Deep in a bog..
A mystic Viking seeress told us tales of the coming ragnarök
Today we paid a special visit to Denmark’s cultural and historical past at the Nationalmuseet Denmark (National Museum of Denmark). We spent the entire day, wandering the exhibits of this museum, and we still did not get to see everything (cue at least 15 people reading this complaining about how I read EVERY SIGN and placard in a museum). Look, folks, those important bits of information were printed out for a reason, and they are NOT going to read themselves! So cool it!
But also…I was better about not needing to read everything. I frequently found myself catching up to Jessi. This was not due to any lacking of quality or amount of reading material available in relation to the exhibits. In fact, both Jessi and I remarked that this is one of the very best history museums that we’ve ever visited! The summaries that accompanied each chronological section of every exhibit were supremely well written, provided fantastic information, and included references to specific “can’t miss it” objects located in the same room. Guys, the Danes have it down to a science!
The museum hosts exhibits about the history and cultural heritage of Denmark and all of its current and former territorial holdings. It also indirectly provides some history about its fellow Scandinavian neighbors. We ran out our time in the museum (they were closing by the time we finally left), but there is a super cool exhibit about the former Danish colonial territories and the negative impacts of colonization on them. Breezing through the exhibit on our way out of the wing, we noticed documentation of a city in India near Calcutta, Greenland, the former Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands), and the Faroe Islands. We are giving serious thought to going back to the museum to finish that exhibit when we return back to Copenhagen at the end of our trip.
Things of a historical nature
The museum chronicles the happenings in Denmark from the Stone Age through the modern era, and contains at least two 9,000 year old dog turds. Yeah…not making that up. But also, that’s freaking cool! Now, if you own a dog, please don’t go leaving their droppings lay about wherever they are…dropped…in hopes that your dog’s business is preserved into the year 11,024. Please and thank you! By then we will probably just be getting around to making efficient and easy-to-open pickle jars or fixing the damage to our planet that pickle jars probably did.
How do we know about life and dog turds in the Nordic regions that long ago? Well it turns out that the graves and methods of goods-sacrifice in the region were absolutely PERFECT for preservation. That preservation was an art perfected further over the succeeding ages. Here’s something that blew my mind. Once the ice age had ended and the glaciers that covered most of Northern Europe had receded to the point that the land became habitable, tribes of people who made their way north to settle would SACRIFICE….objects. Yes you read that right! That shiny stone axe you have? The gods want it. Accept the pain it brings you to part with it, and use the next one you made. I guess it spurs and drives the iterative process of invention and product evolution? Can you imagine the stone age sales and marketing teams back then? Probably weren’t much different than today. Not much evolution in that sector, if you ask me. But supply and demand is a thing. You have it, the gods want it, and you want that crop to grow.
Anyway, here’s the process by which you sacrifice these things to the gods from the Stone Age through to the Bronze Age:
You have the perfect weather and soil conditions to preserve stone/bone etc.
You have access to a lake. (Most any clear idyllic glacial lake will do)
You throw all your sacrificial shit into the ground or into a lake. If in the ground, bury it, peat side down, forming layers of minerals that perfectly seal your items in an oxygen free state (no decay).
Special note, this also applies to bodies that you might dispose of in a bog or bury in a barrow (small man-made hill with multi-tiered graves)
One of the most amazing things I learned today was about how the Danes dealt with the Romans, and how we are able to directly confirm Roman invasions of the territories in Denmark in the Iron Age. Back then, the scene was still tribal. The tribes would annihilate the units of these invading Roman armies, strip the soldiers of all their belongings, and then bury all their ships and weapons as sacrifices. “Thanks for helping us to appease our gods a bring the good crops, Dooficus!” Romans? What Romans? I jest about the nature of the weapons and goods sacrifices, but from the massive wealth of artifacts (still being found by the way), it really seemed like these tribal peoples just really wanted those pesky Romans to disappear. Now, the Romans did have their successes in the region. After all, they did extend their influence deep into Europe through force, but they also used a more clever tactic. They made friends and alliances. By working with the leaders of the tribes to provide them with safe trade along the Elbe River and other major trade routes in the region, they were able to put into place many great Danish Magnate Families, who closely allied with them.
I took a bunch of pictures of interesting stone/bone/bronze/iron axes, tools swords, jewelry, coinage, beads, saddles, animal skeletons, and other grave goods/sacrifices preserved in the musueum, and they are still being unearthed in Denmark today. In fact, there is a small exhibit about amateur metal detectorists, who recover these things in the field. There are laws in Denmark requiring folks to hand over objects of historical and cultural importance when found. They even receive awards for their finds, which are taken by archeology teams and evaluated. There are stories of people finding hoardes of ancient coins in fields, tree-trunk coffins in bogs, and randomly, a horned helmet just sticking up out of the ground that tripped a young woman! What a unique way to turn the tables on the concept of archeology as a walled profession! Of course there are also laws that regulate the care that needs to be taken when searching for artifacts, and there are also regulations about where it can be done, when you should notify authorities, etc. In essence, it creates an army of “professional amateurs.”
