Gefion Fountain: Tales of Mythology in Copenhagen

If you want a city break where you can walk and explore with a coffee in your hand, Copenhagen is perfect. There is so much for you to explore that if you went by public transport you would miss. During my short stay in the city I did a self-guided tour with Around, which took me to some of these and introduced me to some of Copenhagen’s best works of art, including Gefion Fountain.

In Langelinie Park, just a short walk from the Little Mermaid, you will find this staggeringly beautiful fountain. A tribute to the Norse Goddess Gefion, it depicts her driving a group of animals across a field.

Gefion Fountain was clearly popular, with tourists and locals both enjoying it together. There’s a beautiful bridge next to it, overlooking beautiful blooming Cherry blossom trees’s which I loved. The tree’s line the way from Gefion Fountain to the Little Mermaid, making it one of my favourite sections of my walk through the city.

My audio tour sent me an alert, I was in the right position for my next audio clip. I hit play on my earphones and started to listen whilst I tweaked the settings on my camera. I have a habit of overthinking with my photography. Sometimes that’s fine; other times it takes me out of the moment. I loved doing photography when the audio clips were playing, I just did what felt natural.  I think my photos came out the better for it, and I could listen and take in the Legend of Gefion.

As with any good sculpture, Gefion Fountain is steeped in legend. According to Norse Mythology, The Swedish king Gylfe offered Gefion as much land as she was able to plough in one day and one night. Of course she could not achieve this alone, so she transformed her sons into four, incredibly powerful oxen. And with their combined strength razed the land and pulled it into the sea, giving birth to the island of Zealand.

The island of Zealand is roughly the same shape of Lake Vännern in Sweden, adding further fuel to the legend.

The Fountain was unveiled in 1908 by Anders Bundgaard and is one of the largest monuments in Copenhagen. It was commissioned in 1897 as a gift to the city from the Carlsberg Foundation as part of their 50 year anniversary. It took Anders seven years to create to figurest atop the fountain, and they were finished in 1904. The next four years were spent preparing the basic for their arrival, until its eventual completion and unveiling in 1908.

It always impresses me how well the sculptures of Copenhagen are looked after (with the exception of the occasional protestors). In 1999 an extensive operation began to restore the fountain, leaving it out of commission for many years as the work was completed. It eventually reopened five years later in 2004, and now tourists and locals throw a coin to make a wish.

A lot of artwork in  Copenhagen is donated by the Carlsberg Foundation. All part of their ethos of making art available to the public. You can find sculptures and paintings all throughout the city. My favourite example was the Glyptotek Museum from the day prior. A beautiful space with an indoor garden and a cafe overlooking it. If you are hungry for more art after the fountain you should check it out. 

The other alternative is thanking Carlsberg for gifting artwork to the city. And the easiest way to do that is by having a beer. After visiting all of their artwork, I was excited to visit their brewery, the Home of Carlsberg, the next day. But for the time being, I still had the rest of my tour to go, and I was getting a bit pecking. Knowing I had a few stops to go, my tour would ultimately take me to Torvehallerne, a food market I could enjoy lunch.

With so many things to do in Copenhagen it is hard to find the time to stop and rest. Luckily when I visited there was a mobile coffee shop for me to grab a pick-me-up on my walk. Revitalising me for my walk as I continued to explore Historical landmarks in Copenhagen. My next stop would be to another of Copenhagen’s attractions, the Little Mermaid. Which although its labelled one of the must-see places in Denmark, after the magnificence of Gefion Fountain felt a little bit like an anti-climax. But on the way I would walk through the park filled with cherry blossom trees, which was breathtaking in its own right.