Ballum Churchyard

Facts

The Sorrow Acre Stone

By Inger Lauridsen, Cand.mag. i historie og kunsthistorie fra Københavns Universitet 1984 Tidligere faglærer i historie og formning (6 stories)

Ballum Churchyard has a limestone gravestone west of the church spire, close to the area's western dike. The stone is from the 17th century. Its inscription was worn away by the elements long ago. But a local legend about the stone lives on along the west coast of South Jutland: The stone commemorates a tragic woman from the 17th century. Her son was charged with murder but the mother could save him from the gallows by threshing a large field of barley from sunrise to sunset. No one knows for sure when the stone was linked to the tale of the Sorrow Acre". "

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Mother dies saving her son

Story written by Inger Lauridsen

Time / Periode 1600 1700

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The tale from Ballum says the woman under the churchyard gravestone came from Misthusum. The village had been destroyed by flooding in 1634. Her son was sentenced by King Christian IV himself for murdering a man trying to steal the timber from the destroyed houses in the village that had washed ashore. The mother harvested a field of barley in return for her son being pardoned. But she died of exhaustion. According to local tradition, the field, which was about 250 metres south of Ballum Kirke, is called Sorrow Acre. Writer Karen Blixen immortalised the story of the devoted mother in Sorrow Acre that appeared in a collection of short stories called Winter's Tales in 1942. Blixen set the tale in the 18th century. She gave the role of judge to a squire who had sentenced the young man for arson. Svend Simon Schultz' opera called Harvest is also based on the tale.