The Völva
Jessi and I took a walk through the amazing exhibit about Viking mysticism and the female Viking seeresses, called völvas (vool-vas). They were the oracles of the Viking people, performing magic and engaged in a ritual known as the seid. This ritual involved group singing and potentially the consumption of poisonous herbs, and it induced an altered state in the völva, by which she could converse with he spirit world. She could then do magic and see the future. This power was accorded to only the females in the culture. Even the great god Odin, father of the pantheon of Norse gods had to seek out a völva for counsel if he wanted to see into the future.
The exhibit was a guided interactive experience with amazing and dramatic sets, shows, voice acting, and effects! It was truly the best interpretive exhibit that I’ve ever seen. You wore a headset that activated audio scenes according to your location in the exhibit. The audio völva bid you to follow deeper into the next scene as you are immersed into Norse mythology. The climax was an incredible multimedia experience with mirrors and projectors, in which the völva presents her vision of the coming of ragnarõck (the Viking apocalypse tale). I could sit here and write for 3-4 hours about the fascinating stuff that was in this exhibit, but here are some of the highlights:
Vikings are not a “people” per se. Viking is a job. The word referred to a warrior or trader. It referred to someone in the Nordic culture who went away raiding or trading to bring stuff back to their families and tribe. Because they introduced themselves to other Europeans as Vikings (their job title), the name sort of stuck. It began to be broadly applied to tribesman who were simple farmers and warriors/traders alike by other Europeans of the time. So forgive me for the rest of this post, as I refer to them as Vikings and as “Viking culture”
Thor’s hammer is a symbol of fertility and was exclusively worn by women! Take what you will from that.
There are many cool stories about völvas doing magic for tribes in exchange for pay. They had elaborate and expensive ceremonial regalia, often cobbled from seized loot paid to them (bent foreign coins and other objects) as well as rich local wealth like amber beads. They were identified by the carrying of rods (magic rods or staffs). They performed their magic (or were thought to have spiritual position through) using raised seats or chairs, which often appeared as chair-shaped beads or pendants. It may be the case that there is more in symbols to this rather than actual seats. They funded these pieces of regalia with gifts for their magic and counsel. One story told of a usurper King, who needed a völva to find the family of the former King. They were in hiding, and they posed a great danger to his legitimacy, while they were alive. You know, so he REALLY needed to end that line completely. He paid her handsomely, and she called all of the tribe together for a feast. She was raised above the tribe and began her magic. She stated that the old King’s kin were hiding near the fire. They were. Suddenly a gold ring was thrown to the völva. She caught it and stated that everything she said was a lie. She then predicted that the true successor king would return and restore the line. Supposedly, that’s exactly what happened. Another story involved a queen who was also a völva and could do magic. She liked younger men. She brought a traveling young man (with a fiancé back home) to her bedroom under the auspices that she would help him get the inheritance he was travelling to seek. She locked him in and some days/weeks later she asked him if he had a betrothed back home. I hope she at least offered him a glass of water or a Gatorade too! He lied to her and she knew it by her magic. She kissed him and said that she had now cursed him to lose his beloved when he returned home. He returned home and married his beloved, but she immediately found grounds for divorce. After the marriage ceremony, she had found that his penis was suddenly too big for making an heir since he had come back. The physics just were… not possible. And so she was divorced from him
The völvas survived into the christian era of the Danish people, and were thought to have been a secondary spiritual advisors for long after christianity had spread its tendrils into the Viking people. Though, they were gradually phased out, and the profession died a slow death.
One last thing. In the medieval era exhibit, there was an artifact that I found pretty neat. As most medieval exhibits do, they had quite a few depictions of the Christian Jesus character being crucified. One of those artifacts appeared into in part, and it caught our eyes. It was a half-head! Only the right half of his head! It was being chopped up to be used as firewood, when a priceless solid gold reliquary fell out of a cavity that was hidden inside! That cross reliquary is also on display nearby, and it was rumored to have a splinter of the “true cross” in it. So many reliquaries of the time pulled that old shtick, though.
What else to say? There are so many more things to talk about in this museum, but I’ll never be able to cover it all AND be able to sleep a respectable amount of time tonight. So the only way to really solve this is….you’re going to have to come here and check it out! Highly recommended!
After the museum, Jessi and I were pretty tired. We took a quick break at the hotel, and then went down past Radhuspladsen (City Hall) to Strøget (a pedestrian shopping street). We walked along he winding road passed the shops and to our intended dinner destination at the rooftop of the Illlum department store. Unfortunately, we wound up at the wrong restaurant for the experience that we were seeking, but we made the best of it, and learned a thing or two about making decisions while tired….and planning that better.
After some ice cream on the way home to the hotel, here we are. All caught up!
Enjoy the pictures! Tomorrow is supposed to be Castle-palooza! Hopefully things go to plan! You’ll find out right after we do! :-)
