Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/222

 196 I.

Although born in the neighbourhood of Kolding, in the south-east corner of Jutland, Evald Tang Kristensen belongs by descent to the western side of the peninsula, his great-grandfather having been a farmer in Raasted, to the west of Holstebro. His father was a schoolmaster, a position which he owed to the assistance given by a richer neighbour, Evald Tang, of Nörre Vosborg, who enabled him to qualify for the teaching profession, and whose name he gave to his first child, born January 24, 1843. Anders Kristensen died three years later, and his widow went back to her father in Holmsland, a small district lying between the town of Ringkjöbing and the North Sea, fertile in its eastern part, but on the side next the sea chiefly composed of shifting sand-hills. The little Evald was shortly afterwards sent to a relative's house (in Rindom), where the dough-trough had to serve him for a cradle. Later on, his mother married again, her second husband being also a schoolmaster, who obtained a post in Ö, near Viborg, in the heart of Jutland. The child's life had not been a very happy one so far, and this change did not do much to make it brighter. He began to go to school, but had also to herd cattle on the moors, whose heights and hollows formed a marked contrast to the flatness of Holmsland, where his earlier years had been spent. The high heather-clad banks, with the deep sandy roads between, made a strong impression on his boyish mind, naturally inclined to melancholy, which was further fostered by the strictness of his upbringing and by almost constant ill-health. The latter defect was never properly attended to; all that was done for him was to consult a "wise man," or wizard, and this had no beneficial result. Food was insufficient, as it too often is in Denmark; and childish games and amusements were practically unknown to him.

In spite of these adverse circumstances, the boy made