Most church buildings have one or two towers. The Church of Our Woman in Kalundborg, Denmark, has 5. Constructed within the late twelfth century, this red-brick Romanesque church was designed as an ideal Greek cross, with a tower rising from every arm and a fifth on the middle. The structure is strikingly balanced, a uncommon architectural gesture in medieval Europe.
Seen from the fjord, the 5 towers rise above the hilltop city like a fortress-like crown. Their deliberate symmetry has lengthy invited symbolic interpretations: the central tower as Christ, the 4 others because the evangelists. From a distance, the sight is so harmonious it feels nearly mathematical.
Native legend, nonetheless, affords a really totally different rationalization. The church, it's stated, was constructed by a troll who struck a take care of Esbern Snare, the founding father of Kalundborg. In trade for his labor, the troll demanded Snare's eyes and soul, until Snare may guess the troll's title earlier than the ultimate stone was laid.
Because the story goes, Snare later overheard the troll's spouse singing a lullaby to their little one and realized the title: Finn. When the final stone was positioned, Snare spoke it aloud, breaking the discount.
Enraged at being outwitted, Finn tried to tear the church aside earlier than vanishing underground. When a part of the constructing collapsed in 1827, engineers blamed age and shifting masonry. Locals most well-liked one other rationalization: that Finn had lastly returned to complete what he began.
