When we first started planning this trip through Europe, we had very little idea of where we might go and what we might see.  Allita knew she wanted to go to  København (Copenhagen) from northern Germany.  She also knew she wanted to visit some of the important historical sites – particularly those that relate to Vikings.  Norse mythology has long been a favorite of hers; although she has studied many other types including Roman, Greek, Japanese, Mayan, and Egyptian. I feel like most people know from history that the Vikings were incredibly well-traveled sailors; being credited for the original discovery of North America as well as Greenland and Iceland.  In fact, on a recent trip to Chichen Itza, we even discovered evidence the Vikings might have wandered as far south as the Yucatán in their voyages! That said, Vikings were probably the first global, international, marine traders, and a Caliph’s coin found in Jelling certainly supports that theory.  All that said, I have to admit, we were both quite ignorant about Vikings themselves and pretty much anything related to Danish history.  So, to begin our exploration of Danish Vikings, I reached out to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, the country’s largest history museum, which houses over 14,000 years of Danish history.  I mean, if they don’t know, who does?

The Danish are, in general, extremely helpful, friendly, and nice people.  Almost every single person in Denmark speaks some amount of English and they are usually pretty happy to tell you this when you ask them.  The museum in Copenhagen provided me with a MASSIVE amount of information related to my questions and in sorting through it all, I discovered some fascinating facts.  Jelling, generally considered the “birthplace of Denmark”, is hugely important historically and, naturally, very old.  When the Vikings ruled Denmark (this is the time when it was actually named Danmark), Jelling was the royal seat or capital.  Outside the ancient church in Jelling are two massive carved runestones from 950-ish AD: the oldest dedicated by King Gorm to his wife, Thyra, which also makes the first documented reference to “Danmark”, and the largest dedicated by King Gorm’s son, Harald Bluetooth, in memory of his parents and proclaiming him the King and big man in charge.  Directly translated it reads:  “King Harald ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyra, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.” The inscriptions on Bluetooth’s stone are so popular and important in Denmark that the Danish added them to their official passport!  

As I am sure you can imagine, the little village of Jelling is home to a number of festivals, including the Jelling Music Festival, which is the third largest festival in Denmark.  In email discussion with the Jelling branch of the National Museum of Denmark, I discovered that Jelling also hosts a Viking Market once per year – the weekend of July 6-7.  Holy smokes!  That’s when we will be in Denmark!  So, now you know how we ended up here.  

If you look at an aerial view (see below from Google) of the town of Jelling, you can see the outline of a diamond (tilted square, parallelogram, whatever you want to call it) shape in white.  These pillars recreate what once was the massive wooden palisade that Harald created at Jelling around 968 AD (determined by counting the year-rings in the tree trunks recovered from the remains of the wall).  There were over 3,000 trees used to make this wall.  It stood around 10 feet tall and each side was about 1200 feet long creating an internal space equivalent to 20 football fields.  Historians believe the wall was designed to allow soldiers to patrol along the inside using a narrow walkway that was added near the top. It was made by hand using tools and ox-drawn carts with wooden wheels – think about that!

There are two burial grounds located inside what was once the walled city of Jelling.  Artifacts have been recovered from one the burial chambers (north mound); although no remains have been found so no-one knows for certain who was buried there (perhaps Queen Thyra or King Gorm the old).  This burial mound is located in the exact center of the area and also the exact center of the world’s largest stone “ship setting”.  Today, there are large flat, white stone markers that outline near where the entire stone ship lies so that it is easier to see – since the massive ship structure is around 1200 feet long!  According to Viking mythology, the dead could sail by ship to the gods in Valhalla, so it was not unusual to find stone ships near Viking villages as that is where their dead were buried.  Coincidentally, the church in Jelling also sits in the middle of this massive stone setting as does most of the current cemetery. Wonder if you now choose Valhalla or Heaven?

