1.
Kattegat
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The Baltic Sea drains into the Kattegat through the Danish Straits. The sea area is a continuation of the Skagerrak and may be seen as a bay of the Baltic Sea or the North Sea or, as in traditional Scandinavian usage, neither of these. The Kattegat is a shallow sea and can be very difficult and dangerous to navigate, due to the many sandy and stony reefs. There are several cities and major ports in the Kattegat, including Gothenburg, Aarhus, Aalborg, Halmstad and Frederikshavn, mentioned by descending size. The main islands of the Kattegat are Samsø, Læsø and Anholt, since the 1950s, a bridge project usually referred to as Kattegatbroen connecting Jutland and Zealand across the Kattegat has been considered. Since the late 2000s, the project has seen a renewed interest from several politicians in Denmark. The bridge is usually envisioned as connecting Hov with Samsø and Kalundborg, on the South, The limits of the Baltic Sea in the Belts and Sound, In the Little Belt, A line joining Falshöft and Vejsnæs Nakke. In the Great Belt, A line joining Gulstav and Kappel Kirke on the island of Laaland, in the Sound, A line joining Stevns Lighthouse and Falsterbo Point. According to Den Store Danske Encyklopædi and Nudansk Ordbog, the name derives from the Dutch words kat and gat, at one point, the passable waters were a mere 3.84 km wide. The name of the Copenhagen street Kattesundet has a comparable etymological meaning, an archaic name for both the Skagerrak and Kattegat was the Norwegian Sea or Jutland Sea. Its ancient Latin name was Sinus Codanus, Control of the Kattegat, and access to it, have been important throughout the history of international seafaring. Until the completion of the Eider Canal in 1784, the Kattegat was the water route into. The dues were eventually lifted in 1857, in the Kattegat, the salinity has a pronounced two-layer structure. The upper layer has a salinity between 18‰ and 26‰ and the lower layer – separated by a strong halocline at around 15 m – has a salinity between 32‰ and 34‰. These two opposing flows transport a net surplus of 475 km3 seawater from the Baltic to the Skagerrak every year. During stronger winds, the layers in the Kattegat are completely mixed in some places, such as the Great Belt and this sets some unique conditions for the sealife here. The Kattegat was one of the first marine dead zones to be noted in the 1970s, in recent years studies and research, has provided much insight into processes like eutrophication, and how to deal with it. The action plans sums up a range of initiatives and includes the so-called Nitrate Directives
2.
Regions of Denmark
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Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Scandinavian country in Europe and a sovereign state. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, Denmark also comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has an area of 42,924 square kilometres. The country consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand, the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were ruled together under the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523. Denmark and Norway remained under the monarch until outside forces dissolved the union in 1814. The union with Norway made it possible for Denmark to inherit the Faroe Islands, Iceland, beginning in the 17th century, there were several cessions of territory to Sweden. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945, the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy which had begun in 1660. It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy, the government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nations capital, largest city and main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs, Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948, in Greenland home rule was established in 1979 and further autonomy in 2009. Denmark became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973, maintaining certain opt-outs, it retains its own currency, the krone. It is among the members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE. The etymology of the word Denmark, and especially the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as a kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centred primarily on the prefix Dan and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -mark ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, and the name of the people, from a word meaning land, related to German Tenne threshing floor. The -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth
3.
Ramsar Convention
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The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands and it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the Convention was signed in 1971. The most recent COP12 was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, cOP13 will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2018. The List of Wetlands of International Importance included 2,231 Ramsar Sites in March 2016 covering over 2.1 million square kilometres. The country with the highest number of Sites is the United Kingdom with 170, the Ramsar Sites Information Service is a searchable database which provides information on each Ramsar Site. As of 2016 there are 18 Transboundary Ramsar Sites, as of 2016 there are 15 Ramsar Regional Initiatives covering regions of the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and South America. The Ramsar Convention works closely with six other known as International Organization Partners. The IOPs also participate regularly as observers in all meetings of the Conference of the Parties and as members of the Scientific. Conference of the Parties Conference of the Parties is the Conventions governing body consisting of all governments that have ratified the treaty and this ultimate authority reviews progress under the Convention, identifies new priorities, and sets work plans for members. The COP can also make amendments to the Convention, create expert advisory bodies, review progress reports by member nations, and collaborate with other international organizations and agreements. The Standing Committee The Standing Committee is the executive body which represents the COP between its triennial meetings, within the framework of the decisions made by the COP. The Contracting Parties that are members of the Standing Committee are elected by each meeting of the COP to serve for the three years until the next one, the Secretariat The Secretariat carries out the day-to-day coordination of the Convention’s activities. It is based at the headquarters of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, the 2nd of February each year is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971. Established to raise awareness about the value of wetlands for humanity, in 2015 World Wetlands Day was celebrated in 59 countries
4.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
5.
Jutland
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Jutland, also known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and the northern portion of Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively, jutlands terrain is relatively flat, with open lands, heaths, plains and peat bogs in the west and a more elevated and slightly hilly terrain in the east. Jutland is a peninsula bounded by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak to the north, geographically and historically, Jutland comprises the regions of South Jutland, West Jutland, East Jutland and North Jutland. There are several subdivisions and regional names, some of which are still occasionally encountered today. They include Nørrejyllland, Sydvestjylland, Nordvestjylland and Slesvig, historically, Jutland was regulated by the Law Code of Jutland. This civic code covered the Jutland Peninsula from the north of the River Eider to Funen as well as the North Jutlandic Island. The Danish part of Jutland is currently divided into three regions, North Denmark Region, Central Denmark Region and Region of Southern Denmark. These three regions have an area of 29,775 km2, a population of 2,599,104. The northernmost part of Jutland is separated from the mainland by the Limfjord and this area is called the North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy or simply Jutland north of the Limfjord, it is only partly co-terminous with the North Jutland region. Inhabitants of Als would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not necessarily Jutlanders, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands and the German North Frisian Islands stretch along the southwest coast of Jutland in the German Bight. Jutland has historically been one of the three lands of Denmark, the two being Scania and Zealand. Before that, according to Ptolemy, Jutland or the Cimbric Chersonese was the home of Teutons, Cimbri, many Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting in c.450 AD. The Angles themselves gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England and this is thought by some to be related to the invasion of Europe by the Huns from Asia. Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the part of the Christian era. Old Saxony was later on referred to as Holstein, during the First World War, the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea west of Jutland was one of the largest naval battles in history. In this pitched battle, the British Royal Navy engaged the Imperial German Navy, the British fleet sustained greater losses, but remained in control of the North Sea, so in strategic terms, most historians regard Jutland either as a British victory or as indecisive. The distinctive Jutish dialects differ substantially from standard Danish, especially West Jutlandic, dialect usage, although in decline, is better preserved in Jutland than in eastern Denmark, and Jutlander speech remains a stereotype among many Copenhageners and eastern Danes. Administratively, Danish Jutland comprises three of Denmarks five regions, namely the Region Nordjylland, Region Midtjylland and the half of Region of Southern Denmark
6.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
7.
