silver thread. Skirts or petticoats were long, worn by the layer and invariably covered by an apron of fine silk or embroidered mull. The upper part of the body was covered by a fabric jacket or blouse, A close-fitting bodice fastened by hooks or laced at the front was worn in some regions. Skirts, jackets and bodices were edged and decorated with flat or patterned silk tape while light scarves were worn around the neck to cover the shoulders and throat. Like the women, men's clothing was made mainly of flax and wool but their knee-breeches were often of leather. Long home-knitted white wollen stockings reached above the knee. In addition to long shirts, men wore several jerseys and jackets. The well-off displayed buttons made of silver although usually they were of tin or even horn. Men and women both generally wore clogs while men often had long, leather top-boots and both men and women wore leather dress shoes with a buckle in front. The artist Frederik Christian Lund, who had travelled across Denmark as a soldier in the First Schleswig War, took an interest in sketching people in local costumes in various parts of the country. He completed his collection of 31 coloured sketches in 1864, publishing them as coloured lithographs in Danske Nationaldragter (Danish National Costumes). Folk tales and legendary figures In 1817, the art historian and writer Just Mathias Thiele began to undertake cataloguing work on a voluntary basis at the Royal Library in Copenhagen where he compiled a short work titled Prøver af danske Folkesagn (Samples of Danish Folktales). This was to lead to far more significant research, inspired partly by the fairy tale collections of the Brothers Grimm and partly by Denmark's growing interest in Romanticism. He travelled around the country, recording and writing up legends, attracting the support of influential figures such as the literary historian Rasmus Nyerup, who wrote a foreword emphasizing the multifaceted significance of the enterprise. His four-volume collection of Danish Folktales (Danske Folkesagn) was published between 1819 and 1823. The manner in which he presented the stories, recording the narratives given by the local people he met, served as an example and working method for subsequent work by Svend Grundtvig, Evald Tang Kristensen, Axel Olrik and Hans Ellekilde who further documented legends and folk tales across Denmark. As Nyreup had foreseen, the work had an added dimension: "Providing material for