The church in Jelling is actually the fourth (known) church on this same site. The first was a wooden church that King Harald had built not long after he converted to Christianity around 960 AD.  After he killed his father, Harald’s son, Svein, burned down the palisade and the city of Jelling, including the wooden church, in 987 AD.  Interestingly, Svein named his son, Harald the second, so I’m not sure what that was all about – power hungry? Honestly, the Danish royal history makes Game of Thrones look like a Disney movie.  The second church built here was constructed around 1050 AD in romanesque style using travertine stone.  Unbeknownst until the mid 1800s when renovations were being conducted, at the time of original construction some 700-odd years prior, frescoes were painted in the choir section of the church (specifically on the east wall with the orange-yellow-red window).  These paintings are considered the oldest in Denmark.  Newer paintings have been added to the church in the late 1800s (on the north wall to the left of the window) and again in 1926 (on the south wall to the right of the window) so that every wall in the choir area is now covered in frescoes.  Two things we found interesting about the church: on August 30, 2000, King Gorm the old, under the watchful eye of his granddaughter twenty-something-times removed, Queen Margrethe II, was re-interred here, and there is a model of a ship that hangs from the ceiling near the center of the church close to where Gormr is buried.  

Yesterday, we left Hamburg Central Station VERY early by DB train to Copenhagen.  We departed that train at Kolding Station, took another to Veijle Station, and finally arrived at Jelling station around 1:30pm.  All told, we rode on four trains just to get here and it was no easy feat, I promise you.  It was a cold and rainy day, for the most part, and it drizzled on us as we walked from the train station to our B&B dragging our “rolling” bags across the cobblestone walkways.  Remember how I said the Danish are super helpful and friendly?  Well, when I was trying to plan this trip to Jelling, I could not find a single place nearby to stay.  Jelling is a very popular tourist location and the Viking Market this weekend only increases the demand.  I was starting to get a bit discouraged when I casually mentioned my problem to my museum contact.  She immediately sent me a link to a local B&B only accessible via Air B&B DENMARK (not on Air B&B US! so I had to change my VPN to Denmark to open the link) and connected me with a lovely retired school teacher and grandmother who rents her attic which includes two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen.  I mean, is that fantastic or what?  Plus, on the train, we had some difficulty with our connection as it had changed mid-route and then finding the correct seats, but a local Danish couple were extremely helpful and chatted with us almost the entire route to Veijle!  All this delightful human compassion just wraps me in a much-needed blanket of spiritual comfort – a feeling that I admittedly do not experience often enough these days. 

Anyway, we found our B&B easily, our hostess had left us a key in the mailbox (clearly crime is of little concern here), and she gave us the grand tour. We only reserved one of the two bedrooms so we are sharing space with a nice young lady from Germany who is currently working nearby at Legoland Denmark.  We made our way to town almost immediately so we could experience the Viking Market.  The rain didn’t allow us to stay long but we came back today (Sunday) and had an amazing time experiencing Jelling as it might have been in Viking times: shooting arrows, wielding swords, knitting and baking, watching wood carving and blacksmithing, and tromping around in the mud.  We visited the lovely Jelling Church (there was a wedding there the first day we arrived!), the burial mounds, the massive stone ship setting and runestones, and spent hours in the interactive National Museum right across from the Viking Market encampment.  We also wandered a mile or so down steep, forested hills to Fårup Sø (small lake to the south) where the National Museum of Denmark has a VIKING SHIP moored – it’s a small boat but you get the general feel for what they once looked like on the local waters. For lunch, we ate some very interesting local fare, including some kind of cake ball (Romkugler), and, for the first time in my life, a gluten free wafer cone for my ice cream!!  FYI: The Danish eat something that sounds like “Guf” on top of their ice cream – it tastes like marshmallow cream – made from egg whites and powdered sugar (the salesgirl actually said it is “like raw meringue”).  I can’t recommend the Guf personally, but Allita had some and she said it was yummy.  Then again, she likes frozen processed chicken blobs (nuggets) and once ate chocolate-covered ants, so probably you should take her culinary recommendations with caution.

You might recognized the name “Bluetooth” as it is currently associated with technology; specifically the ability to wirelessly connect one device to another.  The short version of the story here is that the company who created this technology (Intel) needed a project name and someone suggested “Bluetooth” because they were knowledgable of Harald who united the Vikings of Denmark and Norway and the runestones with the original Viking Danish inscriptions.  Thus, the symbol for “Bluetooth” comes from combining the H and B in the Nordic Viking alphabet and it stands for “Harald Bluetooth”, the great Viking King of Denmark and Norway.  How cool is that?

Next stop: Roskilde and then Copenhagen!  More Vikings to come!!