Museum Nordsjælland has asked people in North Zealand to report strange objects hidden in old houses. The museum wants to document historical folk superstition before renovation work erases the traces.
DR reported on August 23, 2026 that the museum is looking for items concealed in walls, beams, lofts and under floorboards. Examples include animal skulls, worn children’s shoes, fossil sea urchins and small clay pots.
According to DR, the appeal is tied to concrete finds in North Zealand. A horse skull was found under the floor of a 300-year-old house in Gilleleje during a renovation. A fossil sea urchin was found under the floor of a house in Pårup.
Jeppe Boel Jepsen, an archaeologist at Museum Nordsjælland, told DR that such objects may have worked as a kind of insurance against illness, misfortune, evil or death. He noted that the finds can look like discarded rubbish, but their placement is often deliberate.
Per DR, Jepsen also drew parallels to habits that survive today, such as putting out porridge for the household nisse or throwing salt over the shoulder after upsetting a salt cellar. He described these as traditions that are hundreds or thousands of years old and part of old folk belief.
What the museum is collecting
Museum Nordsjælland is asking for physical objects, photographs and written accounts from residents who have found unusual items in their houses and buildings. Finds from buildings more than 100 years old are of particular interest, but all reports are welcome, according to DR.
The stated aim is to build a larger folklore collection and use it to map patterns in old folk belief. DR reports that the museum hopes public help will make that mapping possible.
On its own news page, in a notice dated August 20, 2026, the museum published the call under the heading “Har du fundet en af fortidens skjulte forsikringer?”. The notice lists examples such as a child’s shoe under a floor, a hare’s foot in a loft, or a fossil sea urchin in a door frame.
The museum’s research section repeats the same call and places it within the institution’s research activities. There, the hidden items are described as “fortidens skjulte forsikringer”, the past’s hidden insurances against misfortune.
Why the appeal comes now
In the August 20 notice, Museum Nordsjælland states that the collection work has to happen now, before the traces disappear. The museum links that urgency to renovation work on older buildings, which can remove or discard hidden objects without documentation.
DR’s article is pegged to that call and advises attention to mysterious finds during renovation. The museum frames the initiative as a research project on belief, superstition and cultural history, and asks people who make such finds to contact it directly.
