The island of Fionia, situated in the centre of the Danish States, between the continent of Jutland and the island of Zealand, is a green and wooded country, full of freshness, radiant with beauty, generally bordered with picturesque rocks cut out by the sea, the fiords of which run up far into the land. On one of these inlets, to the north-east of the Great Belt, stands the village of Kiertminde. At the end of the fifteenth century there was living in this village a poor farmer named Tausen, and to him was born, in 1494, a son who was named John. The child used to play on the shores of the Great Belt, where the first objects that attracted his notice were the sea and its vast expanse, the waves running in to break upon the shore, the boats of the fishermen, the distant ships, the abysses and the storms. His father was poor, and John, from an early age, assisted him in his labors; he accompanied him to the hop plantations, or leaped with him into the fishing-boat, braving the waves. As it was customary for every one to make his own garments, his furniture and his tools, the boy learnt a little of every thing. But there was an intelligence in him which seemed to mark him out for a higher calling than that of laborer or fisherman. His father and mother often talked of this; but they were grieved to think that they were unable, on account of their poverty, to give their son a liberal education.[214] However, the spirit which God gives a child often overcomes the greatest obstacles. The men who are self-made without assistance from others are usually those who exert the most powerful influence on their contemporaries. In John Tausen there was a strong bent for study;[215] and God never wills the end without providing the means. At the distance of five or six miles from the village was Odensee, an ancient town of which Odin was the reputed founder, and which at least bore his name; and in this town was a school attached to the cathedral. John was placed here by his parents; and being poor, like Luther, he gained his living like him, by singing with other boys from door to door before the houses of the rich folk of the town. He soon became distinguished among the scholars; and some years later, one Knud Rud, a holder of a fief of the crown, being in want of a tutor, took him into his family.[216]