Lejre, Sjaelland, Roskilde, Denmark
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Lejre is situated five kilometres south of the bottom of Roskilde Fjord at a place where a System of larger and smaller streams meet, and later divide into the two streams Lejre Å and Kornerup Å, both of them flowing into Roskilde Fjord to the north.
Lejre is the name of a small village some ten kilometres southwest of Roskilde on the Island of Sealand The small settlement played an important part in the cycle of legends around the oldest Danish history. Saxo Grammaticus and Sven Aggesen, both Danish mediaeval chroniclers, as well as the Norse sagas placed the residence of the oldest Danish royal house, the Scyldings, here. |
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However, most of these traditions have been rejected by recent critical research as mere legends. It has been proved that Saxo Grammaticus and his contemporaries to a great extent built their accounts upon common migratory legends, among which the Old English poem Beowulf plays a central part. A couple of Danish and foreign sources which name Lejre remain. It is however impossible to deduce the function of the settlement from these sources.
Lejre is a railway town in Lejre Municipality (Danish: Lejre Kommune) on the island of Zealand in east Denmark. It belongs to Region Zealand. The town's Old Norse name was Hleiðr or Hleiðargarðr.
Lejre's role in Danish history can be compared to that of Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. Moreover, it has long been thought to have been the real-world counterpart to Heorot, the hall of King Hrothgar at the centre of the action in the Old English epic poem Beowulf.
Lejre is sometimes assumed to have been the capital of a putative Iron Age kingdom sometimes referred to as the "Lejre Kingdom." According to early legends, it was ruled by kings of the Skjöldung dynasty, predecessors of the kings of medieval Denmark. Legends of the kings of Lejre are known from a number of medieval sources, including the twelfth-century Gesta Danorum written by Saxo Grammaticus and the anonymous twelfth-century Chronicon Lethrense, or Chronicle of Lejre. As the home of the Skjölding (Old English Scylding) dynasty mentioned in Beowulf, Lejre has long been thought to have been the real-world counterpart to Heorot, the fabulous royal hall where the first part of the action of that Anglo-Saxon poem takes place. Among other works of the medieval imagination that tell of adventures at Lejre, the best known is the fourteenth-century Icelandic Saga of King Hrolf Kraki.
Lejre is a railway town in Lejre Municipality (Danish: Lejre Kommune) on the island of Zealand in east Denmark. It belongs to Region Zealand. The town's Old Norse name was Hleiðr or Hleiðargarðr.
Lejre's role in Danish history can be compared to that of Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. Moreover, it has long been thought to have been the real-world counterpart to Heorot, the hall of King Hrothgar at the centre of the action in the Old English epic poem Beowulf.
Lejre is sometimes assumed to have been the capital of a putative Iron Age kingdom sometimes referred to as the "Lejre Kingdom." According to early legends, it was ruled by kings of the Skjöldung dynasty, predecessors of the kings of medieval Denmark. Legends of the kings of Lejre are known from a number of medieval sources, including the twelfth-century Gesta Danorum written by Saxo Grammaticus and the anonymous twelfth-century Chronicon Lethrense, or Chronicle of Lejre. As the home of the Skjölding (Old English Scylding) dynasty mentioned in Beowulf, Lejre has long been thought to have been the real-world counterpart to Heorot, the fabulous royal hall where the first part of the action of that Anglo-Saxon poem takes place. Among other works of the medieval imagination that tell of adventures at Lejre, the best known is the fourteenth-century Icelandic Saga of King Hrolf Kraki.
