Skilled Stevns residents:

Harald I. Boisen:

Harald I. Boisen (1857-1904) only lived to be 47 years old, and his friends erected this memorial to him, some years before the Højeruplund Society was founded.

He was born in Copenhagen and it could be said that he received the calling to the priesthood as a gift in the cradle. His paternal grandfather was a bishop and his father a priest. His mother was Meta Grundtvig, daughter of N. F. S. Grundtvig.

Boisen graduated as a theology candidate from the University of Copenhagen in 1883. He became a priest in Højerup in 1890 and gradually came to adopt his maternal grandfather's ideas.

When his wife died, he was left with a young boy and was spiritually and physically broken. He remarried in 1903. The church in Højerup was increasingly sought out by people from the parish of Store Heddinge. He became a chaplain at Store Heddinge Church in 1904, but in the autumn he was struck by illness and died on 13 December 1904. His contemporaries gave him the following testimonial: He was a friendly man who gathered a large following around his pulpit.

Boisen was the second to last priest in the Old Church, which was closed 5 years later due to fears of collapse.

Peder Syv

Peder Syv: “He stood like Stevns Klint for the old words in people's mouths”.

Peder Syv (1631-1702) was born in Kirke Syv near Roskilde – hence the name Syv. He served as a parish priest in Hellested, Stevns, from 1664, but most importantly as a linguist and folklore collector.

As a linguist, Peder Syv worked for the rights of the mother tongue, and he combated the Latin, German, and French languages that were predominant in the literary world. It was not enough that after the Reformation in 1536, hymns began to be written in the vernacular, the Bible was translated from Latin, and services were held in the vernacular. They had neither dictionaries nor rules for grammar, and people spoke differently from village to village – from district to district and from region to region. In 1685, Peder Syv published the first Danish grammar in the mother tongue.

He also worked on the collection and registration of folk memory. In 1682 and 1688, his two great collections of proverbs were published, containing approximately 15,000 popular expressions, idioms, aphorisms, sayings, and rules for learning and living. In these books, he emphasises that proverbs are not only a testament to the wisdom of our ancestors but also an adornment of the language.

Examples of his proverbs: No one gets new bread without him baking – Few have luck, all have death – He who the hen gives birth to, should have the egg.

Christian Richardt

Christian Richardt: “The young people of Stevns had this marker built in memory of Christian Richard”. (Erected 1914)

Christian Richardt (1831-1892) was born in Copenhagen. After his matriculation in 1848, he chose to study theology, but he never became a learned theologian. It wasn't until 1857 that he graduated in theology – with an extremely modest examination, but on the other hand, he was actively involved in student life of the time, as we know from Hostrup's comedies. Richardt also published several student comedies, but it was only with the poetry collection Smådigte from 1860 that he became known as a poet.

In 1872, he became a curate in Store Heddinge, and after a period on Funen, he became a priest in Vemmetofte. The assessment of him reads: His preaching was modest and quiet and earned him good friends. He was also conscientious as a pastor: “He who whispers softly, comforts best”, it says in one of his poems, but it was not his priestly duties that made him known, no, – it is his poems and dramas.

“Drot og Marsk” with music by Heise is a drama that is still performed, but it is especially the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty that Richardt is remembered for. This is due to the song that the knight sings when he penetrates the thorny hedge. On his way to Sleeping Beauty, the dashing knight sings: “Always cheerful, when you go”.

The memorial was designed and executed by Niels Larsen Stevns. The motifs are taken from Christian Richardt's poem 'The Vase' and his fairy tale 'Sleeping Beauty'.

Martin A. Hasen

Martin A. Hansen was born on 20th August 1909 in Strøby on Stevns. In 1914, the First World War broke out. His father was called up for military service and was away for several months. It was difficult for the small family to manage on their own. The straitened circumstances, country life, and close contact with nature were to profoundly influence his extensive literary output.

In his time, his authorship was of great importance, but after the youth rebellion in 1968, he was put on ice. Now there is renewed interest in his writing. He debuted with two

social realist novels about the crisis of the 1930s: Nu opgiver han (Now He Gives Up) from 1935 and Kolonien (The Colony) from 1937, built on his experiences from the agricultural crisis in Stevns and the polarisation that occurred in the farming community.

He is soon led from the socialist to the existential, and then to the historical, which resulted in major works about the country's transition from Nordic religion to Christianity. Orm and Tyr is the main work here.

He is best known for the novel "The Liar" about the schoolteacher Johannes Vig on Sandø. Sandø is Stevns, and the church where the schoolteacher preaches on the 3rd Sunday of Lent, when the priest cannot get there due to the ice – yes, that is Højerup Church. As he sits in the choir before the service begins, he looks up at the chancel arch, and there sit two heads – are they devils or what? The Sunday text is about how we sweep the house clean of all dirt and unclean spirits, and when it is clean, well – then seven other unclean spirits come and take over the swept and adorned house.

Go up into the church and see the two heads out on the balcony.

Niels Larsen Stevns

Niels Larsen Stevns (1864-1941) was born in Gevnø on Stevns, and is one of our foremost visual artists. The young Niels Larsen Stevns wanted to be a painter, and after a period at Vallekilde People's College, he became a student of Joakim Skovgaard. Through scholarships, Niels Larsen Stevns undertook study trips to Italy and learned the fundamental techniques of fresco painting there. In the decoration of Viborg Cathedral in 1901-06, he worked on fresco paintings under Joakim Skovgaard's direction. After this period, Niels Larsen Stevns developed his own personal style and, in the following years, decorated several churches, including painting the altarpiece in Grevinge Church. Other major works include the decoration of the Dome Hall in H. C. Andersen's house in Odense, where the motifs depict important events in H. C. Andersen's life – the Central Library in Hjørring with historical motifs of the Vendelboers' resistance struggle in 1534-36 (Count's Feud – Skipper Clement and the peasant revolt) – and the Helligåndshuset (House of the Holy Ghost) in Slagelse, where he chose to symbolise mercy and gratitude. These sunlit paintings are the crowning achievement of his life's work.

A large collection of Niels Larsen Stevns can be seen at Vendsyssel Art Museum in Hjørring.

The memorials for Martin A. Hansen and Niels Larsen Stevns were unveiled on 2 August 1973.

Rødvig in May 2006 Steffen Nordgaard