Stikkord: Norway

The sad ghost at Austad manor

Det er mange som hevder å ha sett henne, den sortkledde kvinnen som romsterer i et rom i andre etasje i ærverdige Austad gård, eller glir umerkelig gjennom dørene fra rom til rom, uten å sette sine ben på gulvet. Hun ser ut som om hun har all verdens sorger på sine skuldre, og det var nok slik hun også følte det da hun døde 2. januar i 1706.

Maleri av Austad gård
The Austad manor in Drammen, Norway, painted by Jacob Kielland Somme in 1918.

Many claim to have seen her, the black-clad woman wandering around a room on the second floor of Austad manor in Drammen, Norway, or slipping imperceptibly through the doors from room to room, without setting her feet on the floor.

She looks as if she has all the sorrows of the world on her shoulders, and that is probably how she felt when she died on January 2, 1706. There must have been a tense atmosphere at the dining table this morning when Governor Paul Glud and his wife Inger Marie, née Bording, ate a late breakfast in the manor at Austad.

There was only Glud, his wife of the same age, and a maid present. Whether they had the big conversation about what the new year would bring, no one knows, but it was a poorly kept secret among the bourgeoisie in the city that the powerful county governor had begun a relationship with another woman, 20 years younger than himself.

Paul or Poul Glud was Danish, and it was said that his aunt had helped him a lot on his way to becoming county governor and thus the King’s representative in Buskerud. His aunt Sofie Amalie Moth was publicly known to be the mistress of King Christian the Fifth, and had the best contacts in the innermost circles of power. Perhaps that was also why county governor Glud did not care much about the morality of the time. It seemed as if he did as he wanted.

What they talked about, Mr and Mrs Glud, on that second day in 1706, we will never know, nor whether the topic was the county governor’s infidelity. The relationship between the governor and his young mistress was the big topic of conversation among the city’s citizens. It was also bad that the mistress was the daughter of perhaps the richest of the city’s timber barons, Peder Moss. It was his family who had given the magnificent chandelier to Strømsø Church that still hangs there. Moss was concerned about his reputation, and the relationship between his 23-year-old daughter and the married 44-year-old county magistrate  was a scandal, nothing more, nothing less.

While Mr. and Mrs. Glud were eating, the county magistrate claimed in a later statement to the city bailiff that he suddenly looked out at the snow-covered fields outside the manor, and there he saw a total of three moose, all squinting up towards the manor in the gray winter light. It was a beautiful sight, but the county magistrate thought of hunting and he hurried to get his rifle.

According to his explanation, this is what happened: He sneaks out of the house, and with the weapon in his hands, he sees that the moose are still there and he sees the possibility of an elk steak for dinner. He fumbles with the flint on the rifle, the one that will ignite the gunpowder. He tries several times, and perhaps that is why Inger Marie Bording gets up from the dinner table and goes out to the husband, not to help, but mostly out of curiosity, the county governor himself believes. In any case, the flint is ignited, the shot goes off – and hits Inger Marie Bording in the chest. She dies instantly.

A credible story? Well, it depended a bit on who you asked. Among the bourgeoisie and ordinary people, Glud had little or no sympathy. It didn’t get any better when the county governor (44) married his new girlfriend (23) just a few months after the tragic death. People thought that was a good motive to prove that the county governor was guilty. He got his own wife out of the way so he could marry his young mistress, was an obvious motive. These rumors probably reached the King in Copenhagen, because the county governor was given unpaid leave pending the case against him going to court. For Glud, this was very inconvenient. He had turned Austad farm into a manor house with many employees, and suddenly he had no money to live on. So he had to go to all the rich people in town to beg for money. He went from house to house with private promissory notes in his hands. It was quite a humiliating canossa walk for the county governor himself. It was especially bad when he knocked on the door of his future father-in-law, Peder Moss. Neither Moss nor any of the other citizens of Bragernes and Strømsø would give the county governor so much as a single daler in financial support. Why were the bourgeoisie so dismissive of Glud?

The city of Drammen, ca 1810.

