Saint Hele­ne of Tisvil­de

About Saint Hele­ne

Hele­ne’s Holy Spring & Hele­ne’s Gra­ve are two “sacred” loca­tions in the town of Tisvil­de, both con­nected with the legen­dary Saint Hele­ne. They are unique, inso­far as being loca­ted in such a popu­lar and well visi­ted area of Nort­hern Zealand. Otherwi­se, such reli­cs are most­ly found well off the bea­ten bath the­se days. Howe­ver, it is most­ly the spring, flowing from a slo­pe near the beach, that visi­tors to Tisvil­de enco­un­ter. The gra­ve is con­si­de­rably more hid­den and less well known, alt­hough both have had an immen­se sig­ni­fi­can­ce in ear­li­er times.

 Despi­te the lofty tit­le, Hele­ne is actu­al­ly just a local “folk saint” who ended up beco­m­ing popu­lar throug­hout the who­le coun­try. The­re are seve­ral legends about her and throug­hout the years she has been pre­sen­ted as eve­ryt­hing from a her­mit to a farmer’s girl to a noblewo­man. Whe­re all the legends agree, though, is that she was from somewhe­re in the south of Swe­den. One day, near­ly 800 years ago she was eit­her drow­ned or kil­led on land and thrown into the sea, but inste­ad of sinking to the bot­tom, a lar­ge rock emer­ged from the dep­t­hs and car­ri­ed her to Tisvil­de.

The locals who found Hele­ne’s body on the beach, deci­ded to car­ry her to near­by Tibir­ke Church, but they had hard­ly pick­ed her up befo­re the­re was a cave in, that led to a clear path up the slo­pe. On the way the car­ri­ers took seve­ral shor­ter bre­aks. At the spot of the first of the­se, water sud­den­ly burst out from the slo­pe and cre­a­ted what is today known as Helene’s Holy Spring.

The plan was to bury Hele­ne at the gra­vey­ard of Tibir­ke Church, but on the way the­re the car­ri­ers utte­red some very foul and uncourt­ly langu­a­ge. This resul­ted in the cor­p­se of Hele­ne sud­den­ly beco­m­ing so immen­se­ly heavy that it sank into the gro­und, and a monu­ment known as Hele­ne’s Gra­ve came to mark that very spot.

Her­e­i­naf­ter, both loca­tions were dee­med as sacred and, in accor­dan­ce with folk tra­di­tion at the time, attri­bu­ted hea­ling powers.

Hea­ling Effects

Both Hele­ne Spring and Hele­ne Gra­ve have been used for cen­turi­es for their sup­po­sed hea­ling pro­per­ties. Ill and disab­led peop­le from all over Zealand used to flo­ck to Tisvil­de aro­und the time of Saint John’s Eve, eit­her to sle­ep on the gra­ve, drink from the spring, or bring soil and water back home with them. Whe­re the soil from the gra­ve sup­po­sed­ly only “wor­ked” on the eve of Saint John’s, the water was said to be potent even many the days after.

To illu­stra­te how popu­lar —  and per­haps effecti­ve — Hele­ne Spring real­ly was even in more recent times, we have records from 1864 (the year of the Second Sch­leswig War) stat­ing that so many crut­ches, canes and other motion assi­stan­ce instru­ments were left behind after visi­tors, that they had to be trans­por­ted away in seve­ral loads. And it wasn’t only far­mers and other more simp­le peop­le that used the spring. King Chri­sti­an The Fourth visi­ted on seve­ral occa­sions and even had a bat­hhou­se and small resi­den­ce built near­by. The­se, howe­ver, are now long gone.

At some point, in con­nection with visits to the spring in par­ti­cu­lar, a lar­ge, annu­al­ly recur­ring fair was establis­hed. Over the years the hea­ling aspect gra­du­al­ly took a back seat, with the fair deve­l­o­ping more into a folk festi­val of sorts. This was of gre­at soci­al, cul­tu­ral and eco­no­mi­cal importan­ce for the area, and con­ti­nu­ed even after the belief in the sacred­ness of the springwa­ter had all but faded com­ple­te­ly. Whi­le the­se kinds of hea­ling fairs exi­sted in seve­ral other pla­ces aro­und Den­mark, the one in Tisvil­de­le was per­haps the most well known of all.

The tra­di­tion of sle­epi­ng on Hele­ne’s Gra­ve as well as drinking from the spring is no lon­ger pra­cti­ced the­se days. The for­mer ended alre­a­dy aro­und the end of the 19th cen­tury, whi­le the lat­ter con­ti­nu­ed for at least some time into the 1900’s.

Myth vs rea­li­ty

Most peop­le today would pro­bably be skep­ti­cal about the magi­cal pro­per­ties of soil and water, but even the legend about Hele­ne that came flo­at­ing on a rock from Swe­den sounds too good to be true. Whet­her she ever exi­sted at all, howe­ver, is ano­t­her question that few even con­si­der. Becau­se of the name being used so pro­li­fi­cal­ly and for so many years, not just in con­nection with the gra­ve and spring, but in the nam­ing of stre­ets, local busi­nes­ses, etc., we get the impres­sion that she must have been real.

In fact, the­re is no solid evi­den­ce of it at all. On the con­trary, it seems that the spring exi­sted, and most like­ly was used, even befo­re the arri­val of Chri­sti­a­ni­ty. The name Tisvil­de even is a moder­niza­tion of “Tyr’s Væld”, væld mea­ning wellspring, and indi­cat­ing an ear­ly con­nection with the Nor­dic god Tyr.

The­re is in fact a lar­ge rock loca­ted on the sea­bed about 50 meters from the beach near the spring, which seems to have always been con­nected to the legend. It is 3x4 meter lar­ge, flat, and sha­ped somewhat like a ship. This lat­ter fact indi­ca­tes that the sto­ne might have hel­ped sha­pe the legend, inste­ad of the other way aro­und. Hele­ne Sto­ne is best visi­ted using light diving equip­ment.

As for the gra­ve­si­te, archa­e­o­lo­gi­sts have recent­ly found rem­nants of a 13th Cen­tury cha­pel at the site. With time, we may learn more about why the gro­unds aro­und here came to be viewed as sacred, and if the­re real­ly was a link to the spring — and per­haps to a Swe­dish girl named Hele­ne.

Select Sour­ces

• Anders Uhrskov — Nord­s­jæl­land­sk fol­ke­liv
• Arnold Olsen — Nord­s­jæl­land­ske Hel­lig­kil­der
• August F. Sch­midt — Dan­marks Kæm­pe­sten
• Bering Liis­berg — Domi­na Hele­na
• Erling Ager­gaard — Dan­marks Hel­ge­ner
• Pal­le Lauring — Her Ske­te Det