Spring Signs 2014 and a Tour out.

There are many early signs of spring after this mild month of February.  The marsh harrier has arrived, the white-tailed eagle has started nesting, the skylark is singing, reports have come about the first cranes. There are numbers of snowdrops and eranthis in the garden and the first crocus are on their way up. If the mild weather continues it won't last long before the brimstone butterfly is here. The bumble-bee queen will soon wake up. There is nothing as fine as the sound of the first bumblebee.

G

One of the first signs of spring are the flowers of hazel.









General and usual signs of spring:  

Sweet violet is one of the first flowers in March. The dark violet flower has a wonderful scent and the colour is easy to spot by hedges and glades. It is also called "Mary and the child". If the petals are plucked, a figure is seen, looking like Virgin Mary with Child Jesus.
Lesser celandine is one of our earliest spring plants. The flower has shining yellow petals, and the plant is often called buttercup. Lesser celandine belong to the family Ranunculus like the anemone.
When you see coltsfoot it is a certain sign of spring. Back in school our teacher told us that when we saw the first coltsfoot then it was really spring and we had to bring it to her. Coltsfoot is seen in  road banks, edge of ditches and lakeshores. The leaves have a contour like a little horse hoof.

As soon as the sun brings warmth to a sheltered place, the ant comes out - and the ants clump together upon the anthill. They function like mobile radiators, and they bring warmth down in the hill to the queens.
The brimstone butterfly is another certain sign of spring. The male with the magnificent  lemon-yellow colour is easy to spot in March. The white-yellow female arrives about two weeks later. The brimstone roams far and wide.
The orange-red butterfly, the small tortoiseshell, leaves its overwintering place in April. It is often seen with outspread wings in the warm sun. The small tortoiseshell is Denmark's national butterfly.

In late March and first of April the frog eggs are seen in little lakes and waterholes, the eggs are small transparent lumps with a little black spot in the middle. The frog is fully developed in 85 days, but already after four days it is possible to notice that the black spot has changed.
 
And then there is the sweet little ladybird. We put it on our forefinger and let it crawl up, and we tell this little red thing to fly up to God and ask for good weather - and it flies up!  The ladybird is also very helpful in the garden, fighting the little green mites.

The beautiful sight of the white anemone in the forest floor is magic. The flowers cover the earth before the trees have leaves. This happens in April-May - and when the beech after this beautiful sight shows us another miracle with the new incredible light-green leaves, then it is spring for good.

Nature is magic.

May

photo: grethe bachmann


A short Tour out on 22 February. 

At the end of February 2014 we'll say goodbye to the fifth mildest winter in 140 years.

On Saturday 22 February we went to the east coast of Jutland south of Århus . The weather report had told us that there would be some after effects from the recent storm in the British Isles. The weather was very windy, but also warm and with rainy showers and sunshine, changing all the time. Big black clouds came rushing, followed by rain and  a blue sky.


Here is a little collection of my photos from 22 February: 

Black buzzard

Brown buzzard.

repair after storm in October.

The Bees are buzzing now................

What happens in Spring?


When the temperature is above 7-8 Celsius the bees wake up and start their work. A bee family has about 20.000 working bees in early spring. The bees have been waiting through winter in the beehive and in the center of the bees is the queen, well protected from the cold.



In the first month of spring the bees gather pollen,  especially the yellow catkins of the willows give an important source of protein. If you get a close look at a bee  near a willow tree, you'll see it wearing big pants filled with golden pollen. The bees, who are fed with pollen in spring, are the same who are pollinating the fruit trees in April and May. While gathering pollen the working bees are vey busy, they have to fly 20.000 trips to cover the need of pollen for the beehive. If it is raining, the bees have to use the deposits from the previous years. But when summer arrives they can gather more pollen than they use.

bees gathering water

The Queen bee lays 200 eggs in each 24 hours during April. Almost all eggs are working bees, unfertilized eggs are male bees or drones. They must be hatched in April to reach maturity for the swarming season in May. All the other eggs are female bees, but only the Queen bee can lay eggs.



When summer is near the number of bees in the family have raised till 60.000 -  and with so many bees in the same family, the Queen bee cannot control them anymore. The working bees build one or several special cells - Queen cells. They are larger than the working cells and hang down vertical. The Queen bee lays a common fertilized egg in the queen cells. When the eggs are hatched the larvae is fed with a special fodder - gele royal . This makes the larvae grow fast and be larger than the working bees. The larvae will become a new Queen.