Tord Pedersen, Drammen’s foremost historian, believed it was because Glud had made enemies of the merchants in Drammen long before he got together with Miss Moss. There was an eternal competition between the merchants and the farmers over timber prices and deliveries of timber. Glud often sided with the farmers who were paid too little for timber and planks, he believed. As a result, he became very unpopular among the «plank nobility». Pedersen states that Glud was actually a man with a well-developed sense of justice, and therefore Pedersen would rather believe that the city court’s verdict was wrong. In any case, the court came to the conclusion that the county governor was acquitted of murder. The court determined that it was most likely a tragic accident. But many saw this acquittal as yet another example of class law, where the big ones go free while the small ones would have been convicted. Perhaps that is also why Inge Marie Bording is said to be a ghost that haunts the Austad mansion.

The Austad manor today is a museum, not open for the public.

Daughter beheaded as victim of incest

On February 16, 1699, exactly 326 years ago, both father and daughter were beheaded and burned at Holmennokken, because of a incest. It is perhaps the darkest day in the city of Drammen’s history, because they should have known better.

Here, on the small island of Holmen in the Drammen river, the tragic execution took place. The sword that probably was used, to the right.

Maren Ingvoldsdatter, was happy when she married the chimney sweep at Bragernes, Niels Laurssen. As a single mother, it was not a given that she would be well married. The town’s chimney sweep was well regarded. She was particularly happy because her daughter from a previous marriage, the teenager Barbro Børgesdatter, was also so welcome into the new family. They lived «in Engen» it says in the court record, somewhere along today’s street Engene. At the time the house was a little outside the city center, in rural surroundings.

But when Maren died young in 1691 a lot changed. The sweeper needed a new wife, he believed, and forced his stepdaughter into the role of a wife.. If she didn’t want to share a bed with him, she was beaten and abused.

When the first child was born just before Christmas the same year as her mother died, Barbro knew very well who the father was. Ashamed, she gave a false name, «Johannes». She did not know his last name, she claimed, but said he was a soldier. When the next child came in 1697, she was even more ashamed. This time she gave the child’s father’s name to «the boy Syver Gudmundsen». Whether this was a real or fictional person is not clear from the court records. It only appears that she has confessed to the city bailiff that it is the chimney sweep who is the child’s father. For Barbro, life and the abuse and the relationship with her stepfather became unbearable.

In January 1699 she therefore chose to confide in two neighboring women in Engene, Ingeborg Olsen and Mari Pedersen. She made no secret of the two women who probably hoped and believed in justice. There was good reason for this because incest was often not punished as severely as the penal code of the time, Christian V’s law, said. New thoughts of crime and justice had arrived in several courts and several judges did not want to punish victims.

I accept to die for my serious crime, but I first ask for a priest and communion, so that I may be able to save my soul from eternal damnation.

But there was no mercy for Barbro. The judge told her that she had committed a great sin and had to die. Both father and daughter accepted the verdict, and the daughter said: «I accept to die to die for my serious crime, but I first ask for a priest and communion, so that I may be able to save my soul from eternal damnation.»

The execution took place at Holmen, a small island between the banks of the Drammen river. The judge and the executioner, Niels Flyg wanted to set an example. An old timber house was therefore torn down and broght to the small island. To make it easier to burn, the jugde ordered a lot of barrels of wood to burn together with the timber. Bothe the father and daughter were beheaded by sword and thereafter burned on a fire that could be seen for miles.

Sketch of the city of Drammen, made in the year 1800.

The executioner was satisfied with the match. He received a unit price for executions plus 4 riksdaler for travel and accommodation, when he lived in Christiania, and ten daler for each execution and beheading, a total of 44 riksdaler.   The receipt can still be read: «Anno 1699, on 16 February, the Royal Majesty’s town bailiff, Monseigneur Peder Paulssen, paid me to execute two prisoners with the sword, and later burn the bodies, as well as for my journey, 44 riksdaler, why is acknowledged. Bragernes 16 February 1699, Nicolai Flyg.

It’s as if you can still feel the cold from this February day.

The receit from the beheading.