Friday, November 2, 2007

Copenhagen

I had a couple of appoint- ments in Copenhagen on Friday afternoon about TV research in Denmark, so Sandy and I had all morning to walk around.

This is Nyhavn, or new harbor, which is already pretty old and quaint by harbor standards. It is sort of a bohemian, artsy area on the way across the city from our hotel by the rail station.

The city is intersected by several canals down by the harbor, which makes for a lot of nice scenery now, and was probably very practical back in the day when all these quays and docks were more in daily use.
We were heading across town to see the sights and eventually make our way to see this statue, of a Norse goddess named Gefjon (pronounced gev - ion) -- maybe that was why she was less popular than Freya, say, who is easier to pronounce. Still Gefjon legendarily obtained the favor of a Swedish king who promised her as much land as she (and her sons) could plow in a day, so she turned them into magic oxen, as seen in the fountain, and plowed enough land to make the large island that Copenhagen, Roskilde, Lejre and other towns now sit on. She is framed here against the background of an Anglican church, right next to a big 17th century fort the Danes built to fend off the Swedes who kept trying to invade and take over. (They were probably trying to get back what Gefjon had tricked their king out of back in mythic times.)

The fountain has the oxen sons snorting water, so I get the feeling that they were not pleased to be part of the enterprise, at least as magic oxen, getting whipped by their mom to pull a plow.

It also carries on the theme of Danish fountains where animals spew water in interesting ways, if you remember the piglet piddling in the fountain in Århus. Here several of the bulls snort water. Ah, art.

1 comment:

hoolia goolia said...

I love that first pic! You look very snazzy in your leather jacket at the harbor :)