Before the new Queen leaves her cell, the old Queen collects about half her subjects and leaves the beehive - she knows, she will lose to the new Queen if she stays. The old Queen and her following subjects gather in one big brown living lump upon a tree or a branch. During the next many hours some bees fly to and fro the place of residence, they are scouts looking for a new place where the bee family can live. When they come back to the other bees they tell them about their discoveries by dancing a special dance outside the lump. And when many scouts are dancing the same dance, they are telling about the same place. The big swarm flies up again and leaves and the scout bees fly through the swarm again and again to lead them to their new residence.






Source: Naturstyrelsen, Miljøministeriet: Forår, Bierne summer. 

photo: grethe bachmann
photo: yellow flower and bee: stig bachmann nielsen, naturplan.dk

The Cheshire Cat

from 1866 publication Alice in Wonderland (wiki) 

The Cheshire Cat is one of many iconic characters depicted in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that have become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television. One of its distinguishing features is that from time to time it disappears, the last thing to be seen being its grin.

I love the Cheshire cat, a great invention by Lewis Caroll. Its behaviour by disappearing, only leaving its grin, is a very catty behaviour. But I wanted to know a little more about this famous cat and found that it is amazing how much the Cheshire Cat is involved in: Literature, Film, TV, Games, Amima, Manga, Businesses, Art, Comics. Lewis Caroll really did hit bull's eye with that cat.




 CARVINGS

carving, St.Nicolas Church, (wiki)

Where did Lewis Caroll catch

carving, St.Wilfried's Church, Cheshire (wiki)

that great idea? Many have guessed that it came from sandstone carvings on old churches. There is a carving of a cat on the tower of St Wilfried's church in Grappenhall, a neighbourhood of his birth place in Daresbury Cheshire, but some historians believe that his Cheshire cat was inspired by a carving in Croft church. In 1992 the Lewis Caroll Society wondered if a gargoyle on a pillar in St Nicolas church in Cranleigh, where Caroll used to travel when he lived in Guildford - or if a church in the village of Croft on Tees in the north east of England where his father had been rector - had inspired him. But seemingly it could not be the church in Cranleigh, since he moved to Guildford about three years after Alice in Wonderfland was published. The cat in Cranleigh is very similar to a very grinning Cheshire cat though. He might have been there anyway. He cannot tell us now. And according to someone, whom nobody knows, he had visited St Christopher's Church in Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, which has a stone sculpture most closely resembling the picturial cat in the book. There are many theories.


English Stone Masons in Jutland.

with a grin, Hedensted Church (grethe b)

without a grin, Hedensted church (grethe b)

Maybe the Cheshire Cat visited Denmark?. When all the stone churches were built in a relatively short period, there was a need of both men of the church and craftsmen, and the king sent for bishops and stone masons from England. Many Danish churches have got some fine carvings, some were made by English stone masons - and I have found two cats in a church in Hedensted in East Jutland. A cat with a grin and a cat without a grin. Maybe the stone mason came from Cheshire? What do you say about that? 

1898 edition (wiki)

Alice in Wonderland
Alice first encounters the Cheshire Cat at the Duchess' house in her kitchen, and then later outside on the branches of a tree, where it appears and disappears at will, engaging Alice in amusing but sometimes vexing conversation. The cat sometimes raises philosophical points that annoy or baffle Alice. It does, however, appear to cheer her up when it turns up suddenly at the Queen of Heart's croquet field, and when sentenced to death baffles everyone by having made its head appear without its body, sparking a massive argument between the executioner and the King and Queen of Hearts about whether something that does not have a body can indeed be beheaded. At one point, the cat disappears gradually until nothing is left but its grin, prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat

