Birkholm is situated in the South Funen Ocean, between Tåsinge and Ærø, just south of Hjortø. It is a small island of 95.8 ha, - approximately 1 km across and 2 kms from the East end to the West end.
There are 19 properties on Birkholm, 18 houses and farmhouses, and the small community house. Today only five people really live on the island, two of these people work on Funen, two are fishermen, and the last one drives the mail boat which sails to Marstal and back every day, - twice a day in the summer.
In the autumn of 1997 my parents bought a small farm on Birkholm, and this is where my interest in the small island community started.

It was a cold but sunny day in October, when I first went to Birkholm to see our recently acquired property, Vestergård. We approached the island from the North West side in a rubber boat, - the shortest way to get to Birkholm is to cross over from Skovballe on Tåsinge. We tied the boat at a small jetty, and carried our belongings, - all wrapped in black plastic bags to prevent it from getting wet, up to the beach. Leaning on the outer dike of the island were a row of wheelberries, which we could use to transport all the gear to our house.
There are no asphalted roads on Birkholm, neither are there any cars, so you either walk, cycle or drive a tractor, if you are the lucky owner of one of these.
As soon as we had passed the first dike, we saw the roofs of the first houses, and after passing the inner dike we arrived to Birkholm village. The highest point on Birkholm is 1.8 meter above sea level, so the dikes have been needed several times.
The first house we saw on our left was the small community house, and opposite this is the beautiful Kærsgård right beside the village pond. If you continue around the village pond you will find the old mail boat driver´s house, and on the way to the harbour you will pass the old school. We turned right at the pond, on the road which leads to the Northern part of the island. We passed Lundholm on the left, then Lindegård to the right, past the Fisher house and the old convenience store, and hidden behind a small clump of trees far away from everything else, was Vestergård. Many hours of clearing and cleaning were awaiting us. The previous owner of Vestergård the Hubart (as the fishermen used to call him) was an alcoholic, so it had been a while since the buildings had been maintained, and since the last dishes had been done!!
After the first clearing it was obvious that there was history hidden in the old buildings, - back from when Vestergård was still a family farm and when there were a lot more people on the island. - We found a pile of old congratulatory messages from a wedding in 1918, a confirmation in1933, a lot of birthday cards and a membership card for Birkholm Youth Assosiation which was founded in 1942. In the attic, between old fishing traps, furniture and brick-bats, we found the old butter churn which was used in the start of this century. The courtyard was filled with old farming machinery, in the barn we found harness for the work horses who have served Vestergård, and on our field towards the harbour is the ice boat "The Butter Container" which I will get back to later.
I decided to find out what has been written about Birkholm´s history, and then interview some of the people who grew up on Birkholm in the start of this century, to create a picture of how the community worked back then, and to find the origin of some of the traditions that are still celebrated on Birkholm.

