[Footnote 6: An old Danish ballad entitled "King Birger and his brothers," records the crimes of the former, and the melancholy fate of the Swedish dukes. After years of strife between the brothers, Sweden was at last partitioned off into three kingdoms, and possessed three sovereigns and three distinct courts. In 1317, King Birger invited his brothers to visit him at the castle of Nykioping, on the plea of renewing the fraternal intercourse which had been so unhappily interrupted, and the dukes unsuspectingly accepted the king's invitation. On the evening of their arrival, however, after being received with the greatest cordiality by the king, and sumptuously entertained, they were seized by his order, bound hand and foot, and thrown into the dungeon of the castle. This act of treachery soon became known, and the king, fearing the interference of the people in behalf of the dukes, fled from the castle, having first thrown the keys of the dungeon into the deepest part of the river, and given orders that the doors of the dungeon should not be opened until he returned. On his departure Nykioping was instantly besieged, and crowds flocked thither from all quarters, but ere the castle was taken the dukes had expired. Eric died on the third day of his captivity, from the wounds he had received in defending himself against his captors; but Valdemar lived till the twelfth day without food.--_Translator_.] [Footnote 7: Holberg thus relates the fate of this able and upright statesman:--"After a long period of civil war and discord, the feud between King Birger and his brothers was at last accommodated, through the mediation of their mutual counsellors; but on the conclusion of the treaty, the Swedish dukes did their utmost to bring Thorkild Knudsen into discredit with the king, to whom he was represented by them as having been the instigator of the disturbances which had prevailed throughout the country, as well as having stirred up strife among the members of the royal family, and as having abused the confidence of the crown. King Birger, who was glad of any pretext for escaping the blame he himself deserved, turned his back upon his faithful servant, and permitted him to be brought to trial. Thorkild ably defended his rightful cause, but his innocence and eloquence were of no avail. He had been marked out as a victim, was doomed to death as a traitor, and beheaded at Stockholm in the year 1306. It was not without difficulty that his friends obtained permission to inter the body in consecrated ground. Thorkild's treacherous foe, Drost Johan Brunke, continued his career of political intrigue until the year 1318, when he and his partizans were seized in the king's absence, by the opposite faction, and put to death. Brunke's body was exposed on the wheel on a hill without the city, which since that time has borne the name of Brunke's Hill." Vide _Holberg's Hist. of Denmark_, vol. i.--_Trans_.]