The eel-breeder was a witty fellow, a merry guest, and brought a measure of brandy with him

The eel-breeder was a witty fellow, a merry guest, and brought a

measure of brandy with him. They all received a small glassful or a

cupful if there were not enough glasses; even Jurgen had about a

thimbleful, that he might digest the fat eel, as the eel-breeder said;

he always told one story over and over again, and if his hearers

laughed he would immediately repeat it to them. Jurgen while still a

boy, and also when he was older, used phrases from the eel-breeder's

story on various occasions, so it will be as well for us to listen

to it. It runs thus:

    "The eels went into the bay, and the young ones begged leave to go

a little farther out. 'Don't go too far,' said their mother; 'the ugly

eel-spearer might come and snap you all up.' But they went too far,

and of eight daughters only three came back to the mother, and these

wept and said, 'We only went a little way out, and the ugly

eel-spearer came immediately and stabbed five of our sisters to

death.' 'They'll come back again,' said the mother eel. 'Oh, no,'

exclaimed the daughters, 'for he skinned them, cut them in two, and

fried them.' 'Oh, they'll come back again,' the mother eel

persisted. 'No,' replied the daughters, 'for he ate them up.' 'They'll

come back again,' repeated the mother eel. 'But he drank brandy

after them,' said the daughters. 'Ah, then they'll never come back,'

said the mother, and she burst out crying, 'it's the brandy that

buries the eels.'"

    "And therefore," said the eel-breeder in conclusion, "it is always

the proper thing to drink brandy after eating eels."

    This story was the tinsel thread, the most humorous recollection

of Jurgen's life. He also wanted to go a little way farther out and up

the bay- that is to say, out into the world in a ship- but his

mother said, like the eel-breeder, "There are so many bad people-

eel spearers!" He wished to go a little way past the sand-hills, out

into the dunes, and at last he did: four happy days, the brightest

of his childhood, fell to his lot, and the whole beauty and

splendour of Jutland, all the happiness and sunshine of his home, were

concentrated in these. He went to a festival, but it was a burial

feast.

    A rich relation of the fisherman's family had died; the farm was

situated far eastward in the country and a little towards the north.

Jurgen's foster parents went there, and he also went with them from

the dunes, over heath and moor, where the Skjaerumaa takes its

course through green meadows and contains many eels; mother eels

live there with their daughters, who are caught and eaten up by wicked

people. But do not men sometimes act quite as cruelly towards their

own fellow-men? Was not the knight Sir Bugge murdered by wicked

people? And though he was well spoken of, did he not also wish to kill

the architect who built the castle for him, with its thick walls and

tower, at the point where the Skjaerumaa falls into the bay? Jurgen

and his parents now stood there; the wall and the ramparts still

remained, and red crumbling fragments lay scattered around. Here it

was that Sir Bugge, after the architect had left him, said to one of

his men, "Go after him and say, 'Master, the tower shakes.' If he

turns round, kill him and take away the money I paid him, but if he

does not turn round let him go in peace." The man did as he was

told; the architect did not turn round, but called back "The tower

does not shake in the least, but one day a man will come from the west

in a blue cloak- he will cause it to shake!" And so indeed it happened

a hundred years later, for the North Sea broke in and cast down the

tower; but Predbjorn Gyldenstjerne, the man who then possessed the

castle, built a new castle higher up at the end of the meadow, and

that one is standing to this day, and is called Norre-Vosborg.

    Jurgen and his foster parents went past this castle. They had told

him its story during the long winter evenings, and now he saw the

stately edifice, with its double moat, and trees and bushes; the wall,

covered with ferns, rose within the moat, but the lofty lime-trees

were the most beautiful of all; they grew up to the highest windows,

and the air was full of their sweet fragrance. In a north-west

corner of the garden stood a great bush full of blossom, like winter

snow amid the summer's green; it was a juniper bush, the first that

Jurgen had ever seen in bloom. He never forgot it, nor the lime-trees;

the child's soul treasured up these memories of beauty and fragrance

to gladden the old man.