Excerpts from
Lucky Kristoffer
By Martin A. Hansen
Vapors rose from the boggy land and they could notice the tepid smell of the globe flower. The ground was treacherous but not once did even the mighty Rufulus founder. Neither he nor the other two horses would go right up tinder the gallows. They reared away, snorting, and so were tethered to a gate post a short distance away.
Although it was not really dark, the gallows seemed to vanish into the air, the eye was filled with indistinctness when one looked upwards, and the Clerk hoped for a moment that Keld had already been taken down. But they raised the ladder and Paal, in a low voice, said, "Now, Doctor, up you go. You don´t believe all that people say, and this is the only thing I hesitate to do myself." But Kristoffer said, just as softly, "It was I who began this, so I should go up even though I don`t like it, either. But first you must say a prayer, Brother Martin." Paal recommended him to say the Lord`s Prayer backwards, it was stronger that way; but the Clerk said the prayer in the Christian way. They waited a while. Here and there a peewit wailed. It was not a good place to be in.
Kristoffer climbed gingerly tip the swaying ladder and disappeared above the other two who were having difficulty holding him. A little later he came down again and whispered that they would have to cut through the gibbet beam tip there, for Keld was hung by a heavy chain that they could do nothing with. While they stood and pondered it, the chain above them squeaked as the corpse began to swing. Since they had neither axe nor file, Paal suggested a solution which Kristoffer only grudgingly agreed to accept.
"Lerbi, Bibalba, Agmabod," - swore Paal, sticking his sword in the ladder and spitting on the steps, and recited several more heathenish oaths finishing with, "In the name patris, filii et spiritus sancti." He climbed up and was much more difficult to hold than Kristoffer, who was no substitute for him down below, either. As they stood bracing themselves, with all their might at the foot of the ladder, a bell began to chime far away in the distance. Paal mumbled unceasingly from above and the ladder trembled. It dawned on the Clerk that it was the blood beating in his cars that was causing the chimes. "Consummatum est," said the voice above. The ladder shook and a disagreeable sound was heard. The dangling corpse flashed by like a shadow and hit the ground with a crack like the dry branch of a tree. Step by step, still mumbling his invocations, Paal descended with Brother Keld`s head under his arm. Kristoffer spread his shabby wolf-skin cape on the damp grass and they took Keld and laid him on it. He was very light and smelled sweetly. Paal, still mumbling, placed the head in position, then they wrapped the cape round the corpse and carried it to Rufulus. It was difficult to get the bundle laced on him as he snorted and switched position. The Clerk again said a prayer, while Paal swore his own, took bread and salt from his pouch and strewed them on the ground so that no one could follow them from the place. But from the sleeping town they heard not a sound.
They would bury him by Gøtested Church, which lay not so far away, but in a very desolate spot. Paal rode in front and Kristoffer sat tip behind the Clerk so that he could lead Rufulus who followed sullenly. Slowly they proceeded into the country, the hills rising black in the east as the sky paled a little. It was nearly two o`clock when they glimpsed the church tip in the thicket and they heard a cock crow from a farm down by the river. Paal turned and said, "He is shining!" There actually was a light like a luminous aura round the bundle on the great horse; I wonder though, for behind us lay the sea with its pale, silvery swell.
From: Lucky Kristoffer
Twayne Publishers, Inc., New York 1974
Translated by John Jepson Egglishaw
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