Danish Churches without Dances of Death

Jungshoved

Quote from "De Danske Kirker" (by Erik Horskjær, 1968, my translation):

"[…] and on the arches and on the Northern wall of the choir some funny, very naive and summary frescoes from the late Gothic era was brought to light in 1941. […] On the west wall of the west extension there is a badly preserved "dance of death"."

Jungshoved 1962.

This quote is typical: Much of the literature about churches and frescoes ignore Jungshoved or describe it very briefly. The deanery of Stege-Vordinborg doesn't respond to e-mails. Something is definitely wrong.

An article in Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (= "the work field of the National Museum") from 1971, solves the mystery: The dance of death in Jungshoved is not dance of death, but rather a dance between young, noble people, where the Devil is participating (the picture to the left is from 1962 - before the restoration and is copied from the article).

Jungshoved.

The picture to the right is from the book "Svøbt i Mår" (=wrapped in marten), a book about old folk ballads. In the left part of this picture we get a glimpse of a window. This window is newer than the painting and a devil was destroyed to make room for the window. The remains of the devil are covered with whitewash.

In this book Lise Præstgaard Andersen writes that the devil hasn't got horns but is wearing a crown or a mask, and that the painting illustrates old ballads where an unknown suitor appears, seduces the maid by giving her a golden crown, takes her away from her family and then turns out to be the Devil or some other unpleasant monster from the local folklore.

Ørslev

Incredibly, this charming dance frieze pops up now and then in literature about dances of death. Let's discuss it - dance friezes are just as rare as dances of death.

The dance frieze in Ørslev, illustration from "Danske Kalkmalerier" vol. 3 pp. 154-155. (101 KB).

In the church of Ørslev in south-western Zealand there's a rather little (30 x 120 cm) frieze. Compared to dances of death there's a number of differences:

Death does not appear. On the contrary a rabbit - normally a symbol of fertility - supplies the music.
The humans are dancing. In the dances of death, Death does the dancing while the humans stand frozen in awkward positions.
The humans look happy.
There's no hierarchical order.
There's no clergy. You can't have a dance of death without a pope - or at least a bishop.