Hero Tales of the Far North

Hero Tales of the Far North, by
Jacob A. Riis

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Title: Hero Tales of the Far North
Author: Jacob A. Riis
Release Date: May 31, 2004 [eBook #12481]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
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TALES OF THE FAR NORTH***
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HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH

By
JACOB A. RIIS
AUTHOR OF "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" "THE MAKING
OF AN AMERICAN" "THE OLD TOWN," ETC.
New York, 1921

[Illustration: FREDERIKSBORG]

THIS BOOK OF MY DEAD HEROES I DEDICATE TO MY
LIVING HERO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
MAY IT BE MANY YEARS BEFORE THE LAST CHAPTER OF
HIS SPLENDID WHOLESOME LIFE IS WRITTEN IN THE PAGES
OF OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY

FOREWORD
When a man knocks at Uncle Sam's gate, craving admission to his
house, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a
hindrance instead of a help. If now we were to ask what he brings, not
only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this stranger, what
ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country he left that shaped
his hopes and ambitions,--might it not, if the answer were right, be a
help to a better mutual understanding between host and guest? For the
Mayflower did not hold all who in this world have battled for freedom
of home, of hope, and of conscience. The struggle is bigger than that.
Every land has its George Washington, its Kosciusko, its William Tell,
its Garibaldi, its Kossuth, if there is but one that has a Joan d'Arc. What
we want to know of the man is: were its heroes his?

This book is an attempt to ask and to answer that question for my own
people, in a very small and simple way, it is true, but perhaps abler
pens with more leisure than mine may follow the trail it has blazed. I
should like to see some Swede write of the heroes of his noble,
chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight here, though
I count them with my own. I should like to hear the epic of United Italy,
of proud and freedom-loving Hungary, the swan-song of unhappy
Poland, chanted to young America again and again, to help us all
understand that we are kin in the things that really count, and help us
pull together as we must if we are to make the most of our common
country.
These were my--our--heroes, then. Every lad of Northern blood, whose
heart is in the right place, loves them. And he need make no excuses for
any of them. Nor has he need of bartering them for the great of his new
home; they go very well together. It is partly for his sake I have set
their stories down here. All too quickly he lets go his grip on them, on
the new shore. Let him keep them and cherish them with the memories
of the motherland. The immigrant America wants and needs is he who
brings the best of the old home to the new, not he who threw it
overboard on the voyage. In the great melting-pot it will tell its story
for the good of us all.
To those who wonder that I have left the Saga era of the North
untouched, I would say that I have preferred to deal here only with
downright historic figures. For valuable aid rendered in insuring
accuracy I am indebted to the services of Dr. P.A. Rydberg, Dr. J.
Emile Blomén, Gustaf V. Lindner, and Professor Joakim Reinhard. My
thanks are due likewise to many friends, Danes by birth like myself,
who have helped me with the illustrations.
J. A. R. RICHMOND HILL, June, 1910.

CONTENTS
A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA HANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE

TO GREENLAND GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN
ABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH KING
VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG HOW
THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID KING CHRISTIAN IV
GUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING KING AND SAILOR,
HEROES OF COPENHAGEN THE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR
ALONE CARL LINNÉ, KING OF THE FLOWERS NIELS FINSEN,
THE WOLF-SLAYER

A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA
The Eighteenth Century broke upon a noisy family quarrel in the north
of Europe. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the royal hotspur of all