It is not more than four stories
high; but it is so ponderous that an ordinary farmhouse, which stands on
the same estate, looks like a little children's playhouse in comparison.
The big stone house has such thick ceilings and partitions that there is
scarcely room in its interior for anything but the thick walls. The
stairs are narrow, the entrances small; and the rooms few. That the
walls might retain their strength, there are only the fewest number of
windows in the upper stories, and none at all are found in the lower
ones. In the old war times, the people were just as glad that they could
shut themselves up in a strong and massive house like this, as one is
nowadays to be able to creep into furs in a snapping cold winter. But
when the time of peace came, they did not care to live in the dark and
cold stone halls of the old castle any longer. They have long since
deserted the big Glimminge castle, and moved into dwelling places where
the light and air can penetrate.
At the time when Nils Holgersson wandered around with the wild geese,
there were no human beings in Glimminge castle; but for all that, it was
not without inhabitants. Every summer there lived a stork couple in a
large nest on the roof. In a nest in the attic lived a pair of gray
owls; in the secret passages hung bats; in the kitchen oven lived an old
cat; and down in the cellar there were hundreds of old black rats.
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