Danish language
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There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse, until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of printing, a language was developed which was based on the educated Copenhagen dialect. It spread through use in the system and administration though German. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though there are variants of the standard language. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative, Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød, a kind of laryngeal phonation type. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong and weak conjugations and inflections, nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. As in English, Danish only has remnants of a case system, particularly in the pronouns. Its syntax is V2, with the verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch, other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of the Old Norse language, Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum, where there are no sharp dividing lines between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas, West Danish, Insular Danish, and East Danish. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish, both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each others languages. By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language was called the Danish tongue, or Norse language. Norse was written in the alphabet, first with the elder futhark. From the 7th century the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway
8.
Municipalities of Denmark
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Denmark is divided into five regions, which contain 98 municipalities. This structure was established per an administrative reform, effective Monday 1 January 2007 which replaced the counties with five regions, the 270 municipalities were consolidated into 98 larger units, most of which have at least 20,000 inhabitants. The reason was to give the new municipalities greater financial and professional sustainability, many of the responsibilities of the former counties were taken over by the enlarged municipalities. Presented in a report put forward as a proposal by the government in April 2004, the report on the structural reform of the public sector was first presented 9 January 2004 by the commission which was set up by the government 1 October 2002. The archipelago of Ertholmene is not part of any municipality, but is administered by the Ministry of Defence, the existing coat of arms of the municipalities. The average land area of a Danish municipality is 432.59 km2,167.08 square miles, the Constitution of Denmark states, Article 82. The right of municipalities to manage their own affairs independently, under State supervision,2,522 municipal councillors were elected on Tuesday 15 November 2005 being the first councils elected since the new reform. The number of councillors was reduced to 2,468 in the 2009 elections, in 1997 there were 4,685 municipal and 374 county councillors in the then 275 municipalities and 14 counties. As an example of the reduction in the number of councillors, Bornholm then had a total of 122 councillors in five municipalities, after the merger on 1 January 2003, of the five municipalities and the county, there was one single municipal council with 27 municipal councillors. These guidelines replaced the old guidelines with the elections in 2005 after the laws initiating the structural reform were passed in parliament. Council elections are held on the third Tuesday of November every four years, the previous were held on 19 November 2013 and the next are due to be held on 21 November 2017. 32 municipalities including those of the recently formed Ærø Municipality and Bornholm Regional Municipality remained unchanged and were not merged with other municipalities, copenhagen County was not included in the municipal reform of 1 April 1970. This is probably because the municipality was extremely populous. Thus the number of municipalities was 277 from 1 April 1970 to 1 April 1974, still, the reform is called The municipal reform of 1970, because the decisive changes happened 1 April 1970, when 1098 municipalities were reduced to 277. Also on 1 April 1974, Avedøre, which was part of Glostrup Municipality, was conjoined with Hvidovre Municipality and this combination was logical, as Avedøre bordered Hvidovre, but was separated from Glostrup. This brought the number of municipalities down to 271 from 1 January 2003, the final agreement from 2005 included more parties. Until 1978 the fiscal year from 1 April to 31 March was in use in the sector since a law was passed in 1849. As a consequence of a law passed by the Folketing in 1976, many reforms and laws passed prior to 1979 therefore have effect from 1 April
9.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
10.
Danish People's Party
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The Danish Peoples Party is a political party in Denmark which is generally described as right-wing populist by academics and far-right by international media. It has also described in academia and the media as a nativist. The party was founded in 1995 by Pia Kjærsgaard, who led the party until 2012, the DPP lent its support to the Liberal-Conservative government from the general election of 2001 until the 2011 election defeat. In comparison to its predecessor, the Progress Party, the DPP focus more on immigration, while overall considered part of the radical right, its policies on most economic issues would rather place the party in the centre to centre-left. The partys current leader, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, once declared DPP an anti-Muslim party, in 2014 the party won the European Parliament election in Denmark by a wide margin, securing 27% of the vote. After the election, it joined the European Conservatives and Reformists group alongside parties such as the United Kingdoms Conservative Party and Polands Law and Justice. The Danish Peoples Party was founded on 6 October 1995, after Pia Kjærsgaard, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, Poul Nødgaard and its first national convention was held in Vissenbjerg on 1 June 1996, where Pia Kjærsgaard was unanimously elected as the partys chairman. The party was established in protest over the conditions of the Progress Party. It was initially seen by many as a clone of the Progress Party, the party saw a highly centralized party leadership as necessary, as it would not tolerate internal conflicts and disagreements with the official strategy. In 1997, the party won about 7% in the municipal elections, by 1998, the party had 2,500 registered members. The party made its debut in the 1998 Danish parliamentary election. The party was, however, left no influence in the formation of a government. In the 2001 election, the party won 12% of the vote and 22 seats in parliament and it became the third largest party in the parliament, giving them a key position, as they would have a parliamentary majority together with the Conservative Peoples Party and Venstre. DPP was favoured by these parties, as it had supported the Venstre candidate for Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, during the election campaign. The party had a key role in writing the rules and conditions for immigration in the law that was established by the government in May 2002. In the 2005 election the party increased their vote. By young first-time voters the party showed even more popular, receiving one fifth of their votes, the party continued to support the government, and developed a broader policy base, as it made welfare policies its core issue, together with immigration policies. In 2006, the popularity rose dramatically in opinion polls following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
11.
Politics of Denmark
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Denmark is described as a nation state. Danish politics and governance are characterized by a striving for broad consensus on important issues. Executive power is exercised by the cabinet of Denmark, presided over by the Prime Minister who is first among equals, legislative power is vested in both the executive and the national parliament. Members of the judiciary are nominated by the executive, formally appointed by the monarch, Denmark has a multi-party system, with two strong parties, and four or five other significant parties. No single party has held a majority in the Folketing since the beginning of the 20th century. Since only four coalition governments have enjoyed a majority, government bills rarely become law without negotiations. Hence the Folketing tends to be powerful than legislatures in other EU countries. The Constitution does not grant the power of judicial review of legislation. Since there are no constitutional or administrative courts, the Supreme Court deals with a constitutional dimension, on many issues the political parties tend to opt for co-operation, and the Danish state welfare model receives broad parliamentary support. This ensures a focus on efficiency and devolved responsibilities of local government on regional and municipal levels. Margrethe II has ruled as Queen Regnant and head of state since 14 January 1972, in accordance with the Danish Constitution the Danish monarch, as head of state, is the theoretical source of all executive and legislative power. However, since the introduction of parliamentary sovereignty in 1901, a de facto separation of powers has been in effect, the text of the Danish constitution dates back to 1849. Therefore, it has been interpreted by jurists to suit modern conditions, in a formal sense, the monarch retains the ability to deny giving a bill royal assent. In order for a bill to law, a royal signature. The monarch also chooses and dismisses the Prime Minister, although in modern times a dismissal would cause a constitutional crisis, on 28 March 1920, King Christian X was the last monarch to exercise the power of dismissal, sparking the 1920 Easter Crisis. When a new government is to be formed, the monarch calls the party leaders to a conference of deliberation, on the basis of the advice the monarch then appoints the party leader who commands a majority of recommendation to lead negotiations for forming a new government. However, the monarch does continue to exercise three rights, the right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn, pursuant to these ideals, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet attend the regular meeting of the Council of State. Nine parties are represented in parliament, the four oldest and in history most influential parties are the Conservative Peoples Party, the Social Democrats, Venstre and the Danish Social Liberal Party
12.
