Byskov's most dangerous resident
Tang Rasmus in the village pond
He lives in the village pond. Nobody has seen him - because once you have, you're done for.
Every child in Byskov has learned it: don't go too close to the village pond, because down there lives Tang Rasmus ("Seaweed Rasmus"). He lies in the mud, waiting to drag careless children down into the deep.
The legend of him is older than Byskov's pond and comes from the coast at Guldborgsund. Arne Heyn, who grew up in Skelby on South Falster, writes in the 1999 yearbook of the Lolland-Falster Historical Society that children were warned: down at the beach you had to watch out for "TangRasmus", who lay waiting to drag people down into the deep.
Tang Rasmus also turns up in dialect. In the collections of the Ømålsordbogen (the Dictionary of the Danish Island Dialects), tang-rasmus is recorded from Lolland as the fishermen's word for the sea itself. If someone fell in the water and came up again safely, it was said that he'd "been down to visit tang-rasmus".
Tang Rasmus has even been to sea. In the 2007 DR documentary Dannebrog - på togt med kongeskibet (Dannebrog - a voyage aboard the royal yacht), Crown Prince Frederik tells how an officer frightened him and Prince Joachim with the monster Tang-Rasmus, said to live in a cramped storeroom deep inside the ship.
But let's be clear about one thing. People in Skelby, on Lolland and aboard the royal yacht can say what they like: the truth, of course, is that Tang Rasmus lives in the village pond in Byskov. Every child in the village has always known it.
Nobody in Byskov has ever seen Tang Rasmus. Because once you've seen him, you're done for. You can hear him: a bubbling among the duckweed on a still summer evening, a splash when nobody has thrown anything in. But seeing him - that you only do once.
The mason's Ove got off with a fright. One winter he walked out onto the ice in his clogs before Svend Suhr had passed it as safe, and went straight through. He came back up - he'd been down to visit Tang Rasmus. Luckily, he didn't see him.
Sources: Arne Heyn, "Et møde i landskabet med historie, sagn og myter" (A meeting in the landscape with history, legend and myth), Lolland-Falsters Historiske Samfunds Årbog 1999 · Anette Jensen in Jysk, ømål, rigsdansk mv., Aarhus University 2011 · DR, Dannebrog - på togt med kongeskibet, 2007 · and every child in Byskov.