There have been signs of stone age settlements found on Birkholm, but already in the start of this century the authorities refused to protect the place. So in the course of time most of the stones have been used to build houses and to maintain the dikes, today you have to search for a while to find the place where the old stone dolmen was.
The first time the name Birkholm occurs (then Byrkholm) is in King Valdemar 2.´s cadaster, where he makes notes of his hunting areas. The island is described as wooded and desolate except for a few horses.
A legend tells that a man named Niels Risting went to live on Birkholm in the 13th century. He may have been the first inhabitant on Birkholm.
In the Medieval Birkholm belonged to Humble parish, but since the church on Drejø was built around year 1550, Birholm has belonged to Drejø parish. It is said that the church on Drejø was built after a big storm which resulted in a tragic accident. A boat full of guests going to a christening ceremony in Ærøskøbing sank on the way to church, and everybody drowned.
In 1672 Birkholm became copyhold estate under the great chancellor Frederik Ahlefeldt on Langeland, - now the island belonged to the count in Tranekær. It is said that even though the Birkholmers had to pay tithe to the count, they were always treated well, and if they had had a poor harvest this would also be taken into consideration.
Around year 1760 the construction of the first dikes was started on Birkholm. The island was often exposed to vehement floodings, which ruined the houses and made the fields barren for years after. A man named Niels Rasmussen convinced the Birkholmers that it was necessary to build dikes, to protect the little island against the powers of the ocean. The first dikes which were made out of seaweed, were primitive and demanded a lot of maintainance. After the outer dike was built, it was possible to farm the fields farthest out, that used to be barran because they frequently were flooded with salt water. It was a farmer´s duty to maintain the dike opposite his own fields.
During the 19th century the impressive stone dikes on the east coast of the island were built. There is no beach on this side of the island, that is why they had to build a solid dike to prevent the ocean from eating its way further into the small island. The big stones were brought in from the ocean with horse and wagon, during low tide. Afterwards the stones have been cleaved or blast, and carefully built into a solid stone dike that you still can see today.
In 1870 Birkholm had 89 inhabitants, this is probably the highest number of people who have lived on the island.
In 1872 The Great Flood came. During a vehement November storm, the waves started washing up on the small island, - in Søby on Ærø a high tide of 11½ feet above normal sea level was measured. All houses on Birkholm were flooded and the inhabitants had to climb to the attics of their houses, - in some cases they even had to sit on the roofs. It was only possible to take a few personal belongings, a little food and maybe some hens or pigs to the attic, where the inhabitants of Birkholm had to live through some dramatic nights and days until the ocean finally drew back. After the flood it was only possible to save two of the houses, the first house on the right when you come on the road from the harbour, and the old fishing house where you can still see a small mark in the door-casting, showing how high the water was. Incredible as it may sound, no human lives were lost during The Great Flood where the majority of the domestic animals lost their lives, and where many Birkholmers lost everything they owned. The people who had lost their homes were packed into the two remaining houses, where they managed to live together until the other houses where built up again. The Count of Tranekær sent a boat with food and drinking water, as all the wells on the island had to be emptied for salt water before the people could start drinking out of them again.
Misfortunes never come singly, - only two years later, in 1874, another flood washed over the small island. This time there was not that much harm done to the houses, but the fields were barran for years after The Great Salt Flood, as this flood was called.
After these two floods the inhabitants agreed on repairing the dikes, and it was around this time that the recent town dike was built.
The Flood Commitee granted 4000 kr, and the Count of Tranekær also donated some money to help building the new dikes. Since then the ocean has never been able to flood the little village on Birkholm.
In 1876 another disaster hit the island. A paraffin lamp was knocked over in the then Mailboat driver´s house (today called "Post 11"), and started a fired that burned down all the houses on the island, except for two. Back then the houses in the village were built very close to each other, so it was impossible to save more the two outermost houses, - again it was number 2 and the Fisher house that survived. When the village was rebuilt, the houses were built further away from each other and some of the farm houses were moved out of the village to prevent a similar disaster ever again. Except for the two houses that survived the fire, the school, the community house and three other houses, the remaining houses and farms on Birkholm were built around year 1876.
Svend Åge Jørgensen who was born in 1920 has grown up on Vestergård, on Birkholm. When he was a child the island was populated by around 65 people. Vestergård was built in 1876 after the big fire, by Svend Åge´s great grandfather. In Svend Åge´s childhood there were 6-7 people living on Vestergård; Svend Åge and his sister Ellen, their parents Lars and Maren, their grandmother Ellen and grandfather Jørgen. In some periods they have also had a farmhand living there, who worked on the farm. Vestergård was one of the island´s 5 farms, where people have been growing grain, had dairy cows, beef cattle, hens, sheep and pigs in the course of time. The wool from the sheep was carded and spun and big winter jackets were knitted for all members of the family. Also foot muffs were made out of sheep skin, to wear on the cold sleigh trips over the ice in the winter time. Vestergård was famous for the nice butter Svend Åge´s grandmother Ellen used to churn in the old butter churn. Every farm had their own cream separator, the leftover skim milk was given to the calves. The farms on Birkholm produced butter, eggs, cream and potatoes, which were sent to Marstal on the mailboat and sold in the shops over there. When the people on Birkholm became members of Marstal Co-operative Dairy-work, they stopped skimming the cream of the milk and started delivering milk instead. Grain, porkers and fat stock were sailed to Svendborg by Morten the carrier, where it was sold on the market. At one time the people on Birkholm delivered sides of bacon and heavily salted butter to Fåborg, where it was sold to long voyage skippers. - The heavily salted goods from the small islands would keep for longer on the trips, than the goods that were produced on Fyn.