Frederikshavn
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Frederikshavn is a Danish town in Frederikshavn municipality, Region Nordjylland, on the northeast coast of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. Its name translates to Frederiks harbour, the town has a population of 23,156, and is an important traffic portal with its ferry connections to Sweden and Norway. The town is known for fishing, and its fishing. The Danish term frederikshavner is used to denote a quality plaice, frederikshavns oldest building, Fiskerklyngen, is originally from the mid-16th century, but the houses now there are from 18th–19th centuries. Frederikshavn was originally called Fladstrand, until 1818 when it received status as a merchant town under the name of Frederikshavn, due to its advantageous proximity to the entrance to the Baltic Sea, Frederikshavn has historically been a naval base of some strategic importance. Peter Tordenskjold barricaded himself here in the fortress that German troops had built in the 17th century. During the Great Northern War the Battle of Fladstrand was fought in the sea between Swedish and Danish naval forces. The only old military installations remaining to this day are the Gunpowder Tower, constructed in 1688, the Gunpowder Tower has been preserved, and is incorporated in the municipalitys coat-of-arms. Bangsbo Museum Frederikshavn Art Museum Frederikshavn Shipyard Historical Society Tordenskiold Festival, Frederikshavn, like the rest of North Jutland, was hit with hard unemployment. The towns largest workplace, the shipyard Danyard, closed in the late 1990s and this resulted in more than 2,000 workers being unemployed. Today there is activity at the large ship building area. In summer 2008, the unemployment rate, like the rest of Denmark, as with many provincial municipalities around the world, some of its young people leave to large urban cities. However, the municipality is engaged in many innovative projects which are attracting tourists. The process is expected to be completed by 2015, Frederikshavn is served by Frederikshavn railway station. It is the train station of the Vendsyssel and Skagen railway lines and offers direct InterCity services to Copenhagen, regional train services to Aalborg. Former footballer Allan Olsen, musician Lucas Bjerregaard, Danish golfer EUC Nord - a technical school located partly in Frederikshavn
13.
Frederikshavn Municipality
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Frederikshavn municipality is the northernmost Danish municipality, located in Region Nordjylland. As a result of Kommunalreformen, it is a merger between the municipalities of Frederikshavn, Skagen and Sæby. The new municipality has an area of 642 km² and a population of 61,576. The first mayor of the new municipality was Erik Sørensen, since 2014 it has been Birgit Hansen which governs by a broad coalition with the rest of all the parties. The following is a list of settlements within the municipality by population
14.
Mudflat
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Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of estuarine silts, clays and marine animal detritus. Most of the sediment within a mudflat is within the intertidal zone, in the past tidal flats were considered unhealthy, economically unimportant areas and were often dredged and developed into agricultural land. Several especially shallow mudflat areas, such as the Wadden Sea, are now popular among those practising the sport of mudflat hiking. On the Baltic Sea coast of Germany in places, mudflats are exposed not by tidal action and these wind-affected mudflats are called windwatts in German. Tidal flats, along with salt marshes and mangrove forests, are important ecosystems. They are often of importance to migratory birds, as well as certain species of crabs, mollusks. In the United Kingdom mudflats have been classified as a Biodiversity Action Plan priority habitat, the maintenance of mudflats is important in preventing coastal erosion. However, mudflats worldwide are under threat from predicted sea level rises, land claims for development, dredging due to shipping purposes, in some parts of the world, such as East and South-East Asia, mudflats have been reclaimed for aquaculture, agriculture, and industrial development. For example, around the Yellow Sea region of East Asia, mudflat sediment deposits are focused into the intertidal zone which is composed of a barren zone, marsh and salt pan. Within these areas are various ratios of sand and mud that make up the sedimentary layers, the associated growth of coastal sediment deposits can be attributed to rates of subsidence along with rates of deposition and changes in sea level. Barren zones extend from the lowest portion of the zone to the marsh areas. Beginning in close proximity to the bars, sand dominated layers are prominent. Common bedding types include laminated sand, ripple bedding, and bay mud, bioturbation also has a strong presence in barren zones. Marshes contain an abundance of plants while the sediment layers consist of thin sand. Mudcracks are a common as well as wavy bedding planes, marshes are also the origins of coal/peat layers because of the abundant decaying plant life. Salt pans can be distinguished in that they contain thinly laminated layers of clayey silt, the main source of the silt comes from rivers. Dried up mud along with wind erosion forms silt dunes, when flooding, rain or tides come in, the dried sediment is then re-distributed
15.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
16.
Heath
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A heath is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler, heaths are widespread worldwide, but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands, even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the California chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, in addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs,20 centimetres to 2 metres tall, heath vegetation can be extremely plant-species rich, and heathlands of Australia are home to some 3,700 endemic or typical species in addition to numerous less restricted species. The fynbos heathlands of South Africa are second only to tropical rainforests in plant biodiversity with over 7,000 species, in marked contrast, the tiny pockets of heathland in Europe are extremely depauperate with a flora consisting primarily of heather, heath and gorse. The bird fauna of heathlands are usually species of the region. In the depauperate heathlands of Europe bird species tend to be characteristic of the community and include Montagus harrier. Australian heathlands are also home to the worlds only nectar-feeding terrestrial mammal, the bird fauna of the South African fynbos includes sunbirds, warblers and siskins. Heathlands are also an excellent habitat for insects including ants, moths, butterflies and these heaths were originally created or expanded by centuries of human clearance of the natural forest and woodland vegetation, by grazing and burning. Referring to heathland in England, Rackham says, “Heaths are clearly the product of human activities and need to be managed as heathland, in recent years the conservation value of even these man-made heaths has become much more appreciated, and consequently most heathlands are protected. However they are threatened by tree incursion because of the discontinuation of traditional management techniques such as grazing and burning that mediated the landscapes. Some are also threatened by urban sprawl, anthropogenic heathlands are maintained artificially by a combination of grazing and periodic burning, or mowing, if not so maintained, they are rapidly re-colonised by forest or woodland. The re-colonising tree species will depend on what is available as the seed source. Bolster heath Chalk heath Garrigue Maquis shrubland Matorral Scrubland The Countryside Agency information on types of open land Origin of the word heath
17.
