Kir­sten Hvid/Maren Hin­ds Mound

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.

Sour­ces

• John Lys­hjelm — Sagn og Over­tro på Skæls­kør-Egnen
• Mads Lide­gaard — Dan­ske Høje fra Sagn og Tro
• Svend Dahl — Sagn og Gode Histo­ri­er fra Syd­li­ge Sjæl­land