Roger's Further Rambles

I had spent a long weekend at the end of June at the home of Matthijs, yet another acquaintance from my time at Amsterdam. He lives near Nakskov on the island of Lolland in Denmark. I’ll tell you about my stay there another time.

On the following Wednesday I drove the 100 miles nor’-nor’-east to Roskilde (“Rosskeeleh”; silent ‘d’), which is on the neighbouring and larger island of Sjaelland or Zealand.

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The crossing was via the Farø bridges, a pair of handsome structures opened in 1985. Their architect was Erik Villefrance, who was Danish, despite his surname.

(Jenny held the steering wheel while I took this picture, so it was perfectly safe.)

My immediate destination was Roskilde Camping. This is a 300-​place campsite that ranges over grassed slopes down to the sandy shore of Roskilde Fjord. Facilities were good and included a convenience store and canoes and kayaks for hire.

There was also a pancake trailer, whose owner was conveniently staying at the campsite. I had a beef one, which was filling and tasty.

On my way in, at the southern outskirts of the city, I had passed the site for the annual pop music festival. It’s one of the largest in Europe and the crowds were already assembling. Fortunately, the festival grounds are well out of earshot of the campsite.

I was in the area for Roskilde’s other two major attractions – the Viking ship museum and the cathedral. I will talk about the cathedral in part 2 of this post.

Viking ships at Roskilde

At its southern end, where the city lies, Roskilde Fjord provides a broad and shallow natural harbour. The waterway narrows abruptly as it goes north for over 20 miles, leading eventually to the Kattegat and, thence, the North Sea. It was an ideal place for Viking raiders and traders to set out from and to seek shelter in. Roskilde was consequently an important trading centre (and was Denmark’s capital).

These advantages also made the city vulnerable to forays from elsewhere in Scandinavia. The Vikings usually voyaged not as a unified force but as independent small groups, often raiding each others’ settlements. To impede attacking fleets, in the late 11th century (about the time of the Battle of Hastings) the local people sank a group of five ships in the fjord. This was near Skuldelev, about 12 miles north of Roskilde.

These days known as the Skuldelev ships, their remains were excavated from 1957 onwards. Here are some details from Åge Skjelborg, one of the archaeologists. (There is no Skuldelev 4. That designation was given to remains that turned out to be part of Skuldelev 2.)

The ship museum

The Skuldelev ships formed the basis of the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde. It was built in 1969 and is now Denmark’s national maritime museum for the mediaeval and older periods. There’s a list of activities here, with an expansible map.

In a plot twist you would deride in a novel, when the museum was being extended in 1997 the remains of further nine Viking ships came to light. One, at nearly 120 feet (36 metres), was the longest Viking warship ever discovered. It has been designated the Roskilde 6 ship.

Where the ‘new’ ships were found is now Museum Island, containing workshops, classrooms and a cafeteria.

My visit

At 10 o’clock the next morning, I drove the three miles to the museum. This was not laziness; it was what I always do with places that don’t accept dogs. Jenny’s used to staying in the van and soon curls up for some Zs on the passenger seat. Dogs are expert sleepers but never miss a chance for more practice.

There was plenty of parking, all free, so in I wandered, cameras to hand. The entrance is on Museum Island and I looked around there first. It holds a collection of wooden buildings, each containing something neb*-worthy.

*An English and Scottish slang word from around Viking times, meaning to pry into the affairs of others. Shame it’s dropped out of general use. I do lots of nebbing while on my travels (but without, I hope, being nebbish). A neb is a beak or nose.

One of the workshops contained this minty-​crisp replica of a 1908 eel-​fishing boat, being built for a private customer. Wonderful work. There’s more about it (in Danish) here, including a video, and here.

Elsewhere, outdoors, were two rows of wooden plant boxes, each containing a young tree of a kind used in building Viking ships. Attached to each box was a label explaining in Danish and English the characteristics of that species and how it was used in a ship. (The labelling was exemplary throughout the museum.) So simple but such an effective method for giving people information in a way that will stick in their minds.

Much of the instruction is practical, especially for children. They can even write their name in runic (mine’s below). School parties are regular visitors and anyone under 18 gets in free. I had a quick look at some of the activities but didn’t linger, as I wanted to get to the main building, the Viking Ship Hall.

The Viking Ship Hall

This large modernist building is a showroom for the five Skuldelev ships. Its architect was the Dane, Erik Christian Sørensen, who followed the principles of New Brutalism in creating the hall. Here, in an example of New Trivialisation, is a Lego model of it.

The virtues of Sørensen’s design show themselves when you enter the hall. All five ships sit lengthways along it, illuminated mainly by light from the fjord. The floor is on two levels and a gallery runs around the landward side, giving clear views from above.

None of the ships was recovered whole, so the remains of each are arranged over a metal armature that approximates the vessel’s original size and shape. You can see a typical result in this picture of Skuldelev 1, an ocean-​going trader from Norway.

In other parts of the main hall are models of boats, more children’s activities, and information panels about the Vikings and their remarkable achievements. There’s a well-​stocked shop on the gallery.

It was a privilege to learn about the cleverness and craftsmanship involved in creating these vessels, designed nearly 1,000 years ago. I could imagine them surging across the waves under the power of sail or oar. It seemed a shame, then, that the last service they should give in Viking times was to lie, submerged and sullen, in the path of other craft. On the other hand, if they hadn’t been so treated we might not be able to see them today at Roskilde, where they perform a more cerebral duty.

Replica boats

To aid our, and its, understanding, the museum has built working full-​sized replicas of all five Skuldelev boats. Its copy of Skuldelev 1 is called Ottar.

Using plans from the Roskilde museum, the Norwegian explorer Ragnar Thorset also built a replica of Skuldelev 1. He called it Saga Siglar (“Saga Sailor”) and sailed it to Greenland, then Newfoundland and then around the world. There are details here.

I knew the Vikings had settlements throughout the British Isles but I was still surprised to learn that Skuldelev 2, the largest of the original set of sunken ships, came from Dublin. (It’s the one nearest the camera in the long view above.)

The museum named this replica Havhingsten fra Glendalough (“Sea Stallion of Glendalough”). With a 65-​man crew, it sailed to Dublin in June 2007 and back the next year. When I visited, it was taking a breather on the lawn near the car park.

Adjoining Museum Island is a small harbour filled with boats from all ages remade in the workshops, with the occasional ‘guest’ boat. There’s a list here. You can take trips on most of them. This enthusiast’s site shows more pictures.

The example below is Helge Ask (“Helge Ash”, as in tree), a replica of Skuldelev 5. The colour scheme imitates those shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. (Scroll to the right; halfway along you’ll see them being built, apparently by giants.) There are at least two other modern versions of Skuldelev 5.

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This was the last in a quartet of outstanding museums I went to in Denmark, the others being at Trapholt, Moesgård and Egeskov Castle. I couldn’t pick a favourite.

Next time, I talk about Roskilde’s cathedral.