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144 had again appeared in the heavens, and he therefore asked what planet or other star might have been mistaken for a new star. Again, in December 1584 the king turned to Tycho for help, writing that he was under the impression that he had returned to Tycho a compass made by the latter, as there was something wrong with it. If this was the case, Tycho was to send back the compass; but if not, he was to make two new ones similar to the old one.

But the most important service (according to the ideas of the time) which Tycho had to render to the king was by astrological predictions. The first occasion on which he was ordered to show his skill in such matters was probably in 1577, when the king's eldest son, Prince Christian, was born. The king and queen had been married since 1572, and two daughters had been born of the marriage, when at last a son was born at Frederiksborg Castle at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th April 1577. Popular tradition has preserved several strange circumstances in connection with the birth of this prince, who afterwards became one of the most popular kings of Denmark. An old peasant announced to the king in the previous autumn that a mermaid had appeared to him and commanded him to tell the king that the queen was to be delivered of a son who should be counted among the most renowned princes in the northern countries. The infant prince was christened on Trinity Sunday, the 2nd June, at Copenhagen, with the solemnities and festivities usual on such occasions, and among those who attended the ceremony and had an opportunity on the two following days of being edified by the stories of the virtuous Susanna and David and Goliath, which the students of the university acted in the courtyard of the castle, was Tycho Brahe, to whom doubtless more