Baggesen’s Oak – The Poet’s Tree
The Danish poet Jens Baggesen was a frequent guest at Christianssæde and a close friend of the landowner and Prime Minister C.D.F. Reventlow. Here he found tranquillity, inspiration and a sense of community shaped by the Enlightenment’s new ideas about freedom, education and development.
In the woods of Christianssæde stood a very special oak tree, which became known as Baggesen’s Oak. The tree was so enormous that, according to reports, one could sit inside its hollow trunk. It became a local landmark, and a copperplate engraving of this impressive tree can be seen today in the Gallery.
A tribute to C.D.F. Reventlow
It was also here that Baggesen wrote the poem *Landforvandlingen* (The Transformation of the Land), a tribute to C.D.F. Reventlow and the major reforms that transformed Denmark. The abolition of serfdom, the agricultural reforms and the new Education Act gave farmers their freedom and laid the foundations for the society we know today.
If you’d like to find out more about the man who inspired the poem *Landforvandlingen*, you can read the story of C.D.F. Reventlow – here.