Skjoldungernes Land

Skjoldungernes Land National Park was established in 2015 in eastern Zealand, around Roskilde Fjord, a short distance from Copenhagen, and protects some 170 km².

Its name refers to the Skjoldunger, or Scyldings, the legendary Danish royal dynasty that appears in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and in the Norse sagas, and whose seat was placed at Lejre, inside the park. The excavations at Lejre have brought to light several great banqueting halls of the sixth to tenth centuries, among the largest in northern Europe, which confirm the existence of a royal centre of power in the period the sagas describe.

The landscape is one of shallow fjord, beech woods, meadows, fields and villages, an agricultural and forest mosaic characteristic of Zealand. The fjord is a wintering and passage area for waterbirds, with important concentrations of wildfowl and waders, and white-tailed eagle and osprey breed there, both recovered in Denmark in recent decades. At Roskilde, on the edge of the park, stand the cathedral, a cultural World Heritage Site, and the Viking Ship Museum.