Visual Bornholm
Published by Visual Media ApS
Designed by Miru Studio
Text: Mads Westermann Photo: Anders Beier
Behind one of Bornholm’s most striking buildings – Stammershalle Badehotel, a large yellow half-timbered hotel with sweeping views of the Baltic Sea and the Ertholmene islands – lies one of the island’s hidden gems. A small miracle, quietly overlooked. A forest that feels like it could have come straight from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. A forest where lions once roared, and bears once roamed. A forest that transforms with the seasons and holds stories dating back to when Bornholm was still connected to Poland and Germany by land.
Welcome to Troldeskoven – the Troll Forest – where reality blends seamlessly with fairytale.
Once, it had a rather prosaic name: Köllergaardskov, named after the nearby freehold farm, which still stands about half a kilometre inland. But tourists, as we know, tend to demand a bit more drama. So when they began flocking to Bornholm in the late 19th century, the forest needed a name with a touch of magic.
And so it became known as Troldeskoven – the Troll Forest – or, when one really wanted to wax poetic, Elverhøjsskoven – the Forest of the Elven Hill.
There are no trolls in Troldeskoven – at least none besides the Underfolk, who are said to live all over Bornholm. But that’s another story. Troldeskoven is like a storybook you can step into. It feels almost like crossing an invisible threshold into another world. Like entering the backdrop of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, where the stories are just waiting to be told.
Among the twisted trees of this untamed forest, traces remain of some of Bornholm’s earliest inhabitants – descendants of the hunter-gatherers who migrated north during the Stone Age, when Bornholm was still connected by land to present-day Poland and Germany.
And winding your way through the crooked trees, you’ll also find the overgrown remnants of Bornholm’s first zoo – once a major attraction that drew thousands of locals and tourists alike.
The nature of Troldeskoven is unique, revealing new details and impressions with every visit. Everything you see, smell, hear, and feel transforms from one time to the next. This is a forest that shifts shape throughout the year.
In summer, the forest becomes a lush garden. Sunlight filters through the dense foliage, casting playful shadows on the forest floor. The air is rich with the scent of fresh leaves and damp soil. Dust, pollen, and tiny dancing midges become visible in the sunbeams that break through the canopy. Birdsong, paired with the soft whisper of the wind in the treetops, creates a near-musical backdrop.
As September fades into autumn, the forest wraps itself in a fiery tapestry. Leaves shift from green to gold and crimson. The fallen leaves crunch underfoot, and the air carries a spiced scent of decay. Summer’s gentle breezes are replaced by sharp gusts of wind that make the branches creak, like the rigging of an old sailing ship groaning in the wind.
From December, the forest rests in silence. The cold air bites your cheeks, and the eastern wind brings the scent of the sea deep into the woods. Now and then, snow blankets the ground, muting all sound—except for the creak of boots on frozen paths as you walk through the quiet forest, now in deep winter slumber.
In March, spring begins to make its presence felt. The forest awakens once more. Wood anemones, primroses, larkspurs, and white stonecrop break through the soil and blanket the forest floor in a tapestry of color. It starts with the delicate shoots of blue anemones. And when the final act of anemone season plays out in May—just after the beech trees burst into leaf—it’s the pale blue anemones that take the stage for the finale. The sight is reminiscent of Monet’s water lily paintings.
Legend has it that the pale blue anemone, also known as the Apennine anemone, was brought to Bornholm in the mid-1500s by the Danish nobleman Peder Oxe, who reportedly owned several farms on the island. Oxe, said to have had an interest in botany, supposedly carried the modest, bluish-grey flower home in his suitcase after a Grand Tour of Northern Italy.
Whether the story is true or not, we may never know. But it’s a good one. And as author Mark Twain once said: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
One story that is true is the story of Elverhøj. Not the one from Heiberg’s famous play, but the tale of the enormous boulder that rests deep within Troldeskoven. Elverhøj is what geologists call an erratic, a wandering stone carried here during the last Ice Age and left behind when the ice retreated northward some 12,000 years ago.
