#havhingsten

[ithinkwehitametaphor]

[ltwilliammowett]

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Havhingsten (The Sea Stallion) in the North Sea on a journey to Ireland. She is an authentic replica built with viking age tools by the Roskilde Ship Museum in Denmark

via reddit

[spectralarchers]

Saw the Stallion of Glendalough carry the Olympic Torch into the harbor in Roskilde today ❤️ The Stallion is a reconstruction of Skuldelev 2, a viking warship that was found at the bottom of Roskilde fjord in the 1960s, among 4 other ships. Originally thought to be two different ships because of its length (30 metres), the boat eventually turned out to be one of the biggest. The wood it was built in came from Dublin, Ireland, and it was built in the early spring of 1040, so it has been hypothesized that the Stallion might have been one of the longships that took part of the Battle of Hastings, before being retired in Roskilde by its owner, and eventually sunk to block the fjord and its access to the city. It is thought that these boats could cross from Roskilde to England in as short as 3 days, if the wind carried the wool sails on correctly - it could house 80 men and as many weapons and shields. The reconstruction was made using the same tools and materials as the boat builders in the Viking age, and the boat has made voyages to and from Ireland several times over the 14 years of its life.

[hpedersen]

#Memories of #Black&White #Havhingsten of #Glendalough Seastallion #Vikingship #Roskilde #Denmark #Skuldelev #history #dr1 #Sailing #sailship #vikings #vikingstyle #Erinnerungen Take a look also at my new website h3p.info (hier: Viking Ship Museum (Roskilde))

[azvolrien]

hencegoodfortune replied to your post: I RETURN

WELCOME BACK! IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAD A GREAT TIME

I DID

I looked up some pictures of Marmorkirke, which I’d never heard of before – it’s lovely. It must be something to be in that dome.     

It’s modelled on St Peter’s in Rome, apparently - I think it might be a bit smaller, though.

This was probably my favorite day of yours to read about. Space!!! And cool old ships that have actually been sailed the way they were meant to be! Experimental archaeology sure sounds like a fun time. Also, at least you HAVE trains. XD     

If we’re going to get technical, Havhingsten itself isn’t that old - it was launched in 2004 - but they made it all with traditional methods as close to the Viking way as possible, so the distinction probably isn’t a helpful one. XD

Good aquariums are amazing things – I like them even better than good zoos for whatever reason. I think 7-11s are more prevalent abroad than in most of the US where they originated, which makes me laugh every time I think of it.    

The Blue Planet was amazing, architecturally as well as in its collection; it’s built so that it looks like a whirlpool seen from above. I have never once seen a 7-11 in the UK, but they were everywhere in Copenhagen. You could barely walk along a street without coming across at least one somewhere.

Tivoli sounds lovely – I’m glad you got to go in the evening, which I personally believe is the best time to visit any amusement park. The image of seeing lights in Sweden from the chairoplane was lovely (and I love the rides that give you height and time to take the view in). I think your opinion on Anderson matches most people’s. XD     

It was a lot classier than most of the amusement parks in Britain, which often seem to have a faintly seedy air; Tivoli was a lot more upmarket, I guess kind of like Disneyland but without the mascots and corporate logos everywhere. You weren’t allowed to bring cameras on the Star Flyer, or I would have got some great photos from the top. Yeah, if you think about it, a lot of his stories end with the main characters dying for no narratively-satisfying reason...

I’m glad the rain didn’t keep you from a good day at the zoo! The hippos in particular sound like a worthwhile time, what a great mental image. Hooray!! It sounds like you had a great trip. :D     

I was pretty lucky with the weather overall - it did rain a few days, but never all the time and generally cleared up before I was outside for too long.

Photos will be forthcoming probably later this week at some point.

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

01-31 KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer ... http://dlvr.it/NFN8yQ

[azvolrien]