Islet
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An islet is a very small island. As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of isle, use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability. Cay or Key – an islet formed by the accumulation of sand deposits atop a reef Motu – A reef islet formed by broken coral and sand. River island – A small islet within the current of a river, rock – A rock, in the sense of a type of islet, is an uninhabited landform composed of rock, lying offshore, and having at most minimal vegetation. Sandbar – An exposed sandbar is another type of islet, Sea stack – A thin, vertical landform jutting out of a body of water. Skerry – A small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation, subsidiary islets – A more technical application is to small land features, isolated by water, lying off the shore of a larger island. Likewise, any emergent land in an atoll is called an islet. Tidal island – Often small islands lie off the mainland of an area, being connected to it in low tide. In the Caribbean and West Atlantic, islets are often called cays or keys, rum Cay in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys off Florida are examples of islets. In the Channel Islands, they are identified by the suffix -hou from the Norse -holm. In Scotland and Ireland, they are often called inches, from the Gaelic innis, which originally meant island, in Ireland they are often termed skerries. In and around Polynesia, islets are widely known by the term motu, in and around the River Thames in England, small islands are known as aits or eyots. One long-term dispute over the status of such an islet was that of Snake Island, there are thousands of islets on Earth, approximately 24,000 islands and islets in the Stockholm archipelago alone. The following is a list of example islets from around the world, Islands or Rocks, Is that the Real Question. The Treatment of Islands in the Delimitation of Maritime Boundaries, in Myron H. Nordquist, John Norton Moore, Alfred H. A. The Law of the Sea Convention, US Accession and Globalization
18.
Salt marsh
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It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a role in the aquatic food web. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection, salt marshes occur on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitudes which can be stable or emerging, or submerging if the sedimentation rate exceeds the subsidence rate. Commonly these shorelines consist of mud or sand flats which are nourished with sediment from inflowing rivers and these typically include sheltered environments such as embankments, estuaries and the leeward side of barrier islands and spits. In the tropics and sub-tropics they are replaced by mangroves, an area that differs from a marsh in that instead of herbaceous plants. Most salt marshes have a low topography with low elevations but a vast wide area, salt marshes are located among different landforms based on their physical and geomorphological settings. Such marsh landforms include deltaic marshes, estuarine, back-barrier, open coast, embayments, deltaic marshes are associated with large rivers where many occur in Southern Europe such as the Camargue, France in the Rhone delta or the Ebro delta in Spain. They are also extensive within the rivers of the Mississippi Delta in the United States, in New Zealand, most salt marshes occur at the head of estuaries in areas where there is little wave action and high sedimentation. Such marshes are located in Awhitu Regional Park in Auckland, the Manawatu Estuary, back-barrier marshes are sensitive to the reshaping of barriers in the landward side of which they have been formed. They are common along much of the eastern coast of the United States, large, shallow coastal embayments can hold salt marshes with examples including Morecambe Bay and Portsmouth in Britain and the Bay of Fundy in North America. They have a big impact on the biodiversity of the area, salt marsh ecology involves complex food webs which include primary producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers. The low physical energy and high grasses provide a refuge for animals, many marine fish use salt marshes as nursery grounds for their young before they move to open waters. Saltmarshes across 99 countries were mapped by Mcowen et al, a total of 5,495,089 hectares of mapped saltmarsh across 43 countries and territories are represented in a Geographic Information Systems polygon shapefile. This estimate is at the low end of previous estimates. Mats of filamentous blue-green algae can fix silt and clay sized sediment particles to their sticky sheaths on contact which can increase the erosion resistance of the sediments. This assists the process of sediment accretion to allow colonising species to grow, as a result, competitive species that prefer higher elevations relative to sea level can inhabit the area and often a succession of plant communities develops. Coastal salt marshes can be distinguished from terrestrial habitats by the tidal flow that occurs
19.
Wadden Sea
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The Wadden Sea is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of Frisian Islands, forming a body of water with tidal flats. It is rich in biological diversity, in 2009, the Dutch and German parts of the Wadden Sea were inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List and the Danish part was added in June 2014. The Wadden Sea is one of the worlds seas whose coastline has been most modified by humans, via systems of dikes and causeways on the mainland, within the Netherlands it is bounded from the IJsselmeer by the Afsluitdijk. The islands in the Wadden Sea are called the Wadden Sea Islands or Frisian Islands and these are remnants of the once expansive and now submerged Doggerland. However, on the westernmost Dutch island, Texel, the Frisian language has not been spoken for centuries, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands have never been inhabited by Frisians. The outlying German island of Heligoland, although one of the Frisian Islands, is not situated in the Wadden Sea. The German part of the Wadden Sea was the setting for the 1903 Erskine Childers novel The Riddle of the Sands, the word wad is Dutch for mud flat. The area is typified by extensive mud flats, deeper tidal trenches and the islands that are contained within this. The landscape has been formed for a part by storm tides in the 10th to 14th centuries. The present islands are a remnant of the coastal dunes. The islands are marked by dunes and wide, sandy beaches towards the North Sea, the impact of waves and currents, carrying away sediments, is slowly changing the layout of the islands. For example, the islands of Vlieland and Ameland have moved eastwards through the centuries, having lost land on one side, the Wadden Sea is famous for its rich flora and fauna, especially birds. Hundreds of thousands of waders, ducks, and geese use the area as a stopover or wintering site. Some species that are extinct are still available here. Wadden Sea is an important habitat for two species of seals, harbor and grey seals, North Atlantic right whales and gray whales were once seen in the region, using the shallow, calm waters for either feeding and breeding before they were completely wiped out by shore-based whaling. These two species are now thought to be extinct or remnant populations of which low-tens at best survive. One whale, possibly a right whale, was observed close to beaches on Texel in the West Frisian Islands and off Steenbanken, Schouwen-Duiveland in July 2005
20.
Grazing
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Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on plants such as grasses, or other multicellular organisms such as algae. In agriculture, grazing is one method used whereby domestic livestock are used to convert grass and other forage into meat, milk, many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers, who skim off the highest, tough growth of plants, exposing tender shoots. For terrestrial animals, grazing is normally distinguished from browsing in that grazing is eating grass or forbs, Grazing differs from true predation because the organism being grazed upon is not generally killed. Grazing differs from parasitism as the two live together in a constant state of physical externality. Water animals that feed for example on algae found on stones are called grazers-scrapers, grazers-scrapers feed also on microorganisms and dead organic matter on various substrates. Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on such as grasses. In zoology, graminivory is a form of grazing, a graminivore is an herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on grass. The word is derived from Latin graminis, meaning grass, and vorare, horses, cattle, capybara, hippopotamuses, grasshoppers, geese, and giant pandas are examples of graminivores. Some carnivores, such as dogs and cats, are known to eat grass occasionally, giant pandas have evolved to be obligate bamboo grazers, and 99% of their diet consists of sub-alpine bamboo species. Rabbits are herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs and they graze heavily and rapidly for about the first half-hour of a grazing period, followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours and their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem by using a form of hindgut fermentation and they pass two distinct types of feces, hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as caecotrophs and are immediately eaten. Rabbits reingest their own droppings to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients, capybara are herbivores that graze mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. As with other grazers, they can be selective and will feed on the leaves of one species. They eat a variety of plants during the dry season. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season, the capybaras jaw hinge is not perpendicular and therefore they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side. Capybara are coprophagous, as a source of gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet. They may also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow, as with other rodents, the front teeth of capybara grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses, their cheek teeth also grow continuously
21.