Adaptations: 
In the 1951 Disney animated film, Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat is depicted as an intelligent yet mischievous character that sometimes helps Alice and sometimes gets her into trouble. He frequently sings the first verse of the Jabberwocky poem.
Cheshire Cat made non-speaking cameos in House of Mouse.
Cheshire Cat has made multiple appearances in the video game series Kingdom hearts.
1999 TV film: In the 1999 television adaptation of the books, the Cheshire Cat is portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg. She fully acts as an ally and friend to Alice, the latter defending the cat when she is threatened with execution.
2010 film: The Cheshire Cat appears in Walt Disney's 2010 Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton. In the movie, Cheshire (as he is referred to by other Wonderland characters) first appears to Alice as she is walking alone in the forest. He helps her by binding the wound she suffered earlier by the Bandersnatch and taking her to the Hatter and the March Hare. He is later blamed by the Hatter for betraying him during the Red Queen's attack where the White Queen's throne was usurped. However, as the plot moves along, he redeems himself by changing his form to resemble the Hatter during his execution and then evaporates as the axe is about to make contact, thus fooling everyone as the Hatter's hat floats up to the Queen's seat and Cheshire appears and winks. In the video game adaptation of the movie, Cheshire is a playable character who can not only turn himself invisible, but other objects around him as well. The character was voiced by Stephen Fry.


Other references:
Prior to the release of the 1951 Walt Disney animated adaptation of the story, scholars observed few specific allusions to this character. Martin Gardner, author of The Annotated Alice, wondered if T.S.Eliot had the Cheshire Cat in mind when writing Morning at the Window but notes no other significant allusions in the pre-war period. Images of and references to the Cheshire Cat cropped up more frequently in the 1960s and 1970s, along with more frequent references to Carroll's works in general. (See generally the lyrics to White Rabbit by the rock group Jefferson Airplane. The Cheshire Cat appeared on LSD blotters as well as in song lyrics and popular fiction.

TELEVISION: The Cheshire Cat appears in Once upon a Time in Wonderland (a spin-off of Once Upon a Time) voiced by  Keith David. While looking for the Mad Hatter's house from the trees, Alice encounters the Cheshire Cat in giant form where the Red Queen had promised him that Alice would be good food for him. Both of them ended up engaging each other in combat until the Knave of Hearts arrived and threw a piece of one mushroom side into his mouth which shrank him back to normal size as the Cheshire Cat leaves.

 
ANIME and MANGA: In CLAMP's Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat appears as a sexy catgirl. In the Alice in the Country of Hearts or Heart no Kuni no Alice series of manga and anime the Cheshire Cat appears as a catboy punk called Boris Airay. He has tatoos and body piercings, wears exposing outfits, a collar and a chain and a boa. He also has a fetish with weapons, especially guns. In the series, like many of the other characters, he falls in love with Alice.
The villain Schrödinger in the manga Hellsing is described by his commanding officer the major as "the smiling cat of Wonderland".
In the anime and manga Pandora Hearts one of the main characters Alice had a pet cat that died, but returns 100 years later as a chain in a realm created by one of Alice's memories. He came to call himself the Cheshire Cat, and had a more human-like appearance or a catboy look.
 In the sixth episode of Serial Experiments Lain,  Lain refers to a Wired user with an avatar consisting of disembodied, wide-grinning lips as Cheshire Cat. Lain's friend, Alice, was named after the book's protagonist.
The Pokémon character Gengar has the Cheshire Cat's mischievous smile.
In the episode 'Haruhi in Wonderland' of the popular anime/manga Ouran High School Host Club, the twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin each dress up as the Cheshire Cat, allowing them to 'teleport' from one place to another. They keep up this charade until Haruhi tells them to come out. She cannot concentrate as they are making her dizzy.

ART: An exhibit called The Cheshire Cat at the Exploriatum in San Francisco, created by Bob Miller in 1978, features a mirrored eyepiece that allows visitors to look at a picture of the Cheshire Cat's face with one eye, while the other eye sees a reflection of a white screen to the side-

stuffed toy, Museum Indianapolis(wiki)

BUSINESSES:The Cheshire Cat lends its name to two public houses in the county of Cheshire; one near stockport and another on the a41 south of Chester.

COMICS: In DC Comics, the New Goddess Malice Vundabar, niece of the villain Virman Vundabar, resembles Alice and controls a carnivorous creature called Chessure, that looks like nothing more than a grinning face. Cheshire is also the codename of the human assassin Jade Nguyen, who has a daughter with the heroic archer Roy "Speedy" Harper.
In Marvel Comics, Cheshire Cat is a foe of Luke Cage. An ally of fellow Cage enemy Big Brother, Cheshire Cat is able to make himself invisible and teleport. His physical appearance and manner of speaking are both evocative of a classic hep cat., despite debuting in 1976.

