So saintly was that masterful priest that he was wont,
when he prayed, to hang his hat and gloves on a sunbeam as on a
hook. And woe to the land if his cross be disturbed, for then, the
peasant will tell you, the cattle die of plague and the crops fail.
A little further on, just beyond Soroe, a village church rears twin
towers above the wheat-field where the skylark soars and sings to
its nesting mate. For seven hundred years the story of that church
and its builder has been told at Danish firesides, and the time will
never come when it is forgotten.
Fjenneslev is the name of the village, and Asker Ryg[1] ruled there
in the Twelfth Century, when the king summoned his men to the war.
Bidding good-by to his wife, Sir Asker tells her to build a new
church while he is away, for the old, "with wall of clay,
straw-thatched and grim," is in ruins. And let it be worthy of the
Master:
"The roof let make of tiling red;
Of stone thou build the wall;"
and then he whispers in her ear:
"Hear thou, my Lady Inge,
Of women thou art the flower;
An' thou bearest to me a son so bold,
Set on the church a tower."
[Footnote 1: Pronounce Reeg.]
Should the child be a girl, he tells her to build only a spire, for
"modesty beseemeth a woman.
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