Visual Bornholm
Published by Visual Media ApS
Designed by Miru Studio
TEXT: MADS WESTERMANN PHOTO: ANDERS BEIER
At first glance, Rispebjerg seems open and almost bare. A windswept fallow field near Poulsker, seemingly empty. But as soon as your boots hit the ground, 5,000 years of dramatic history unfold in the landscape.
Here, on the flat plateau above the Øleådalen, the wind has shaped a landscape for millennia that has witnessed everything from sun worship to bloody pirate attacks. The traces are still there.
Here, there was a large temple where the island’s first Stone Age farmers worshipped the sun. Later, in the Iron Age, there was a huge castle of refuge where the people of Bornholm at the time could seek safety when pirates from the other side of the Baltic Sea ravaged and plundered Bornholm.
Rispebjerg was created for defense. The flat field is a natural fortress. On three sides it is bounded by 15-meter high, steep slopes down towards Øleå. Only to the southeast was it vulnerable, and here the Iron Age Bornholmers built massive ramparts, high palisade fences and dug deep and wide moats.
Fortifications that were constructed with great ingenuity, so that it was possible to give the attackers a break, while the Bornholmers themselves could be safe. For example, some of the ramparts were placed in a way that they could not be attacked from the outside without the attackers themselves being attacked from several sides.
To ensure that there was drinking water for both livestock and people, the meadow west of Ringborgen was also protected by an almost 30-meter wide moat, which cut through the river valley. This moat secured access to two important springs of clean water, and it protected grazing areas for the livestock that the Bornholmers had brought with them when they sought refuge on Rispebjerg.
From the outer ring rampart, the landscape can still be read as an old defensive structure. The grassy remains of the ramparts mark where three-meter-high palisades once stood. In total, the castle complex covered an area equivalent to several football fields, large enough to accommodate hundreds of people and their animals for weeks. When the bavne fires – the alarms of the time – were lit on the island’s hilltops, the farmers fled towards Rispebjerg with their families and livestock to seek shelter from the enemy pirates. Bornholm’s Stonehenge – just in wood
If we rewind time 2,900 years before our era, Rispebjerg was not a castle, but a sanctuary. A Bornholm Stonehenge, built of solid oak.
At that time, 22 enormous wooden circles, known as woodhenges, towered over the landscape. On top were platforms of clay, where smoke from sacrifices rose towards the sky. Archaeologists have found burnt bone remains in the ground, remnants of the rituals that Bornholm’s first farmers performed in honor of the sun. Among the finds are also
the so-called sun stones – flat pieces of slate with finely engraved sun motifs. They are completely unique to Bornholm and are not known anywhere else in the world.
Wooden circles of this type are only known from a few places in Scandinavia. Some of them are today marked with posts in the ground, and one has been reconstructed as a lookout tower. From here, you can look out over the plain and sense traces of the old temple and the old defenses.
When talking about Rispebjerg, one cannot avoid the Underjordiske. According to Bornholm folklore, the Underjordiske are a small people who look like humans, but are smaller in stature. They typically wear grey clothes and red top hats.
The Underjordiske look after Bornholm, and legend has it that if the enemy comes, the Underjordiske will rise up to become a mighty and invincible army. But only when a Christian person has fired a shot at the enemy. Then the Underjordiske take up arms and help defend Bornholm.
According to tradition, Rispebjerg is the Underjordiske’s training ground. Here they practice every night in order to be able to defend Bornholm against enemies from outside. At the head of the army rides their king, Ellestingeren. He sits on a three-legged horse, Helhest, which is a white gelding with a harness adorned with gold fittings. On his head, Ellestingeren wears a triangular hat and in his hand a spear, and around him are 12 courtiers, each of whom is responsible for a piece of Bornholm.
According to legend, after Midsummer’s Eve or on a full moon night, the surrounding burial mounds can be seen rising on glowing poles, and Ellestingeren sits at the end of the table in a lighted banquet hall of gold and silver, while the Underworld feasts. Legend also says that those who have seen this will never be quite themselves again.
The best way to reach Rispebjerg is on foot. From Brugsen in Pedersker, the Pærskerstien leads through the landscape. It is a 1.6-kilometer long tramping path, where the wild grass tickles the calves, and the scent of warm fields and the flowers in the hedgerows fills the nostrils. Suitable for short legs.
On the slopes down towards Øleå you can find fossils from Bornholm’s geological past. Imprints of shells and sea animals from a time when the island was under water. Stones with clear imprints lie loose in the clay and can be picked up.
Rispebjerg offers a break along the way. Bring a picnic basket
with you.