Jabberwock (wiki)

FILM: "le fond de l'air est rouge" (1977), the English title Grin Without a Cat. Like the original, it signifies that revolution was in the air but failed to take root. In the film, it is also stated: a spearhead without a spear, a grin without a cat.
The late filmmaker Chris Marker gave his monumental documentary on the New Left Movement of 1967–1977,
The Disney version of the character can also be spotted during the final scene of the film Who framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The Cheshire Cat is heard singing the poem Jabberwocky before he materialises in front of Alice.

GAMES: The character Luka in video game Bayonetta is nicknamed "Cheshire" by the titular character, which is exhibited through his ability to appear or disappear at many locations throughout the game by use of a grappling hook.

American McGee (wiki)

In the video games American McGee's Alice (2000); and the sequel Alice: Madness Returns (2011), the Cheshire Cat is portrayed as an enigmatic, yet wise guide for Alice in the corrupted Wonderland. In keeping with the twisted tone of the game, the Cheshire Cat is mangy and emaciated in appearance. His voice was provided by Roger L. Jackson, who also voiced the Mad Hatter and the Jabberwocky in the game.
In the Disney/Square Enix video game series Kingdom Hearts, loosely based on the Alice books as a subsequent adventure, the Cheshire Cat offers Sora, Donald and Goofy clues to prove that the Heartless attempted to steal the Queen of Hearts' heart and not Alice, along with the blizzard spell.

MUSIC:Pop punk band Blink-182's debut studio album is called Cheshire Cat(1994).
Hypnogaja's  song "Looking glass" states that "There's a cat that smiles like the crescent moon".
Blood on the Dance Floor's "Where's My Wonderland" song makes a reference to the Cheshire Cat's smile.
The Cheshire Cat is part of the chorus of victim effect's "Alice Alice".
French singer Nolwenn Leroy produced the album Le Cheshire Cat et moi in (2009)
Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" contains the lyric "You've got a Cheshire cat grin".
Though never mentioned by name, the Cheshire Cat is a central character in vixy's "The Girl Who's Never Been".
The Cheshire Cat is in the Mad T Party at Disney's California Adventure park. He is portrayed after Chessur and is found onstage playing the drums.

 
PRINT: Cheshire cats is the name given to the widespread genetically engineered cats appearing in Paolo Bacigalupi's biopunk novel The Windup Girl (2009).
In Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars series of novels, the Cat is Redd's top assassin. The Cat has butcher knife claws and can change from his true form to the form of a small black kitten. He initially has nine lives, but loses all but one by the end of the book.
In the  Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, the Cheshire Cat is an overseer in the Great Library, a library within the "book-world" which contains copies of every book ever written. However, due to "boundary changes", the Cat is renamed the "Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat".



Don't despair, take it easy, we're all mad here!

Source: wikipedia
photo Hedensted church, grethe bachmann
photocopies; wikipedia

Ivory Gull and Snowy Owl visiting Hanstholm, North Jutland

See new photos 2013-2014 of the Ivory Gull at Hanstholm, North Jutland

Ivory Gull, Pagophila eburnea, (wikipedia)

It is possible to see some rare Arctic birds at Hanstholm in North Jutland in these days, among those a young Ivory Gull which usually breeds in northeast Greenland , northernmost North America and Eurasia. This High Arctic gull  prefers usually to stay in the high North during winter where it forages on small fish and seal carrions, which it locates by following the polar bear. Even the northern part of Norway and Iceland is a southern section for the Ivory Gull, and the bird is not seen there on a yearly basis, neither during winter.

Snowy Owl, (wikipedia).

At Hanstholm is another rare bird right now, a young snowy owl, which probably comes from the Sibirian tundra. The snowy owl is a nomad, and it is roaming around in the hunt for food. In winter and early spring it happens to be straying into Denmark, but there are years between.  

Ivory Gull (wikipedia)

It is the eighth time the Ivory Gull is seen in Denmark, and it is a rare event. Once in 2006 it was seen at Langø havn at Lolland on 29 December, and this event brought hundreds of tourist to the small town. This is also happening now at Hanstholm in North Jutland in December and January 2013-2014. Birdwatchers come from all over the country. Today it is easy for them to communicate with their mobile phones: "Where is it now?" and then they are all gathering in a group with cameras and binoculars to watch this little white bird, which don't understand a word of all this attention!

Ivory Gull wintering in Bering Sea, (wikipedia).

 Ivory Gull/ Pagophila eburnea ( Danish name : Ismåge)

The scientific names eburnea and Pagophila mean ivory-coloured and "lover of sea ice" from the Latin ebur for ivory and the Greek pagos for sea-ice respectively. The ivory gull has no sub-species, and no fossil members of this genus are known.

