Hundreds were beheaded in the public square;
for days it was filled with the slain. It is small comfort that the
wicked priest who egged the King on to the dreadful deed was himself
burned at the stake by the master he had betrayed. The Stockholm
Massacre drowned the Kalmar Union in its torrents of blood.
Retribution came swiftly. Above the peal of the Christmas bells rose
the clash and clangor of armed hosts pouring forth from the mountain
fastnesses to avenge the foul treachery. They were led by Gustav[1]
Eriksson Vasa, a young noble upon whose head Christian had set a
price.
[Footnote 1: The older spelling of this name is followed here in
preference to the more modern Gustaf. Gustav Vasa himself wrote his
name so.]
The Vasas were among the oldest and best of the great Swedish
families. It was said of them that they ever loved a friend, hated
a foe, and never forgot. Gustav was born in the castle of
Lindholmen, when the news that the world had grown suddenly big by
the discovery of lands beyond the unknown seas was still ringing
through Europe, on May 12, 1496. He was brought up in the home of
his kinsman, the Swedish patriot Sten Sture, and early showed the
fruits of his training. "See what I will do," he boasted in school
when he was thirteen, "I will go to Dalecarlia, rouse the people,
and give the Jutes (Danes) a black eye.
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