Rosa rugosa
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Rosa rugosa is a species of rose native to eastern Asia, in northeastern China, Japan, Korea and southeastern Siberia, where it grows on the coast, often on sand dunes. It should not be confused with Rosa multiflora, which is known as Japanese rose. The Latin word rugosa means wrinkled, Rosa rugosa is a suckering shrub which develops new plants from the roots and forms dense thickets 1–1.50 m tall with stems densely covered in numerous short, straight prickles 3–10 mm long. The leaves are 8–15 cm long, pinnate with 5–9 leaflets, most often 7, each leaflet 3–4 cm long, the flowers are pleasantly scented, dark pink to white, 6–9 cm across, with somewhat wrinkled petals, flowering occurs in spring. The hips are large, 2–3 cm diameter, and often shorter than their diameter, not elongated, in summer and early autumn the plants often bear fruit. The leaves typically turn yellow before falling in autumn. Rosa rugosa is widely used as an ornamental plant and it has been introduced to numerous areas of Europe and North America. Its fruit are sometimes mistaken for those of the beach plum – despite being different in size, shape, color, texture. The sweetly scented flowers are used to make pot-pourri in Japan and China and it is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat irregular menstruation and gastritis. This species hybridises readily with other roses, and is valued by rose breeders for its considerable resistance to the diseases rose rust. It is also tolerant of seaside salt spray and storms. It is widely used in landscaping, being tough and trouble-free. Needing little maintenance, it is suitable for planting in large numbers, Rosa rugosa is naturalized in many parts of Europe, and it is considered an invasive species in some habitats, particularly in seashores of Northern Europe. It can outcompete native flora, thereby threatening biological diversity, on Sylt, an island in the north of Germany, it is sufficiently abundant to have become known as the Sylt rose. It is also considered a weed in the USA. R. rugosa was first introduced into North America in 1845, the first report of it being naturalized far from the location in which it was planted occurred on Nantucket in 1899. Ten years later it was said to be straying rapidly and today it is naturalized on the entire coast of New England, in Japanese, it is called hamanasu beach aubergine, hamanashi beach pear or simply 玫瑰 rose. The Chinese call it méigui huà 玫瑰花, in Korean, the species is called haedanghwa, literally flowers near the seashore
22.
Pasture
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Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, the vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs. Pasture is typically grazed throughout the summer, in contrast to meadow which is ungrazed or used for grazing only after being mown to make hay for animal fodder. Pasture in a wider sense additionally includes rangelands, other unenclosed pastoral systems, soil type, minimum annual temperature, and rainfall are important factors in pasture management. Sheepwalk is an area of grassland where sheep can roam freely, the productivity of sheepwalk is measured by the number of sheep per area. This is dependent, among other things, on the underlying rock, sheepwalk is also the name of townlands in County Roscommon, Ireland and County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Unless factory farming, which entails in its most intensive form entirely trough-feeding, in more humid regions, pasture grazing is managed across a large global area for free range and organic farming. Grassland Heathland Machair Maquis Moorland Potrero Prairie Rangeland Rough pasture Savanna Steppe Wood pasture Veld Transhumance
23.
Harbor seal
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The harbor seal, also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped, they are found in waters of the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Harbor seals are brown, silvery white, tan, or gray, an adult can attain a length of 1.85 meters and a mass of 132 kilograms. Blubber under the skin helps to maintain body temperature. Harbor seals stick to familiar resting spots or haulout sites, generally rocky areas where they are protected from weather conditions and predation. Males may fight over mates underwater and on land, females bear a single pup after a nine-month gestation, which they care for alone. Pups can weigh up to 16 kg and are able to swim and they develop quickly on their mothers fat-rich milk and are weaned after four to six weeks. The global population of seals is 350, 000–500,000. Once a common practice, sealing is now illegal in many nations within the animals range, individual harbor seals possess a unique pattern of spots, either dark on a light background or light on a dark. They vary in color from black to tan or grey. The body and flippers are short, heads are rounded, as with other true seals, there is no pinna. An ear canal may be visible behind the eye, including the head and flippers, they may reach an adult length of 1.85 meters and a weight of 55 to 168 kg. Females are generally smaller than males, there are an estimated 350, 000–500,000 harbor seals worldwide. While the population is not threatened as a whole, the Greenland, Hokkaidō, local populations have been reduced or eliminated through disease and conflict with humans, both unintentionally and intentionally. It is legal to kill seals perceived to threaten fisheries in the United Kingdom, Norway and Canada, Seals are also taken in subsistence hunting and accidentally as bycatch. Along the Norwegian coast bycatch accounted for 48% of pup mortality, Seals in the United Kingdom are protected by the 1970 Conservation of Seals Act, which prohibits most forms of killing. There are five subspecies of Phoca vitulina, Western Atlantic common seals, P. v. concolor, the validity of this subspecies is questionable, and not supported by genetic evidence. Ungava seals, P. v. mellonae, are found in eastern Canada in fresh water, Pacific common seals, P. v. richardsi, are located in western North America
24.
Water bird
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The term water bird, waterbird or aquatic bird is used to refer to birds that live on or around water. Some definitions apply the term especially to birds in freshwater habitats, in addition, some water birds are more terrestrial or aquatic than others, and their adaptations will vary depending on their environment. These adaptations include webbed feet, bills and legs adapted to feed in water, the term aquatic bird is sometimes also used in this context. A related term that has a meaning is waterfowl. Some birds of prey, such as ospreys and sea eagles, the term waterbird is also used in the context of conservation to refer to any birds that inhabit or depend on bodies of water or wetland areas. Examples of this use include the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds and the Wallnau Waterbird Reserve
25.
Half-timber
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Timber framing and post-and-beam construction are methods of building with heavy timbers rather than dimensional lumber such as 2x4s. Traditional timber framing is the method of creating structures using heavy squared-off and it is commonplace in wooden buildings from the 19th century and earlier. The method comes from making out of logs and tree trunks without modern high tech saws to cut lumber from the starting material stock. Since this building method has been used for thousands of years in parts of the world. These styles are categorized by the type of foundation, walls, how and where the beams intersect, the use of curved timbers. Three basic types of frames in English-speaking countries are the box frame, cruck frame. The distinction presented here is the load is carried by the exterior walls. Purlins are also in a timber frame. A cruck is a pair of crooked or curved timbers which form a bent or crossframe, more than 4,000 cruck frame buildings have been recorded in the UK. Several types of frames are used, more information follows in English style below. True cruck or full cruck, blades, straight or curved, base cruck, tops of the blades are truncated by the first transverse member such as by a tie beam. Raised cruck, blades land on masonry wall, and extend to the ridge, middle cruck, blades land on masonry wall, and are truncated by a collar. Upper cruck, blades land on a tie beam, very similar to knee rafters, jointed cruck, blades are made from pieces joined near eaves in a number of ways. See also, hammerbeam roof End cruck is not a style, aisled frames have one or more rows of interior posts. These interior posts typically carry more load than the posts in the exterior walls. This is the concept of the aisle in church buildings, sometimes called a hall church. However, a nave is often called an aisle, and three-aisled barns are common in the U. S. the Netherlands, aisled buildings are wider than the simpler box-framed or cruck-framed buildings, and typically have purlins supporting the rafters. In northern Germany, this construction is known as variations of a Ständerhaus, the frame is often left exposed on the exterior of the building
26.
