Category: Fairy Tales

In one of his writings the philosopher, theologian and writer Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) imagines a wealthy bourgeois who believes that he is a good Christian just because he is giving a good deal of money to the priest. It is, however, “truly as ridiculous as if the Round Tower would pose as a young 18-year-old dancer “, Kierkegaard writes. Sure enough, the Round Tower is no dancer, but it does not mean that the old tower has never trodden the boards. In fact, it was on stage when Denmark’s first revue premiered on New Year’s Eve 1849. However, it hardly...

If one takes a closer look at Christian IX’s Palace at the royal castle of Amalienborg, it should be possible to see some cracks in the wall. The cracks, which are accompanied by streaks of flour paste, ostensibly derive from the time when a bunch of small three-legged birds sawed through Her Majesty the Queen’s residential palace, stole it, and hid it in the woods until they were paid a ransom of their favourite cookies and returned it nicely back in place. The same kind of crack has also appeared on the Round Tower’s footing. A few decades prior to...

The Round Tower is obviously a tower, but it is also a joyous dance restaurant with a cloakroom attendant, a house band, and a jitterbug contest. At least it is so in Poul Bang’s (1905-67) 1955 cinematic comedy It Happened at the Round Tower (Det var paa Rundetaarn), which has two of its main characters both playing trombone and accordion in the band and acting as the enthusiastic singers performing the captivating signature tune. It Happened at the Round Tower is a comedy and even the cast list, which appears in the beginning of the film at the same time...

The Round Tower is so deeply rooted in the soil of Copenhagen, that one might think it has always been there, standing in the same exact shape as now. However, one should not confuse immovability with changelessness since changes indeed have been made, both on and around the tower, in the time after it was finished in 1642. The biggest changes have occurred around the Round Tower. Thus, the year after the inauguration of the Trinity Church, which is built alongside the tower, the surrounding area of the church started being used as cemetery. A wall encircled the cemetery, the...

When Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) travelled from the city of Slagelse to Elsinore at the age of 21 to continue his schooling there, he described his travel observations in a letter. He thought the letter was so well written that he immediately copied it and sent it to several of his acquaintances. Professor of literature, Rasmus Nyerup, also received a copy. Like Andersen, Nyerup came from the island of Funen. He had greeted the emerging poet in Copenhagen just after his arrival to the city some years earlier, and had allowed him to use the books in the University Library,...

There are 457 steps to the Round Tower from the Church of the Holy Ghost (Helligaandskirken) in Copenhagen, only 385 from the Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke), and between the Trinity Church (Trinitatis Kirke) and the entrance to the spiral ramp there are only a few. But it is hardly the short distance alone that has caused generations of newly minted confirmands to climb the Round Tower, as it has been a tradition for them to do since the late 18th century, when their confirmation was successfully completed in one of the churches of Copenhagen. There is also a deeper, or...

The Round Tower is located in California. That is not the Round Tower that was inaugurated in 1642 and that stands exactly 34.8 metres tall from street level to the top platform. This Round Tower is indeed located where it always has been – on the street Købmagergade in Copenhagen. But in Solvang in the United States a replica has been built, only one third of the original tower’s size and with neither a spiral ramp nor an observatory. In turn, it is possible to buy several local favourites for lunch and dinner if one enters the portal. For here...