In 1826, a hou­se on Lak­se­ga­de in Copen­ha­gen was seve­re­ly plagu­ed by a vio­lent and destructi­ve pol­ter­gei­st. Learn more about the inci­dent that gave rise to the famous saying here

Whe­re: The hou­se used to be aro­und the cur­rent Lak­se­ga­de no. 9 or 11, but is long gone. The address was then no. 210 (GPS 55.6778910, 12.5840640)

When: Sep­tem­ber, 1826

Good To Know:

Similar cases: The Got­hers­ga­de Pol­ter­gei­st, The Ny Told­bod­ga­de Pol­ter­gei­st, The Vogn­ma­ger­ga­de Haun­ting

About The Epi­so­de

Over the cour­se of seve­ral weeks during Sep­tem­ber, 1826, a hou­se loca­ted on Lak­se­ga­de (Sal­mon Stre­et) no. 210 in the cen­ter of Copen­ha­gen, see­m­ing­ly beca­me the epi­cen­ter of extre­me pol­ter­gei­st acti­vi­ty. It all star­ted one night in the begin­ning of the month, when sud­den­ly all of the buil­ding’s resi­dents fled out­si­de in a com­ple­te panic. From the stre­et they would obser­ve their home deve­l­op into a sta­te of total cha­os. The mes­sa­ge soon spre­ad, and citizens throug­hout Copen­ha­gen flo­ck­ed to see what the fuss was all about. Wit­nes­ses would later descri­be win­dows being smas­hed and pota­to­es, cut­le­ry, and firewood flying through the air, as if thrown by an enor­mous, unse­en for­ce. Loud bursts of harsh and scary laugh­ter, swea­ring and cur­sing, could also occa­sio­nal­ly be heard throug­hout the stre­et. Some wit­nes­ses even clai­med to have heard growls like tho­se of a wild ani­mal, and seen lar­ge red eyes glowing behind the win­dows of the hou­se.

The poli­ce soon inter­fe­red. Offi­cers were assig­ned to regu­lar sta­ke-outs in the hope of cat­ching tho­se respon­sib­le. After a week or so, on the 15th of Sep­tem­ber and the fol­lowing days, a public sta­te­ment was relea­sed and prin­ted in most major news­pa­pers. It noted that the recent com­mo­tion about Lak­se­ga­de 210 was com­ple­te­ly out of pro­por­tions to what actu­al­ly had taken pla­ce. It was true that a resi­dent of the hou­se had expe­ri­en­ced seve­ral of his win­dows being smas­hed from the out­si­de, at dif­fe­rent times, but that was all the­re was to it. Nevert­he­less, thin­gs appa­rent­ly kept on hap­pe­ning at the hou­se for a whi­le after, each time esca­ping the long arm of the law.

The inci­dent cre­a­ted a swarm of asso­ci­a­ted rumors that qui­ck­ly spre­ad, some slight­ly omi­nous. For examp­le, an elder­ly fema­le resi­dent was said to have assu­med respon­si­bi­li­ty for the events, belie­ving she had cal­led forth The Evil One by acci­dent, whi­le con­sul­ting her Cypri­a­nus ear­li­er in the day. Down­right sil­ly epi­so­des also fol­lowed, such as a note found stuck in a pota­to, writ­ten by “The Devil”, anno­un­cing that he had left the city for a few days to visit a mar­ket in the city of Roskil­de.

The Lak­se­ga­de inci­dent cap­tu­red the imag­i­na­tion of Danish folk and popu­lar cul­tu­re for a long time after the dis­tur­ban­ces had stop­ped. Plays, sati­res, books etc. made count­less refe­ren­ces to the events that tran­spi­red as well as the public rea­ction to it. It also cre­a­ted the famous cat­chp­hra­se: “The Devil is Loo­se in Sal­mon Stre­et” — mea­ning somet­hing similar to “shit hit­ting the fan”. The expres­sion still lives on to this day, alt­hough the details of what is said to have tran­spi­red Lak­se­ga­de events are no lon­ger com­mon know­led­ge.

The sta­te­ment by the poli­ce, denying any otherwor­ld­ly goings-on in Sal­mon Stre­et

Com­men­tary

The­re are many con­fli­cting anec­do­tes and testi­mo­nies sur­ro­un­ding this clas­sic case, and no doubt many are com­ple­te­ly fabri­ca­ted. But what real­ly hap­pe­ned then? After weeks of nationwi­de covera­ge it was pro­po­sed, somewhat to the publi­c’s satis­fa­ction, that the com­mo­tion at Lak­se­ga­de was sim­ply a mis­chie­vous plan coo­k­ed up by a group of prank­sters. Ano­t­her popu­lar the­ory was that the event had been sta­ged by a chi­ck­en far­mer, as reven­ge for his gir­l­fri­end who had been tre­a­ted unfair­ly by a family living the­re. Atten­tion was also directed towards a local ven­tri­loquist at some point, espe­ci­al­ly becau­se he was known to be a bit of a tri­ck­ster. In the end, howe­ver, none of the afore­men­tio­ned expla­na­tions could be pro­per­ly sub­stan­ti­a­ted and the case has so far never been resol­ved. What can be said is that the case fits near­ly into a seri­es of similar events in the area, such as the 1779 Got­hers­ga­de and the 1886–87 Ny Told­bod­ga­de inci­dents. All the­se cases have been “too big to igno­re”. It makes you won­der how many others of the kind have taken pla­ce throug­hout the years, but eit­her were never repor­ted, or got lost in the fog of history.

Select sour­ces

  • J. David­sen — Fan­den i Lak­se­ga­de, Spø­ge­ri­et i Got­hers­ga­de
  • Lars Tho­mas — Det Mysti­ske Dan­mark
  • S. von Huth — Spi­ri­tis­me Kon­tra Mate­ri­a­lis­me