This species is easy to identify. At 43 centimetres (17 in), it has a different, more pigeon-like shape than the Larus gulls, but the adult has completely white plumage, lacking the grey back of other gulls. The thick bill is blue with a yellow tip, and the legs are black. Its cry is a harsh eeeer. Young birds have a dusky face and variable amounts of black flecking in the wings and tail. The juveniles take two years to attain full adult plumage. There are no differences in appearance across the species’ geographic range.


During the winter, Ivory Gulls live near polynyas, or a large area of open water surrounded by sea ice. North American birds, along with some from Greenland and Europe, winter along the 2000 km of ice edge stretching between 50° and 64° N from the Labrador Sea to Davis Strait that is bordered by Labrador and  southwestern Greenland. Wintering gulls are often seen on the eastern coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador and occasionally appear on the north shore of the Gulf of st Lawrence and the interior of Labrador. It also winters from October through June in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Seas. It is most widespread throughout the polynyas and pack ice of the Bering Sea. It is also vagrant throughout coastal Canada and the northeastern United States, though records of individuals as far south as California and Georgia have been reported, as well as The Brisith Isles, with most records from late November through early March. Juveniles tend to wander further from the Arctic than adults^.

Pack Ice, see bird in right corner (wikipedia)

 

It migrates only short distances south in autumn, most of the population wintering in northern latitudes at the edge of the pack ice, although some birds reach more temperate areas.
It takes fish and crustaceans, rodents, eggs and small chicks but is also an opportunist scavenger, often found on seal or porpoise corpses. It has been known to follow polar bears and other predators to feed on the remains of their kills.
Ivory Gull breeds on Arctic coasts and cliffs, laying one to three olive eggs in a ground nest lined with  moss, lichens, or seaweed.

Welcome 2014

Cute Pandas on the Slide

Pandas





They are so cute, those little Pandas playing on the slide.

To all of You!

A Very Merry Christmas !

Grethe

The Famous Cat Maru and a Christmas Stocking

The famous Cat Maru

Christmas Food and Drink and Dangers outside...

Now it  is soon Christmas again!

We are so used to our Christmas traditions that we don't wonder much about from where they come. Before Christianity was held a midwinterfeast, and it is not exactly known how it was celebrated, but the Icelandic chronicle writer Snorre Sturlasson (1178-1241) tells a Saga about Hakon the Good of Norway, where king Hakon had decided that the midwinterfeast - called Jól - had to be celebrated at the same time as the Christian feast on 24-25 December. The Jól was originally placed at the midwinternight, which at Snorre's time was in the middle of January. The name  Jól is of pre-Christian origin and means feasts.

Hakon the Good, P.N. Arbo  1800s

The ancient midwinterfeast was a celebration, where the wish about peace and fertility for the next year was dominant. King Hakon was very interested in Christianity, which was not a popular hobby in Norway at that time, and on his visit to one of his landlords,where the king had to bless the beer, he cheated by making the sign of the cross.This was rather unwelcome.

There is only one pre-Christian source about the ancient Jul. The singer says in a ballad that he wants "to drink Jul" while sailing on the sea. "To drink Jul" was one of the important elements of Christmas, and  this tradition goes back to pre-Christian times, but it is not certain if the beerdrinking and the intoxication might have had a cultic significance.

Julafton, Carl Larsson, Sweden

Together with Christianity the Jul gradually became a feast of the birth of Jesus, but since he is called the "Light of the World" it is actually correlating well with the basic idea of Christmas and the old celebration of the New Year and the coming light. The birth of Jesus was in the 300s defined as 25 December. Winter solstice was placed on this day in the Roman Empire- this created a situation where Jesus could compete with other deities who also had their main holy days around winter solstice - like in the Mithras religion. In the North the Jul was put together with the Christian feast for the birth of Christ, but the church did not succeed in naming the feast Kristmesse (Christmas). In Denmark it is still called JUL.

Food and Drink for Christmas

Ham and bacon were important. The pig had to die!

When the Christmas food had to be prepared for the table the pig had to be slaughtered. During the Christmas period people had -  if they could afford it - enough fat food and strong beer. In the 1700-1800s it was especially the meat from pork which was served on the Christmas table, and it was prepared into fresh boiled ham, sausage, blood sausage and salt food. The pigs had ideally been out in the forest all autumn, eating themselves fat in beech seeds and acorns. After autumn came November, named slagtermåned (slaughter month). And the fat pigs were being slaughtered.

