Kirsten Hvid/Maren Hinds Mound

Parking: There is a large parking area at the harbor

Good To Know: The forest area where the mound stands is fenced off, but it can be entered from the right side of the welcome center building

Nearby Attractions:

At Stigsnæs harbor is an old burial mound, around which elves have been observed

An Elven Party

Behind the welcome center at Stigsnæs Harbor is a small burial mound, that apparently was ground zero for a fairly recent sighting of elves. The story on the surface seems like a typical legend about “mound people”, but there is evidence that it has roots in a concrete observation. There are apparently two versions of this sighting, one to be found in Dansk Folkemindesamling (The Danish Folklore Collection), where the mound is referred to as Kirsten Hviids Høj. The following is the incident as it was recorded by the informant’s own father:

I once saw something. What it was, I do not know, but it stands as clear to me as it had happened yesterday and it is neither a dream nor an illusion. We were 4 people who saw it. It was an evening in early November. Father, I and Lars Olsen from Klintehuset and their school teacher, Knudsen, had been running an errand on Agersø (the nearest island) in the afternoon. It was a bit late before we left the island, but it was the most beautiful weather imagineable. It was full moon, silent and the water was shiny like a mirror. We lowered the mast and rowed quickly over towards Stigsnæs forest to escape the currents. Our original destination was a little further south of there. The talk was lively between us, but all of the sudden that came to a stop. Just as we came to the place where the spruce forest retreats and makes way for the coast, we saw a sight. which none of us will ever forget. Up on Kirsten Hvid’s mound there were hundreds of candles burning in a circle, and on the meadow some figures were running and playing, but no sound was heard. All the figures were dressed in white – there must have been a dozen of them in all. They also ran down to the coast and looked at us. They kept on in this manner for as long as we could see them. We do not think that they were human. The next day we asked the forester if there had been a festive gathering in the forest, but there had not.

No exact date has been given for the incident, which was reported to Dansk Folkemindesamling in 1906.

The second version of the story is apparently found in the Holsteinsborg Local Archive. Here the mound is referred to as Maren Hinds Høj. The following is Folk legend researcher Mads Lidegaard’s description in Danske Høje fra Sagn og Tro:

Maren Hinds Høj is located in the southwest corner of Ørnehoved Skov near the beach facing the ferry berth, now fenced in. Here were elven girls. One night a teacher and a fisherman had been to a party on Agersø and had been well drunk. When they passed the mound on the way home, they saw elven girls and much more, and the experience was so strong that when the intoxication had subsided, they founded the local abstinence association

Commentary

It has not been possible to find out where the names Kirsten Hvid and Maren Hind came from or refer to. None of them are used by the Danish Nature Agency in their marking and registration, and there is a chance that the story is associated with another, nearby mound, which has later been destroyed. Folklore researcher Inger Boberg once wrote a number of quite comprehensive articles about legends and beliefs associated with burial mounds around the country, including those that have since disappeared. For some reason, in her article about mounds in the Sorø area, nothing is mentioned regarding a Kirsten Hvid or Maren Hinds mound. Folk legend collector and researcher Mads Lidegaard, however, seems sure to have pinpointed the one we have mapped as the right one. It should be mentioned here that the Stigsnæs Ferry Port wasn’t established until 1962, and the welcome center came into being a few years later. So there has apparently been a clear line of sight to the mound in the past, and the landscape has been completely different and open around the coast.

Despite the different names for the mound, and a few contrasting details in the above accounts, there seems to be no doubt that they are based on the same basic experience, which may even have a natural explanation behind it. Whatever the case may be, one can imagine that the story has been told so many times among locals that it gradually gained the quality of a local “urban” legend. The detail of starting a local abstinence association f.ex., is something you often hear in connection with stories that sound too good to be true. It could be something that has been added along the way, to moralize about the experience or put it in a dismissive light. One thing is certain though: if the whole crew had been heavily intoxicated, it would be some feat to row from Agersø to Stigsnæs, as the trip takes about 15 minutes now a days by ferry.