They left Horsens a little after midday for Veile, a distance, as
before stated, of about nineteen English miles. Pastor Lindal sat by
Hardy as he drove, and as they passed by Engom, he told the story of
how Ove Lunge had sold himself to the evil one, "Ove Lunge made a
bargain with the owners of the land near to acquire as much land as he
could ride a foal just born round, whilst the priest was preaching a
sermon in the pulpit at Engom Church. They assented readily; but the
foal ridden by Herr Ove Lunge went like a bird, and two black boars
followed, rooting up the line the foal took, so as to enclose the
land. On his way, Herr Ove Lunge met a Bonde with an axe, and he was
obliged to turn aside, as the evil one has no power against an edge of
steel. Therefore there were many irregularities in the foal's course.
The Bonde who had thus sought to interrupt Herr Ove Lunge, rushed to
the church at Engom, and besought the priest to vacate the pulpit, who
did so, and thus saved much land passing into Herr Ove Lunge's
possession. As Herr Ove Lunge had sold himself to the evil one, he can
of course find no rest, and his ghost is seen, followed by his hounds,
as he hunts at night over the property thus acquired."
"Are their many legends relating to Veile?" asked Hardy.
"A few," replied the Pastor, "and some historical, Gorm den Gamle,
that is Gorm the old and his Queen Thyra, are buried in two tumuli, or
Kaempehoi, at Jellinge, near Veile. At Queen Thyra's tumulus there was
once a spring of water which sprung up, it is related as evidence of
her purity. One day, however, a Bonde washed a horse that had the
glanders at the spring, when it at once dried up.
"At the same place, Jellinge (the final e is pronounced like a), in
the year 1628, a priest called Soren Stefensen was suspected by the
Swedes of being in correspondence with the Danes, when the Swedes were
invading Jutland, and had occupied Jellinge, The messenger who went
with his letters was taken, and a letter was found in a stick he
carried. The Swedes hung him up to his own church door by his beard to
a great hook, and he is said to have hung there a long time; but at
last they took him down, and hung him on a gallows. He was priest at
Veile, and the governor of the Latin school there, from 1614 to 1619."
"In Shakespeare's play of 'Hamlet'" said Hardy, "it is described of
Hamlet's father that he smote the sledded Polaks on the ice."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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