" Well for Sir Asker that he did not live
in our day of clamoring suffragists. He would have "views" without
doubt. But no such things troubled him while he battled in foreign
lands all summer. It was autumn when he returned and saw from afar
the swell behind which lay Fjenneslev and home. Impatiently he
spurred his horse to the brow of the hill, for no news had come of
Lady Inge those many months. The bard tells us what he saw there:
"It was the good Sir Asker Ryg;
Right merrily laughed he,
When from that green and swelling hill
Two towers did he see."
Two sons lay at the Lady Inge's breast, and all was well.
"The first one of the brothers two
They called him Esbern Snare.[2]
He grew as strong as a savage bear
And fleeter than any hare.
"The second him called they Absalon,
A bishop he at home.
He used his trusty Danish sword
As the Pope his staff at Rome."
[Footnote 2: Pronounce Snare, with a as in are. In the Danish hare
rhymes with snare, so pronounced.]
Absalon and Esbern were not twins, as tradition has it. They were
better than that. They became the great heroes of their day, and the
years have not dimmed their renown. And Absalon reached far beyond
the boundaries of little Denmark to every people that speaks the
English tongue.
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