In front of the Karlskrona Admiralty Church

Karlskrona Admiralty Church

The Admiralty Church is a church in Karlskrona and belongs to the Royal Karlskrona Admiralty Parish. The church is also known as the Ulrica Pia after Ulrike Eleonora . It is located near Vallgatan in the south east of the island Trossö...

 the popular wooden figure of Gubben Rosenbom (Old Man Rosenbom) has been standing since the mid 18th century. In 1956 the original was replaced by a copy and put in a safer place inside the church. The life-size figure is actually a poor box, which means, if you lift its hat, you can insert a coin for the poor.

The figure holds a placard in one hand which states in a slightly old-fashioned Swedish:

I humbly beg of you,

even though my voice may be weak,

come and put a penny in

but first lift my hat.

Blessed are those that care for the poor.

(the last sentence is from the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

)

The figure of Rosenbom ist particularly well-known because it features in Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....

's book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is a work of fiction by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. It was published in two books, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils in 1906 and Further Adventures of Nils in 1907...

. There the title hero meets Rosenbom and speaks with him.