Lund Domkyrkan and More

For my second full day based in Malmö, I got out of Malmö and went to nearby Lund. It’s not that I don’t like Malmö. Quite the opposite. But I read favourable reviews about Lund in my guidebooks, and I’ve got another full Malmö day to go after today.

Plus, the captain on the canal tour I took in Malmö yesterday said that Lund is known as the place you go to read, and Malmö is where you go to work. He said that in favour of Malmö and sneeringly toward Lund, but I took it as a strong compliment for Lund, not so much for Malmö.

The Lund reading reputation came about because it’s a university city.

And it’s old, not that that necessarily has anything to do with the reading reputation; just that I usually like old cities. Lund was founded more than 1,000 years ago by King Sven Tveskägg.

The most noted sight in Lund is its Domkyrkan (Cathedral). When I left the train station, I spotted a big, imposing church at the end of a straight street that started just across a public square from the train station. I headed straight for the church, figuring that was the Domkyrkan. It wasn’t.

All Saints’ Church of Lund

It was the All Saints’ Church of Lund. I would have known it wasn’t the Domkyrkan if of looked at one of my mapping apps rather than heading for the first highly domineering church I saw.

I also would have known it wasn’t the Domkyrkan by sight, even from the distance of the train station, if I remembered what my guidebooks told me about the Domkyrkan. The All Saints’ Church of Lund is constructed of red brick. My guidebooks described the Domkyrkan as something completely different.

Upon discovering my error, only after arriving at the All Saints’ Church, I looked at Apple Maps and found that the Domkyrkan was about a nine-minute walk away.

But I was at the All Saints’ Church. So, what the heck? I took a look.

None of my guidebooks mention the church, but with the help of the translate feature of Chrome, I found a website that told me, “The church was inaugurated on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1891 … [it] was built because the Cathedral was not enough.

“There was a large population increase during the 19th century in Sweden, and so also in Lund. This was due to better medical and hygienic conditions. This population increase was also largely due to people moving into the city from the countryside around Lund.”

The interior feels quite wide, but it may have a width-to-length ratio that’s more skewed to the width than in old churches I’ve been in, simply making it seem so. I don’t know.

There are balconies on either side that run the length of the church with considerable open space between them. The underside of the balconies is made of dark wood. That, combined with the wood pews, makes it feel as if the interior is mostly wood.

However, the walls are made of exposed brick. There are wide, horizontal bands of red brick alternating with narrow bands of dark-brown and cream-coloured brick on the walls.

The ceiling is arched and has cream and green patterns, with dark, converging ribs highlighting the peaked arches of the ceiling.

I thought it was a simple but handsome church. But it was not the Domkyrkan.

Lund Domkyrkan

Lund Domkyrkan is a big hulk of a beautifully dramatic old church. The exterior walls are constructed of mottled charcoal, light-grey, and tan-coloured stone blocks.

I couldn’t help wondering what it would look like with the grime washed off. It probably would no longer look its age, which may detract from it rather than improve it. But I’m still curious about what’s under the years of soot.

Two towers made of the same stone blocks rise from the front of the roof of the cathedral.

Inside, the Lund Domkyrkan is quite stark. The walls are raw stone blocks of a variety of light to medium grey stones.

On the wall behind the altar, in a large eye-shaped section just below the ceiling, there’s a large Jesus painting (or maybe mosaic; I couldn’t tell from down on the floor level). Jesus is on a bright, almost glowing gold background. Of course, he has a halo around his head. I mean, Jesus, why wouldn’t he?

There’s also a blue almost-oval encompassing Jesus, with angels outside of the almost-oval. (I said “almost-oval” because there are slight points at the top and bottom of the almost-oval.)

The benches of the choir section on either side of the altar are made of dark wood with animal and other figures carved into the dividers between the seats.

In the basement, below the altar area, there’s a crypt. It’s a fairly dark place, with memorial stones on its floor. There are a lot of pillars to hold up the weight above it.

Many of the pillars are unadorned. Some have curved lines or geometric patterns decorating them. But two of the pillars have carved figures on them. One pillar has an old man. The other has a woman and a child.

The man is strange. He’s hugging the pillar. His arms are stretched around it as far as normally proportioned arms could go. That’s not the weird part. His head is twisted so that he’s not quite looking straight back, but it looked to me like his head was turned much farther back than a human neck could possibly twist without breaking.

The two pillars, one with the man and one with the woman and child, are not side by side.

One of my guidebooks, “The Rough Guide to Sweden,” tells a legend about these figures.

‘Local legend has it that Finn the Giant built the cathedral for St Lawrence; in return, unless the saint could guess his name, Finn wanted the sun, the moon or the saint’s eyes. Lawrence was just preparing to end his days in blindness when he heard Finn’s wife boasting to her baby, “Soon Father Finn will bring some eyes for you to play with.” The relieved saint hurried to Finn, declaring the giant’s name. The livid Finn, his wife and child rushed to the crypt to pull down the columns, and were instantly turned to stone.’¹

I’m a tad skeptical of the legend. But, hey, who am I to judge the veracity of these sorts of things?

Back upstairs, at the back of the Lund Domkyrkan, on the right side if you’re facing the door, there’s a large astronomical clock. Amazingly, for such a complex contraption, it dates from the 1440s. If you know how to read it, you can use it to tell the time, day, week, and the course of the sun and the moon in the zodiac.

And if that’s not enough, at noon and 3:00 p.m., the clock puts on a little show where figures on and in the clock clack swords, blow trumpets, and move across the face of the clock. I was there too early for the show. So I walked around the old town of Lund for a while and came back.

I got there about ten minutes before noon. There were chairs set up in front of the clock. They were full. There were also a few people standing behind the chairs. I joined them.

When I arrived, there was someone dressed in clergy garb who was already talking about the clock, its construction, how to read it, and the symbolism on it. He spoke only in English. He said that when the clock show ended, there would be a service lasting about ten minutes and everyone was welcome to stay, and pray if they were so inclined. But he asked us not to walk around or take pictures during the service.

He finished his spiel a few minutes before noon. Oh, as part of his talk, the clergyman mentioned that we might notice that the clock was approaching 11:00, not noon. He said that’s because the clock stays on standard time, and we’re now on daylight saving time. Nevertheless, the clock ran its show at noon daylight saving time, but 11:00 by the time on its face.

Noon struck, the clock show started, and it lasted more than a minute and a half. Afterward, there was a little break before the service started. I don’t know how little of a break because almost everyone there, including me, took that opportunity to leave the Lund Domkyrkan.

I took a video of the clock show. Three points: One, I’m a horrible videographer. Two, it’s too large a file to post on my blog because I don’t know how to properly compress videos. And three, I’m an old guy; until today, I’ve never posted a video to YouTube. I’m going to try. I hope this works.

Lund Old Town

As I said, while waiting for the clock show, I walked around Lund’s old town. Before that, I also walked from the train station to All Saints’ Church, and from there to the Lund Domkyrkan. What a truly amazing city this is. In the old town, the streets are mostly cobblestone, there’s little traffic, and some of the Medieval and Renaissance Age buildings are still there, all cleaned up.

I’ve posted a collage of some of the amazing buildings and streetscapes of Lund here.

There are a lot of shops and restaurants in those buildings.

It’s an incredibly charming and calming place. After the clock show, I had lunch at an outdoor table just across the street from the Lund Domkyrkan. And, with lunch, that’s my cue to end this entry and pick it up again in a later post to talk about my afternoon.

1. “The Rough Guide to Sweden,” Annie Warren and Charles Young, 2024, Apa Digital AG ↩︎