Copenhagen - Day 3

~~~

I did. Trains go to Roskilde from Copenhagen every 10mins or so, so I got an open return at the central station and made the quick trip on the top floor of a double-decker train. I didn’t know they had those. Why does everyone else in Europe have nicer trains than us?

Roskilde has something I didn’t expect to see in Denmark after my explorations yesterday: a slope. Not on Edinburgh levels, certainly, but the Viking Ship Museum is a 20ish-minute walk downhill from the station, split between the Brutalist concrete building that houses the 5 original ships and an artificial island where they keep the boatyard and the ship replicas. Each of the 5 Skuldelev ships has now had a working replica built. The whole museum is very interesting, including displays on the excavation and preservation of the ships (they submerged the wood fragments in a water-glycol mixture so that they could safely dry out without disintegrating), but the absolute highlight for me was Havhingsten fra Glendalough or The Sea Stallion from Glendalough, the full-scale reconstruction of Skuldelev 2, a 30-metre-long Viking warship. Laymen sometimes use ‘longship’ to refer to any Viking ship, but Skuldelev 2 and by extension The Sea Stallion are proper longships. The replica is fully seaworthy and has been successfully sailed to Dublin - where the original was built, albeit by Scandinavian shipwrights - and back to Roskilde. Experimental archaeology is fascinating; you’ve got to love people who decide to take the ‘become Vikings’ method of historical research.

After the Viking Ship Museum I walked back up the hill for a look around Roskilde Cathedral. A surprisingly comprehensive guidebook was included in the 60kr entrance fee, so I wasn’t too annoyed even though part of me always objects to having to pay to get into churches. Took a while to find the door; apparently the big one is reserved for royal visits, and the side door acting as the tourist entrance didn’t have an ‘Open’ sign or anything. Was intrigued by the polished black stone at one end of the cathedral, purporting to be the tomb of the Ghost Horse. That’s not somebody’s nickname, they actually did mean a ghost horse.

The cathedral is a bit weird architecturally. It’s made all from brick, and numerous chapels have been added over the centuries but even so it’s in some strange halfway point between Gothic and Romanesque.

Intended to visit Roskilde Museum after that, but the exhibitions were closed for renovation, leaving only the cafe and shop. Instead bought a sandwich and a pear from a stall in the market square and had lunch, before heading back to the train station. Paused en route for a look around the old graveyard - no one I recognised - before boarding a train back to Copenhagen. Second train wasn’t a double-decker, but trip was even quicker: arrived at the central station after only about 10 minutes.

Went back to the hotel for a quick rest before heading back out with the intention of visiting the Copenhagen Museum just along the street, but it, too, was closed for renovation, so instead I went to check out the Tycho Brahe Planetarium. It has some fun space-themed displays including two meteorite fragments, a moon rock, and a demonstration of the different kinds of radiation affecting Earth, but also an IMAX cinema. I saw an hour-long film there called ‘Vores Smukke Planet’, or ‘Our Beautiful Planet’, which had some gorgeous footage taken from the ISS, and a 3D companion film about the solar system. The narration was in Danish but I think I picked out enough words to get the gist of it. IMAX 3D seems to be the only 3D that really works for me.

After the film, had a burger in a little bar/diner called Flora’s Cafe and returned to the hotel for a quiet evening.

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

01-30 KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer ... http://dlvr.it/NFCDRx

[spiderpudel]

Havhingsten Project Complete - read all about it (or only look at the pictures)

Some weeks ago, I decided to build the Seastallion from Glendalough (or in Danish, which I will use as the name henceforth) Havhingsten fra Glendalough from Lego.

Here's a link to a video on how to build it.

What is Havhingsten fra Glendalough?

Havhingsten fra Glendalough is a replica of a Viking ship of the Skuledev II type found in 1962 in Roskilde. This is type of Viking war ship which was built around 1042 in Glendalough near Dublin, Ireland. The construction of Havhingsten took place from 2000 to 2004 in the shipyard of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. The reconstruction used Viking methods and tools, which might surprise less informed people by their sophistication, if you can use that word for axes and other wood cutting tools. Most people think Vikings were wild, uncivilized warriors, but in fact they were much more than that. They were a very clean people (by early medieval standards) with a rich ornamental culture in their clothing and other day-to-day items and religious artefacts. They also were widely travelled tradesmen; Oriental coins have been found in Viking ship burials. Also, did you know that the word “welcome” came to the English language from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings? I wouldn’t call that a savage word. AND THEY NEVER HAD HORNED HELMETS, just to make that clear once and for all. Blame Swedish romanticists and popular culture for that. Okay, back to Havhingsten: Even if you haven’t seen an authentic Viking ship before, maybe you know the Bayeux Tapestry, which was embroidered only about 30 years after Skuledev 2 was built. There are depictions of Norman ships in that, which are very similar to Viking ships. Probably, because Norman means North man, meaning basically Viking. I’ve also seen a piece of a Viking embroidery in a TV documentary on youtube (unfortunately, I’ve watched so many lately, that I don’t remember which one), on which the upper braid looked strikingly similar to the braids of the Bayeux Tapestry. So, I presume there is a link between the Norman embroidery and the Viking one. You heard it here first! I digress. But here’s a copy of part of the Bayeux tapestry I made some years ago as a present for a friend.

