Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 094.djvu/465

Rh for his achievements in war and his adventures in love, and who was also remarkable for the beauty of his hair, which, says an old Danish writer, "could only be compared to silk and gold, and was so long that he tied it in knots, and confined it under his belt."

The earliest geographer known in the north, lived in the time of Harald Haarfager, and was called "Other." He was born in Heligoland.

The Kæmpeviser, or heroic songs, continued for a long time to be the popular poetry of the north; and ballads were also much esteemed. In the reign of Christian IV. of Denmark, between the years 1588 and 1648, the Kæmpeviser, and old Danish ballads, were collected by a professor and clergyman, named Anders Sorensen Vedel.

Snorro Sturleson, who was born in the year 1178, may be named as one of the earliest of the Scandinavian authors; he was an Icelander of a high family, and is said, by the Danish historian, Sneedorff, to have been the grandson of Semund Frode, surnamed the Wise. The prose "Edda" is ascribed to him. He was the author of the "Heimskringla," a history, partly fabulous, commencing with Odin, and ending with the reign of King Magnus Erlingson, 1176.

In the twelfth century there flourished a trio of learned and remarkable men in Denmark: the Archbishop Absalon, of Lund; his secretary, Saxo-Grammaticus; and Svend or Sweyn Aagesen,—all of whom were historians. These authors lived during the reigns of Waldemar I., and his son Knud, or Canute VI. From the period of the brilliant reigns of the Waldemars, there occurred a long interregnum in the literary history of Denmark. This dark age continued until the advent to the throne of Christian I., who, in 1478, founded the university of Copenhagen; but there were no Danish authors of any note until the sixteenth century. There then appeared Lyschander, who was historiographer to Christian IV., Petreius, Arild Hvitfelt, Niels Krag, Olaus Wormius, Caspar Bartholin and his three sons, Stephanius, Arngrim Jonsen, a learned Icelander, Anders Arreboe, the father of Danish poetry, who died in 1637, and the celebrated mathematician and astronomer, Tycho Brahe, who only born in 1546, and was descended from an illustrious family in Scania.

Tycho Brahe was brought up by an uncle, George Brahe, who paid much attention to his education, which was commenced at such an early age, that when he was only seven years old he wrote Latin verses. At thirteen years of age he was sent to the Copenhagen university, where his love of astronomical studies soon developed itself; and the manuscripts which contain his observations, when a boy of sixteen, on eclipses, lightning, &c., are still preserved. When quite a youth he went to Leipsic, whither he was accompanied by a young gentleman of the Danish court, the Anders Sorensen Vedel, before mentioned as the collector of the old Kæmpeviser, and who became subsequently the royal historiographer. At Leipsic, Tycho Brahe devoted himself assiduously to the study of astromomy, chemistry, mathematics, astrology, and casting of nativities.

That a clever and rational being should have wasted his time in the two last-mentioned fanciful pursuits, may provoke a smile of derision in our enlightened days; but it must be remembered that the Danish astronomer lived at a period when there existed a sort of second chaos in the