Kielstrup Sø and Mariager Fjord, Himmerland, North Jutland

 

"Stinesminde"

Let's have some photos from a warm September's day. I have been wallowing in winter-weather for I don't know how long, Now it's time for fetching a little sun and warmth. The first place we came to after having been in the forest of Rold in the morning was a small cosy fishing village, "Stinesminde" by Mariager fjord. We have been there before, and it is the nicest place to take a coffee- break! And the weather was perfect.

Mariager fjord

The place around Kielstrup sø and along Mariager fjord is a wonderful place to see on such a day. The view from the hills is wonderful both to Mariager fjord and to the lake. And along the fjord are little cosy marinas with a few boats.  It is really a place worth to keep for the public. It's good that something positive is done. Everything cannot be done at once, but it's good to know that this beautiful landscape is taken care of now.


I usually do not write so much about the nutrients, draining etc. of the farmland, but the following material was available, so I wanted to tell just a little about how much it means for the rare plant-species - as well for the insects that arrive and all the other animals - that a place is listed and protected. EU-habitat and Natura 2000 see to that the politicians just do not tramp all over the land, building holiday houses and hotels along the coast -  and not at least is it necessary to keep a watchful eye on the negative effects from the farmland. 

Mariager fjord

Kielstrup Sø

Kielstrup Sø is a diked laguna on the north side of Mariager fjord in North Jutland. The lake has brackish water and is influenced by nutrients, but it is run through with a clear-watered brook, Karls Møllebæk (mill brook). The lake is surrounded by steep heath hillsides,(up to 63 m above the fjord), moors, pastures, beach meadows, thicket and forest. An area of  509 hectare around Kielstrup Sø is selected as EU-habitat and a part of this are protected nature types. The main part is listed for its  landscape and view-value.

Painted Lady by the lake.

Although the area is overgrowth and nutrient- enriched are here still several rare plants and animals. The surroundings are dominated by heaths and chalky pastures and juniper-thicket, which is often is in a bad state because of overgrowth. The biggest values of the area are rigkær (rich marsh) and springs by the lake. In spite of a negative development are still some fine spots with fx. Marsh Helleborine, Tufted Fen-moss, Blunt-Flowered Rush and Butterwort. (see Latin names after article.) In one of the marsh-springs are still a few plants of the red-listed Gul stenbræk (Saxifraga hirculus).

View to the lake from the hill

view to Mariager fjord from the hill

grave hill

Threats:
There is some nutrient-impact from the air and from the nearby fertilized farmland. This is a threat to all nature types except beach meadows. In the nutrient-poor areas like heath, sour pastures and hængesæk (water is just under the moss) the tolerated limit is exceeded almost all over the area, and this means that large common plant-species can overgrow and force away small, rare and hardy plants. The lake also gets some surplus nutrients from the slopes around the lake, from drains and ditches and from Karls mill  brook.

My son in the thicket-overgrowth

A little marina along the fjord

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The overgrowth of trees, bushes and tall herbs in the whole area is an acute threat agsint most of the nature types in the area, worst in the rich marshes, in moist meadows and upon dry heaths. The overgrowth of fx some rush, spikes, reeds and some willow-species is the cause, why the plant Gul stenbræk (Saxifraga hirculus) has almost disappeared from its earlier suitable habitat. Drains and ditches are a threat to more than 75 % of the area. The drying also contributes to more overgrowth.

grazing of sheep

One of the calves in the cattle herd

Some plant-species are not native to the area, like Rosa rugosa, Broom and various species of fir and spruce, especially mountain pine is a problem on pastures and heaths.  The Eagle fern - which is of Danish origin - has also a negative effect on the low vegetation. This is partly due to that it gives shadow, partly that it sets free chemical substances, which works as a poison on other plants. ( allelopati )

The district of North Jutland has carried out nature-care in the listed areas. In 2006 was given public means for the care of the Saxifraga hirculus-localities in 10 habitats in Denmark, thus also Kielstrup sø,  which meant a much needed clearing and grazing in  parts of the area. Besides have there since 1997 been agreements in the Natura-2000 territory.

Source:
Danmarks Fugle og Natur, Mariager Fjord Kommune, Nordjylland /Naturhistorisk Museum, Århus.

Plant Names:
Marsh Helleborine/ Epipactis palustris/Danish: Sump-Hullæbe
Tufted Fenn-moss/Paludella squarrosa/ Danish: Piberensermos
Blunt-flowered Rush/Juncus subnodulosus/Danish: Butblomstret Siv.
Butterwort/Pinguicula vulgaris/ Danish: Vibefedt
Saxifraga/ Saxifraga hirculus/ Danish: Gul Stenbræk

Kielstrup sø

.photo September 2009: grethe bachmann

The Jelling Stone exposed to Vandalism Last Week....

