Holy Andrew's church still stands over yonder. Not that one with
the twin towers. That has another story to tell, one that was believed
to be half or wholly legend, too, until a recent restoration of
it brought to light under the whitewash of the reformation mural
paintings which furnished the lacking proof that it was all true.
It was in the days of Holy Andrew that the pious knight, Sir Asker
Ryg, going to the war, told the lady Inge to build a new church.
The folk-song tells what was the matter with the old one "with wall
of clay, straw-thatched and grim":--
The wall it was mouldy and foul and green,
And rent with a crack full deep;
Time gnaweth ever with sharper tooth,
Leaves little to mend, I ween.
Nothing was left to mend in the church of Fjenneslev, so she must
build a new. "It is not fitting," says the knight in the song, "to
pray to God in such a broken wrack. The wind blows in and the rain
drips":--
Christ has gone to His heavenly home;
No more a manger beseems Him.
"And," he whispers to her at the leave-taking, "an' thou bearest
to our house a boy, build a tower upon the church; if a daughter
come, build but a spire.
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