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| Off we go under a blue sky. |
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| 6th of April - here you see - no snow, but brown shades. |
On the 6th of April was still a thin layer of ice on the lakes and a little snow on the nortside of the hills. But the ice and the snow must now be quite gone here on the 16th of April. Fortunately. Not just for us humans, but also for the birds. They have been waiting. These days happens an amazing bird migration on the wellknown places. The birds of prey have been awaiting a warm wind for their flight.
The winter has been too long for all of us. So they say everywhere, in the newspapers, in the street, among friends. We long so much for summer. Some go south and come home, still waiting for summer. People go out into their gardens doing a little work, but the soil is still too frozen....
Spring comes and summer comes every year. No matter how beautiful a winter landscape can be, then we'll not keep it all year. We'll forget the snow and the ice until next time. So is it.
On the 6th of april :
The sky was a perfect porcelaine blue when we left that day. The clouds were thick as whipped cream. We drove across the new bridge crossing the Gudenaa -valley to Bølling lake,
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| Bølling lake- a little layer of thin ice. |
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| Bølling lake |
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| - this place might be fine in the summer period, There are many paths around the lake. |
Bølling Sø
Naturstyrelsen (Nature management) established a lake here in 2005, surrounded by fields, meadows, pastures and thicket. These areas are protected in order to create a pretty and varied landscape for the benefit of both humans and nature. The new lake was established in a large hollow in the landscape where the rests of the original lake was, until it was drained in the 1870s. Here is now a rich plant- and animal life - and it is an extremely interesting place when it comes to archaeology. Here were once found two bog mummies, the wellknown Tollundman and the Elling girl, (Silkeborg Museum) and another interesting find were two small amber figures which might have been toys for a child.(National Museum). There are still on-going excavations in the district. The prehistoric story about this place is a very long one, which shall not be told here, but if you are someone, who is interested in European /Danish prehistoric time, then you can find some material on the site: www. naturstyrelsen.dk. Here is also an English site.
Klode Mølle
The next place on our little tour in the country was Klode Mølle. In order to take a walk in the forest. Did you ever see a completely brown forest? Here it was. But the forest lake was nice and blue with a little ice. The tour through the forest ended in mud. We had forced a small brook with a homemade fragile bridge. Yes, it was necessary to use the bridge. Although the water was not deep, the bottom was deep. I would not end up as a bog mummy . So we forced the bridge. But later we had to go back anyway. Ice and mud and deep holes. Better luck next time.
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| Klode Mølle, the forest lake |
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| Klode Mølle, the forest |
Klode Mølle (water mill) was founded 1596 and abandoned in 1872. Nearby was the old Engesvang church which was desolated during the Black Death and later broken down. The brook in the forest comes from Bølling lake. There are many historic letters from the 1400s and up. The name Klode possibly means jordknold (= lump of earth). Klosterlund Museum. The little house upon the hill in the forest is a museum for the peat industry and for the prehistoric Klosterlund settlement.
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| Klosterlund Museum |
The Murder in Klode Mølle:
A sailorman Niels Pedersen came from the north of Jutland on his way to Flensborg and went into the mill and guest house Klode Mølle to await a lift to Holstein. In the night he assaulted the miller and his wife. She recovered later from her bad wounds, but her husband, the miller Niels Jørgensen, was killed on the spot. The murderer took flight towards the town Herning, where he asked for the road to Tønder in southern part of Jutland. People told that his right arm was filled with blood. Four men from the district went southwest towards Tønder to find him, and when they arrived in the small town Sønder Omme, they met a man who told them that the murderer was in town, but he escaped, and the men followed him south, until they after a long pursuit reached the town Husum, where they captured the Niels Pedersen and brought him back to the High Thing in Viborg. He confessed to the murder and had his conviction. He was judged to have his right hand cut off, then his head, and then have his body put upon the wheel, his head and hand put upon a pole above his body. During the trial was discovered that Niels Pedersen had committed another murder in one of his travels. He had strangled a man with his cravat, because he had threatened to report him, since he had avoided to sign up as soldier. In his confession Niels Pedersen admitted that he also wanted to kill the miller's wife because he wanted to get hold of the money and values he might find. The murdered miller Niels Jørgensen was buried at Kragelund cemetary, where was found a big, flat sandstone on the north side of the church in the 1800s, but it crumbled away soon after the discovery.
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| a view to the lake from the forest path. |
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| the bridge across the brook, yes there was a deep hole! |
Karup Aa
And then we came to Karup Aa at a place called Skygge, where this legendary river begins its existence. This would be a fine place to visit in summer. The water stream is fast here, the river has many fine bends, and there is probably a lot to see on a summer's day. The salmon is in peace for me, but I like just to see it standing there against the stream down in the deep water. Karup Aa is known as a very fine fishing river.
Karup Aa has its outlet in Skive fjord. A stretch between Karup and Hagebro was listed in 1964, and the whole stretch from Karup till the town Skive is now EU-habitat area. The place where the river begins, Skygge, is northwest of Engesvang, so we are not far away from Bølling lake and Klode mølle. I love to see this river with all its fine bends, it is so great to see a river, which has not been changed into a canal, but this would never happen to the legendary water stream. And it is legendary among anglers. Any angler who knows this river gets starry eyes when he babbles on about his happy fishing days at Karup Aa - and his stay at the equal legendary Hagebro kro with stuffed record-salmons in glass boxes and lots of pictures upon the walls of happy anglers brandishing their finest catch. My father became blissful,whenever he was talking about his childhood's river, Karup Aa.
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| I don't know if you can see the "Høl". That's where the trout has its hiding place. |
Høl are the deep places in water streams which alternates between low places called stryg. On my photo there is a høl, but it goes down under the brink (which you cannot see) to the left, where it has begun eroding the earth below the country road. They will probably fix the eroding in order to secure the road, but they will not damage the river. A høl is a perfect hiding place for a trout.
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| there is still a little snow on the brink. |
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| the river continues on the other side of the road with a heath behind. A fine place to visit in the summer... |
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| 1400s frescoes. It must be a bird with two baby-birds, don't you think? |
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On our way home we visited a church with some fine and also funny frescoes. The sky was beginning to grow thick of something. Snow or rain. I would love to see some rain soon. I like to take a walk in the rain.
I always remember the scene with Gene Kelly in "Singin in the Rain?" One of the fine scenes in film history.
See you later in the countryside. I hope it will be on a spring day.
photo Silkeborg district 6 April 2013: grethe bachmann
