Sinclairvisan

However, on 17 June, between Grüneberg (Zielona Góra) and Neustadt (Prudnik), he was overtaken by two Russian officers, captain Kütler and lieutenant Lewitzki, who were dispatched by Münnich with an order to "catch up" the envoy.

The song is narrated by the shepherd Celadon, who tells how a gray-haired old man appears to him and carries him to an unfamiliar area, where he unlocks a door leading into a mountain, and goes in.

The two men enter a castle standing there and find themselves in a well-lit and cool room where 12 kings ("twelve Swedish Carls", i.e. Charles I–XII) sit.

The King, astounded by the man's appearance ("His face was wash'd with blood, / downsaber'd, trampled, beaten, / and the chest which his heart had hid, / coarse shots had received") questions him about the circumstances of his death.

He replies that he was killed by six Russian officers near Breslau, on the way back home from a diplomatic trip he had taken to Turkey, which he briefly explains, also talking about the internal and foreign policy of Sweden at the time.

The dead king, in a fit of anger, wants to lead the troops himself in order to avenge his insult, but Charles XI, his father, opposes him, noting that this is the responsibility of his brother-in-law Frederick I and his sister Ulrika Eleanor, and that he should not interfere with the business of the living.