Apart from the five big farms, - Vestergård, Prestegård (today Nørregård), Lindegård, Kærsgård and Virkelyst, there were also two small farms without much land on the island. Today they are farmhouses number 7 and number 13 (Lundholm). Back then they were run as smallholdings where the people had a few domestic animals and some small pieces of land which they farmed.
Also some of the smallholders had small pieces of land where they grew vegetables, they would help on the big farms during harvesting, and they delivered fish, eel and schrimps to Marstal, Svendborg and Skovballe. Besides from this there have been both a painter and a shoemaker living on the island, but as they couldn´t make a living out of their profession alone, they also did some fishing.
In 1910 the people on Birkholm got their first telephone, the cable went from Hjortø. Katrine Mortensen in the little Fishing house was the one in charge of the telephone exchange, therefore she was the one who knew everything that was going on on the other small islands.
Katrine was also the one who ran the small grocery store where you could buy all the goods you needed, - hulled grain, flour, sugar, etc. In 1938 her son Marius and the daughter in law Valborg took over the store, and they moved it to the recent house number 17 which was built for this purpose.

Back in the 1800´s it was a teacher from Drejø who was supposed to teach the children on the four islands in the parish. But on Hjortø and Birkholm the children only had 5 weeks of school a year each. In 1868 this unsatisfactory arrangement was taken over by the Hjortø-Birkholm teacher solution. Now one teacher had to teach two weeks on one island, then two weeks on the other. It was in this period, - around year 1900, that the small school building on Birkholm was built. Before it was built, the teacher had been teaching on the 5 farms in turn, where all the children would be gathered.
In 1921 teacher miss Emmy Nielsen came to the island with her husband and their son. Teachers were not in high demand in the rest of Denmark, so she had applied for 70 different jobs before she ended up as the first permanent teacher on Birkholm. The children went to school Monday to Friday from 8 am till 2 pm in the summertime, and from 9 am till 3 pm in the winter time, where the children depended on the light from a kerosene lamp. There were 9 children in the school in the first years, and they were taught as one big class, in spite of the age difference, - in subjects as aritmetics, writing, history of Denmark, bible history, geography, singing, etc. There was no bell ringing, and often this was an advantage as you did not have to stop the lesson in the middle of an interesting subject, you were able to continue until you were done. Once a year the school commission from Drejø came to see what the children had learned during the year, and the Rev. Mr Blume held an examination.
The school children got to go on different trips along with the children from the other 3 islands in the parish. The trip went to e.g. Odense, Himmelbjerget (the Sky Mountain) or Copenhagen, and often you were gone for 3 or 4 days.
Gudrun, who is the daugther of Emmy, was born in 1925 and she remembers a lot of different activities related to school. The old piano, which is standing in Gudrun´s living room today, used to belong to the school, and it has been moved to the community house quite a few times to be the centre of Christmas plays, sketches and amateur plays. The Birkholmers´ motto has always been: "The only fun you can have is the fun you make yourself".
The community house on Birkholm was built in 1912, - back then it was nothing but a small meeting room, where you could hold e.g. guilt meetings.
Also it was designed so there was room for a motorized mill which could mill the grain of the island. Earlier the grain was sent to Strynø to be milled.
In 1926 the party room was built, and the meeting room was turned into the present kitchen and an entrance hall. The parties that used to be held at the school were now moved to the community house. In the winter it has been quite a challenge to warm up the party room before the guests arrived. And sometimes during a party, somebody has had to go to the attic to get fire wood or coke, to keep the stove going.

