The Gefion fountain is erected in the harbor of Copenhagen. The sculpture depicts the Scandinavian Fertility goddess Gefion with four bulls. This fountain is dedicated to the legend of the separation of Denmark from Sweden.
In the Norse epic Edda, there is a story of how the fertility goddess Gefion of the Asov family (the Asovs are the Supreme gods of Scandinavia) visited the Swedish king Gylfi. As a token of gratitude for the interesting stories, Gulfi promised to give her as much land as she could dig up in one night. Gefion turned her sons, born of a giant, into bulls. They made a furrow in the ground so deep that they separated a huge chunk of land from Sweden. So there appeared an island that Gefion called Zealand. This is where Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, was founded. The furrow made by the bulls became the Strait of Eresund.
The fountain is made in the form of a three-tiered cascade. At the top is the Goddess Gefion with bulls. On each cascade are large stones that symbolize the plowed land. The Gefion fountain was erected on this site in 1908 on the initiative of the Carlsberg Foundation in honor of the 50th anniversary of the brewery.
The Gefion fountain is in a Park Langelinie. Winston Churchill Park is located nearby. It is named after the British Prime Minister in gratitude for the assistance that Britain provided to Denmark during the World War II. In the Park you can see the beautiful Anglican Church of St. Alban. Nearby are located the canals and bastions of the Castellet fortress, which protected Copenhagen from the North. A little further away is the sculpture of the Little Mermaid, which is considered a symbol of Denmark.
