Scan Magazine | Special Theme | A Complete Guide to Danish Culture
Photo: Gunni Grahn
Photo: Gunni Grahn
Photo: Tomasz Brodzikowski
Brave knights and family days Copenhagen Medieval Market takes you back from the fifth to the 15th century, when knights and Vikings did battle and mead was something you drank. It is a day out for the whole family, all historically accurate.
Grail? The explanation is that what people lacked in computer power in the fifth to the 15th century, they made up for in sharing traditions.
By Thomas Bech Hansen
At Whitsun this year, in Valbyparken in Copenhagen, a time machine will take you 1,000 years back in time – to the Middle Ages when knights battled, Vikings drank mead and maid servants cooked nettle soup. From 2 to 5 June, the 11th instalment of Copenhagen Medieval Market lets you experience it all first-hand. Consider it a fun day out, which conveniently serves as a thrilling history lesson as well.
or listen to minstrels playing medieval music, it is all as it were back then.
“We care a lot about the educational part,” says Dennis Fuller Møller, Copenhagen Medieval Market’s event manager. This means that when visitors look over craftsmen’s shoulders as they create armoury,
But how can we be entirely sure that this is exactly how it was done in the Middle Ages and not just a copy of Hollywood blockbuster A Knight’s Tale or, at a comical stretch, Monty Python and the Holy
46 | Issue 99 | April 2017
Historically correct “It is important that everything is historically correct. So the work you see craftsmen doing is based on the skills and techniques used thousands of years ago. Everything is accurate, from tents to pottery,” explains Fuller Møller.
“A lot of the old recipes and methods used to be handed down through generations by word of mouth. Nowadays, of course, we write everything down. But really, we are fortunate that people back in those days cared about passing knowledge on to the next generation,” says Fuller Møller.
Role-play and re-enactments Knights ready to fight, fearsome Vikings, the sound of leather drums and flutes and the smell of roast suckling pig and fresh fish on skewers – this is the setting and atmosphere at Copenhagen Medieval Market. The real pull of the event, however, are the exciting fight shows, which