More than a third of all Denmark lay waste under their
ferocious assault. Here was the blow to be struck if the country was
to have peace and the church prosperity.
The chance to strike came speedily. Absalon had been bishop only a
few months when, on the evening before Palm Sunday, word was brought
that the enemy had landed, twenty-four ship-crews strong, and were
burning and murdering as usual. Absalon marshalled his eighteen
house-carles and such of the country-folk as he could, and fell
upon the Wends, routing them utterly. A bare handful escaped, the
rest were killed, while the bishop lost but a single man. He said
mass next morning, red-handed it is true, but one may well believe
that for all that his Easter message reached hearts filled with a
new, glad hope for their homes and for the country. That was a
bishop they could understand. So the first blow Absalon struck for
his people was at home. But he did not long wait for the enemy to
come to him. Half his long and stirring life he lived on the seas,
seeking them there. Saxo mentions, in speaking of his return from
one of his cruises, that he had then been nine months on shipboard.
And in a way he was shepherding his flock there, if it was with a
scourge; for, many years before, a Danish king had punished the
Wends in their own home and laid their lands under the See of
Roskilde, though little good it did them or any one else then.
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