Læsø ("Isle of Hlér") is the largest island in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

bay of

Kattegat The Kattegat (; ; ) is a sea area bounded by the peninsula of Jutland in the west, the Danish straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the Swedish provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Scania in Swede ...

, and is located off the northeast coast of the

Jutland Peninsula Jutland (; , ''Jyske Halvø'' or ''Cimbriske Halvø''; , ''Kimbrische Halbinsel'' or ''Jütische Halbinsel'') is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It ...

, the Danish

mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or demogr ...

. Læsø is also the name of the municipality ( Danish, '' kommune'') on that island. The island is a location mentioned in several instances in

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

sources detailing

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

. In a 2010 survey, readers of the Danish newspaper ''

Kristeligt Dagblad ''Kristeligt Dagblad'' is a Danish newspaper in Copenhagen. The paper was founded in 1896 and is still circulation in the 2000s. It was founded with a Christian orientation. History and profile ''Kristeligt Dagblad'' was established in 1896. It ...

'' voted Læsø as Denmark's second most wonderful island, behind only

Fur (island) Fur (alternative older spelling: Fuur) is a Danish island in the Limfjord. It is located just north of Salling peninsula in Skive municipality. As of 2025, the island covers an area of 21.8 km2 and has a total population of 732. The village of ...

Name and Norse mythology

The modern Danish form of the island's name, ''læsø'', developed from

''Hlésey'', meaning ' Hlér's island'.McKinnell (2005:110) and Faulkes (1995:59). Hlér (Old Norse 'sea'), also known as ''Ægir'' (also Old Norse 'sea'), is a

jötunn A (also jotun; plural ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; or, in Old English, , plural ) is a type of being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir) and with other no ...

and personification of the sea in

whose nine daughters personify waves. Similarly, the Danish city of

Lejre Lejre is a railway town in the northwestern part of the island of Zealand (Denmark), Zealand in eastern Denmark. It has a population of 3,165 (1 January 2024) inhabitants.

may also derive from ''Hlér''. In the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

'' poem ''

Hárbarðsljóð ''Hárbarðsljóð'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Hárbarðr') is one of the poems of the ''Poetic Edda'', found in the Codex Regius and AM 748 I 4to manuscripts. It is a flyting poem with figures from Norse Paganism. ''Hárbarðsljóð'' was first wri ...

'', the god

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

comments that it was on Hlésey that he was attacked by (and so fought) "berserk women" or "brides of berserks" who had bewitched all of the men on the island. Thor details that, upon beaching his ship, the women battered it, threatened him with iron clubs and chased his servant, Þjálfi:

These "women" are personified waves and/or jötnar. The island is also a setting in the poems ''

Helgakviða Hundingsbana II "Völsungakviða in forna" or "Helgakviða Hundingsbana II" ("The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane") is an Old Norse poem found in the ''Poetic Edda''. It constitutes one of the Helgi lays together with '' Helgakviða Hundingsbana I'' and ''Helgak ...

'' and '' Oddrúnargrátr'', the saga '' Örvar-Odds saga'', in two

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally compo ...

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

s, and the aforementioned (see etymology section above) ''Prose Edda'' book ''Skáldskaparmál''.McKinell (2005:110).

The Municipality of Læsø

The municipality is in

Region Nordjylland The North Jutland Region (), or in some official sources, the North Denmark Region, is an administrative region of Denmark established on 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish municipal reform, which abolished the traditional counties () an ...

in northern

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. The municipality, Denmark's least populous, covers Læsø and neighboring small islands for a total area of , and has a total population of 1,719 as of 1. January 2025. The population has been steadily declining, and according to Danmarks Statistik (Statistikbanken.dk) was: Its mayor is Karsten Nielsen as of 2021. He is a member of the Venstre

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

. The main town and the site of its municipal council is Byrum. Because Læsø is an island and lies in the

, its neighboring municipality,

Frederikshavn Frederikshavn () is a Danish town in Frederikshavn municipality, Region Nordjylland, on the northeast coast on the North Jutlandic Island in northern Denmark. Its name translates to "Frederik's harbor". It was originally named Fladstrand. The ...

on the Jutland peninsula, is separated by water, the ''Læsø Rende'', from the island municipality. Ferry service connects

on the Jutland peninsula to the municipality at the town of Vesterø Havn while Østerby Havn is the island's fishing harbour. Læsø Municipality was not merged with any adjacent municipality under the municipal reform of 2007, as it agreed to enter into a "municipal cooperation agreement" with

Frederikshavn Municipality Frederikshavn Municipality () is the northernmost Danish municipality, located in Region Nordjylland. As a result of ''Kommunalreformen'' ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007), it is a merger between the previous municipalities of Frederikshavn, S ...