Zostera
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Zostera is a small genus of widely distributed seagrasses, commonly called marine eelgrass or simply eelgrass. The genus Zostera contains 15 species, Zostera marina is found on sandy substrates or in estuaries, usually submerged or partially floating. They have long, bright green, ribbon-like leaves, the width of which are about 1 centimetre, short stems grow up from extensive, white branching rhizomes. The flowers are enclosed in the sheaths of the leaf bases, Zostera often forms beds in bay mud in the estuarine setting. It is an important food for Brent geese and wigeons, the slime mold Labyrinthula zosterae can cause the wasting disease of Zostera, with Z. marina being particularly susceptible, causing a decrease in the populations of the fauna that depend on Zostera. Zostera is able to maintain its turgor at a constant pressure in response to fluctuations in environmental osmolarity and it achieves this by losing solutes as the tide goes out and gaining solutes as the tide comes in. The genus as a whole is widespread throughout seashores of much of the Northern Hemisphere as well as Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, the discovery of Z. chilensis in 2005 adds an isolated population on the Pacific coast of South America to the distribution. One species occurs along the land-locked Caspian Sea, eelgrass once grew in abundance in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, where it was harvested, dried and used for insulation in houses, such as the governors summer mansion in Island Beach State Park. A blight decimated the eelgrass, which ended harvesting of the plant, the plant is making a gradual comeback. Eelgrass has been used for food by the Seri tribe of Native Americans on the coast of Sonora, the rhizomes and leaf-bases of eelgrass were eaten fresh or dried into cakes for winter food. It was also used for smoking deer meat, the Seri language has many words related to eelgrass and eelgrass-harvesting. The month of April is called xnoois ihaat iizax, literally the month when the seed is mature. Zostera has also used as packing material and as stuffing for mattresses. On the Danish island of Læsø it has used for thatching roofs. Roofs of eelgrass are said to be heavy, but also much longer-lasting and easier to thatch, Zostera can also be utilized to produce biomass energy using the Jean Pain method. LI
27.
Anholt (Denmark)
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Anholt is a Danish island in the Kattegat, midway between Jutland and Sweden at the entrance to the North Sea in Northern Europe. There are 145 permanent residents as of 1 January 2016, Anholt is seven miles long and about four miles wide at its widest, and covers an area of 21,75 km². Anholt is part of Norddjurs Municipality in Region Midtjylland, before the 2007 municipal reform, it was in Grenå Municipality. The western fifth of Anholt consists of hilly country, while the eastern four-fifths of the island consist of mostly flat raised seabed with some low hills. Only the western hills are inhabited. The eastern part, called Ørkenen - the Desert - is treeless, the desert has never been ploughed. For this reason the original stone age topography from when the glaciation ceased and this includes former shorelines inland, consequences of different sea levels over time. The unploughed features of The Desert are unique for Denmark, as well as for part of Europe. The inhabited part of Anholt has two villages, The Harbour and Anholt Town, inland, there are also 300–400 summer houses, some of them rentals. The western part of Anholt is a moraine landscape, the small village is situated in the middle of the landscape, whereas the harbour is at the northwestern tip of the island. The eastern part of the island is known as Ørkenen and this desert-like area is the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The desertification was caused by deforestation, strictly speaking, the desert is not a true desert, but a lichen heath, with some 300 to 400 types of lichen. Great efforts are being taken to preserve the unique scenery and prevent the effects of erosion. In 1995/6 the Danish Heath Society cleared large areas in the part of Ørkenen of mountain pine. On Totten, the tip of the island, there is one of the biggest colonies of seals in Denmark. This part of the island is closed to visitors, dangerous reefs and shoals surround Anholt. Consequently, in 1560 King Frederick II ordered the erection of lights at Skagen, Anholt. Despite the bascule light, on 10 November 1716 the 60-gun third-rate HMS Auguste, Captain Robert Johnson, most of the people on her were saved
28.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
29.
Salt
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Salt is present in vast quantities in seawater, where it is the main mineral constituent. The open ocean has about 35 grams of solids per litre, Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. The tissues of animals contain larger quantities of salt than do plant tissues, Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and salting is an important method of food preservation. Salt was also prized by the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites, Egyptians, and the Indians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, the scarcity and universal need for salt has led nations to go to war over it and use it to raise tax revenues. Salt is used in ceremonies and has other cultural significance. Salt is processed from salt mines, or by the evaporation of seawater or mineral-rich spring water in shallow pools. Its major industrial products are caustic soda and chlorine, and is used in industrial processes including the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride, plastics, paper pulp. Of the annual production of around two hundred million tonnes of salt, only about 6% is used for human consumption. Other uses include water conditioning processes, de-icing highways, and agricultural use, edible salt is sold in forms such as sea salt and table salt which usually contains an anti-caking agent and may be iodised to prevent iodine deficiency. As well as its use in cooking and at the table, sodium is an essential nutrient for human health via its role as an electrolyte and osmotic solute. Excessive salt consumption can increase the risk of diseases, such as hypertension, in children. Such health effects of salt have long been studied, accordingly, numerous world health associations and experts in developed countries recommend reducing consumption of popular salty foods. The World Health Organization recommends that adults should consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium, humans have always tended to build communities either around sources of salt, or where they can trade for it. All through history the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization, the word salary comes from the Latin word for salt because the Roman Legions were sometimes paid in salt. The Natron Valley was a key region that supported the Egyptian Empire to its north, because it supplied it with a kind of salt that came to be called by its name, natron. Even before this, what is now thought to have been the first city in Europe is Solnitsata, in Bulgaria, even the name Solnisata means salt works. A very ancient salt-works operation has been discovered at the Poiana Slatinei archaeological site next to a spring in Lunca, Neamț County
30.
