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- Fra Henning Thøgersen:
Queen Thyre Danebod Builds the Danewerk in the 10th Century
Thyre Danebod lived in the first half of the 10th century. She was the wife of the Danish king Gorm. To protect her country from incursions by the German king Otto I, she is said to have ordered all the adult men of the kingdom, around the year 940, to build a protective rampart along its southern border. This more than thirty kilometre long defensive bulwark was called the »Danewerk« (with many variant spellings). We now know that the Danewerk cannot be attributed to Thyre, because it is much older. But in the 19th century they praised the farsightedness of the queen, who was believed to have provided lasting protection against foreign invasion and thus guaranteed the kingdom's continued existence.
In his painting Lorens Frølich portrays her as a determined woman who directs the work on the wall with forward-looking mien. This myth of origin illustrates the disposition of the Danes, whose constant fear of being conquered by the Germans was further fed in the 19th century by two wars and finally confirmed by the loss of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. In the war of 1864 against Germany and Austria, the Danish population felt disgraced when their own troops abandoned the Danewerk, although the bulwark had long since become obsolete and strategically useless.
The Memory of Queen Thyra.
The boat lay out.
If one had come to Jelling around 950 the church and the church yard had not been there, the runic stones and the mounds had not been there either, but instead there was the biggest boats in the world, built of gigantic stones.
The stone ship had a length of 170 meter (2 football pitches), and at the north end of the ship was a mound from
the bronze age. The south end of the ship was where Møllers Barbershop is to day.
This hole gigantic lay out had been finished about 950.
What was the use of this great boat lay out? Well, one could imagine that an important and below able person has died in Jelling and this should be a worthy memory and stately funeral. It might be Queen Thyra.
She has been buried somewhere in the ship, perhaps right in the middle, and Gorms stone of memory over Thyra may have been standing in the bow of the ship or by Queen Thyra´s grave. A little later, when they were christened, the church yard was erected across the middle of the ship, so if Queen Thyra was buried there, then she was in consecrated earth now. As already mentioned Gorm The Old was moved from his grave in the North Mound to consecrated earth in the first wooden church.
Gorm becomes old and dies.
Harald Blåtand decides to build a place for a grave in the old mound from the bronze age at the north end of the ship. They dug in the old mound and built a grave chamber made of 35 cm. thick oak beams, and there was built floor made of oak planks. The grave chamber is 6,75 meter long and 2,60 meter wide and is 1,45 meter high. The floor in the grave chamber is placed 1,75 meter above ground level outside the mound. The grave chamber is placed east - west.
When Gorm has been placed in the grave chamber, they placed thick oak beams as ceiling. Then 1500 large stones are placed overall above the mound from the bronze age.
Above all that they build a much higher mound, the one we to day call The North Mound, (Thyras Mound).
There was only used grass turf, which they planed from the fields around Jelling, and they were carried to The North Mound. It must have taken some years to build the mound and the work has probably been conducted by slaves.
Thyra´s mound is 8,5 meter high and 65 meter wide.
A piece of wood with bark was placed in a ct-scanner and it showed that the wood had been cut in the winter 958-959, so it must have been the time of Gorms funeral. Today the grave chamber has fallen down totally. A short time after that they built an even larger mound, The South Mound (Gorm´s Mound). They must be of the same height, and because the terrain falls 2 1/2 meter, they had to build
the mound 2 ½ meter higher. No trace is found in the grave chamber in the South Mound. It is 11 meter high and 80 meters wide. Some of the wooden peaces found in the mound has been dated. They are from the years 965 970.
So The South Mound has been build some years after The North Mound.
Harald Blåtand was christened after pressure from the German emperor , and (it is told) the clerk Popo carried red-hot iron in his hands without being hurt to prove that the Christian belief is stronger than the heathen belief. It was the time of unrest and upheaval of religion in Denmark, and smaller areas had already been christened. Over and over churches abroad had sent their people to the Danish kings and the Danish people since Willibrord in 720 visited Agantyr. About 980 Harald Blåtand erected a gigantic stone in remembrance of his father and mother. It is carved with Christian symbols, Christ figures and runic letters. The weight of the stone is about 10 tons.
About the same time Harald Blåtand builds the first christian church in Jelling. It was built of wood just like the way they always built houses at that time, and the wooden poles were dug into the wet clay in the underground.
The first wooden church was bigger than the present church, and it was placed inside the stone ship, at the same place as the stone church is situated today.
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