Slaughtering the pig was an event above the usual. The farm people had to prevent someone from looking at the pig with evil eyes - and after the pig had been scalded and opened, the guts had to be brought into the house as soon as possible, and doors and windows of the scullery were closed, for if they were open, they might risc that the pig's intestines broke or all other kinds of misfortune happened. In order to prevent "unauthorized" persons to get into the scullery during the work, a cross was cut in the pig's heart, lungs and liver, before it was put into a water-filled vessel.  In a village at Zealand an ancient custom was still kept alive in the 1800s: the upper cervical vertebra was given to the dog. If a human eat the meat of this piece, it meant that he or she would be decapitated the next year. 

Wheat Bread was a special form of giant Christmas cakes and they were often decorated with  refined patterns. But the small Christmas cakes similar to what we know today were also a part of the Christmas delights. 

Giant Christmas bread cake 1637

In a farm the Christmas baking was another important task, especially the baking of sigtebrød (rye bread), a delicacy which people rarely had on daily terms. The large ovens were filled with  big delicious bread. Some breads were round or oval and were called cakes, some of these cakes were immensely giant and might have a weight of 12 kilos. Regardless of shape or weight they were equipped with some decorations. Around 1850s the patterns were drawn with a quill pen, a comb or other pointed things, circles were made by pressing a drinking glass into the dough, creative people stamped potato prints with figures cut in raw potatoes - or they made wooden stamps, where the figures were hearts, pentagrammes, stars and alike.

christmas cake molds 1600s.

There were special aromatic scents of all spices in the house during Christmas, both around the slaughter time and the baking time. When the breadbaking was finished, the next baking was the real cakes. The traditional peppernuts were made without leavening - and those small spicy cakes were as hard as stone. Spices were purchased as whole spices and grounded in a mortar, and the scent and aroma of allspice, cinnamon, pepper, clove, cardamom were the spirit of Christmas. Klejner, applecakes and various waffles also belonged to the Christmas assortment.

christmas beer 1896

Christmas beer had to be sweet. Good and strong and sweet beer was made in the home brewery.

eating and drinking 1600s

In the oldest source about the Nordic Christmas feast was a song from the end of the 800s. Here was no talk about celebrating Jul, but about "drinking jul". In the medieval folk songs the expression "to drink jul" was still used - and in the peasant society juletønden, the Christmas barrel, was the name of the sweet, strong and good beer made on the occassion of  the upcoming Christmas feast. The beer had to be strong and sweet, both honey and extra malt were added. The brewing work was hard, it gave thirst and the wife who did the brewing, might have taken the opportunity "to gaze a little too deep" in the newly brewed beer. A farmer's wife from Zealand had been gazing so deeply in the strong beer that her husband invited the lord of the manor to see the drunken housewife!  She was jumping around singing a song with an uncertain voice. "Is your wife always that happy ?" asked the landlord. The farmer said with a smile. "Well, we did brew some beer yesterday."

Brewery 1600s

The official breweries took gradually over and sent various types of beer on the market around Christmas time. Today, when Tuborg's Christmas beer is sent out the day is called J-day, and the beer is expected with excitement at the pubs.

The society's eating and drinking in Christmas time in the previous centuries might have had several reasons. People undoubtedly both eat and drank plenty when they had the possibility to do so, and Christmas time meant good and delicious food and strong and sweet beer, which contributed to the cosiness in the dark season. Some people meant that the Christmas-eating and drinking might be a means to secure a fertile year. Christmas was an event before the coming year, and by eating and drinking well during this special time people might influence the new year to contain some of the same abundance and ample supply like the previous year.

The Dangers outside

Today we connect Christmas with cosiness and security,  but for people in the old days - especially out in the country - Christmas had another and more gloomy dimension. It was the darkest time of the year and in the dark many dangers and nasty creatures might lurk. Many legends tell about people meeting ghosts and supernatural creatures at Christmas time.

