Jelling

Adventures in public transportation once again today. I was taking the train to Jelling and then going from Jelling back to Vejle to spend the night there. We went through Vejle and then a few more stops and then we got to Aarhus. At that point I realized that I had traveled too far. I got off that train and got on a train heading to Copenhagen Airport. The train was packed. I spent most of the trip back to Vejle standing up. When I got back to Velje, I found out where things had gone wrong. I had been on the right train, but not the right car. The cars going to Jelling break off at Vejle and head towards Jelling while the rest of the train goes on to Aarhus.

A few hours after I was planning on being there, I arrived at Jelling. Two rune stones stand in Jelling. The smaller one was erected about 940 by Gorm the Old in honor of his wife Tyra.

The other was erected in by Harald Bluetooth in honor of his father Gorm the Old and his mother Tyra. Some call it "Denmark's birth certificate" as Harald Bluetooth claims on the stone that he converted the Danes to Christianity. It also has the earliest preserved depiction of Jesus Christ in Denmark. Obviously after 1000 years, it has experienced some weathering and the carvings are not very distinct.

Right by these rune stones is the Jelling Church and its incredibly tidy graveyard.

It is a plain church except for these paintings in the altar area.

On either side of the church are huge Viking age burial mounds. They found a stone Viking ship grave in the big mound and thought it belonged to Gorm the Old, but there was no body. Gorm the Old had been moved by his son to a grave under the church which was discovered in the late 1970's.

The second mound is empty. Some think that Harald Bluetooth built the second mound in order to make the large Jelling runic stone look beautiful between two mounds.

I would have asked at the visitor center, but it was closed.

There was some construction going on. They are framing the site with a huge stone Viking ship.