[6] That all this in no way affected the personal relations of the two men Saxo assures us in one of the little human touches with which his chronicle abounds. When Eskild was going away to end his days as a monk in the monastery of Clairvaux, he rested awhile with Absalon at his castle Haffn, where he was received as a father. The old man suffered greatly from cold feet, and Absalon made a box with many little holes in, and put a hot brick in it. With this at his feet, Eskild was able to sleep, and he was very grateful to Absalon, both because of the comfort it gave him and “because that he perceived that filial piety rather than skill in the healer’s art” prompted the invention. KING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG To the court of King Ottocar of Bohemia there came in the year 1205 a brilliant embassy from far-off Denmark to ask the hand of his daughter Dragomir for King Valdemar, the young ruler of that country. Sir Strange[7] Ebbesoen and Bishop Peder Sunesön were the spokesmen, and many knights, whose fame had travelled far in the long years of fighting to bring the Baltic pagans under the cross, rode with them. The old king received them with delight. Valdemar was not only a good son-in-law for a king to have, being himself a great and renowned ruler, but he was a splendid knight, tall and handsome, of most courteous bearing, ambitious, manly, and of ready wit. So their suit prospered well. The folk-song tells how they fared; how, according to the custom of those days, Sir Strange wedded the fair princess by proxy for his lord, and how King Ottocar, when he bade her good-by, took this promise of her: In piety, virtue, and fear of God, Let all thy days be spent; And ever thy subjects be thy thought, Their hopes on thy care be bent. The daughter kept her vow. Never was queen more beloved of her people than Dagmar. That was the name they gave her in Denmark, for the Bohemian Dragomir was strange to them. Dagmar meant daybreak in their ancient tongue, and it really seemed as if a new and beautiful day dawned upon the land in her coming. The dry pages of history have little enough to tell of her beyond the simple fact of her marriage and untimely death, though they are filled with her famous husband’s deeds; but not all of his glorious campaigns that earned for him the name of “The Victor” have sunk so deep into the people’s memory, or have taken such hold of their hearts, as the lovely queen who Came without burden, she came with peace; She came the good peasant to cheer. Through all the centuries the people have sung her praise, and they sing it yet. Of the many folk-songs that have come down from the middle ages, those that tell of Queen Dagmar are the sweetest, as they are the most mournful, for her happiness was as brief as her life was beautiful.