Kronborg is the motif on the first plate in the series of Danish Castles & Palaces.

The motif, which shows swans in the foreground and the imposing bulk of Kronborg in the background, is the work of artist Jørgen Nielsen.

Kronborg Slot is one of Northern Europe’s most important renaissance castles and is linked in many people’s minds with William Shakespeare’s play about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. But Hamlet never existed in the real world – only in Shakespeare’s imagination. Nonetheless, his “Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” has helped put Helsingør – or Elsinore – on the literary map of the world, and every year the play is performed on stages around the globe – with Kronborg as the setting, of course.

Hamlet is not the only figure linked with Kronborg, however. Holger Danske is a permanent fixture in the Casemates, where
he sits contemplating the state of the kingdom, ready to awaken if an enemy threatens Denmark. He is a national hero for the Danes, but his legend actually originated in a French tale, which simply travelled up through Europe and found its way to Helsingør, where it was translated and retold in 1534, with the result that it became inextricably linked with Kronborg.

So it is an old castle with amazing tales to tell that features on the first Castles & Palaces plate, and Hans Christian Andersen was one of the many people to be inspired by the legend of Holger Danske, writing a fairy tale of the same name in 1845.

In 2000 Kronborg was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List and has now also been immortalised on a plate from Royal
Copenhagen, of course. Next year’s motif will be Eremitagen, a beautiful baroque palace built in Jægersborg Deer Park
as King Christian VI’s hunting lodge.