Gurre Castle

It was first mentioned in court chronicles in 1364, when Pope Urban V sent a gift of relics to its chapel.

The castle is associated with a legend about King Valdemar, his love for his beautiful mistress Tove Lille, who according to tradition stayed for a long time at Gurre Castle, and the resulting jealousy of his Queen Helvig of Schleswig.

[2] Over the centuries, this core saga was enriched by other legends, eventually growing into a national myth of Denmark.

The myth was put into poetical form by the Danish novelist and poet Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885).

A German translation of his poems forms the text of the cantata Gurre-Lieder by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951).