King Harald's Jelling stone/photo:gb

The Jelling stone, - one of our national treasures and Denmark's "birth certificate"  is together with king Gorm's stone, the church and the two giant Jelling-grave hills a part of the Jelling-monuments which are at the Unesco World's Heritage list. The two rune stones reflect the transition from the heathen Viking period to the Christian Middle Ages.

The big Jelling stone, king Harald's stone was together with other things in the church area exposed to vandalism recently. It was painted over with graffiti , and it is not just an easy thing to remove the paint. First there was a fear if the paint had forced into the stone. Since the vandalism have Danish, Norwegian and Swedish experts worked together to find the most careful way to clean the stone. After some experiments at the National Museum have they found that the cleaning must be done as fast as possible, since the graffiti-paint is not yet fully hardened - it is actually a race against time. However - the stone-conservators are satisfied with the cold weather, since the frost has delayed the chemical processes in the paint.

The vandalism, photo: Politiken.DK

In the beginning were many theories about who was responsible for this.  It was a 15-year old local boy from Jelling who had painted the stones for fun. He has now found out that it was not funny at all.

Addition:
The boy in Jelling is autistic and suffers from Asperger's syndrom. His parents are very sad. The stones are considered sacred by the inhabitants of Jelling and are protected by the people in town. The boy's parents have told the authorities that the boy recently had changed his behaviours - he has actually painted the word Gelwane in other places of the town.

It's a sad story in every respect.


Source: Politiken, DK. 20. - 21. February 2011

Snowdrop and Sweet Violet in Mary-Legends

 
















Snowdrop/Vintergæk
Galanthus nivalis
Many flowers changed their names at the arrival of Christianity to the North. All aromatic flowers were in the Middle Ages called violets. Snowdrop was a white violet, and the white shade was a symbol of purity. In the Christian church it became the memory of the day, where Mary brought Christ to the temple. But before this much superstition was attached to this flower. Since it was the first flower breaking through the black soil, it was said to be magical, and people had to treat it carefully. If the flower was plucked and brought indoors, it might foresay death or other evils. Another legend said that when Adam and Eve were driven out from the Garden of Eden they came to a cold and dark place, and Eve was disconsolate, until an angel showed, caught a snowflake and blew on it, changing it into a white flower.





















Sweet violet/Martsviol
Viola odorata
The sweet violet is together with lily and rose among the three noblest flowers. It is a symbol of Mary's humility,  and although other flowers were named violets in the Middle Ages the sweet violet is the one, which is most valued for its scent and colour. The humble sweet violet has the colour of Mary's royal robe.  The violet was used in cosmetics and perfume.

A Christian legend says that when Virgin Mary recieved the message about the birth of Christ, the archangel Gabriel came with a lily in his hand - and behind Mary grew a rose bush, but just outside her window stood the little sweet violet, who heard that Mary said: "Look, I am the Lord's handmaid." The archangel blessed the flowers, before he disappeared - and the flowers then got their lovely scent. Another legend says that the flower bowed their heads, when the shadow of the cross fell upon them, and since then they have been standing with bowed heads.

Source: Anemette Olesen, Marias Planter, Himlen ned på Jorden, 2007.


photo 2008: grethe bachmann

Klostermølle in Winter

present buildings

channel by the mill

Benedictine monks established ab. 1050-110 a kloster, named Voer kloster, close to the big lake Mossø in the lake distrikt in the middle of Jutland. It was one of the first klosters in Denmark, and it was probably also the monks, who established the 1300 m long dam, which forces the waters of the Gudenå river into a channel. Here was a waterfall which was able to run a watermill, also named Klostermølle today. (meaning "mill at the kloster"). The kloster was abandoned after the reformation and there are now only rests of foundations under the yard between the present buildings.

Nature school and center.

the drying barn

new bridge

The drying barn is built in three storeys. Here was a paper factory. It is now a workshop, where the forest district dry wood and make wooden objects for the public. In the corner of the barn with a view to the delta and the river Gudenå is a bird-tower. In the present buildings is a nature school. Here is also nearby a camping for canoeing tourists from 16 June until 31. December. In the mill buildings are exhibitions.

