The bronze statue they built for her probably doesn’t do her justice. A milkmaid in Sweden in the year 1833, Pilt Carin Ersdotter was considered an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She came from the province and sold milk on the streets of Stockholm as she was destitute. And people were absolutely in awe of her facial features, her physique, the shape of her lips and curves. They literally stopped and stood still in the middle of the street just to stare at her.
So many people would be stopped in their tracks by Ersdotter that she was once fined by a police man for causing a traffic jam, carts and horses blocking entire roads as people gawked at her shamelessly. The Swedish crown prince even came to her to buy her milk, just to see her face… he kept staring and finally spoke: “I suppose I should buy milk from you now…” Ersdotter, unimpressed: “Well, where would he like his milk? In his hat?” She was later informed she rebuffed the crown prince, whereupon she shrugged her shoulders and said: “I didn’t know he was the prince”. Whatever, big deal, just a crown prince.
Pilt Carin Ersdotter was persuaded by some wealthy Swedes to visit their salons, mansions and castles and merely stand around and be stared at. They paid her enormous sums just to be pretty. When she returned home a year later to marry her fiance, the villagers accused her of prostitution — she had to present them with a “certificate of good virtue” signed by four baronesses, nine countesses, a count and a governor. She then married and neither she or her husband ever had to work a day in their lives as she was filthy rich by 20.