Pri­est Cross Hill

Legends about The Cross

The­re are two dif­fe­rent ver­sions of the basic legend sur­ro­un­ding Pri­est Cross Hill, both very similar. They both spe­ak of an unna­med pri­est from Vin­de­rød Church, the first Lut­he­ran pri­est in the area, who was a bit too zea­lous in his prea­ching about the new chur­ch’s dog­ma, wit­hout sen­si­bi­li­ty for the locals’ ear­li­er, Cat­ho­lic beliefs. Final­ly one day, in his eager­ness, he step­ped over the line. One ver­sion says that he, eit­her deli­be­ra­te­ly or by acci­dent, kno­ck­ed over and bro­ke a belo­ved, local relic — an altar­pie­ce depi­cting the Vir­gin Mary.

In any case, he did somet­hing that made the locals so furious that they cha­sed him all the way to the top of the hill, whe­re they kil­led him. The idea was to lea­ve the body to be devou­red by car­rion, but when a few days had gone by and not even a sing­le bird had tou­ched it, peop­le star­ted to wor­ry. Had they gone too far, even to the point of cros­sing God? Was the­re, after all, somet­hing to the Lut­he­ran tea­chin­gs? To ato­ne for their actions, the peop­le of Vin­de­rød deci­ded to rai­se a cross in memo­ri­am of the pri­est. At some point it beca­me part of local folkl­o­re, that if ever the cross was taken down again, the­re would be bad fortu­ne and disea­se among the catt­le.

Facts vs. Fiction

Whi­le it is certain­ly wit­hin the realm of pos­si­bi­li­ties that a pri­est was once mur­de­red here, it is dif­fi­cult to recon­ci­le that it should have hap­pe­ned to Vin­de­rød’s first Lut­he­ran pri­est in 1536. This is becau­se we know that the first offi­ci­al pri­est, Jacob Ernst, sur­vi­ved his tenu­re, which began this year. We also don’t have any indi­ca­tion that any of the later pri­ests were kil­led whi­le in offi­ce. This has led some histo­ri­ans to specu­la­te if per­haps the story goes even furt­her back in time, into the mid­dle ages. Or per­haps, we are dea­ling with a “hid­den” pri­est who is not men­tio­ned in the offi­ci­al regi­sters.

But how far back can we actu­al­ly tra­ce it? The oldest known sour­ce we have is a church record from 1758, whe­re the name Pri­est Cross Hill is men­tio­ned as well as the very basi­cs of the legend: that the first Lut­he­ran pri­est was kil­led here, becau­se his tea­chin­gs clas­hed too hard with tho­se of the Cat­ho­lic Faith. What is less clear is whet­her or not a cross was actu­al­ly pre­sent on the hill during the time, alt­hough it certain­ly points to the­re once having been one. Regard­less, we do know for sure that despi­te all the bad fortu­ne con­nected with its rem­oval, at least for some peri­od until 1936, the­re was no cross here. This year, which was both the 400 year anni­ver­s­ary of the sup­po­sed mur­der, as well as of the Pro­te­stant Refor­ma­tion, it was deci­ded to once again rai­se a cross and make a pro­per memo­ri­al on Pri­est Cross Hill. The cur­rent cross which now stands here, was rai­sed in 1986.

Even if the ori­gi­nal rea­son for the rai­sing of a cross on Pri­est Cross Hill turns out to be very dif­fe­rent than what we think, it is inte­r­e­sting to con­tem­p­la­te what might have hap­pe­ned here, that kept legends ali­ve for so many years. One gets the distin­ct fee­ling that it was somet­hing sig­ni­fi­cant.

Select Sour­ces

• Anders Uhrskov – Nord­s­jæl­land­sk fol­ke­liv 2
• Mads Lide­gaard — Dan­ske Høje fra Sagn og Tro