In the summer time Birkholm was always crowded with people, there were always many holiday guests, - friends and family from the other islands and from the mainland. Gudrun remembers that there were always other children to play with in the summer time, and when she and Svend Åge were not at school or helping at home, they would spend their time playing singing-games in the fields, swimming in the ocean or play with toy boats at the pond.
In the autumn when the last load of hay had been brought in with horse and wagon and the farmers had finished harvesting, all the people on Birkholm gathered to eat small cakes of batter cooked over the fire in a special kind of pan. The harvest party was held later in the year when there was more time for it.
Before Christmas there would be a sewing course at the school, where you could sew presents for your family, and they were all finished and neatly wrapped on Christmas Eve. At Christmas time there was also a tradition of arranging a trip to Svendborg, where a couple of people from every family went to buy Christmas presents.
In the winter time the time was spent playing cards, doing different kinds of handy craft, and the people who fished in the summer time would get time to repair fishing traps and nets and make new ones.
Ash Wedneysday the men would meet in the afternoon to play cards, in the evening everybody would eat together and then dance all night.
Maundy Thursday the tradition was that the children and the young people of the island boiled eggs at the beach. Usually it would take place at the beach close to Nørrevej, where they would find some old tarred fishing net to make a fire of, they put salt water in an old casserole and boiled the eggs which were eaten with ryebread. Often it was a very cold day, so the young people played different games at the beach to keep warm.

Until 1937 when the Birkholmers bought themselves free from being copyholders, it was the count of Tranekær who supplied firewood to the island. Today you only see a few trees on Birkholm, and most of these are fruit trees, planted in this century, so the people on the island have always depended on getting firewood from Langeland. After 1937 they started getting coke delivered from the mainland and during the war they had to make do with the peat they could get hold of. But it has been a tradition that once in the autumn before it got too cold, everybody would help each other to get fuel for the island, to keep warm during the winter. It was very hard work, especially because the harbour often sanded up, so you would have to load the cargo from the boats on to a barge, which could go right into the harbour. People would be waiting here with horse-drawn carriages, wheelbarrows, - and later on tractors and wagons, to transport the coke or firewood out to the houses.

During winter time there was a risk that Birkholm would get isolated for several weeks, in periods where you could not sail because of the ice, which was not yet strong enough to carry anything. In periods like this when the Birkholmers have run out of feed for the cattle or other vital things, they have ordered a helicopter from the municipalty, which has brought the necessary goods to the island. In an emergency situation, where people are hurt, they is also send for a helicopter.
When the ice was thick enough, the flat-bottomed barge, The "Butter Container", was used to transport butter and cream (and later on milk) to Strynø, because this was where the ocean would freeze first. The Butter Container was placed on a sleigh and 6 or 7 men would tow it across the ice. When the sleigh went through the ice, the men had to quickly jump aboard the barge and sail for a while until the ice again was strong enough to carry them. It was a severe journey and not without risks, but it was important to dispose of the dairy products during an ice winter which could last up to three months. You would go out on the ice every day, to check how thick it was, and as soon as it was safe, a track would be marked with pine branches, e.g. for Strynø or Skovballe. During an ice winter there would be lots of people on Birkholm. It was exiting to go on a trip across the ice, to visit friends and family on the islands close by. During Second World War the people on Birkholm were asked to be in charge of the mail delivery from Tåsinge to Birkholm and further on to Ærø. A group of men left early every morning, they were dressed in warm clothes and with nails underneath the wooden shoes, to be able to walk safely on the ice (a woollen sock pulled over the rubber boots was also a handy solution). Usually it would take a whole day to do the mail trip, and sometimes when the weather was bad, the men had to to stay the night either in Marstal or on Tåsinge. One day when the men were on their way to Marstal with a big load of hats for the fashion shop in Marstal, they had a nice following wind, and the men got the idea to put up a sail on the sleigh which made them travel a lot faster. Gudrun´s father Henry was the one driving the sleigh, and just a little too late he saw the rock sticking out of the ice before the sleigh was overturned with all its cargo, - the hats were flying everywhere on the ice.
When the ice was 4 inches thick, you could drive there in a horse-drawn sleigh. You had to wear lots of warm clothes when going on a sleigh trip, and to keep your feet warm you put them into a small foot muff, made out of sheep skin. And off it went, steering towards one of the other small islands, it was a lot of fun and a good sleigh trip usually ended with the sleigh getting overturned.
When the ice has been thickest, you have also been able to drive a car on the ice to Birkholm. The first time the Birkholmers saw cars on their island was during the ice winter in 1929 where one day Henry Nielsen, Gudrun´s father, suddenly saw a car pass outside his window in the little school building. One day, in the ice winter of 1940 - during 2nd World War, a message came through to mailboat driver Marius on Birkholm that he had to check if the ice across Mørkedyb would carry a car. A man on Ærø had got an iron splinter in his eye and needed to see an eye specialist in Svendborg. The ferry that goes between Fåborg and Søby had no fuel left and the other ferries did not sail because of the ice, so the way across Mørkedyb, which rarely frezees, was the last possibility. Marius thought that the ice would be safe for a car, so the man was driven across the ice via Birkholm to Tåsinge and further on to Svendborg where he was treated. The day after an ambulance came the same way, carrying a man who had suddenly become very ill, unfortunately he died before they reached the hospital in Svendborg.
It was also during the war that the Birkholmers were fortunate to still have the old butter churn sitting in the addic. The grandmothers took up the old profession again, so Birkholm was one of the few places in Denmark where they did not run out of butter during the war. The Birkholmers also had to make candles themselves during the period where Denmark was occupied by the Germans. Everybody was in great need of kerosene for lighting, Birkholm did not get electricity until around year 1966.

