Somewhat surprisingly Jelling is the only Danish UNESCO inscribed “Viking” site. In fact I feel that Viking archaeological sites as a whole are under represented on the list! Sweden has Birka and Norway the very late Urnes stave church but then you have to go to Canada (Anse) or Iceland (Thingvellir). And the Scandinavian countries’ Tentative Lists offer no hope. No where is there a Ship Burial (eg Lindholme Hofe), Fortress (eg Trelleborg or Fyrkat) or the Viking “Hadrians” Wall the Danevirke

Jelling today (Jun 2001) is a small town/village. At the edge are 2 burial mounds with a church set between them and 2 carved stones. The larger of these stones is set in a straight line to the summits of the 2 mounds and exactly half way between them.

The site has particular meaning to Danes as the place where the Vikings accepted Christianity. One of the mounds is thought be (or at least legend has it) the burial place of the pagan King Gorm and the smaller of the 2 stones (not in its orginal place), in runic script, states “King Gorm made these monuments in memory of his wife Thyra, Denmark’s adornment”. The second and central stone (photo) states (also in rune and thought not be in exactly the correct place) “King Harald ordered these monuments to be made after his father Gorm and his mother Thyra. It was this Harald who won for himself all Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christians”. The stone is thought to date from around 960CE. One 1 site therefore there are runes of both Pagan and Christian Nordic culture. The church is very simple and not all orginal, but contains some murals from around 1100CE.

It is a very pleasant little spot to visit. We had the place entirely to ourselves. It is also one of those places whose significance is perhaps greater and more interesting than the site itself might indicate. Many of the villages, including my own, near where I live in UK have Danish names and a few runic inscriptions can be seen (eg on St Cuthberts Coffin from 698 at Durham Cathedral). It is interesting to trace back the source of these connections.

As an aside it might also be interesting to note that the Harald referred to is Harold Bluetooth. And he is the same guy after which the radio frequency standard for connecting computer devices is named (“Bluetooth”) -albeit via more modern fiction. The Bluetooth logo merges the Viking runes for H and B (Harald Blåtand) and the technology merges telecoms and computing in analogy to Harald Bluetooth merging Norway and Denmark!!