Elsinore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kronborg Castle

Helsingør [hɛlseˈŋøɔ̯ˀ], also known by its English name Elsinore, is a city in Helsingør municipality on the northeast coast of the island of Zealand (Sjælland) in eastern Denmark. It is known internationally as the setting of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The name is derived from *Hals meaning "narrow strait" and it referred to the narrow passage between what is now Elsinore and Helsingborg. The Rerum Danicarum Historica (1631) claims that the history of Elsinore can be traced back to 70 BC, but this information is highly dubious. The people were mentioned, as Helsinger, for the first time in King Valdemar the Victorious's book from 1231, but they should not be confused with the Helsings of Hälsingland in Sweden. Prior to the Middle Ages it was just a marketplace where people sold goods, including women. About 1200 AD the first church, Sct Olai Church, was built. A number of convents once surrounded the church, but now all that remains is the church building, today the cathedral of the Diocese of Elsinore.

Helsingør as we know it today was founded in the 1420s by the Danish king Eric of Pomerania. He established the Sound Dues in 1429 and built the castle 'Krogen', which was made bigger in the 1580s and named Kronborg. The oldest parts of the cathedral of Elsinore date back to the 1200s and tell us that the fishermen's village, as Elsinore was then, was a town of a certain importance. At least, there have always been some form of ferryboats crossing between Elsinore and Helsingborg.

Kronborg Castle is a main tourist attraction. Hamlet has been performed a number of times in its courtyard.

The Swedish city of Helsingborg lies a short distance across the Øresund from Elsinore. European route E55 traverses the two cities; ferries connect the two ends.

[edit] In fiction

William Shakespeare's play Hamlet takes place at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore.
In the 1983 comedy Strange Brew, which is loosely based on Hamlet, the protagonists are given jobs at Elsinore Brewery.
In Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series, Elsinore fires mortar shells at the heroes in book seven, The Surgeon's Mate, as they sail past on their way to a rendezvous in the Baltic.

[edit] See also

Aalsgaarde
EGMUN, a Model United Nations conference anually held in Espergærde and with an opening reception at Elsinore Town Hall.
Tourism in Denmark
Lake Elsinore, California is named for a local lake that was named after the Danish city in honor of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Elsinore Theatre, a historic movie theatre in Salem, Oregon, United States.
Elsinore, Utah, a town in Utah known as "little Denmark."