Steen Blicher

The Rector of Veilbye

The classic Danish thriller dubbed 'The First Crime Novel.' The trial of Pastor S ren Jensen Quist of Vejlby took place at Aarhus in 1626. The trial centered around the unexplained disappearance in 1607 of a farm laborer named Jesper Hovgaard who was employed at Pastor Quist's rectory. Fifteen years later, in 1622, human remains were unearthed on the grounds of the rectory. The bones were believed to belong to Hovgaard and word soon spread that the Reverend Quist had slaughtered him and tried to conceal the crime. During the police investigation, two local men, who had past animosity toward Quist, testified that they witnessed the cleric murder Hovgaard while in a drunken rage. The Reverend protested his innocence but was found guilty and executed by decapitation on July 20, 1626. In 2006, 'The Rector of Veilbye' was selected for inclusion in the Cultural Canon of Denmark by the Danish Ministry of Culture. During the ceremony, an official declared that, "the style illuminates elegiac pain and discomfort in an eerily intense drama, and the story is difficult to shake off." Renowned Scandinavian critic S ren Baggesen stated "Blicher is not just the first of Danish literature's great storytellers, he is one of the few tragic poets, Danish literature has ever had."