Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/169

Rh same bishops against the infuriated mob that threatened the prelate's life. The prose satire, "Ain klegliche Botschaft dem Bapst zukommen," written in 1528, by the Swiss, Niklas Manuel, one of the most witty and striking polemical works of that age, is with a great deal of humor reproduced in Danish verse, and so exquisitely is it localized for the benefit of the Danish reader that, did we not know the original, we should hardly take it to be a translation or adaptation. There is another work which seems to be of a purely Danish origin: "A dialogue between Peder the smith and Adser the the peasant," a work which raises its voice "against all such errors as have for many years been practiced in the Pope's church." The latter is decidedly one of the best literary productions from the time of the Reformation. There is also a Danish versification of a legend, which, during the Middle Ages, was widely circulated throughout Europe, though it probably originally came from Denmark, about the devil who becomes a servant in a convent, and encourages the monks in their godless conduct, so that each and all of them are at length on the point of being precipitated into hell, until they finally discover whom they have admitted into their midst, are converted and repent. It cannot be definitely ascertained when this poem about "Brother Rus" came to Denmark, but it was probably at the time when people became aware of the excesses perpetrated by the monks; that is to say, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Danish adaptation is based on a Low German version, but it has been rendered with great freedom and greatly surpasses its model both in its humor and graphic style. Accordingly it continued to maintain itself as a favorite book of the people long after it had lost its real sting, simply on account of the pleasant and amusing manner in which the legend was treated.

The poetry we have from the reformation period, besides