A Story from the Sand Dunes

She had confessed to having devoured the hearts of five children and believed that, could she have eaten two more, she would have been able to make herself invisible and fly away. In the cell was a tiny, narrow airhole in the wall; but the lime trees outside sent none of their refreshing fragrance within; all was cold, damp, and moldy. There was only a rough bench in the cell; but a good conscience makes an easy pillow, so Jörgen could really lie comfortably.

The thick wooden door was closed and the iron bolts were shot, but superstition can creep through the keyhole of a mansion as well as a fisherman's hut; and as Jörgen lay in the silence and darkness he could not help thinking of Long Margrethe and her horrible crimes. Her last thoughts had filled that narrow dungeon the night before her execution. Nor could he help remembering the black arts that had been practiced by the owner of this mansion, Herr Swanwedel, when he lived there many years ago, and how the watchdog that guarded the bridge had every morning been found hung in his chains across the railing. Such thoughts came to Jörgen's mind and made him shiver; but a sunbeam, a refreshing thought from without, also came to his mind, the remembrance of the blossoming elder and lime trees.

He was not left here long, but was removed to Ringkjöbing; but there his imprisonment was none the less rigorous. For Jörgen's times were not like ours; they were hard times for poor men; peasant farms and peasant settlements were still being converted into new knights' estates. The coachman or valet of a nobleman was often appointed village judge, with power to condemn the peasant to a severe flogging or the loss of all his property, for some trifling offense. And thus, in Jutland, far from "The King's Copenhagen," and the wise and just rulers of state, the law took its course with little regard for justice. Jörgen could expect that his case would be delayed.

His wretched cell was bitterly cold; when would this misery end? Innocent, he had been thrown into misfortune and sorrow; that was his lot!