Celebrate Christmas with the ancient people of Lejre Land of Legends

Celebrate Christmas with the ancient people of Lejre Land of Legends

Visit us this Christmas – bring a valid corona passport and face mask – you need both in the store to enter!

27.-Nov 28, Nov 4-5 and Dec 11-12

Hear Viking stories, cast a steadfast tin soldier and take part in the guessing competition for half a Sagnlands wild boar for this year’s Christmas table when Lejre Land of Legends opens its doors for All Ages Christmas Weekends.

Few people are not in need of a good time when the winter weather sets in and darkness falls early. This is true today, it was true in the 1800s where many of today’s Christmas traditions come from, and it was true in the Viking Age when midwinter offered many a feast.

How the holiday was celebrated by the Vikings and the peasants of the past, and how Christmas has evolved into what we know today, is something you can experience when Lejre Land of Legends celebrates All Ages Christmas for the first time and focuses on both Christmas stories from great-great-great grandmother’s childhood and the midwinter celebrations of the Viking kings.

-For the past many years, we have focused on the 1800s, where many of the Christmas traditions we know today have their roots. But from this year, we are expanding Christmas in Lejre Land of Legends when we open the King’s Hall for the first time, says archaeologist and communications manager Tania Lousdal Jensen:

-“It’s something we’re really looking forward to sharing with our guests. Also because there are actually threads and traditions that can be traced all the way from the pagan midwinter celebrations of the Viking Age up to Christmas as we know it today, she says and explains that one of them lies in the very name ‘Christmas’, which comes from the Old Norse expression to ‘Drink Jól’.

How this is connected, what it means to Drikke Jól and how much the Vikings cared about being able to hold a Christmas party with such lavish amounts of food and drink that it could easily compete with today’s Christmas parties are just some of the things you can hear about when Sagnlandet Lejre opens its doors for three consecutive weekends and celebrates Christmas in both 19th century and Viking style.

All three weekends the program is packed like a well-laid Christmas table, and young and old can throw themselves into everything from casting tin soldiers and rolling beeswax candles, hunting elves with the whole family, listening to storytelling in the King’s Hall, trying their hand at the new carving workshop in Båldalen and visiting the historical workshops where potters, plant dyers and blacksmiths have made Christmas crafts galore.

The Christmas celebrations also include the unveiling of a craftsmanship gem – a new reconstruction of a very special Viking find that will help spread the Christmas spirit in the King’s Hall, and a built-in guessing competition where guests and well-wishers have the opportunity to win half a Sagnlands wild boar for the Christmas table.

Read more and see the full day program for the Christmas weekend you’re planning (select specific month and date in the calendar)