Tradition has it that the plague came to Denmark on a ghost ship that beached itself on the coast of northern Jutland.

Those who went aboard found the dead swollen and black faced, but stayed long enough to take everything of value from it and thereby introduced the fleas that carried the disease into the population.

People began to die by the thousands.

During the ensuing two years plague has swept through Denmark like a forest fire.

In Ribe twelve parishes ceased to exist in a single diocese.

A few towns simply died with no one left alive.

The general figures for plague in 1349–50 range between thirty-three percent and sixty-six percent of the people of Denmark.

City dwellers have often been harder hit than farm folk leading many people to abandon towns altogether.