 

lots of ice at the mill today

along channel

a view from center to Mossø lake

in meadow, no geese today

but mother duck and father duck

marsh titmouse

a nice little nuthatch

Along the channel is a walking path, no disturbance from cyclists or skateboarders etc. Sands have been laid out on the moist ground. It's a good place to take a walk. Here in winter are not many people in the area, but in summer is it a lively place, both swarming with people and with birds. And there is a variety of plants along the river and in the area around the nature center - and many plant-relicts, like medical herbs, from the time while it was a kloster-center. Now on this icy cold day is not much life. A few birds high up in the trees. A nuthatch and some tits. 

Sorry, the woodpecker disappeared!

the delta seen from the bird tower.

Well, a winter's day - a very short day out. It is still very cold with an icy eastern wind. No need to stay out longer  than a couple of hours and the light will soon disappear. How wonderful it will be in just a month - I'm sure! More life - snowdrops and crocus and eranthis and anemones as some of the first flowers, all the birds singing, butterflies suddenly emerging in sunny sheltered places ...the humming of bees........... it is easy to dream, isn't it?

Black alder at the channel

the channel - here is the kingfisher - on occassions!

Rye church

The church in Rye lies on the top of a hill and is seen far away. Its old name is Sct. Sørens church, and Søren was a farmer's boy, who run away from working with the plough. He became a monk, and later a priest and died as bishop in Cologne in Germany ab. year 400. One thousand year later people "discovered " that a well in the forest at Rye was made sacred by Søren, and a pilgrimage began to the church and the well. So the Sct. Søren church in Rye thus was one of the centers of the spiritual life in medieval Denmark.

Various great events happened in this church. Here were also elections of the Danish king. Christian 3. was elected king by the Jutland nobility here on 4. July 1534. This election was the start of the fall of the Catholic church in Denmark.

the mystic farm

At last I took a photo of a farm which we often pass after the church. It always looks so desolate - as if no one lives there. However, there are signs of activities. Maybe the living house is built behind the stables close to and sheltered by the wood. And maybe they have a nice garden there!


photo Klostermølle 12. february 2011: grethe bachmann

The Vikings/Viking Art

 The Ringerike Style (ab. 980-1080 )

The Alstad stone

The vane

                                                                              

The Ringerike style grew naturally out of the Mammen style during the first half of the eleventh century. It came at a time when the stone monuments were spreading, and it is named after the carved slabs of a rich district of Norway north of Oslo, of which the Alstad stone is one. The heavy spirals at the base have their origins in the spiral hips of the Mammen style.

The graduate development of foliate pattern from the Mammen style became the principal feature of Ringerike. However - the great beast of Jelling was far from forgotten, seen in a gilt bronze vane from Søderala in Sweden. This vane once was placed on the prow of an eleventh century Viking ship. A great beast is mounted on the top to keep watch. The curves along the curved edge were for attachment of jangling chains or for streamers to act as wind indicators.

Vanes of this type are seen on a thirteenth century carving from Bergen.   Its subsequent use was as the ornament on a church spire, like two similar vanes from the same period from Norway and Gotland.

Harald's stone in Jelling

Stone at Sct.Pauls in London.

     














 


There  are three writhing  animals in the central openwork panel of the vane. They continue the tradition of a combat motif, which was first established in Scandinavia on Harald's stone at Jelling. Some similar ornaments are on a stone monument in Sct. Paul's churchyard in London. The Sct. Paul's stone is one of the finest monuments in the Scandinavian Ringerike style and shows how England under king Cnut was once again introduced to the mainstream of Viking art.

Source: MoesgårdArchaeological Museum, Århus    

Next: the Urness style, ab. 1050-1150.

photo Jelling: gb                                             

New Study - Ghosts or Fantasy?

If you want to see something then it is there.

          

                                                  



















Ghosts do not just belong to the past. A new study shows that 21 % of the Danes believe in ghosts, which bears witness about religiosity and that modern man has the same scheme of things as Stone Age man, claim the experts.

Scepsis or Intolerance?
I don't know what to think about this. I don't want to be intolerant, so I'll just say that  "there is more between heaven and earth, Horatio, than you can imagine........". I have never seen a ghost myself or know no one, who has - except I have read the stories about people, who have experienced paranormal situations. There have been TV-series about this subject, and some of the events can be proved to have a natural explanation, others are not easy to explain.

Images of the Past like Radio-Waves?
I like to read ghost stories myself, but if I ever met a grey lady or another strange figure, then I would probably drop dead - or at least faint. Right now I imagine that what people see - if they see those grey ladies or other shady figures - that they might be strong images from the past with such a power that they can stay or show forever - like when  radio-waves move out into the universe. But how and why?   