The church service of the deceased:  A wellknown legend is about the church service of the deceased on Christmas night and takes place at a farm near Vokslev church in Himmerland. The farmhand were out early to fodder the horses on Christmas morning. The farm had no clock, and he went into the house to wake up the farmer and his wife. He told them they had slept over, he had heard some singing in the church - and the farmer's wife jumped out of bed. She must not be late for the church service. She dressed and hurried off to  church and into her church stool, but then she discovered that sitting next to her was someone who had died years ago. All the church goers were deceased people. Her neighbour whispered to her that she had to hurry out of the church and hold on to her cape, if she felt that someone was grasping it. She did as she was told - and when she came to the church door her cape was torn away from her. When the village people came to the church in the morning they saw her cape lie outside the church door, torn into little pieces

White Lady, wikipedia

Christmas ghosts. Other legends describe real Christmas ghosts at Kongensgård in Thy. A young girl was haunting each Christmas and New Years Eve, even in the stable where she had once hung herself.  At Spentrup churchyard near Randers a child murderer was haunting between Christmas and New Year, and in Besser vicarage at the island Samsø a child was heard crying on Christmas Eve.

At Høegholm manor a daughter of the landlord was evoked down in the forest, and when she was lowered to her neck she asked permission to come close to the manor by a hanefjed (tiny step) each Christmas Eve. She was allowed to do so and when she will reach the castle on Christmas Eve once upon a time, the castle will sink into the ground . At a farm at Balleskov field near Skanderborg was always a racket at Christmas and New Year, and at a farm in Keldernæs at Lolland "the ghosting" started already in November, increasing during Christmas and diminishing in January.

The Wild Hunt, P.N.Arbo 1872

Hans Lindenow, who died in 1659, drove through Skibbrogade in Kalundborg with his head under his arm. Many had seen this! They were said to be sober!In the town Nordborg at the island Samsø the Helhesten (a ghost horse) came and drank from the water trough. In some districts people might risc to meet "the Wild Hunt",  a society of hunting men and howling dogs, led by "the Night Hunter",  the "Wojensjæger" (the Odinshunter). He meant death and misfortune, if he did not get a ward off sacrifice. He wanted mostly meat for his dogs. The Night Hunter might be what some names suggest, namely nobody else than Odin himself, the Nordic Asatru's wise, but gloomy leader.

Helhesten/ The ghost horse

Death Omens: Christmas was also  - because of its special magic -  very well suited for taking omens, like about weddings, weather, harvest, death and alike. He, who during Christmas dinner sneaked outside and looked through the window, would discover who was a coward and who had to die in the year to come, for this person was sitting by the table without a head or without a shadow. But it was not without a risc to watch this. He might see something shocking and end up being crazy from agitation. This happened to a young guy at Zealand.

Another method was to walk to the churchyard on Christmas midnight and sit upon the church gate with a green turf or some grave mould upon his head. This would make him able to see the shadows of those who had to die in the coming year. This was a most dangerous thing to do. A guy who tried this had his head twisted around. Another guy saw all the shadows, but also someone with a rope around his neck . This was the guy himself who hung himself before the year had gone.  

The grave sow

But there was no security indoors either. If the farm people had forgotten to give a couple of extra sheaves to the gloso (a special staring sow) at the end of the harvest, they would risc that the sinister sow came into the house making lots of ravage on Christmas Eve. The gloso or the grave sow was a giant pig with a knifesharp back with bristly brushes and with staring eyes, announcing death and disaster.

invisible creatures. 1600s

Many ancient stories indicate that some of those supernatural guests were wellknown and expected. In Helsinge parish and in the Århus district the tradition was that the house wife put an extra setting upon the table. At Bornholm and at Zealand the food had to stay on the table on Christmas night and the candles had to burn all night. In some places the residents slept in a bunch of hay on the floor on Christmas night, while the covered beds were empty, ready for the special guests.

Christmas goat

rumble pot

Human Scary Creatures:  Some of the sinister guests were real. Documents from the 1700s tell about the Christmas goat, a dressed-up guy, who was jumping around and goring all people, trying to scare them. A story from the beginning of the 1500s tells about young people running around in "devil's clothes", scaring people and making trouble. The human Christmas ghosts made noise with rumble pots and threw pieces of pots and ash bags on the house doors.  In the end of the 1600s it was forbidden to walk around with the rumble pots  in Copenhagen. But the human scary creatures took the sting out from the terrible supernatural creatures of the Christmas nights by giving them a concrete and harmless form - and there was no risc inviting the human ghosts into the house for a Christmas snaps.






photo from wikipedia and Nordisk folkeliv i det 16 århundrede