The Havfrue, or Mermaid, is represented in the popular tradition sometimes as a good, at other times as an evil and treacherous being. She is beautiful in her appearance. Fishermen sometimes see her in the bright summer's sun, when a thin mist hangs over the sea, sitting on the surface of the water, and combing her long golden hair with a golden comb, or driving up her snow-white cattle to feed on the strands and small islands. At other times she comes as a beautiful maiden, chilled and shivering with the cold of the night, to the fires the fishers have kindled, hoping by this means to entice them to her love.[215] Her appearance prognosticates both storm and ill success in their fishing. People that are drowned, and whose bodies are not found, are believed to be taken into the dwellings of the Mermaids. These beings are also supposed to have the power of foretelling future events. A Mermaid, we are told, prophesied the birth of Christian IV. of Denmark, and En Havfrue op af Vandet steg, Og spaade Herr Sinklar ilde. SINCLAR'S VISA. A mermaid from the water rose, And spaed Sir Sinclar ill. Fortune-telling has been in all countries a gift of the sea-people. We need hardly mention the prophecies of Nereus and Proteus. A girl one time fell into the power of a Havfrue and passed fifteen years in her submarine abode without ever seeing the sun. At length her brother went down in quest of her, and succeeded in bringing her back to the upper world. The Havfrue waited for seven years expecting her return, but when she did not come back, she struck the water with her staff and made it boil up and cried-- Hade jag trott att du varit så falsk, Så skulle jag kreckt dig din tiufvehals! Had I but known thee so false to be, Thy thieving neck I'd have cracked for thee.[216] _Duke Magnus and the Mermaid._ Duke Magnus looked out through the castle windów, How the stream ran so rapidly; And there he saw how upon the stream sat A woman most fair and lovelie, Duke Magnus, Duke Magnus, plight thee to me, I pray you still so freely; Say me not nay, but yes, yes! "O, to you I will give a travelling ship, The best that a knight would guide; It goeth as well on water as on firm land, And through the fields all so wide. Duke Magnus, &c. "O, to you will I give a courser gray, The best that a knight would ride; He goeth as well on water as on firm land, And through the groves all so wide." Duke Magnus, &c. "O, how should I plight me to you? I never any quiet get; I serve the king and my native land, But with woman I match me not yet." Duke Magnus, &c.