Behind the Scenes

The Mysterious Horn

by Maurice F.V. Doll

Participating as one of The Canadian Antiques Roadshow team of experts has been full of rewards and challenges. One item that continues to intrigue and challenge me is a wonderfully carved storage horn (see illustration) that was brought to my attention by my friend and Roadshow colleague Uno Langmann.

On first sight the horn appeared to me to conform to the architecture of a mid-18th century American small priming horn used by frontiersmen to charge the pan of a flintlock rifle or shotgun. Originally, priming horns were part of a set, with a larger storage or hunting horn carrying powder of more coarse grain that was used in charging the barrel of muzzle loading firearms.

I had examined more than a dozen powder horns during this particular Roadshow session, but this one was unique! Many were engraved – this one was carved and it was the medieval style of carving that set it apart. Unlike the scrimshandered (engraved) North American horns I am more familiar with, this horn exhibited several human, animal and natural and symbolic depictions that only later became clearer as Uno and I had time to examine some photographs. (During the filming we only had limited time for examination).

The most difficult part was deciphering the carved inscriptions on the horn (I will go into specifics in a later article). Essentially, the carved panels on the horn depict two stories from the Old Testament and at least one early medieval hero story. The first from the Old Testament depicts Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and, of course, the serpent. The second is from the story of Samson and Delilah.

It was, however, a third panel that is most intriguing. During the filming session I mistakenly interpreted the inscription to read “Olga from Denmark”. A meeting with Uno Langmann over Christmas reinterpreted the inscription as “OLGER DANSKE” otherwise written as Holger Danske or Holger the Dane.

Holger the Dane is a folkloric Danish hero first mentioned in the early medieval French poem The Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) supposedly composed around A.D. 1060. His only link to Denmark at this time was his name. He later becomes linked to Denmark in the later 1200s in Nordic literature (Oddgeir danski) and becomes firmly established as Holger Danske after the 1400s.

Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen wrote an Opera in Danish about Holger Danske in three acts with its first performance at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, on 30th March 1789, while Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson wrote a fairytale Holger Danske in 1845. More recently, the Danish underground who fought against the Nazis during the Second World War were known as Holger Danske – those who awoke to defend Denmark.

Holger Danske, like a knight, is a Danish national hero who is believed to dwell in the castle of Kronborg. It is said that his beard has grown down to the floor and he remains asleep until Denmark is in mortal danger, at which time he will awaken to save her.

There are other panels and inscriptions on this horn yet to be deciphered and interpreted by my colleagues and I, however, the jury is still out with respect to dating it. The Holger Danske legend depicted on this horn and the style in which it is depicted appears earlier than the mid-18th century and may be significantly earlier!

(to be continued...)