THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW 
21 
war Admiral Wachtmeister himself, after which he was knighted under 
tlie name Tordenskjold. 
Most of the popular stories told about him are from the time he 
commanded Lowendal’s Galley, as for instance the much quoted 
“ ‘Things are going merrily,’ said Tordenskjold, he had one man left, 
and the fore rigging fell overboard.” 
Once he went on shore with a few followers to reconnoitre in Skane, 
but was attacked by Swedish dragoons. His men ran away, and 
Tordenskjold just saved himself by cutting off the hand of the Swedish 
dragoon who was about to seize him and jumping into the sea, where 
he dived to escape the bullets that whistled around him as he swam to 
his boat. The men who had deserted him were flogged at the masthead. 
Once he charged and pursued a frigate much larger than his own until 
his ammunition ran out, when he sent word to the enemy asking whether 
he would lend him some powder to continue the fight or whether the 
commander would come on board for a glass of wine. The latter 
affair very nearly cost him his command, but then, as on many other 
occasions, the king was his champion against the jealousy of his 
superiors. Another time he 
sailed up to Goteborg and de¬ 
clared that he was ready to 
fight if the commander would 
send out a ship of equal size 
to meet him. It was the kind 
of bravado that his age de¬ 
lighted in. 
The great victories that 
will preserve Tordenskj old’s 
name in history took place 
in connection with Charles 
XII’s invasion of Norway. 
The Swedish king had in¬ 
vested the fortress of Fred- 
riksten preparatory to ad¬ 
vancing on Akershus and the 
capital. Tordenskjold then 
conceived the idea, which was 
the central one in all his oper¬ 
ations, of cutting off the 
Swedish communications on 
the long, exposed coast that 
fronted toward Denmark. 
With this in view, he made his View of Abraham Lehn’s House in Christians- 
successful surprise attack on W t ?“ Tordenskjold Lived with His 
.1 0 Tin . i n Servant Rold and Where His Gay Parties Were 
the Swedish fleet in the small Held 
