The Story of Christian Bøg

Anna Bøg’s great-grandfather was Christian Bøg (1792-1872), whose baptismal anniversary is today, September 2. His story is a remarkable one that very much captures the Danish imagination because it highlights the beech tree, which is the national tree of Denmark, and the color red, which is the predominant color of the Danish flag.

According to the sacramental records of Dalum Church in Odense, Denmark, on September 2, 1792, an abandoned male infant of 12 to 16 weeks was baptized. The infant had been found in Fruens Bøge, a grove of beech trees on the Christiansdal estate. Thus, he was given the name "Christian Bøg".

In 1992, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Christian Bøg in Fruens Bøge, two Odense residents, Julius Berg and Bent Rasmussen, wrote an article about Christian Bøg that was published in the local newspaper. The article was the result of their extensive research in church archives and public records. The story, as they reconstructed it, can be summarized as follows:

In 1792, some village farmhands at the Christiansdal estate found an abandoned infant in Fruens Bøge and brought him to the welfare authorities in Dalum-Sanderum municipality. Efforts to find the parents were unsuccessful although there were rumors of a relationship between the child and a group of gypsies that had just left the area. There were also rumors that the father of the child was from the Benzon family at Christiansdal. The bishop ordered the foundling baptized, and he was placed with foster parents named Rasmus Hansen and Gertrud Hansdatter, who reared him.

In 1821, Christian Bøg, who was by then 28 years of age, fathered his firstborn son while working for a farmer named Peder Pedersen in Bellinge.* This son was born April 25, 1821, in Sanderum, and was named Rasmus Christiansen. A few months later, Christian Bøg married the boy’s mother, Karen Rasmusdatter. They were wed on July 7, 1821, at Sanderum Church. Subsequently the couple had three more sons: Hans Christian (1824), Simon (1827), and Niels (1830).

Christian and Karen's eldest son, Rasmus Christiansen, married Ane Kirstine Hansdatter in Bellinge Church on October 26, 1849. Rasmus and Ane Kirstine had six children, including Anna Bøg Madsen’s mother, Karen Bøg Rasmussen (1853-1916), who was born in Braendekilde on April 14, 1853.

Rasmus Christiansen served as a soldier during the First Schleswig War (1848-1851). In June, 1850, while on leave during a cease-fire, Rasmus purchased a house and adjoining land in Braendekilde called Ravnehøjhus. Later, Rasmus sold off part of this land to build three houses along the road to a mill, and used the proceeds to purchase a small store. In addition to being a farmer and shopkeeper, Rasmus also made clogs, and sold passing tourists a special drink of home-brewed beer, enhanced with a shot of rum and served in earthenware mugs.

In reporting on their research, Berg and Rasmussen were careful to point out that Christian Bøg was reared by foster parents (who presumably were paid for his care with church or public funds) and that no definite statements could be made about his parentage.

There are various possibilities regarding how Christian Bøg came to be abandoned in Fruens Bøge. There is a longstanding tradition of abandoning unwanted infants on the steps of churches and Fruens Bøge is near Dalum Church. Also, it was commonly believed that gypsies stole children. Maybe a local woman who used the presence of the gypsies as a pretext for abandoning the infant, or perhaps the gypsies actually did kidnap the child and abandoned him in Fruens Bøge because he became too burdensome. If the landowner took some responsibility regarding the infant, this was in keeping with his station and did not necessarily imply parentage. According to family oral tradition, however, Christian Bøg was very likely the illegitimate son of the Christiansdal landowner and a gypsy woman.

In memoirs written during the 1970s, Anna Bøg’s brother, Peter Bøg Madsen recounted the family legend, which does not vary a great deal from the findings of Berg and Rasmussen. Here are excerpts from two renditions of the family legend by Peter Bøg Madsen:

"The year was 1792; the place a large estate in Denmark called 'Christiansdal'. One summer morning a group of workers, men and women, were on their way to the harvest fields, going through a forest, when they heard the cry of a baby among the trees just off the road. . . . They went over to take a look and found this tiny newborn baby lying under a big bøg tree wrapped in a red gypsy shawl.

"That's the way my mother told it! There he was! Well, of course, they picked him up and took him up to the ranch house and told the owner about what they had found. He gave the housekeeper strict orders to take care of this baby boy and to see that he gets everything that he wants. . . .

"The workers suspected that the owner was the father of the baby. Just at that time a gypsy woman disappeared from her camp nearby, and was never heard of again. They surmised that she was the mother, but they didn't know exactly. They were pretty sure that this was a gypsy baby because the infant was wrapped in a gypsy shawl.

"The best conclusion that the people could reach about the abandoned baby and coinciding disappearance of the gypsy woman, was that the owner must have given her some money and told her to leave the area. . .

"For a few months the baby's guardians tried to find the whereabouts of the real parents. They came up with no clues at all. They couldn't find a thing on who his parents were. . . .

"They took him to the church and baptized him and gave him a name. . . .

"Christian Bøg grew up on the ranch thinking he was just one of the serfs. He didn't know anything about his background. . . . He never got any place in the world. Later in life he became poor and only had a little bit of a house to live in. . . .

“My mother grew up nearby her grandfather, Christian Bøg, and she knew him well for years. They lived not far apart.

"My mother said her family was very poor. Her father, Rasmus Bøg, had a little acreage and did a little farming and he ran a little store besides. She used to tell me that her grandfather settled down in a house not too far from theirs and her family would walk down there and bring him a little something from their store - like a pound of coffee or a pound of sugar or something. He could hardly afford to live.”

According to church records, on August 30, 1872, just three days before the eightieth anniversary of his baptism, Christian Bøg died in Bellinge Parish, Odense, and is buried there.

Sources:
Dalum-Hjallelse News, August 11, 1992.
Memoirs of Peter Bøg Madsen. Courtesy of Roger Lais.

Images:
1867 book illustration of Christiansdal, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.
1867 book illustration of Dalum Church, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.
(Note that these images date at five years before the death of Christian Bøg and therefore are more or less contemporary with his story.)

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* Bellinge, Sanderum, and Braendekilde are all in the greater Odense area.