ors was somewhat over, all of a sudden there
appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above stood a
magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out the
hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that there
was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king with
a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the
fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up
the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of Denmark,
hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and
the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. "Do not forget the
diet," said King Hroar.*

*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from
King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful
cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are
interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble.

Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him
just as if one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an
old peasant-woman, who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the
market-place. She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and
back: it was so wet, it certainly must have been raining. "Yes, that it
has," said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's
comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered
together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she
looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she.
"It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in
Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old
woman. "One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet;
it is wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck,
and by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the
finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the
bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek--Croak!"

* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by
woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy
for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed
professors here. The latter lives there still.

When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one
walked with great boots over a moor; always the same