And what a stone it is! Even by Bornholm standards, it’s a striking giant. Standing six and a half meters tall and weighing in at 430 tons, Elverhøj lies at the heart of the forest like a monument to the raw power of the Ice Age—and a reminder of how profoundly it shaped the landscape we see today.
But Elverhøj’s story isn’t just a geological footnote. In a natural cavity beneath the great stone, archaeologists have found traces of Bornholm’s earliest inhabitants—people who, 6,000 years ago, found shelter beneath the giant.
At that time, the Baltic Sea was higher, and Elverhøj stood closer to the water’s edge—a good place to light a fire and seek refuge while keeping an eye on the dark horizon, through the few wind-beaten trees that clung to life along the harsh coast. You can almost picture them there: backs resting against the coarse stone, listening to the waves, and sharing stories of trolls and hidden worlds. The kind of stories we still tell today.
Several generations later – during the Late Iron Age – people were still living along the coast near Troldeskoven. At some point, someone had the idea to raise fourteen massive stones in the shape of a ship. Such a stone formation is known as a stone ship and likely served as a burial monument, its shape symbolizing the deceased’s final journey to the realm of the dead.
No archaeologist has ever excavated the site, but the discovery of burnt bones and burial traces in 1890 suggests that someone once stood here, bidding a loved one farewell on their passage to the afterlife.
Among the twisted tree trunks, you’ll also find traces from more recent times. In the 1930s, the then-owner of Hotel Stammershalle, a Mr. Mecklenburg, transformed the six acres of land surrounding the hotel into a small amusement park complete with shooting galleries, raffles, carousels—and a zoo. It became a huge draw. Bears, lions, monkeys—an entire menagerie of exotic animals was displayed in cages nestled between the rocky outcrops.
When the zoo opened during Easter of 1934, it attracted 5,000 paying guests within just a few weeks. Mecklenburg must have been pleased with both his idea and his investment.
Today, only the bear grotto remains—a small concrete enclosure that once housed a pair of Malayan sun bears, also known as Malabears. A relic from a time when animal welfare was far from top priority.
Sadly, the fascination with lions and bears didn’t last forever. In 1937, Mecklenburg was forced to part with his four lions—they were simply too expensive to feed. At 15 pounds of raw meat per lion per day, the costs were overwhelming by 1930s standards. But no one wanted the lions. And so, the story ends tragically: the majestic animals had to be euthanized.
No one on Bornholm dared to carry out the task. In September 1937, a hunter from Zealand was summoned to shoot the four fully grown lions. The scene was grim. The local newspaper, Bornholms Socialdemokrat, sent a reporter who described in vivid detail how the lions leapt several meters into the air before collapsing.
As payment for his services, the hunter selected a 13-year-old lioness weighing 150 kilograms, which he transported back to Zealand on the luggage rack of his open car. There, in the middle of a street in Hillerød, he posed in riding boots and uniform beside the dead lioness—immortalized in a chilling photograph.
If you’ve had your fill of ancient memories and untamed nature, there’s one last little gem waiting on the other side of the road—tucked into the rocks at the water’s edge, just across from the hotel terrace. A landing jetty.
In its heyday, over a century ago, it served as the arrival point for hotel guests, who would be ferried here by boat. Back then, Bornholm had no paved coastal road. But then came the cars, and the jetty lost its purpose. In 1948, it finally gave way to the sea ice and waves.
Thankfully, it was rebuilt in 2018—this time as a bathing pier, open to hotel guests and the public alike. And that is a gift to us all. Because after a brisk walk in Troldeskoven, few things feel more revitalizing than slipping into the bay’s cool, crystal-clear water.
And once you’ve cooled off in the waves, what could be more fitting than rounding off your journey into the land of fairy tales with a glass of crisp, sparkling white wine on the hotel terrace—enjoyed with a view of the Baltic Sea and the Ertholmene islands?
