[3] Uffe the Bashful, according to tradition, is the son of a Danish king. His father had been a powerful warrior in his day, but has become old and feeble. The son causes the father the most profound solicitude. No one has ever heard him speak; he has never been willing to learn the use of weapons, and he moves through life in phlegmatic indifference, taking no interest in anything about him. But when the kings of Saxony refuse to pay the old father the accustomed tribute, mock at him, and challenge him to single combat, and the father wrings his hands in despair and cries, "Would that I had a son!" Uffe, for the first time, finds voice, and summons both kings to a holmgang (duel) with him. Great haste is now made to bring weapons to him, but no harness is large enough for his broad breast. If he did but make the slightest movement, whichever one is tried on him is rent asunder. Finally he is forced to content himself with a harness that bears the marks of many blows. It is the same with every sword that is placed in his hand. They all snap like glass whenever he makes trial of them on a tree. Then the king has the ancient sword Skräpp, once wielded by his father, brought forth from the giant warrior's grave, and bids Uffe lay hold of it, but not to test it before the fight. Thus armed, Uffe presents himself before the two foreign kings, on an island in the Eider. The blind old king sits on the river-bank and with throbbing heart anxiously hearkens to the clashing of the swords. If his son fall, he will plunge into the waves and die. Suddenly Uffe aimed a blow with his sword at one of the Saxon kings, and cut him in two right across the body. "That tone I know," said the king; "that was Skräpp's ring!" And Uffe gave another blow, and cut the other king through lengthwise, so that he fell in two halves to the ground. "That was Skräpp's ring again," cried the blind king. And when the old king died, Uffe ascended the throne and became a powerful and much feared ruler. [4] The fables of the past century (for instance, Lessing's fables) are merely ethic. [5] G. Brandes: S. Kierkegaards. Ein literarisches Charakterlied. Leipsic, 1879.