THE A ME RICA N-SCANDINA VIA N RE VIE JV 
53 0 
time, D. G. Moldenhawer, a man 
of great erudition, widely trav¬ 
elled, and possessed with a veri¬ 
table passion for collecting. In 
fact his zeal carried him so far 
that he did not even hestitate to 
pilfer precious old manuscripts 
from foreign libraries where he 
was studying and carry them 
home to enrich the stores of the 
Royal Library in Copenhagen. 
In justice to him it should be 
said, however, that this unright¬ 
eous procedure was not the only 
means by which he augmented its 
stores, for during his incumbency 
more valuable private collections 
were added to the library by pur¬ 
chase or gift than under any 
other librarian before or since. 
His knowledge of the institution 
was marvellous. He was there 
early and late, and once he even went there in the middle of the night. 
It was after an evening party where he had been inveigled 
into a dispute on some scholarly matter which he wished to 
settle immediately by reference to a certain book. When at mid¬ 
night he entered the great reading-room suffused with the spectral 
light of the moon, he caught sight of a figure resembling a huge, 
shaggy animal which retreated from one stack to another. Molden¬ 
hawer gave chase, and finally cornered the apparition at one end of 
the room, where it was revealed as the secretary of the library, Ek- 
kard, an eccentric creature who, to save himself the trouble of going 
home to his lonely dwelling, would sometimes spend the night in 
the library, protected against the cold by a large fur coat. No 
wonder the artillerists of the arsenal near by thought ghosts walked 
at night among the tall stacks of the old library building. 
During the nineteenth century all the floors of the building were 
taken into use for the library, and even then it was cramped for space. 
Besides the danger of fire in the dry timber of the old structure made 
an added reason for moving. Nevertheless it was not until after 
the conflagration of 1884 had destroyed the royal castle of Christians- 
borg and threatened the very existence of the adjacent library, that 
the authorities realized the imperative necessity for action, and it was 
not until 1906 that the new building could be dedicated. The books 
had then been moved in vans across a temporary bridge from their old 
