s, and in need of rest. He gave
his last days to healing the wounds the sword had struck. Valdemar,
the Victor, became Valdemar, the Law-giver. The laws of the country
had hitherto made themselves. They were the outgrowths of the
people's ancient customs, passed down by word of mouth through the
generations, and confirmed on Thing from time to time. King
Valdemar gave Denmark her first written laws that judged between
man and man, in at least one of her provinces clear down into our
day. "With law shall land be built" begins his code. "The law," it
says, "must be honest, just, reasonable, and according to the ways
of the people. It must meet their needs, and speak plainly so that
all men may know and understand what the law is. It is not to be
made in any man's favor, but for the needs of all them who live in
the land." That is its purpose, and "no man shall judge (condemn)
the law which the King has given and the country chosen; neither
shall he (the King) take it back without the will of the people."
That tells the story of Valdemar's day, and of the people who are so
near of kin with ourselves. They were not sovereign and subjects;
they were a chosen king and a free people, working together "with
law land to build."

King Valdemar was married twice. The folk-song represents Dagmar as
urging the King with her dying breath

"that Bengerd, my lord, that base bad dame
you never to wife will take."

Bengerd, or Berengaria, was a Portuguese princess whom Valdemar
married in spite of the warning, two years later. As the people had
loved the fair Dagmar, so they hated the proud Southern beauty,
whether with reason or not. The story of her "morning gift," as it
has come down to us through the mists of time, is very different
from the other. She asks the King, so the ballad has it, to give her
Samsoe, a great and fertile island, and "a golden crown[3] for every
maid," but he tells her not to be quite so greedy:

There be full many an honest maid
with not dry bread to eat.

[Footnote 3: A coin, probably.]

Undismayed, Bengerd objects that Danish women have no business to
wear silken gowns, and that a good horse is not for a peasant lad.
The King replies patiently that what a woman can buy she may wear
for him, and that he will not take the lad's horse if he can feed
it. Bengerd is not satisfied. "Let bar the land with iron chains" is
her next proposal, that neither man nor woman enter it without
pa