The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1857-02-26
Grmpmanfe, G0ufatiou
A SWEDISH TALE.

In Falun, a mining Gown in Sweden, hum
dred years and more ago, yound mixer kiss.
&c his fair bride and said to her:
Son st. Lucia's Day our love will be bless
ed with the priests hand. Then we shall be
husband and wife, and we will build us little
nest Of our own"
"And peace and love shall dwell in it,'' said
the beautiful bride, with sweet smile, "for
thou ant nv all in all, and without thee " ould
choose to be in my grave.o
But when the priest, in proclaiming their
bans in the church for the second time before
ST. Lucia's Day, pronounced the words, g II,
now, any one can show the reason whv these
persons should not be united in the bonds of
matrimony," Death was at hand. The young
man, as he passed her house The next morning
in his black mining garb, already wore his
shroud. He raped upon her window and said
~ Good morning "-but never returned to bid
her good evening. He never came back from
the mine; and all in vain she embroidered for
him on that very morning black cravat with
red border for tae wedding day. This she
laid carefully away, and never ceased to
monrn and weep for him.
Meanwhile, time passed on; the Seven
Years war was fought the partition of Po-
land took place America became free the
French revolution and the long war began /;
Napoleon subdued Prussia, and the English
bombarded Copenhagen. The husbandrnan
sowed and reaped, the miller ground, and the
smith hammered, and miners dug after the
veins Of metal in their subterranean work.
shops. As the miners Of Falnn, in the year
1909, a little before or after st. Johns Day,
were excavating and opening, between two
shafts, full three hundred ellis below the sur
face Of the ground, they dug from the rubbish
and vitrol water the body Of young man, en-
tirely saturated with iron-vitroI, but otherwise
undecayed and unaltered--so that one could
distinguish his features and age as well as il ne
had died only an hour before, or had fallen
asleep for a little while at his work.
But when they had brought him out to the
light Of day, father and mother, friends and
acquaintances, had been long dead, and no
one could identify the sleeping youth, or tell
anything OF his misfortune, till she came, who
was once the betrothed of that miner who had
one day gone to the mine and never returned.
Gray and shrivelled, she came to the place,
hobbling upon crutch, and recognized her
bridegroom, when, more in joyful ,ecstacy than
pain, she sank down upon the beloved form
As soon as she had recovered her composur e.,
she exclaimed: /" It is my betrothed, whom
have mourned for, for fifty years, asd whom
God now permits me to see once more before
die. A week before the wedding time he
went under the earth, and never returned. -
All the bystanders were moved to tears as they
beheld the former bride, wasted and feeble
old woman, and the bridegroom still in the
beauty Of youth; and how, after the lapse Of
fifty years, her youthful love awoke again.
But he never opened his mouth to smile, nor
his eyes to recognize and she, finally, as the
only one belonging to him and having any
right to him, had him carried to her own little
room, till grave could be prepared in the
church-yard. The next day when all was
ready and the miners came to take him away,
black silk cravat, tied IL around bis neck, and
then accompanied him in her Sunday garb, as
il it were their wedding day, and not the day
of his burial. As they laid him in the grave in
the church-yard, she said :'G Sleep well now,
for few days, in thy cold bridal bed, and let
notthe time seem too long to thee. I have
now but little more to do, and will come soon.
and then will be day again. As she was GO
ing away she looked back once and said -
"What the earth has once restored, il will not
a second time withhold @-'