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.  They were homeless, starved-out wretches who stuck close to the harbour, swam among the piles under the bridges, and ate refuse that was thrown in the water.  They never ventured into the city, which was owned by the black rats.

But gradually, as the gray rats increased in number they grew bolder.  At first they moved over to some waste places and condemned old houses which the black rats had abandoned.  They hunted their food in gutters and dirt heaps, and made the most of all the rubbish that the black rats did not deign to take care of.  They were hardy, contented and fearless; and within a few years they had become so powerful that they undertook to drive the black rats out of Malmoe.  They took from them attics, cellars and storerooms, starved them out or bit them to death for they were not at all afraid of fighting.

When Malmoe was captured, they marched forward in small and large companies to conquer the whole country.  It is almost impossible to comprehend why the black rats did not muster themselves into a great, united war-expedition to exterminate the gray rats, while these were still few in numbers.  But the black rats were so certain of their power that they could not believe it possible for them to lose it.  They sat still on their estates, and in the meantime the gray rats took from them farm after farm, city after city.  They were starved out, forced out, rooted out.  In Skane they had not been able to maintain themselves in a single place except Glimminge castle.