Kiln
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A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay into pottery, tiles, various industries use rotary kilns for pyroprocessing—to calcinate ores, to calcinate limestone to lime for cement, and to transform many other materials. The word kiln descends from the Old English cylene (/ˈkylene/, which was adapted from the Latin culīna kitchen, cooking-stove, burning-place. During the Middle English Period, the n was not pronounced, as evidenced by kiln having frequently been spelled without the n, Another word, miln, a place where wheat is ground, also had a silent n. Whereas the spelling of miln was changed to mill to match its pronunciation, kiln maintained its spelling, which most likely led to a common mispronunciation, however, there are small bastions where the original pronunciation has endured. Kiln, Mississippi, a town known for its wood drying kilns that once served the timber industry, is still referred to as the Kill by locals. Unwittingly adding the n sound at the end of kiln is due to people being introduced to the word through the language before ever hearing the actual pronunciation. Phonetically, the ln in kiln is categorized as a digraph, from English Words as Spoken and Written for Upper Grades by James A. Bowen 1900, The digraph ln, n silent, occurs in kiln. A fall down the kiln can kill you, Bowen was pointing out the humorous fact that kill and kiln are homophones. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BC, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Neolithic kilns were able to produce greater than 900 °C. Ceramics require heat at high temperatures so chemical and physical reactions will occur to permanently alter the unfired body, in the case of pottery, clay materials are shaped, dried and then fired in a kiln. The final characteristics are determined by the composition and preparation of the clay body, after a first firing glazes may be used and the ware is fired a second time to fuse the glaze into the body. A third firing at a lower temperature may be required to fix overglaze decoration, modern kilns often have sophisticated electrical control systems to firing regime, although pyrometric devices are often also used. Clay consists of fine-grained particles, that are weak and porous. Clay is combined with other minerals to create a clay body. Part of the process includes sintering. This heats the clay until the particles partially melt and flow together, creating a strong, single mass, composed of a glassy phase interspersed with pores, through firing, the pores are reduced in size, causing the material to shrink slightly
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Wood
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Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees, and other woody plants. It is a material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers which are strong in tension embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, in a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots, Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber. In 2005, the stock of forests worldwide was about 434 billion cubic meters. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy, in 1991 approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction, a 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick discovered the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago. Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in species by dendrochronology to make inferences about when a wooden object was created. People have used wood for millennia for many purposes, primarily as a fuel or as a material for making houses, tools, weapons, furniture, packaging, artworks. Constructions using wood date back ten thousand years, buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood. Recent use of wood has changed by the addition of steel. The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the climate at that time. This process is known as growth, it is the result of cell division in the vascular cambium, a lateral meristem. These cells then go on to form thickened secondary cell walls, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, if the distinctiveness between seasons is annual, these growth rings are referred to as annual rings. Where there is little seasonal difference growth rings are likely to be indistinct or absent, if the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings will likely be deformed as the plant overgrows the scar. It is usually lighter in color than that near the portion of the ring. The outer portion formed later in the season is known as the latewood or summerwood. However, there are differences, depending on the kind of wood
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European dark bee
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The European dark bee is a subspecies of honey bee whose original European range stretched from western Russia through Northern Europe and probably down to the Iberian Peninsula. It was domesticated in and hives were brought to North America in the colonial era and they are large for honey bees though they have unusually short tongues. They are sometimes called the German black bee or German dark bee, there are three main races, namely mellifera lehzeni nigra, which have local breeds, such as the Pomeranian brown, the Alps black, or the black Scandinavian. All of the subspecies belong to the M lineage of Apis mellifera, overall, when viewed from a distance, they should appear blackish, or in mellifera, rich dark brown. The aggressive feral hybrids with other subspecies can be distinguished by the lighter, yellowish banding on the sides of the abdomen, for breeding pure dark bees according to the standard, details of the wing veins are nowadays considered to be the only reliable distinguishing character. Hybrids have a character and have the reputation of stinging people for no apparent reason. Some colonies are very runny on the comb and so excitable that beekeepers consider them difficult to work with and this characteristic is not, however, one that has been traditionally associated with the dark bee breeds, which were previously known for their rather easy handling. Immigrants brought these subspecies into the Americas, prior to their arrival, the American continent did not have any honey bees. Hybrid descendants of the original colonial black bees may also have survived in North America as feral bees, there are reports by beekeepers that, after the arrival of the Varroa mite on the American continent in 1987, some feral bee colonies survived. The original form is no longer present in North America, a common myth regarding European black bees is that they cannot sting because they do not have a stinger. In Western Europe, dark bee breeds were the original honey bee stock until creation of the Buckfast bee and this is a hybrid breed whose progeny includes salvaged remnants of the British black bee, nearly extinct by then due to Acarapis woodi. In the United States, M lineage honey bees have been found in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Missouri, dedicated breeders and research facilities are today working on preserving and spreading what could be saved from the original stocks. There are only a handful of colonies present in Germany, but larger numbers have survived in Norway, mail online BIBBA, the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeding Association European dark bee Swiss Mellifera breeders Swedish organisation for saving the native bee. The society for the conservation of the dark bee
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Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
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Prose Edda
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The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorris Edda or, historically, simply as Edda, is an Old Norse work of literature written in Iceland in the early 13th century. The work is assumed to have been written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar. It begins with a euhemerized Prologue, a section on the Norse cosmogony, pantheon and this is followed by three distinct books, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal. Seven manuscripts, dating from around 1300 to around 1600, have independent textual value, Sturluson planned the collection as a textbook. It was to enable Icelandic poets and readers to understand the subtleties of alliterative verse, at that time, versions of the Edda were well known in Iceland, but scholars speculated that there once was an Elder Edda which contained the poems which Snorri quotes in his Edda. The etymology of Edda remains uncertain, there are many hypotheses, and little agreement. Some argue that the word derives from the name of Oddi, Edda could therefore mean book of Oddi. However, this assumption is generally rejected, Faulkes in his English translation of the Prose Edda commented that this is unlikely, both in terms of linguistics and history since Snorri was no longer living at Oddi when he composed his work. Another connection was made with the word óðr, which means poetry or inspiration in Old Norse, Edda also means great-parent, a word used by Snorri himself in the Skáldskaparmál. That is, with the meaning, the name of a character in the Rigsthula. A final hypothesis is derived from the Latin edo, meaning I write and it relies on the fact that the word kredda is certified and comes from the Latin credo, I believe. It seems likely Snorri would have been able to invent the word, Edda in this case could be translated as Poetic Art. This is the meaning that the word was given in the Middle Ages. The name Sæmundar Edda was given by the Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson to the collection of poems contained in the Codex Regius, many of which are quoted by Snorri. Brynjólfur, along many others of his time incorrectly believed that they were collected by Sæmundr fróði. Seven manuscripts of the Edda have survived, six compositions of the Middle Ages, no one manuscript is complete, and each has variations. In addition to three fragments, the four manuscripts are Codex Regius, Codex Wormianus, Codex Trajectinus. Codex Upsaliensis, was composed in the first quarter of the century and is the oldest manuscript preserved of the Edda of Snorri