Why the interest in Havingsten?

In 2007, I followed the voyage of the Havhingsten from Roskilde to Dublin. The crew had a GPS sender on board and the coordinates were fed to a map. I was actually impressed by the force the wind has on such a sailing ship. With almost no old-fashioned wind mills around and no kite-flying as a child, you tend to forget how powerful wind is. Well, what can I say? I have been hooked ever since. I would’ve loved to be part of the crew, but the fact that there is no WC on board was quite off-putting for me. Also, you needed experience on sailing ships, which I don’t have at all. But like I always say: You can’t all be performers. Somebody has to be in the audience.

Why make a Lego model?

Because I love Lego.

Because I thought it would be great to create a successful Lego Cuusoo model, so children and adults could learn more about the Viking age. I also thought that a Lego replica could sell quite well at the museum’s shop at Roskilde or any other museum specialized in Vikings. We’ll see about that.

The Lego project

I had bought an incomplete set no. 7018-1 (Viking Ship challenges the Midgard Serpent) on Ebay, which included the boat's bow two times, two of the three boat hulls and the mast pieces, I think. To please common beliefs about Vikings instead of educating children, the original set included four Vikings with horned helmets as well as the mythical sea serpent Midgard, but I didn’t care about that. But the building instructions gave me some ideas on how to start. I’m not a very experienced builder... And made a sketch of the ship on Lego Digital designer, but wasn’t too sure about the design. So I wrote a message to the admin of the Facebook Havhingsten site and asked them for a blueprint. Which they sent me within two hours, I believe.I adjusted my LDD model and made a list of all the pieces I still needed. A lot.

By and by, I acquired the pieces from Bricklink and the remaining three brown oars from Ebay, because it was really hard to find 12 brown oars and 10 dark green ones from as least sellers as possible. I think, the pieces cost me about 40 €, but you can add at least 20 for shipping costs. I asked my sister to make the sail according to my pattern. As you can see from the embroidery above, I’m not that bad in needlework, I was just too lazy, because it takes for ever, when you do it by hand. Thanks to you, sister! (Even if you don’t read this. I might force you to. Mwahahahaha!)

On the original Havhingsten, there were about twice as many oarsmen (and women), but I think 22 is a good number. I calculated that taken the relation of my Havhingsten’s length to a minifigure’s height, a Viking should’ve been 1,68 m. Small for a Skandinavian today, I guess, but people were smaller back then, weren’t they?

Also, the sides of Havhingsten had a red yellow blue striped pattern, which I tried to recreate. Tan isn’t my favourite choice for the inner parts of the ship, but the lower part of the mast was only available in that color and I had the upper part from the original Lego set, so I continued this color scheme. Dark tan or dark flesh might look better, but those colors aren’t that common. The mast (and the sail) of the original Havhingsten can be taken down and laid to rest on that Y-shaped thing. That way, when there’s no wind, the crew can row the ship more easily due to lessened wind resistance. I minimized the rigging from a sheer uncountable (at least for me) number to the one going from stern to aft (called stay?) and the ropes on the lower corners of the sail.

For the stay, I had to use a special knot, because when you take down the mast, it needs to be shorter than with an upright mast. I didn’t know the name for that sailor’s not, but I found it anyway. Funnily enough, I found it on the Lego web site. (This is the kind of coincidence conspiracy theories and religions are made of. I’m not kidding.)

Wow, that’s a long text. But if you made it that far, I hope you enjoyed it. If you like Vikings or ships or Lego or learning by playing or Danish people or life in general, please support the project on Lego Cuusoo! Or at least share this post or a shortened form of it.

[azvolrien]

Onwards to Roskilde! First, the highlight: Havhingsten fra Glendalough at the Viking Ship Museum.

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

01-26 KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer ... http://dlvr.it/NCPxhD

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

01-18 KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer ... http://dlvr.it/N869rz

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer harbor, ... http://dlvr.it/N6C3QM

[bonnieadamsblog-blog]

KORSOER, DENMARK - JULY 16: The Viking warship The Sea Stallion (Danish, read: Havhingsten) has entered the Great Belt (background: The Great Belt Bridge) after departure from Korsoer harbor, ... http://dlvr.it/N69Dp9