Perhaps the one thing I will never forget about my high school freshman World History course is our final assignment. We were told to read a book written in the middle ages, or about, the Middle Ages. As I was already obsessed with the works of JRR Tolkien as a fifteen year-old, I naturally decided to read Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon legend of a Geatish hero who liberates the Danish King Hroðgar from the monster Grendel. Hroðgar is a semi-legendary king of the Danes, also known as Roar, who is believed to have lived sometime in the 6th century. Little is known about him from the sources, except that his lived in a great hall called Heorot, said to be so spectacular that it was called the Byzantium of the north. Several early Danish historians, most notably Saxo Grammaticus, wrote that Heorot was located in the town of Hleiðra, known in modern Danish as Lejre. Lejre is situated on the Island of Zealand, a mere 40 kilometers southwest of Copenhagen. In 1986 a Danish archeologist discovered a Viking age (c. 900) hall there, and then nearby a hall from the mid-6th century, the exact time Roar is said to have lived. This hall, some fifty meters long, is now believed to be the very same Heorot from the Beowulf legend. It is a stone-throw away from several ship-setting burials, which could even be the burial place of Roar himself. Last weekend, I was giddily surprised to discover that my Nordic Mythology class would be visiting Lejre as a field-study. We were actually able to stand on the spot where Heorot stood, and where Roar is buried. Although all one can see are a few stones or a sod-mound, it was an incredible experience to be able to see the places I had read about so many years ago. It was certainly one of the most amazing experiences of my trip to Denmark so far, even if there wasn’t that much to actually see. The idea of being in places where great things are said to have happened is very satisfying for me, especially when they took place so long ago, and have captivated the imagination of the northern peoples for generations.
A ship-setting burrial
The outline of Heorot
Our field trip also featured a trip to the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum
(which I had already seen, and wrote about here) as well as to Trelleborg Ring-Fortress. Throughout Denmark there are five ring-fortresses, built all virtually at the same time, and seemingly as military facilities. It is believed that they were built in the late 900’s by the Danish King Harald Bluetooth (who also erected the Jelling Stones described here). Harald is said to have made the Danes Christian, and likely did so using forces housed in these ring-fortresses. They are impressive structures, even today. Surrounded by as massive earthen mound, and symmetrically arranged, they certainly would have looked intimidating in their day, when nothing of their kind had ever been seen in the north. The Trelleborg museums has also reconstructed what one of those halls might of looked like, so our class was able to sit inside for a while, around the fire pit, and quite fittingly, drink a little mead.
Trelleborg Ring-Fortress
A Reconstructed Mead-Hall
