DENMARK 



1762 



DENMARK 



KRONBORG CASTLE, SCENE OF THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET 



Here, or it may have been in the grounds of the predecessor of this castle of the Middle Ages, 

 occurred the scenes immortalized in Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet. The castle is on the little 

 island of Elsinore, off the northern coast of Denmark, and within sight of the shores of Sweden. 

 In the stormy times of long ago it was both a fortress and residence of the Vikings, and within its 

 walls is the tomb of Holger Danska, the founder of Denmark. The story of Hamlet came out of 

 the dawn of the thirteenth century, and although Ophelia's name did not appear in tne early version, 

 yet tradition has fixed upon the sequestered spot in the castle ground where she was buried. The 

 scenes of the tragedy and the grave of Hamlet are pointed out to tourists. 



in the saying that "Few have too little, still 

 fewer too much." 



A tiny headland off an island in the Liim- 

 fiord is looked upon by careful authorities as 

 the possible burial place of Hamlet, though 

 residents of Copenhagen insist that he is buried 

 at Helsingor, or Elsinore, in their neighbor- 

 hood. A traveler tells that he asked a Dane 

 at Helsingor where Hamlet's grave was to be 

 found, and was told that it was never built 

 up until early spring, so that it might be fresh 

 for the American and English tourists to chip 

 up and carry away as souvenirs. 



Denmark has 66.2 per cent of its land under 

 cultivation, as against 15.4 per cent in the 

 United States and .8 per cent in Canada. 



Each year the United States imports hun- 

 dreds of thousands of dollars' worth of pebbles 

 for grinding ore and minerals, and the best 

 of these pebbles come from Denmark. In 

 recent years, too, the largest importation has 

 been from that country. 



Cooperative dairying and farming have 

 worked wonders for the agricultural class in 

 Denmark. Through this system the peasant 

 farmer, with his few acres and three or four 



cows, is assured a market as positively as is the 

 owner of large interests, and anything like a 

 monopoly is made impossible. 



Practically all the Danish farmers to-day own 

 the land which they farm, whereas at the be- 

 ginning of the nineteenth century most of them 

 were serfs. Nothing illustrates better than this 

 the progressive character of the people. 



The cottage in which Hans Christian Ander- 

 sen was born and spent his early youth is still 

 to be seen in Odense. 



Consult Harvey and Reppien's Denmark and 

 the Danes; Thomas's Denmark, Past and Pres- 

 ent. 



Related Subjects. The following articles in 

 these volumes will add to the general informa- 

 tion on Denmark given above: 



CITIES AND TOWNS 



Aarhuus 

 Copenhagen 



Canute 

 Christian 

 Cimbri 

 Frederick VHI 



Faroe 



Greenland 



Iceland 



Odense 



HISTORY 



Hamlet 



Northmen 



Schleswig-Holstein 



ISLANDS 



Saint Thomas 

 West Indies, Danish 

 Zealand 