Religion and Communication
The belief in the supernatural is obvious alive in Denmark. In an investigation by the paper metroXpress say 21 % Danes that they believe in ghosts. One of 17 has seen a ghost themself, while every fourth know one who has. At the same time believe 28 % that it is possible to communicate with the diseased. This belief  is also a religious aspect. The belief that the diseased have got an influence at the present is spread among many religions.

Are we travelling Fossils?
A professor at Århus University (Religious Science) confirms that the belief in ghosts are one of the oldest imaginations man has ever had. It is difficult to say, how religion was in Stone Age, he continues, but the belief in ghosts serves two superior purposes, partly as a good entertainment, and partly using the diseased in order to understand why something happens - or in order to try to make something happen.  The professor says that in this point is there not much difference between Stone Age man and the modern man. "We are in many ways travelling fossils, the body has not changed fundamentally, and the same goes for our imagination. Like Stone Age man we want to communicate with our forefathers". says the professor.

A haunted place in Copenhagen.
There is an empty place in Copenhagen behind a tall boarding. A few years ago was here a disco called Absalon. This place had a reputation of being the most haunted place in the country, says a writer of ghost-stories. The disco was placed above the oldest church  and grave-yard in Copenhagen from the time of archbishop Absalon. The writer has interviewed some of the earlier employed from the disco, and even the most sceptical people were after a short time convinced that there were ghosts at disco Absalon. Several clairvoyants and ghost-hunters have examined the place and have noted strange and agressive energies. Before a new building has to be raised, archaeologists started digging down in history. They found more than 500 skeletons, placed in many layers, half were children skeletons. 

Many castles and manors have their ghosts, and the stories about these various ghosts are very exciting read.  Here in this blog are a few ghost-stories from some Danish castles and manors. If you choose the label ghost story, you'll get them all.

Some well-known Danes have told about their experiences, an actor lived in his childhood in a house, where the piano started to play by itself, and it showed that a piano-player had lived there, who had committed suicide. When the boy came home from school and knew he would be alone in the house, he was so afraid that he stayed outside for hours. He simply dared not go inside.

This is what happens today about the ghost- research. You'll of course decide for yourself what you believe or not believe in, dependent on what you or your family and friends might have experienced yourselves.

Source: metroXpress, Friday 11. February 2011, journalist Klaus Lange, Anne Fiil and writer Steen Langstrup. 

Famous writers of ghost-stories 


 photo: meadow at Vilhelmsborg manor: grethe bachmann

A Day in February in the Windy Kolindsund, Djursland.....

A Day in February with a milder temperature, but with an ice-cold wind. Still two more months before the"real" spring is arriving. What I especially like about this time of the year is that I can enjoy the black silhouettes of the trees upon the clear blue sky without thinking that this will last six months before the trees will burst into leaves again. Yes, the winter is too long here. I miss the birds and the butterflies. How do they survive? But no matter how hard the winter has been the birds begin to sing at the first little sight of spring, and the butterflies and bees come out like little miracles in the springtime. So who am I to complain?  

  It showed that we had chosen one of the coldest places in the country, a sound which was a sea thousands of years ago, but still lies like a large land with no shelter. A flock of swans had found a place in the corner of a small lake, which was filled with brash ice.

In the distance was a little village and a medieval parish church in Tøstrup from the 1100th. So many years it has been  there as a witness of so much, which we do not know much about today.

"When I live in such a desolate place it doesn't matter that I am a little messy!" he might think! But I have noticed that there are some villages, where so many farms and houses are surrounded by a mess of old things, old cars, tractors, stone-heaps, decayed outhouses, neglected gardens, while other villages are neat and well-kept, the outhouses are fine and painted and the gardens are lovely to look at. Maybe it is catching? Just a thought.

Here they are again, one of my many weaknesses,
this time a windblown hedgerow, which is a vigorous growth in summer, but it is also picturesque now. It is simple, brings quietness to your mind, if that's what you want - and this is what I want today.




 
I have always room for a horse or more than one, but this white horse seemed to be alone, grazing in a landscape with a wide view all the way to the northern part of Djursland. Why should  a horse care
about such a useless  waste of time? Is he just enjoying life? If he is a she the name might be Blondie.

This was the little yellow house on the corner. I almost missed it in the move. I like yellow houses.
Well,. this one is almost white, but it is a neat little
house. No garden? Again some silhouettes, this time
some crippled birch trees, which are pretty in summer.



 

 And then it became dark afternoon on our way home..............

photo Kolindsund 5. February 2011: grethe bachmann