t is all we need say about King Knud, but it must be said of Bishop
Absolon that he was a wise patron of knightly arts and historical
learning and encouraged the great scholar Saxo Grammaticus to write his
famous "History of Denmark," in which were gathered all the old Danish
tales that could be learned from the skalds and poets and found in the
monasteries of the age. Absolon, who had loved and cared for the princes
Knud and Valdemar since their childhood, died in the year 1201 and King
Knud followed him a few years later, leaving the throne to his brother
Valdemar.

_THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF VALDEMAR II._

Prosperous and glorious was the kingdom of Denmark under Valdemar II. in
the early part of his reign, though misery was his lot during many years
of his life. By his victories he won the title of "Sejr," or "the
conqueror," and his skill and goodness as a ruler won him the love of his
people, while the Danes of to-day look upon him as one of the best and
noblest of their kings. He was long regarded by them as the perfect model
of a noble knight and royal hero, and his first queen, Margrete of
Bohemia, was called by the people "Dagmar," or "Day's Maiden," from their
admiration of her gentleness and beauty. In many of their national songs
she is represented as a fair, fragile, golden-haired princess, mild and
pure as a saint, the only sin she could think of to confess on her
death-bed being that she had put on her best dress and plaited her hair
with bright ribbons before going to mass. While the Danes thus regard the
memory of Queen Dagmar, they have no words too bad to use in speaking of
Valdemar's second queen, the black-haired Berangaria, whose name became
with them a by-word for a vile woman.

But Valdemar's tale is largely one of sorrow and suffering and rarely has
monarch had to bear so cruel a fate as was his during many unhappy years
of his life.

Valdemar was the son of Valdemar I., and brother of King Knud, for whom
as a prince he fought bravely, putting down the Sleswick rebels, who had
been stirred to rebellion by the German emperor, and conquering his
enemy, Count Adolf of Holstein. Succeeding his brother Knud in 1202, his
first exploit was the conquest of Pomerania, which Knud had won before
him. This was now added to the Danish dominions, and in 1217 the German
emperor of that date granted to him and the future kings of Denmark all
the territories north of the Elbe and the Elde. Thus