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Poetic Edda
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Poetic Edda is the modern attribution for an unnamed collection of Old Norse anonymous poems, which is different from the Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all consisting primarily of text from the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript known as the Codex Regius, poets who have acknowledged their debt to the Codex Regius include Vilhelm Ekelund, August Strindberg, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, and Karin Boye, Codex Regius was written in the 13th century, but nothing is known of its whereabouts until 1643, when it came into the possession of Brynjólfur Sveinsson, then Bishop of Skálholt. At the time, versions of the Edda were known in Iceland, but scholars speculated that once was another Edda, an Elder Edda. Brynjólfur attributed the manuscript to Sæmundr the Learned, a larger-than-life 12th century Icelandic priest and that attribution is rejected by modern scholars, but the name Sæmundar Edda is still sometimes associated with both the Codex Regius and versions of Poetic Edda using it as a source. Bishop Brynjólfur sent Codex Regius as a present to the Danish king, for centuries, it was stored in the Royal Library in Copenhagen but in 1971, it was returned to Iceland. The Eddic poems are composed in alliterative verse, most are in fornyrðislag, while málaháttr is a common variation. The rest, about a quarter, are composed in ljóðaháttr, the language of the poems is usually clear and relatively unadorned. Kennings are often employed, though they do not arise as frequently, nor are they as complex, like most early poetry, the Eddic poems were minstrel poems, passing orally from singer to singer and from poet to poet for centuries. None of the poems are attributed to an author, though many of them show strong individual characteristics and are likely to have been the work of individual poets. Scholars sometimes speculate on hypothetical authors, but firm and accepted conclusions have never been reached, the dating of the poems has been a source of lively scholarly argument for a long time, and firm conclusions are hard to reach. Lines from the Eddic poems sometimes appear in poems by known poets, for example, Eyvindr skáldaspillir composed in the latter half of the 10th century, and he uses a couple of lines in his Hákonarmál which are also found in Hávamál. It is possible that he was quoting a poem, but it is also possible that Hávamál. The few demonstrably historical characters mentioned in the poems, such as Attila, the dating of the manuscripts themselves provides a more useful terminus ante quem. Individual poems have individual clues to their age, for example, Atlamál hin groenlenzku is claimed by its title to have been composed in Greenland, and seems so by some internal evidence. If so, it can be no earlier than about 985, in some cases, old poems may have been interpolated with younger verses or merged with other poems. For example, stanzas 9-16 of Völuspá, the Dvergatal or Roster of Dwarfs, is considered by scholars to be an interpolation. The problem of dating the poems is linked with the problem of finding out where they were composed, Iceland was not settled until about 870, so anything composed before that time would necessarily have been elsewhere, most likely in Scandinavia
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Thor
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In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing and fertility. The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology and paganism was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar, into the modern period, Thor continued to be acknowledged in rural folklore throughout Germanic regions. Thor is frequently referred to in place names, the day of the week Thursday bears his name, in Norse mythology, largely recorded in Iceland from traditional material stemming from Scandinavia, numerous tales and information about Thor are provided. With Sif, Thor fathered the goddess Þrúðr, with Járnsaxa, he fathered Magni, with a mother whose name is not recorded, he fathered Móði, and he is the stepfather of the god Ullr. The same sources list Thor as the son of the god Odin and the earth, Jörð. Thor has two servants, Þjálfi and Röskva, rides in a cart or chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, and is ascribed three dwellings. Thor wields the mountain-crushing hammer, Mjölnir, wears the belt Megingjörð and the iron gloves Járngreipr, Thor has inspired numerous works of art and references to Thor appear in modern popular culture. Like other Germanic deities, veneration of Thor is revived in the period in Heathenry. The name of the god is the origin of the weekday name Thursday, by employing a practice known as interpretatio germanica during the Roman Empire period, the Germanic peoples adopted the Roman weekly calendar, and replaced the names of Roman gods with their own. Latin dies Iovis was converted into Proto-Germanic *Þonares dagaz, from which stems modern English Thursday, beginning in the Viking Age, personal names containing the theonym Thórr are recorded with great frequency. Prior to the Viking Age, no examples are recorded, thórr-based names may have flourished during the Viking Age as a defiant response to attempts at Christianization, similar to the wide scale Viking Age practice of wearing Thors hammer pendants. They regard it as a duty to offer to him, on fixed days. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind, in this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as Mercury, Thor as Hercules, and the god Týr as Mars, and the identity of the Isis of the Suebi has been debated. In Thors case, the identification with the god Hercules is likely at least in part due to similarities between Thors hammer and Hercules club. In his Annals, Tacitus again refers to the veneration of Hercules by the Germanic peoples, Donar, the southern Germanic form of the gods name. According to an account, the Christian missionary Saint Boniface felled an oak tree dedicated to Jove in the 8th century. Around the second half of the 8th century, Old English mentions of a figure named Thunor are recorded, gabriel Turville-Petre saw this as an invented origin for the placename demonstrating loss of memory that Thunor had been a gods name. Adam details that Thor, they reckon, rules the sky, he governs thunder and lightning, winds and storms, fine weather and fertility and that Thor, with his mace, looks like Jupiter
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Berserker
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Berserkers were champion Norse warriors who are primarily reported in Icelandic literature to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk. These champions would often go into battle without mail-coats, berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources, as were the Ulfhednar. The English word berserker is derived from the Old Norse words ber-serkr meaning a bear-shirt i. e. a wild warrior or champion of the heathen age, however its interpretation remains controversial. The element ber- was interpreted by the historian Snorri Sturluson as bare and this word is also used in ber-skjaldaðr that means bare of shield, or without a shield. Others derive it from the preferred berr, and Snorris view has largely abandoned. Its values included self-reliance, self-control, strict training, able to perform feats with weapons, later, the coming of Christianity would transform the religious element into the chivalrous knight and the animal totems into heraldic devices. Three main animal cults appeared in the martial arts, the bear, the wolf. The bas relief carvings on Trajans column in Rome depict scenes of Trajans conquest of Dacia in 101-106 AD, the scenes show his Roman soldiers plus auxiliaries and allies from Romes border regions, including tribal warriors from both sides of the Rhine. There are warriors depicted as bare-foot, bare-chested, bearing weapons, scene 36 on the column shows some of these warriors standing together, with some wearing bearhoods and some wearing wolfhoods. Two relevant images are depicted below, along with two associated woodcuts made two later in 1872. It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, the bodies of dead berserkers were laid out in bearskins prior to their funeral rites. The bear-warrior symbolism survives to day in the form of the bearskin caps worn by the guards of the Danish and British monarchs, the Royal Life Guards. In battle, the berserkers were subject to fits of frenzy and they would howl like wild beasts, foamed at the mouth, and gnawed the iron rim of their shields. According to belief, during these fits they were immune to steel and fire, when the fever abated they were weak and tame. Accounts can be found in the sagas and this expression berserk most likely arose from their reputed habit of wearing a kind of shirt or coat made from the pelt of a bear during battle. The bear was one of the animals representing Odin, and by wearing such a pelt the warriors sought to gain the strength of a bear and the favor of Odin. To go berserk was to hamask, which translates as change form, in this case, one who could transform as a berserker was typically thought of as hamrammr or shapestrong. they built and shaped more like trolls than human beings. This is generally interpreted as the band of men being hamrammr, wolf warriors appear among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and North American Indians
