y one of her actions was, as she averred, according to his
announcement. After this she went to Niddaros, to St. Oluf's holy
shrine: she then went to Germany, France, Spain and Rome.

Sometimes honoured and sometimes mocked, she travelled, even to Cyprus
and Palestine. Conscious of approaching death, she again reached Rome,
where her last revelation was, that she should rest in Vadstene, and
that this cloister especially should be sanctified by God's love. The
splendour of the Northern lights does not extend so far around the
earth as the glory of this fair saint, who now is but a legend. We
bend with silent, serious thoughts before the mouldering remains in
the coffin here--those of St. Bridget and her daughter St. Catherine;
but even of these the remembrance will be extinguished. There is a
tradition amongst the people, that in the time of the Reformation the
real remains were carried off to a cloister in Poland, but this is not
certainly known. Vadstene, at least, is not the repository of St.
Bridget and her daughter's dust.

Vadstene was once great and glorious. Great was the cloister's power,
as St. Bridget saw it in the prospect of death. Where is now the
cloister's might? It reposes under the tomb-stones--the graves alone
speak of it. Here, under our feet, only a few steps from the church
door, is a stone in which are carved fourteen rings: they announce
that fourteen farms were given to the cloister, in order that he who
moulders here might have this place, fourteen feet within the church
door. It was Boa Johnson Grip, a great sinner; but the cloister's
power was greater than that of all sinners: the stone on his grave
records it with no ordinary significance of language.

Gustavus, the first Vasa, was the sun--the ruling power: the
brightness of the cloister star must needs pale before him.

There yet stands a stone outline of Vadstene's rich palace which he
erected, with towers and spires, close by the cloister. At a far
distance on the Vettern, it looks as if it still stood in all its
splendour; near, in moonlight nights, it appears the same unchanged
edifice, for the fathom-thick walls yet remain; the carvings over the
windows and gates stand forth in light and shade, and the moat round
about, which is only separated from the Vettern by the narrow carriage
road, takes the reflection of the immense building as a mirrored
image.

We now stand before it in daylight. Not a pane of glass is to be found
in i