Since the 1550´s Birkholm has belonged to Drejø parish along with Hjortø, Skarø and Drejø. So Drejø chuch is where the Birkholmers have come once a month to the Sunday service, and this is where they have had their christenings, confirmations, weddings and funerals. When the children were old enough to be confirmed, they attended confirmation preparations with the Rev. Mr Blume. The priest from Drejø came to Birkholm 3 or 4 times a year to hold a ceremony in the small school building, often there was a ceremony before Christmas and one during Lent.
When somebody was getting married, a man would walk around to all the houses on Birkholm to invite everybody to the wedding. On the wedding day everybody met in the community house at nine in the morning to drink coffee. After this the people sailed to Drejø where the wedding ceremony took place in the church. When the couple to be wed left Birkholm, there would be gunshots fired to honour them. In the evening everybody was back on Birkholm where the party continued in the community house. The day after the wedding the Birkholmers gathered again to eat leftovers and to clean up the community house. And it used to be just as much fun on the second day, as the athmosphere was more relaxed and everybody helped making the community house look decent again.
The day Svend Åge´s sister Ellen was getting married there was a terrible storm. When the family from Marstal arrived to Birkholm for morning coffee, they declared that they would not do the trip to Drejø church, the trip from Marstal had been bad enough for them. They called up the priest on Drejø, and he talked to the priest on Marstal. They decided to move the wedding to Marstal church as the waves on the way to Marstal were not as bad as the ones on the way to Drejø. And for safety reasons only the people who could fit inside the cabin of the boat got to go. But after all they did have the wedding on the day they had planned, just a couple of hours delayed.

Already back then the mailboat sailed once a day, so the people on Birkholm often went to Marstal to buy new clothes, go to the hairdresser, etc. And on ordinary days the Birkholmers have not really felt isolated as everyone has had acces to a boat and been used to sailing, and they often went on daytrips, e.g. with the cargoboat, to the other small islands or to Svendborg. There were also arranged bustrips or the like for the people on Birkholm, one of the trip went to Mols.
There has always been an active social life on Birkholm and associations and clubs flourished in the first half of this century.
Birkholm rifle club has existed since the start of year 1900. The riflemen had their own shooting field, which can still be seen at the left side when walking towards Råhovedet, and the Birkholmers often went to meetings on the other islands.
The smallholders had their own lecture society which had its base on the school, and they regularly had interesting people visiting who could tell about poultry farming, fruit-growing, travel experiences or other subjects.
There is a reason why the Birkholmers are called the French men of the archipelago. It has always been obvious that the people on Birkholm loved partying, and especially dancing. The many parties they had on Birkholm and the other islands were always really good, and usually the dancing went on till sunrise the next morning, when the guest would sail home again.
In 1942 the young people on Birkholm started a youth assosiation. Earlier it had been possible to party without drinking alcohol, but as it became more and more common to drink wine and beer, it was a problem that it was not allowed at these parties. The main purpose of the youth association was to make it legal to drink alcohol during the parties .

