176 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



appear particularly lively. Theatricals are sometimes 

 held in the ball-room of the largest hotel. 



Linnaeus here met with a local traditional ballad 

 concerning a great fallen oak, which he quotes at full 

 length ; and he goes into raptures over the fine castle 

 of Lindholm, built by Count Bengt Oxenstierna, its 

 gardens and its plantations, mentioning particularly 

 how the great walnut trees stood the hard winter of 

 1 740 (six years previous), being sheltered by the castle 

 on the north side. 1 



The bath in the garden, says he, is a masterpiece, 

 the finest in Sweden, built on the model of the Roman 

 baths, with frigidarium, calidarium, and tepidarium, and 

 having white and black marble floors ; the walls of the 

 calidarium glistening with quartz and shining pyrites, 

 mother-o'-pearl and spiral-formed shells. Nothing is 

 known of this fine castle of Lindholm now. 



Lidkoping was en fete with fireworks, illuminations, 

 and green boughs for St. John's Eve. Linnaeus says 

 the Swedish summer is in its highest beauty ' when 

 the fresh shoots of the fir illuminate the woods.' The 

 fir-trees are decked for midsummer with the long white 

 buds which country people call the candles. On St. 

 John's Day Linnaeus listened to a learned preacher in 

 Lidkoping Church ; of which he only says it is of stone 

 and well cleaned (swept and dusted and I fear me 



1 Walnuts bud and blossom too late in the year to be of profit in 

 Sweden. They were not in leaf when I passed here in the middle 

 of June. The climate of Sweden seems to have grown harder since 

 Linngeus's day, from various plants he mentions as thriving. 



