Vestervig Abbey

About 1030 Saint Thøger settled at Vestervig and built the first wattle and clay church in Thy (now Thisted County).

Thøger (or Theodgar) was a Thuringian missionary who had been living in England when Olaf II went there on a Viking expedition.

Thøger's wonderful sermons brought an invitation to return to Norway with Olav as his personal chaplain.

One day Thøger visited a nearby farm called Randrupgård where he met a man standing at his doorway complaining about his bad luck with livestock.

Immediately a spring burst out of the ground on the spot and people flocked to it for its restorative properties.

After his death, 24 June 1067, a delegation from Vestervig went to Bishop Albrik in Viborg to have Thøger beatified.

At first the bishop was sceptical, but later was convinced and endorsed the process whereby Thøger was declared a local saint.

King Svend Estridsen objected since Thøger had been a close advisor to his old enemy Olav II.

The western end of the Limfjord had filled in making it impossible for ships to sail through the fjord from the North Sea.

They lived simply and their work was teaching, helping the poor and sick, preaching the word of God as well as attending services for prayer and song.

The Augustinians built a new church in the 13th century out of large red brick, the most common building material of the time.

Local histories cite claims of brick work found under fields between the abbey and Kappel as evidence for the tunnel, but no serious excavations have been undertaken to prove or disprove the old story.

The story goes that a ship stranded on the coast Christmas Eve and Peder de Moldrup/Mollerup, the miserly owner of the buildings of the abbey, received most of the salvage from the wreck.