Rats are not held in very high esteem by other animals; but the black
rats at Glimminge castle were an exception. They were always mentioned
with respect, because they had shown great valour in battle with their
enemies; and much endurance under the great misfortunes which had
befallen their kind. They nominally belong to a rat-folk who, at one
time, had been very numerous and powerful, but who were now dying out.
During a long period of time, the black rats owned Skane and the whole
country. They were found in every cellar; in every attic; in larders and
cowhouses and barns; in breweries and flour-mills; in churches and
castles; in every man-constructed building. But now they were banished
from all this--and were almost exterminated. Only in one and another old
and secluded place could one run across a few of them; and nowhere were
they to be found in such large numbers as in Glimminge castle.
When an animal folk die out, it is generally the human kind who are the
cause of it; but that was not the case in this instance. The people had
certainly struggled with the black rats, but they had not been able to
do them any harm worth mentioning. Those who had conquered them were an
animal folk of their own kind, who were called gray rats.
These gray rats had not lived in the land since time immemorial, like
the black rats, but descended from a couple of poor immigrants who
landed in Malmoe from a Libyan sloop about a hundred years ago.
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