Denmark: Sjælland – Jelling Mounds

August 10, 2024
Sjælland
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In the tenth century, King Harald Bluetooth had Denmark’s name engraved on a rune stone in Jelling and erected two barrows and a church. This is what we were here to find out about.
By the time we’d walked from the car to the Jelling Experience Centre we were soaked, so we thought rather than disrobe and do the museum, we decided to do the outside areas.

The instantly most notable thing is the small white church which is flanked by two large mounds. The mounds are two burial mounds. King Harald Bluetooth erected a great mound, the largest burial mound in Denmark, over an existing Bronze Age burial mound at Jelling, and buried in it the remains of his father Gorm the Old. Later, to the south of it, he raised an even higher empty mound, which a runestone raised by Gorm describes as the grave of Harald’s mother, Queen Thyra. We decided to climb one of the mounds to give us a better perspective of the surrounding area. The mounds are only about 20m high, but this is enough to get a great view of the Jelling historic site.

We climbed down the mound and headed for the church through an unbelievably pretty graveyard. The Danes know how to do a good graveyard! Outside of the door to the church are two massive runestones encased in glass boxes to protect them, such are their importance. The older of the two Jelling stones was raised by King Gorm the Old in memory of his wife Thyra. The larger of the two stones was raised by King Gorm’s son, Harald Bluetooth, in memory of his parents, celebrating his conquest of Denmark and Norway, and his conversion of the Danes to Christianity. The runic inscriptions on these stones are considered the best-known in Denmark. I am sure a few years ago you could climb all over these stones, as I did on a couple of occasions at Stone Henge before they put up the barriers.

We weren’t sure whether the church was open or not, until someone peaked their head out, which was our cue to go in. Jelling Church dates back to around 1100 and is the fourth church on the site. The first was a wooden church erected in the eighth century by Harald Bluetooth as a mausoleum to his father, Gorm the Old. The first church was razed by fire and was later replaced by a church in Romanesque style constructed using travertine stone. The low western church tower was added in the late Middle Ages.

What are believed to be the first Danish frescos were discovered in the Chancel in 1875. The Byzantine-inspired frescos were replaced the same year by copies made by artist Magnus Pedersen. In 1926, these frescos were restored by Johan Thomas Skovgaard, who also created the frescos on the southern wall.

In 2000, the body of King Gorm the Old was re-entombed in the church following extensive study at the National Museum of Denmark.

The church is small and in itself not remarkable, but its place in history means it, along with the burial mounds and runic stones has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

Another fascinating thing about this site is the stone ship. A sea-loving culture gave the Vikings directions in both life and the afterlife. The Viking life would not be full of achievement without the ships and the ocean. When the Vikings departed their life, they believed they would join the afterlife. Probably, the majority of the Vikings wanted a ship to carry them into their afterlife. Besides the real ship, the Vikings constructed the Stone Ship for the deceased. Jelling Stone Ship is the longest known to have existed and is thought to have extended between the two mounds and been 170 metres (560 ft) long, making it by far the longest stone ship discovered. Discoveries have made the scientists believe they may have got the configuration wrong, and the stone ship may have been as large as 354 metres (1,161 ft) long.

We were not wet enough yet, so we decided to walk out to the boundary of the Jelling site where there are white concrete pillars of differing lengths rising from the ground. This is a representation of a more recent discovery at Jelling. In the early 2000s, the archaeologists discovered evidence of a palisade surrounding the site, debunking the view that the Jelling site was just about the burial mounds. The palisade consisted of 1,440m of oak planks and was almost as high as the combined height of three adult men and therefore visible from a long way off as it towered before visitors. As well as the palisade evidence of large buildings that sat within its boundaries.

It was now time to go inside and dry off and explore the Experience Centre. So far on our road trip of Scandinavia we have been incredibly impressed by the creativity and quality of the museums we had visited, and this was no exception. The exhibits explained more about the main characters involved in the Jelling story King Gorm, his wife Thyra and son King Harald Bluetooth, Viking culture and its transition from pagan to Christianity and the archaeology in uncovering Jelling’s secrets. The designers of the exhibit have cleverly interwoven graphics, lighting, models, and genuine artefacts to create a totally engaging experience. As always, we loved the description of the scientific work and how the clues were uncovered, and the secrets of the past were weaved together. Fascinating stuff.

One thing that we learned, which was a big surprise to both of us, was that the technology known as Bluetooth relates to King Harald Bluetooth. The nickname ‘Bluetooth’ was given because he had a dead tooth that had turned a blue-black colour.

In 1996, three industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia, met to plan the standardization of this short-range radio technology to support connectivity and collaboration between different products and industries.

During this meeting, Jim Kardach from Intel suggested Bluetooth as a temporary code name. Kardach was later quoted as saying, “King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.”

Bluetooth was only intended as a placeholder until marketing could come up with something really cool. Later, when it came time to select a serious name, Bluetooth was to be replaced with either RadioWire or PAN (Personal Area Networking). PAN was the front runner, but an exhaustive search discovered it already had tens of thousands of hits throughout the internet.

A full trademark search on RadioWire couldn’t be completed in time for launch, making Bluetooth the only choice. The name caught on fast and before it could be changed, it spread throughout the industry, becoming synonymous with short-range wireless technology.

Before leaving the Experience Centre we noticed that there was an exhibition of knitted dolls. A doll had been made of every member of the Danish Royal Family from the first known kings right through to the present day, Queen Margrethe II.

Queen Margrethe II has reigned as Denmark’s monarch for over 50 years, she is Europe’s longest-serving current head of state, the world’s longest-serving current female head of state, and the world’s only queen regnant. In 2022 she celebrated 50 years as monarch – so in addition to the knitted dolls of the kings and queens there was another collection just of her through the years of her reign.

Planning your visit to Jelling Mounds

Where can I park?

Parking on Kollegievej. Busses enter from Herningvej. (Click to see map.)

Riding your bicycle to Kongernes Jelling?

Both Hærvejen/The Ancient Road (National Bicycle route no. 3) as well as on Middelalderruten (Regional Bicycle route no. 35) takes you by Kongernes Jelling. We are part of Bike Friend Vejle so you can borrow both a pump, patch gear and have your water bottle refilled while visiting us.

Read more about the bicycle routes here.

Riding the bus or the train?

Kongernes Jelling is easily accessible by both train and bus. You can see the UNESCO Monument area from the train station and the walk to Kongernes Jelling takes less than 5 minutes.

Jelling has hourly train departures for Vejle (connection to Århus, Aalborg and Billund), for Fredericia (connection to Odense, Copenhagen, Kolding, Sønderborg, Esbjerg) and to Herning (Skjern, Silkeborg, Holsterbro, Struer, Thisted).

Every other hour direct trains IC-Lyn to/from Copenhagen and Odense.