When the Birkholmers bought themselves free from copyholding in 1937, the count of Tranekær also handed over the hunting rights to Birkholm, on the condition that the profit from this should go to maintaining the island. The only wild life which is naturally found on Birkholm is hares, and there have been quite a few of them during the years.
It was every man´s duty to participate in the hare catch, and everybody, - young as well as old, met up for the event which took place in the start of December. To catch the hares everybody made a long chain where every two people had a net between them. You would clap your hands to gather the hares and then catch them in the nets. The hares were put into boxes with three in each, and then exported to France, England or Italy where they were set free to get new blood into the population there.
Lots of people from other islands came to participate in the hare catch. After the hunt everybody - sometimes up to 100 people - had to be fed with lunch, soup, wine and beer, and the Birkholmers had to pay for this. In the end the women wanted out of this arrangement, and since then every house had to feed their own guests.
Exporting the hares has been a very good business, - in the best years every hare paid 400-500 kr, so the Birkholmers would easily make a profit of 30-40.000 kr in the annual hare catch. The profit went into the island´s hare box which was used for different common projects, - the party room in the community house was built from this money, the harbour has been dug out and it have also been used to maintain the dikes on the island.
In the 1950´s when farming hit bad times, the farmers on the island demanded to have the hunting divided out, so you could only go hunting in your own fields. Their reasons were, among others, that the hares ate and detroyed their crops, and they wanted compensation for this. So for a couple of decades it went on like this where only the farmers got money out of this profitable business.
During the 80´s there was a lot of discussion about this subject, as now there were only a few farms left on Birkholm who still did real farming. And the condition that the count of Tranekær had given the hunting right to the Birkholmers was still that the profit from this had to benefit the island. Still today it is written in the law books that every man has to maintain the dike opposite his land, but nobody can afford to actually do that today. So it was ideal to spend the money from the hare catch on this. - You can clearly sense that there has been heated debate about this issue at the annual guilt meetings, with the farmers on one side and the smallholders on the other.
However in 1987 this profitable business had to stop. The Forest and Nature Administration outlawed the export of hares to other countries, mainly because they thought it was cruelty to animals to transport them so far in small boxes. Until 1989 when hare catching was totally forbidden in Denmark you could still sell hares to put out in Danish nature areas, but the price was not at all as good as what the export used to pay. After 1989 the hares on Birkholm have been hunted normally.
In 1974 some pheasant chickens were bought to set free on Birkholm. The little pheasants were nursed for a couple of weeks, and then set free on the island for the annual hunt. In the beginning the pheasants were put into the freezer right after the hunt and saved for Easter when everybody met to eat pheasants, and then have a big party. It did however get harder and harder to find space in the freezers to store the pheasants, so instead the people on Birkholm started auctioning the pheasants right after the hunt - followed by a party. The profit from the auction goes into the Pheasant box, and this pays to feed the pheasants in the winter time.

Earlier on there used to be two men of guilt, - one for the farmers and one for the smallholders. It was the farmers´ man of guilt´s duty to call in to town meetings, duties in the harbour, keep an account of the island´s income and expenditure and along with the smallholders´ man of guilt he had to organize the annual hare catch. The smallholders´ man of guilt was foreman of the community house.
The man of guilt is replaced on the 20th of June every year, and all the men on Birkholm have the title in turns. After the annual guilt meeting coffee is served and there is dancing in the community house. Earlier the custom was that the men of guilt paid all expenses at this meeting, but nowadays - like at all other parties on Birkholm, everybody pays their own share.
Today there is only one man of guilt on Birkholm and it is his duty to organize the annual hare and pheasant hunt, call in people when the community house is cleaned once a year and to be in charge of other arrangements on the island. The 20th of June 1998 Johannes Balslev from Kjærsgård was elected as man of guilt, and he was reelected in 1999.

