In the previous pages about the maritimes communities, I have shown a lot of other sea faring peoples "Staffordshire dogs" - - - -

Why not show a picture of my own????
In fact I have two sets, - both the real thing from Staffordshire -, but these are antiques - -
 
 

Here they are,- sitting in their window looking inward-, indicating that I am at home for the time being - -

There are many stories connected to these dogs - - -
Some of them are rather spicy, but let me use this opportunity to establish the fact, that for the sailor who brought them home,- they are only symbols of TRUST - - -
And NOTHING more than that - - -
That,- of course-, goes for my dogs as well - - -
 
 

Also a ship's anchor holds some symbolism for the seafaring people - - -
In many seafaring communities you will see old anchors on display at public places,- or as decorations in private gardens.
The anchor is a symbol of HOPE - - -

Of course I also have ,- not only one -, but four anchors at different locations in my own garden - - -
 
 

There is a good story behind this one.

On one of my many long walks along the beautiful Danish coast line, I once spotted the anchor and got interested in spite of the fact, that the anchor was in a truly miserable condition. I asked the owner if it was for sale.  At that time it was NOT for sale, but just in case I gave him my name card , - and then forgot about it!
However , - about 5 years later my telephone suddenly rang!   If still interested I could buy the anchor now!  It did not look very good at its present location, and the owner would like to get rid of it!  Immediately I took another trip up north to look at it, and it was bad, - really bad -, and I had my doubt if I could make something out of it!
Anyway I decided to buy the anchor, and in addition I also got the story behind it.

Here is the story as it was told to me by Jan Hauge , who in the first place got the story from his father ,- Ejner.

Way back during the Napoleon War, - in 1807 - , two English warships had anchored at the island Romsø , with the intention to conquer and loot the island.  On the neighbouring island Fyn , the Count on castle "Hverringe" noticed , that English ships had arrived at Romsø , and he mobilizes his own farm hands as well as other locals.
They are given weapons , or show up with whatever they can get hold of , from guns to hay forks and other farming tools. In the darkness of the night , they leave Fyn and row to Romsø where they go ashore near the English ships. All together they now move around on the island,  - yelling and making as much noise as they possibly can.  The Englishmen get scared , believing that it is a whole army preparing to attack their anchored ships!  The English commander did not want to take any chances , and in order to get away as quickly as possible , they quickly cut the anchor ropes , and away they went as fast as they could.

After that incident , the two anchors lay forgotten on the sea bottom for almost 200 years , until they were discovered by scuba divers around 1979.  One of the anchors ended up in a museum , and the other one at Ejner's  holiday house at Jørgensø, at the north coast of island Fyn.

And this is where I found it , and by most peculiar ways it has now ended up as a maritime decoration in my garden in Middelfart.
After many, many hours of work trying to restore it to its former glory , my first idea was to restore it completely by welding on a new knob on the stock , and renewing one of the flukes , that was heavily corroded.  But I changed my mind and decided to keep it as original as possible.  And that is how it appears today ,- everything being original , and nothing being changed , except for "tons" of rust and rust flakes - - -
 
 

Updated:    July 13th. 2003
                 Dec. 18th. 2003
                 Nov. 16th. 2004