I`m still on vacation and just came back to Denmark from a nice trip to Poland where we visited Poznan (don`t go there) and Gdansk (a very beautiful city).
But what do you know – Mama Lovis sent me a picture of a Viking festival taking place very close to our cabin. Of course, I had to go. And like all annoying people who`ve been to places, I will share my pictures. The quality is rotten because all the pictures are taken with my iPhone 🙁
The place is called Trelleborg and it`s an old Viking fortress which was escavated in the 1930s and 1940s. It was mainly used for soldiers and wasn`t a “normal” city as such and it wasn`t used for very long either. But it`s an interesting place because they found little bits of wood from the longhouses which made it possible for them to see exactly how the houses were set up.
You can read more about Trelleborg here.
Festival
Usually this is just a place to see the fortress walls and a copy of a longhouse but this week “Vikings” from near and far came to the place, set up Viking tents, dressed up themselves and their children and lived a Viking life, selling things, making things and going into the odd battle. When we were there Harald Bluetooth was fighting his son Svend Forkbeard.
Here are the pictures. I hope you find them interesting.
Here are some pictures of the tents with the people who`d been living there for a week. Some of them just lived there and some of them were showing their crafts or selling things. Yes, I drooled over the helmet but it cost 2000 Danish kroners which is pretty close to $400US. There are also pictures of the longhouse copy they`ve made and from the battle.
Here is a model of Trelleborg. The houses inside the fortress were for living in and the houses between the fortress and the outer wall were the ones they used to work in.
Here you can see how the longhouses were set up and with the fortress walls in the background.
They made a copy of one of the longhouses back in the 40s but they`ve later found out that the copy was wrong. The poles my children (aren`t they cute? 🙂 ) are leaning on were supposed to support the house itself – not an extra roof going out from the house.
Viking warriors waiting for battle inside the fortress. And yes, they included quite a few shieldmaidens in the battle too 🙂
I`ll upload a film or two as soon as I can get YouTube to cooperate with me.
I hope you`re all having a great summer. I know I am!