264 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN AC US 



is at no great distance from Lund ; and in less than half 

 an hour the two students are in another country. 



Elsinore had no especial attraction for Linnaeus ; ht? 

 cared nought for the traditions of Holgar the Dane, and 

 he had not read Shakespere. It is doubtful if c Hamlet r 

 had then been translated into Swedish. It is translated 

 into Danish now I am told by Norwegians, who think 

 it clever (!), that many readers hold it even second to 

 Ibsen. Hamlet's and Ophelia's graves had not ther. 

 been invented. 



These tombs were unknown to Hans Andersen, who 

 lived at Elsinore not in his childhood, I think, though 

 Hare says so, but when he was nineteen and studying 

 with the rector of Marienlyst. The Kronberg has really 

 little to do with any poetical prince of Denmark, for 

 ' Hamlet had in fact no especial connection with Elsi- 

 nore : he was the son of a Jutland pirate in the insignifi- 

 cant island of Mors.' l Still the platform of the Kronberg 

 will be famous as long as Danish history lasts ; and no 

 Danish history will be accepted as complete without 

 Shakespere's c Hamlet ' and his woful tale. 



Carl's journey hence, probably the easiest he ever 

 took, is the most difficult of any to his biographer. 

 Turton says he travelled across Denmark to Hamburg. 

 Stoever of Altona, his personal friend in later life, who 

 had abundant means of knowing all about his hero's life 

 in these parts, says he went through Jutland, Schleswig, 

 and Holstein ; most writers say he visited Copenhagen ; 

 1 Hare. 



