Gorm the Old
Gorm the Old, also called Gorm the Languid, was ruler of Denmark, reigning from to his death or a few years later. He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died perhaps around 958 or possibly 963 or 964.
Ancestry and reign
Gorm is the reported son of semi-legendary Danish king Harthacnut. Chronicler Adam of Bremen says that Harthacnut came from Northmannia to Denmark and seized power in the early 10th century. He deposed the young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson, reigning over Western Denmark. When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne.Heimskringla reports Gorm taking at least part of the kingdom by force from Gnupa, and Adam himself suggests that the kingdom had been divided prior to Gorm's time. Gorm is first mentioned as the host of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg and Bremen in 936. According to the Jelling Stones, Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, "won all of Denmark", so it is speculated that Gorm only ruled Jutland from his seat in Jelling.
Marriage to Thyra
Gorm married Thyra, who is given conflicting and chronologically dubious parentage by late sources, but no contemporary indication of her parentage survives. Gorm raised one of the great burial mounds at Jelling as well as the oldest of the Jelling Stones for her, calling her tanmarkar but. Gorm was the father of three sons, Toke, Knut and Harald, later King Harald Bluetooth.According to Saxo Grammaticus, Thyra was responsible for the construction of the Dannevirke fortification in the southern part of the Jutland peninsula. This tradition gained great national romantic significance for Denmark in the 19th century, where Thyra was seen as the guardian of the southern border.
Danevirke was a wall between Denmark's southern border and its unfriendly Saxons neighbours to the south. The Danevirke ran between the Schlei and the Treene river, across what is now Schleswig.
Excavations that began in 2010 by archaeologists from the Archäologisches Landesamt Schleswig-Holstein and Museum Sønderjylland show however that there were 4-5 phases of the Danevirke rampart. The oldest is from 500 AD or earlier, i.e. over at least 400 years before Thyra's time. Further expansions were on the other hand build at the time of Harald Bluetooth's reign i.e. a long after Thyra's death. However, Danish historian :da:Adam Wagner believes that it is probably a bit too early to completely conclude that Queen Thyra could not have had an influence on the expansion of one or more parts of the Dannevirke.
Death, burial and reburial
One theory is that Gorm died in the winter of 958–959; this is based on dendrochronology that shows that the burial chamber in the northern burial mound in Jelling was made from wood felled in 958. Arild Huitfeldt relates one legend of his death in Danmarks Riges Krønike:This account would contradict information on the Jelling Stones which point to Queen Thyra dying before Gorm. Some archaeologists and historians have suggested that Gorm was buried first in Queen Thyra's grave mound at Jelling, and later moved by his son, Harald Bluetooth, into the original wooden church in Jelling. According to this theory it is believed that the skeleton found at the site of the first Christian church of Jelling is in fact Gorm the Old, though the theory is still much debated. During the reign of Gorm, most Danes still worshipped the Norse gods, but during the reign of Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, Denmark officially converted to Christianity. Harald, accordingly, left the hill where Gorm had originally been interred as a memorial.