nor the place of his birth is now known with
certainty. He is reported to have been orphaned at an early age, and
subsequently, to have been adopted and reared by the renowned Royal
Chamberlain, Christopher Walkendorf. After receiving an excellent
education, he became rector of a Latin school at Helsingoer, the Elsinore
of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, and later was appointed to a pastorate in the
same city. In this latter office he was singularly successful. Lysander,
one of his biographers, says of him that he was exceptionally well
educated, known as a fine orator and noted as a successful author and
translator. His hymns prove that he was also an earnest and warm-hearted
Christian. The peoples of Helsingoer loved him dearly, and for many years,
after he had left their city, continued to "remember him with gifts of
love for his long and faithful service among them". In 1583, to the
sorrow of his congregation he had accepted a call to Malmoe, a city on the
eastern shore of the Sound. But in this new field his earnest Evangelical
preaching, provoked the resentment of a number of his most influential
parishioners, who, motivated by a wish to blacken his name and secure his
removal, instigated a suit against him for having mismanaged an
inheritance left to his children by his first wife. The children
themselves appeared in his defence, however, and expressed their complete
satisfaction with his administration of their property; and the trumped
up charge was wholly disproved. But his enemies still wanted to have him
removed and, choosing a new method of attack, forwarded a petition to the
king in which they claimed that "Master Hans Chrestensen Sthen because of
weakness and old age was incompetent to discharge his duties as a
pastor", and asked for his removal to the parishes of Tygelse and
Klagstrup. Though the king is reported to have granted the petition,
other things seem to have intervened to prevent its execution, and the
ill-used pastor appears to have remained at Malmoe until his death, the
date of which is unknown.

Sthen's fame as a poet and hymnwriter rests mainly on two thin volumes of
poetry. _A Small Handbook, Containing Diverse Prayers and Songs Together
with Some Rules for Life, Composed in Verse_, which appeared in 1578, and
_A Small Wander Book_, published in 1591. The books contain both a number
of translations and some original poems. In some of the latter Sthen
readopts the style of the old folk songs with t