As the harbour on Birholm often sands up it has been necessary to dig it out several times during the years. Often you could not sail an ordinary boat into the harbour, you had to load the cargo on to a flat bottomed barge to take it right into the harbour.
Last time the harbour was improved was in 1992. During 5 years the Birkholmers had applied to get EF (now EU) subsidies for the project and they ended up getting no less than 600.000 kr. Also they got a nice contribution from the Danish government and smaller amounts from both the county and from the municipality.
It all ended with a big party to celebrate the consecration of the harbour where the women from the island made potato salat and meatballs, Grete made her famous smoked cheese, the fishermen Morten and Frede served fish and Erik The Shoemaker cut out the ham in wine sauce, wearing a tall chef´s hat.

It is still necessary to maintain the dikes on Birkholm and Grete Randrup is propably the person who has been most involved in the project to get money for this purpose. The county will not give any money for this purpose as it is still every man´s duty to maintain the dike opposite his land. On the other hand they still willingly come over to dig out the waterholes, - to make favourably conditions for the rare green-spotted toad which lives here. However on Birkholm the toad is very common, and you have to be careful to close your door on a summer night, not to get the house full of toads.
In 1992 Grete established the dike box which often is used in arrangements etc., where the profit goes to maintain the dikes.
Last time the dikes were improved was during 1993-94 when the island got an amount of 35.000 kr from The South Funen Steam Boat Association for this purpose. It turned out to be a really good investment because as late as in 1995 the ocean flooded parts of the island, some places right up to the inner dike where you could see the swans swimming around right out there.

Today the Birkholmers still hunt both hares and pheasants, but only when there is enough of them. During the ice winter of 1996 a fox came across the ice to Birkholm, and it has kept down the population of wild life on the island. The prey from the pheasant hunt 1998 was 2 pheasants, two ducks, - but no fox. The fox was the main reason for the hunt. It is still a tradition to meet after the hunt for a big Dutch treat, and often 60-70 people meet up in the small community house. After auctioning the pheasants Grete usually contributes with hand knitted Birkholm socks which also are sold for the highest bid.
It is, by the way, here in the community house that you can see the picture of Denmark´s oldest cow, Yrsa, - she lived on Birkholm until 1995. She was moved to Den Fynske Landsby (The Funen Village) where she died, 28 years old. Yrsa is accompagned by Queen Margrethe the 2. on her left side and Prince Henrik on the right.

Another present tradition on Birkholm is the annual Pig Party. It is held for the sailors who spend their summer in the harbour, - enjoy the relaxing life on an island for a couple of month, and most importantly - put money into the harbour box. The menu is pig on spit and after dinner the pighead is auctioned, - this money is used to maintain the community house.

In the summer of 1998 the Birkholmers got the idea to arrange a festival on Birkholm. Ringe has a festival, - Langeland and Roskilde have one.... So why not Birkholm??
Invitations were sent out to all the residents of Birkholm, and to the sailors who spend the summer in the harbour. There was dinner in the community house and afterwards Lasse and Mathilde started playing dancing music. Appearently it was a great succes, and who knows if this is going to become a new tradition on the small island.

In the spring of 1999 30 sheep and lambs arrived to Birkholm, grazing during the summer. They were transported on a tractor and wagon from Vestfyns Efterskole in Tommerup to Skovballe on Tåsinge, and then sailed to Birkholm on a landing barge from The Falkland Islands. The sheep and their lambs can be seen on Vestergård´s fields where they frisk about in the tall grass.

I would like to thank Svend Åge Jørgensen, Gudrun Nielsen and Grete Randrup for lots of interesting information and exiting stories I have been able to use in this book.

Marie P Klit, Vestergård, Birkholm.