detained on the island by a storm till the 29th, so that she had time enough to see everything of interest, and to converse with Tycho and Vedel on the various topics which the scenery of the island and the curiosities of the observatory and laboratory suggested. At table Tycho called the queen's attention to Vedel's historical researches and his collections of ancient ballads and other folk-lore, a subject in which she took a great interest. She asked Vedel for a copy of these ballads or Kjæmpeviser, which he promised to send as soon as he could, and this incident gave rise to Vedel's collection of ancient ballads being printed five years later.[1] The queen must have enjoyed herself well (she is said to have had a taste for chemistry), and two months afterwards, on the 23rd August, she brought her father and mother[2] and a cousin to see Uraniborg, and was on this occasion attended by a large suite. The Duke was also fond of chemistry, which in those days was a fashionable occupation, owing to the prevailing opinion that it would sooner or later lead to the discovery of the art of making gold.[3]
King Frederick did not accompany the queen on either of these occasions, and it is not certain that he ever was at Hveen.[4] In contemporary documents and in Tycho's own writings there is no allusion to the king's having visited
- ↑ Wegener's Life of Vedel, p. 148. The reader may recollect that Vedel's edition of the Kjæmpeviser is referred to in Note K. to "The Lady of the Lake." The queen wrote somewhere at Uraniborg her motto "Gott verlest die Seinen nicht."
- ↑ Elizabeth, daughter of King Frederick I. of Denmark.
- ↑ Tycho told the Landgrave about this visit in a letter dated 18th January 1587 (Epist. Astron., p. 36). In March 1592 the queen wrote to T. Brahe requesting him to send her father a small barrel of emery, as the Duke had heard that some had lately been found at Hveen, and for herself she wanted some "burnt antimony," such as she had got from him before. Friis, Breve og Aktstykker angaaende T. Brahe, Copenhagen, 1875, p. 5.
- ↑ The king was in Jutland and North Slesvig during the last days of June (Wegener's Life of Vedel, p. 149), and that he did not accompany the queen in August is evident from Tycho's letter to the Landgrave just quoted.
