Hroar.*
* Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from King Hroar, and
the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful cathedral the greater number of
the kings and queens of Denmark are interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the
Danish Diet assemble.
Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him just as if one turned
over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an old peasant-woman, who came from Soroe,*
where grass grows in the market-place. She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her
head and back: it was so wet, it certainly must have been raining. "Yes, that it has," said
she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's comedies, and about
Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking
backwards and forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak!
croak!" said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in Sorbe!"
She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman. "One must dress
according to the weather," said she. "It is wet; it is wet. My town is just like a bottle; and
one gets in by the neck, and by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the
finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the bottle, who learn
wisdom, Hebrew, Greek--Croak!"
* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by woods and lakes.
Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy for the sons of the nobles. The
poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed professors here. The latter lives there still.
When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked with great boots
over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring that little Tuk fell into a good
sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not do him any harm.
But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his little sister Augusta,
she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair, was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and
without having wings was yet able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green
woods and the blue lakes.
"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are flying up fro m
Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very large! You will suffer neither
hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your
house will exalt itself like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with
marble statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your name shall circulate
