The Danish Royal House has started sharing a digital Christmas calendar on its social media accounts, weaving a tale of an Elf Girl who flies around Denmark’s kingdoms to learn more about their holiday traditions.
Now an annual treat, this year’s digital Christmas calendar features a special story that takes place during King Christian X’s and Queen Alexandrine’s royal expedition in 1921, where an Elf Girl has to fly around Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland in search of her two siblings, who she hasn’t seen since 1921.
“The Elf Girl’s Christmas trip will be a meeting with both Faroese and Greenlandic Christmas traditions,” the Royal House said on their website. All month, a new part of the story will be shared that tangles legends and myths with the story of the Danish Royal Family throughout the century.
“In 1921, the Queen’s grandparents, Christian X and Queen Alexandrine, and father, Crown Prince Frederik, and Prince Knud travelled on their great Arctic royal expedition. At that time, two goblins were on both the warship Valkyrie and the steamship Iceland. Namely, the Elf’s brother who settled in the Faroe Islands, and the Elf’s sister who has lived in Greenland ever since. This Christmas, it is thus 100 years since the Elf family was last gathered on Amalienborg’s old attic,” the Royal House shared on Instagram.
On 1 December, Queen Margrethe officially launched the Christmas calendar and sent the Elf Girl on her journey “through the green mountainsides of the Faroes and Greenland’s ice-covered mountains” to find her siblings. Queen Margrethe also lit a Christmas star to light the Elf Girl’s way.
On 2 December, the Elfin Family charted out their route to the Faroe Islands using a globe from the 1700s in Her Majesty The Queen’s Reference Library at Christian VIII’s Palace.
The library contains charts and detailed descriptions of every royal expedition throughout the realm, so, as the second post on the digital Christmas calendar notes, “it is a natural place to prepare for the Elf Girl’s trek to the Faroes and Greenland.”
The Elves are featured next to sketches by Frederik VII during his trip in 1844, which have never been publicly displayed before. “The Elves think the motifs can serve as a lead to find the place where the Faroese Elf Brother lives.”
A new part of the Elf Girl’s adventures will be shared daily on the Royal Family’s Instagram and website.
