Located in the Baltic Sea between the coast of Germany and the Danish island of Fyn, Æroe is the pearl and pride of a group of scattered islands and atolls that the Danes--with a healthy dose of self-irony--call "the South Sea Islands."
Yachters and tourists flock to the island every year during the short summer months. Approximately five hundred thousand people visit during the tourist season, which is not bad for an island that had a population of eighty-seven hundred in 1980. The attractions are manifold: Æroe is beautiful, flat, and fertile, with neat and rectangular fields of wheat, rye, and oats rolling gently toward the ubiquitous blue of the ocean. Gorgeous beaches and wooded retreats complete the picture. The Æroeans are gentle, charming, and laid back--and one can hear their funny, singsongy Danish dialect.
German tourists come in search of nature, build huge sand castles on the beaches and parade sun-crimsoned, nearly nude bodies in and out of the water. Danes from Copenhagen or Odense come in search of "cute"--and "cute" they get, especially in Æroeskoebing, the largest of Æroe's towns with twelve hundred inhabitants. The center of the town stands today exactly as it did in the 1680s, sporting quaint and beautiful old houses painted in subtle pastels, lining narrow, winding, cobblestoned streets. Numerous are the spouses, giggling children, and Auntie Ruths who have posed, hiding coyly behind a pink hollyhock that stretches its neck in an attempt to peek into the low windows.
The island, approximately 86 square kilometers, 31 kilometers long and 8 to 11 kilometers wide, is accessed by ferry. Three ferry routes connect the island with the peninsula of Jutland (via the island of Als), the larger island of Langeland, and with Fyn, another island.
The history of the island is checkered. Æroe's geographical location--midway between Denmark and Germany--and the oft-troubled relationship between those two countries have had a seesaw effect upon it. Sometimes Æroe was under the Danish crown, sometimes under the Brandenburg dukedom, sometimes under Schleswig-Holstein. Allegiance to Denmark and to the Danish language, however, has been unflagging. The people of Æroe have always felt Danish, not paying too much attention to such minor details as who their taxes went to and which language was spoken in the governor's chambers in Æroeskoebing.
The contrast between the gentle landscape, tamed by the farmer's plow, and the wild and unruly danger of the surrounding and ever-present sea has had repercussions on life on the island. Æroe has always had three separate economies: fishing, seafaring, and farming. The northerly town of Soeby is a fishing town, while the town of Marstal to the south is a seafaring town. When the full-rigger sailing ship was king, Marstal was the shipbuilding capital of Denmark and produced generation after generation of sailors who, down through the centuries, have been familiars in all the major seaports of the world. The third economy is agriculture. The interior of the island has been divided into a number of isolated farming communities, communities that go back as far and long as the historical record itself.
Because of the island's isolation--access has always been difficult, during winter months often impossible--the Æroe communities each were allowed to develop their
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