Municipal council

Læsø's municipal council consists of 9 members, elected every four years. Below are the municipal councils elected since the Municipal Reform of 2007.

Nature and protections

Læsø has an outstanding botanical interest. The nature-types on and around Læsø includes open water, extensive

mudflats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

sand banks In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material, and rises from the bed of a body of water close to the surface or ...

heathland 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 coole ...

islet An islet ( ) is generally a small island. Definitions vary, and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/ ...

s and areas of arable land. It houses Denmark's largest tidal

saltmarsh A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It ...

outside the

Wadden Sea The Wadden Sea ( ; ; or ; ; ; ) 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 low-lying Frisian Islands, forming a shallow body of water with tida ...

but the decline in

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

animals has led to a gradual vegetational succession. Invasive species are colonizing the site, especially Japanese Rose, and scrub clearance has been implemented to re-establish the former

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

s open heathland. Seals like the

Harbor seal The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), 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 (walruses, eared sea ...

are breeding around Læsø and the whole area is an internationally important area for wintering, molting and staging

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

s. Therefore, a Ramsar protection was put into force in 1977 (number 149) and today it encompass 66,548 ha.

Climate, industry, and wildlife

Together with Anholt, Læsø belongs to the Danish "desert belt"; during the summer months there is so little rain that streams and ponds partly dry up. In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, the island was known for its

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

industry. The ground water can reach over 15 percent salt, and this was naturally concentrated in flat salt meadows during the hot dry summers. The final concentration, carried out in hundreds of salt

kiln 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, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

s, consumed large amounts of

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

. Eventually the island became deforested, sandstorms buried villages, and salt extraction was banned. Since the end of the 1980s it has been resumed on a small scale as an archaeological experiment and a tourist attraction. Læsø is home to unique styles of

Danish traditional music 350px, ''Rebild Spillemandslaug'', a guild of traditional musicians founded by Evald Thomsen. Danish traditional music (Danish language">Danish: ''spillemandsmusik'') is the music genre that has its roots in pre-modern Denmark. In this period it ...

. Most of it is not played any more but has been preserved through intense documentation and research in the 1980s and 1990s. The HVDC powerline Kontiskan crosses Læsø as overhead line. On Læsø, there is also a 160 metres tall radio relay mast. Bee October 2007-1

In 1993 a conservation area was established for the ''A. m. mellifera'' nicknamed the Brown Bee of Læsø, where it became illegal according to Danish Law to keep and import any other type of bee other than ''Apis mellifera mellifera'', this was met with protests and a legal battle lasting eight years from other beekeepers of ''A. m. ligustica'', ''A. m. carnica'' and ''Buckfast'' bees as they did not "want to become a custodian of poor bees", they also stated that ''A. m. mellifera'' was "unproductive" and "not worthy of protection". They lost their case in 2001, and negotiations between ''A. m. mellifera'' beekeepers and non-''A. m. mellifera'' beekeepers were concluded in 2004, splitting the island in two between them, ending a "history of sabotage of bees" on the island. The ''A. m. mellifera'' supporters claimed that they had "introduced

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

on Læsø for the bees".

Notable residents

* Gustav S. Christensen (1929–2007) an academic mathematician and engineer. * Mogens Bay Esbensen (born 1930) a prominent Danish born chef and author has lived there since 1992 *

Per Kirkeby Per Kirkeby (1 September 1938 – 9 May 2018) was a Danish Painting, painter, poet, film maker and sculptor. His works have been exhibited worldwide and are represented in many important public collections, including the Tate, Metropolitan Museum ...

(1938–2018) a Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor owned a house and studio on the island

Gallery

File:Læsø kur - panoramio.jpg, Læsø kur File:Museumsgården - panoramio.jpg, Museumsgården File:Læsø - panoramio - L-BBE (1).jpg, Læsø File:Fannemandsfærgen - panoramio.jpg, Fannemandsfærgen

Notes

References

* Bellows, Henry Adams (Trans.) (1923). ''The Poetic Edda''. New York:

The American-Scandinavian Foundation The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) is an American non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Swe ...

. * Faulkes, Anthony (Trans.) (1995). ''Edda''.

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin and history The term ''everyman'' was used ...

. * McKinnell, John (2005). ''Meeting the Other in Norse Myth in Legends''. D.S. Brewer. * * Thorpe, Benjamin (Trans.) (1907). ''The Elder Edda of Saemund Sigfusson''. Norrœna Society.