“What comes with sin goes with sorrow,” and he resolved to submit his money to the water-ordeal, thinking that the ill-got money would sink to the bottom, and what was honestly acquired swim on the top.  He accordingly cast all his money into the water, and only one solitary farthing swam.  With this he bought a cat, and he went to sea and visited foreign parts.  At length he chanced to come to a place where the people were sadly plagued by an enormous number of rats and mice, and as his cat had had kittens by this time, he acquired great wealth by selling them.  So he came home to Jutland, and built himself a house, which he called Katholm.

There was one time a poor sailor out of Ribe, who came to a foreign island whose inhabitants were grievously plagued with mice.  By good luck he had a cat of his own on board, and the people of the island gave him so much gold for it that he went home as fast as he could to fetch more cats, and by this traffic he in a short time grew so rich that he had no need of any more.  Some time after, when he was on his deathbed, he bequeathed a large sum of money for the building of Ribe Cathedral, and a proof of this is still to be seen in a carving over the east door of the church, representing a cat and four mice.  The door is called Cat-head Door (Kathoved Dor).

THE MAGICIAN’S DAUGHTER

Just on the Finland frontiers there is situated a high mountain, which, on the Swedish side, is covered with beautiful copsewood, and on the other with dark pine-trees, so closely ranked together, and so luxuriant in shade, that one might almost say the smallest bird could not find its way through the thickets.  Below the copsewood there stands a chapel with the image of St. George, as guardian of the land and as a defence against dragons, if there be such, and other monsters of paganism, while, on the other side, on the borders of the dark firwood, are certain cottages inhabited by wicked sorcerers, who have, moreover, a cave cut so deep into the mountain that it joins with the bottomless abyss, whence come all the demons that assist them.  The Swedish Christians who dwelt in the neighbourhood of this mountain thought it would be necessary, besides the chapel and statue of St. George, to choose some living protector, and therefore selected an ancient warrior, highly renowned for his prowess in the battle-field, who had, in his old age, become a monk.  When this man went to take up his abode upon the mountains, his only son (for he had formerly lived as a married man in the world) would on no account leave him, but lived there also, assisting his father in his duties as watcher, and in the exercises of prayer and penitence, fully equalling the example that was now afforded him as he had formerly done his example as a soldier.

The life led by those two valiant champions is said to have been most admirable and pious.