The countess was depicted in a modern flowing gown with pearl trimmings and, following the English fashion, she wore her hair loose; the little velvet hat was a special sign of her noble descent. This tame wolf symbolises her husband, Corfitz Ulfeldt. The small fawning dog was thus a kind of standard accessory, a familiar and conventional symbol, whereas the tame wolf was a more personal symbol linked specifically to Leonora Christina.
Faithfulness was an important spiritual and moral yardstick: a principle on which she had to take a stand and by which posterity would judge her β for better or for worse.
When the young librarian Sophus Birket-Smith first published the work in , it proved to be a huge hit with a delighted readership interested in all things historical and national; it even became highly fashionable to name girls after the Danish heroine. This fervour had barely subsided when, in , art historian Julius Lange was the first to label Jammers Minde morally reprehensible. Jammers Minde was categorised as harmful popular reading, given that Leonora Christina put allegiance to Ulfeldt higher than allegiance to the state and the concept of justice.
Leonora Christina may indeed have been an admirable woman and a national treasure, but fidelity β a quality that was, according to Westenholz, the truly female side of her personality β made her an awful warning as well.
As bride and mother you bit back, but alone you were gentle. Bold in your shift, you bared your teeth, she-wolf. Your memory of lament is to us a miracle of strength.
