This is surely the masterwork of the Nobel Prize winning Danish author, Johannes V. Jensen. The book mixes facts from Denmarks history from 1497 to 1543 with the fictional life and emotional turmoil of the student, Mikkel Thgersen. Mikkel's life is contrasted with the life and times of the king of the period, Christian II, and we follow them through the bloodbath of Stockholm, war, civil war wich were the reason for the fall of the king. Mikkel is a person who cannot make friends with the world and himself and therefore kills, steals and rapes - all because of his dispair: It is impossible for him to live, because he is out of touch with what is really valuable: The love of a woman, his small hometown's life, nature. This book is a masterpiece, not because of its storyline but because of the dramatic poetic images, the wild visions, the modern way of describing the most extreme emotions in a man.