The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors Page #2

The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors is a historical fiction set in the Middle Ages, written by the acclaimed author, Hans Christian Andersen. The book is centered around the life of a bishop who resides in Borglum, a location characterized by impressive landscapes and ancient monasteries. The story encapsulates the bishop's virtue, power, and his relationship with local warriors. It combines realistic historical settings with aspects of fantasy creating a sweeping, epic narrative.

• Children

								

mass, in the church at Widberg.  The bishop himself is to read the
mass, and consequently will journey from Borglum to Thyland; and
this is known to Jens Glob.

Moorland and meadow are covered with ice and snow.  The marsh
will bear horse and rider, the bishop with his priests and armed
men.  They ride the shortest way, through the waving reeds, where the
wind moans sadly.

Blow thy brazen trumpet, thou trumpeter clad in fox-skin!  it
sounds merrily in the clear air.  So they ride on over heath and
moorland--over what is the garden of Fata Morgana in the hot summer,
though now icy, like all the country--towards the church of Widberg.

The wind is blowing his trumpet too--blowing it harder and harder.
He blows up a storm--a terrible storm--that increases more and more.
Towards the church they ride, as fast as they may through the storm.
The church stands firm, but the storm careers on over field and
moorland, over land and sea.

Borglum's bishop reaches the church; but Olaf Hase will scarce
do so, however hard he may ride.  He journeys with his warriors on
the farther side of the bay, in order that he may help Jens Glob,
now that the bishop is to be summoned before the judgment seat of
the Highest.

The church is the judgment hall; the altar is the council table.
The lights burn clear in the heavy brass candelabra.  The storm reads
out the accusation and the sentence, roaming in the air over moor
and heath, and over the rolling waters.  No ferry-boat can sail over
the bay in such weather as this.

Olaf Hase makes halt at Ottesworde.  There he dismisses his
warriors, presents them with their horses and harness, and gives
them leave to ride home and greet his wife.  He intends to risk his
life alone in the roaring waters; but they are to bear witness for him
that it is not his fault if Jens Glob stands without reinforcement
in the church at Widberg.  The faithful warriors will not leave him,
but follow him out into the deep waters.  Ten of them are carried away;
but Olaf Hase and two of the youngest men reach the farther side.  They
have still four miles to ride.

It is past midnight.  It is Christmas.  The wind has abated.  The
church is lighted up; the gleaming radiance shines through the
window-frames, and pours out over meadow and heath.  The mass has
long been finished, silence reigns in the church, and the wax is heard
dropping from the candles to the stone pavement.  And now Olaf Hase
arrives.

In the forecourt Jens Glob greets him kindly, and says,

"I have just made an agreement with the bishop."

"Sayest thou so?" replied Olaf Hase.  "Then neither thou nor the
bishop shall quit this church alive."

And the sword leaps from the scabbard, and Olaf Hase deals a
blow that makes the panel of the church door, which Jens Glob
hastily closes between them, fly in fragments.

"Hold, brother!  First hear what the agreement was that I made.  I
have slain the bishop and his warriors and priests.  They will have
no word more to say in the matter, nor will I speak again of all the
wrong that my mother has endured."

The long wicks of the altar lights glimmer red; but there is a
redder gleam upon the pavement, where the bishop lies with cloven
skull, and his dead warriors around him, in the quiet of the holy
Christmas night.

And four days afterwards the bells toll for a funeral in the
convent of Borglum.  The murdered bishop and the slain warriors and
priests are displayed under a black canopy, surrounded by candelabra
decked with crape.  There lies the dead man, in the black cloak wrought
with silver; the crozier in the powerless hand that was once so
mighty.  The incense rises in clouds, and the monks chant the funeral
hymn.  It sounds like a wail--it sounds like a sentence of wrath and
condemnation, that must be heard far over the land, carried by the
wind--sung by the wind--the wail that sometimes is silent, but never
dies; for ever again it rises in song, singing even into our own
time this legend of the Bishop of Borglum and his hard nephew.  It is
heard in the dark night by the frightened husbandman, driving by in
the heavy sandy road past the convent of Borglum.  It is heard by the
sleepless listener in the thickly-walled rooms at Borglum.  And not
only to the ear of superstition is the sighing and the tread of
hurrying feet audible in the long echoing passages leading to the
convent door that has long been locked.  The door still seems to
open, and the lights seem to flame in the brazen candlesticks; the
fragrance of incense arises; the church gleams in its ancient
splendor; and the monks sing and say the mass over the slain bishop,
who lies there in the black silver-embroidered mantle, with the
crozier in his powerless hand; and on his pale proud forehead gleams
the red wound like fire, and there burn the worldly mind and the
wicked thoughts.

Sink down into his grave--into oblivion--ye terrible shapes of the
times of old!


Hark to the raging of the angry wind, sounding above the rolling
sea!  A storm approaches without, calling aloud for human lives.  The
sea has not put on a new mind with the new time.  This night it is a
horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, perhaps, it may be a
glassy mirror--even as in the old time that we have buried.  Sleep
sweetly, if thou canst sleep!

Now it is morning.

The new time flings sunshine into the room.  The wind still keeps
up mightily.  A wreck is announced--as in the old time.

During the night, down yonder by Lokken, the little fishing
village with the red-tiled roofs--we can see it up here from the
window--a ship has come ashore.  It has struck, and is fast embedded in
the sand; but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope on board, and
formed a bridge from the wreck to the mainland; and all on board are
saved, and reach the land, and are wrapped in warm blankets; and
to-day they are invited to the farm at the convent of Borglum.  In
comfortable rooms they encounter hospitality and friendly faces.
They are addressed in the language of their country, and the piano
sounds for them with melodies of their native land; and before these
have died away, the chord has been struck, the wire of thought that
reaches to the land of the sufferers announces that they are
rescued.  Then their anxieties are dispelled; and at even they join
in the dance at the feast given in the great hall at Borglum.
Waltzes and Styrian dances are given, and Danish popular songs, and
melodies of foreign lands in these modern times.

Blessed be thou, new time!  Speak thou of summer and of purer
gales!  Send thy sunbeams gleaming into our hearts and thoughts!  On thy
glowing canvas let them be painted--the dark legends of the rough hard
times that are past!
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