sunken-featured buildings, from which the finds can be dated to the eleventh century.
The residences belonging to this period of occupation may lie on a hill immediately
north of the excavation. Test trenches and magnetometer surveys here have revealed the
existence of a 150 m × 150 m construction with an impressive palisade, surrounding
buildings of similar dimension to the halls on the Mysselhøjgård site. It is also possible
that this bounded area is at least partly contemporary with the Myssehøjgård site itself.
The artefactual material from the excavations represents a broad spectrum ranging
from common household equipment to extraordinary metalwork, which forms a
striking but not especially common element. In this context we should also note the
Lejre hoard, containing among other items a number of silver vessels of Anglo-Irish
origin, found a few hundred metres west of the settlement area (Wilson 1960 ).
Closer to the Lejre River, but still on its west bank and connected with the Iron Age
and Viking period settlements, medieval occupation from the twelfth to fourteenth
centuries has been found. A stone-built cellar and a twelfth-century windmill are among
the finds here. The features here have clear parallels in the period’s feudal manor farms
(Christensen 1998 ).
It is thus possible to follow a continual settlement pattern at Lejre from the sixth/
seventh century until the fourteenth, and while the site has not been totally investigated
it is nonetheless possible to distinguish a number of general trends. The situation of
the two or possibly three Iron Age and Viking sites in this hilly landscape leaves no
possibility that this is a village of the larger type known from elsewhere at this period.
The overall layout seems to consist of at least one central building of impressive
dimensions, placed so as to be visible in its surroundings. At Mysselhøjgård this is ringed
by other buildings, all of which can be followed over several successive construction
phases, and the whole site thereby exhibits a marked stability over at least two centuries.
If we also recall the hall and large stone pile at the earlier site at Fredshøj, then we see two
striking elements that appear to have been permanent fixtures in the Lejre settlement for
close on half a millennium.
The use of the term hall of course makes an assumption about these buildings in their
connection to a high-status milieu and pagan cult (Olsen 1966 ). The occurrence of fire-
cracked stone in association with late Iron Age buildings is a recognised phenomenon,
and the neutral term kogesten (‘cooking stones’, for boiling water) is the Danish standard.
In Norway they are known as bryggestein ‘brewing stones’, referring to their use in
historic times for the heating of water as part of beer brewing. The massive number of
these stones at Lejre is far in excess of what could be generated by ordinary household
activities, and in relation to the great hall buildings must be linked to events involving
more people than the residents of the settlement.
In a German source by Bishop Thietmar von Merseburg (Thietmari Merseburgensis
episcopi Chronicon, written 1012 – 18 ) Lejre is mentioned as caput regni, where the populace
gather regularly every ninth year at the winter solstice (yule), and perform sacrificial
rituals on a large scale. It may be these that are reflected in the halls, the stone heaps
and the huge quantities of faunal remains at the Lejre settlements. In view of the
monumental burial mounds and the ship settings, on archaeological grounds it can
be argued that Lejre was the seat of a princely or royal family in the Germanic Iron Age
and Viking period, simultaneously functioning as a central cult site. This interpretation
is strengthened by the fact that the accumulation of the stone pile ceases, and the
hall(s) are abandoned, both together at the end of the tenth century – at the point
–– chapter 8 ( 4 ): Lejre and Roskilde––