Northern mythology

262 DANISH TRADITIONS.
animal would not go forwards, and the lad could not get off his hack,
even when a couple of millers' men endeavoured to assist hira. He was
therefore obliged to ride to the priest. " Art thou there ? " said the good
man; " go and take the horse back to the field, and play nie no more such
pranks ^"
He was a very holy man, performed many miracles, was
on that account made bishop of Viborg, and after his
death canonized by the pope.
Before his sanctity was known, he was once expelled by
the monks from the convent, and driven away ;
but meeting
one of the conventual servants, who had been sent
out to fetch water, he besought him to let him drink out
of his pitcher. He did so, when Kield turned the water
to wine, which he ordered the servant to
take to the convent
with his greeting to the brothers, and the request
that they would drink that wine to his health. He was
then speedily recalled and received with great joy.
One morning early, when reading mass at the altar, the
lights were suddenly extinguished, so that it was quite
dark ;
but he, nevertheless, continued reading the mass.
After his death, the report of his sanctity reached the
pope at Rome, who caused his name to
catalogue of saints.
be enrolled in the
His body was laid in a costly shrine,
and suspended by golden chains from the vaulted roof of
the chapel. His richly gilded coffin, called St. KieUFs
ark, was held in great veneration until the Reformation,
when it was taken down and placed behind the altar in
the cathedral, where it perished in the great fire.
1
Rhode, Haderslev-Amt, quoted by Miillenhoff, p. 600.
2 The oldest and most remarkable town in Jutland. From the remotest
times the Danish monarchs on their accession received homage at Viborg,
and here were held the assemblies of the States of the kingdom. Its
venerable cathedral perished by fire in 1726. In its crypt masses were
sung for the soul of the murdered king, Eric Clipping (a.d. 1287), which
were continued till long after the Reformation.