The Royal Halls at Lejre

The Scyldings, the ancient royal family of the Danes, were much celebrated in song and legend. The fourth line of Beowulf celebrates their founder as a mighty warrior  --

Oft Scyld Sheffing
seized mead benches 

Seizing mead benches from their enemies being a sort of Viking prank much engaged in by the heroes of Beowulf's time.

Not least of the Scyldings claims to fame was their mighty hall, said by Saxo Grammaticus to have "far outshone all others in its splendor." The ancient Danish Quern Song calls it Hleitirarstóll, which might be rendered "the seat at Lejre." This name appears several times in the old legends; Saxo in another passage calls a good candidate for the Danish throne "worthy of Lejre." The 11th-century historian Thietmar of Merseburg made this the center of pagan sacrifice in Denmark:

Because I have heard strange stories about their ancient sacrifices, I will not allow the practice to go unmentioned. In those parts the center of the kingdom is called Lederun (Lejre), in the region of Selon (Sjælland), all the people gathered every nine years in January, that is after we have celebrated the birth of the Lord [Jan 6th], and there they offered to the gods ninety-nine men and just as many horses, along with dogs and cocks— the later being used in place of hawks.

There is a modern Danish town called Lejre, on the island of Zealand just a few miles west of Copenhagen. Excavations carried out there in the 1980s, directed by Tom Christensen of the Roskilde Museum produced spectacular evidence that this was the same place as the Lejre famous in Viking lore. Above is a plan showing a great hall of the 9th-century Viking period (gray) overlapping an earlier a hall built around 690 CE. The complete hall is about 45 meters (150 feet) long. The small statue of Odin on his high seat shown at the top of the post and the small Freya below it were found around this hall.

Now the excavators are reporting the discovery of an even earlier hall, dating to around 500 CE. This is old enough to be the one sung of in Beowulf. I haven't been able to find any plans, but the news accounts include these details:

Scientific study this year of the bones of literally hundreds of animals found near the hall, shows that they feasted on suckling pig, beef, mutton, goat meat, venison, goose, duck, chicken and fish. Other finds from around the hall have included fragments of glass drinking vessels, 40 pieces of bronze, gold and silver jewellery, pottery imported from England and the Rhineland – and the wing of a sea-eagle, whose feathers may well have been used for fletching arrows. Twenty other gold items were found just a few hundred metres away.

Above, a small silver box decorated with dragon-like monsters; above this is a bronze brooch in the shape of a bird. Most wonderful, and I can't wait to find out more.