Medieval week
Event in Visby on Gotland (Sweden)
110 Update: august 18, 2025
I have been going to Castlefest every year
since 2008 and over time I discovered that there was a big medieval event of eight days in the medieval town of Visby on the island
of Gotland in Sweden at almost the same time.
After Castlefest 2023 I've decided not to
go to Castlefest in 2024 but to the Medieval
Week in Visby! I enjoyed the Medieval Week so much that I went to Visby again in 2025!
Visby is a medieval town with a city wall from the fourteenth century
that is still largely intact. In the old Visby itself there are at least 200 stone buildings that date back to the Middle Ages,
giving the town a unique medieval atmosphere.
(Sources: 7 Dagar docu, Falck page 10-11, Jonsson page 98-99 and Unesco.org).
South Square at the South Gate
The Medieval Week, Medeltids Veckan
in Swedish, has been held here since 1984 and now attracts between 50,000 and 100,000 visitors!
The original idea behind it was; dress yourself as people did 700 years ago and take
on the role of a person from that time for a week; a kind of historical
Re-enactment.
The Medieval Week always falls in week 32 (in August) starting on a Sunday until the
following Sunday; that was last year from August 4 to 11, 2024 and this year (2025) from August 3 to 10.
Hundreds of events have been organized throughout Visby; medieval music,
troubadours, theater, parades, archery, workshops to make your own medieval shoes and
I also saw a witchcraft workshop...
On Sunday August 4, 2024 / August 3, 2025, people had gathered at the South Square in Visby for the opening of
the Medeltids Veckan.
After the opening, people dressed in historical clothing
paraded to the North side of the city, where the market and tournament grounds were. This parade attracted many spectators.
(photo on the left and above).
(Sources: 7 Dagar docu, Jonsson page 98-99, MedeltidsVeckan.se,
MittVisby.se,
Scanmagazine.co.uk
and YouTube:
Drakeloo 22 min.,
Jan Einar Eriksson 15 min.,
Island of Gotland 3 min.)
In the park in the north-west within the city walls of Visby was the market and a food area; called the food court.
The market was smaller in size than what we are used to at Castlefest
today but much larger than Keltfest when it was still in Dordrecht.
There were stalls with medieval clothing, weapons, armor, drinking horns, leather bags in all sizes, wood carvings, jewelry, statues;
practically everything was oriented towards the Middle Ages and of good quality!
I came across this YouTube video
showing parts of the market and the food court.
What I missed was music, there were no CDs sold here and there was only one small stage at the food court.
This was a separate part of the market; the food stalls were set up in a circle around a few covered tables and benches (see photo on the left).
Here you could go for pancakes, pizzas, wedges and wraps with falafel for example. I found the choice for vegetarians sufficient but a bit meager.
The falafel wrap was very tasty, but later we just as easily walked into the medieval town of Visby to eat something in a nice restaurant there
and then we returned to the market square with the food court.
The event area, however, is larger; Visby's entire old town is the event site!
In several restaurants in Visby, such as Kapitelhusgarden,
you could enjoy authentic, medieval-inspired dishes in a medieval atmosphere. Here you had to book well in advance otherwise it would be fully booked!
In old Visby we encountered many people in medieval dress, and of course, there were also plenty of people in their everyday clothes.
Visby had the effect of extending the atmosphere of the Medieval Week to the entire medieval town!
Planning and costs
As an entrance fee for the Medeltids Veckan I paid in 2024 689 SEK (around 70 euros) for eight days
and in 2025 also 689 SEK (now ±62 euro).
But you can also buy entrance tickets for 4 days or for 1 day.
This gave you access to, among other things, the market area and the food court as well as various locations spread throughout Visby.
What was very useful is that you could create an account on the website of the Medeltids Veckan
and tick everything you wanted to do and see in the program. This will then be included in your
personal program so that you don't miss anything and keep an overview of what appealed to you in the program.
You could put every workshop, lecture, theater performance, storyteller, performance in your own personal
overview and easily find it back. Both the things that were included in the entrance fee and the things
for which you had to pay extra. You could go to an
English-speaking storyteller
and bands for free on small stages such as the Forum Vulgaris and Forum Kapitulum
(kapitelhusgarden.se).
You had to pay extra for, for example, a witchcraft workshop (±5 euros) and a theater performance (in Swedish)
around Freya's wedding (±10 euros). I would have preferred to pay a bit more for the entire event and be able
to go everywhere without extra costs.
Some things were already fully booked on the first Sunday, such as the witchcraft workshops and the band
Stormfrun (Storm Lady)
that gave two performances on Friday August 9, 2024.
So you had to start looking at the program in time!
The information on the website wasn't always correct or complete. For example, we discovered that a particular
lecture was being given in English, while the website only had information in Swedish, so we assumed the lecture
would also be in Swedish. And information about how to book was missing at one other event, and this event was suddenly fully booked... how?
The program showed at a glance whether you could visit something without extra costs or whether you had to buy
an extra entrance ticket. If you wanted to see a fire show by TRiX, for example, you would easily spend 25 euros,
but on Wednesday evening TRiX gave a free fire show near the city wall of Visby.
Some people thought the Medeltids Veckan was becoming too commercial,
so there's an alternative program on imtv.se.
You could see the details of this alternative program on Fakebook, which I don't use on principle.
The ticket ordering website (Nortic.se) kept giving me an error message when I tried to pay
on various computers (Windows, Linux) with different browsers (Brave, Firefox, DuckDuckGo). I had to check my creditcard each time to see if
the payment had gone through. I had paid twice once, but after reporting the error, I received a full refund.
However, the error messages didn't disappear throughout the entire event. So the website worked better last year (2024).
Fire show and tournament
The fire show on Wednesday evening was a popular and large event, free and open to everyone, in the park outside the city wall of Visby.
People gathered on the field at the fire show during the afternoon and by 20:00 it was already quite full,
it is estimated that between 5000 and 7000 people came to the fire show (see photo on the left); the fire show started at 22:00.
It was impressive how the previously completely dark mass of people lit up when everyone turned on the flashlight on their mobile phone (photo on the leftside).
During the fire show people juggled with various torches, fireballs and jumped rope with burning ropes. People even set each other on fire!
There wasn't much difference between the 2024 and 2025 shows. I was closer this time, about three-quarters of the way away, but my view was often
impaired by bright lights on the floor surrounding the show area.
Once you've seen this fire show, shows from a year later don't add much. However, you definitely have to experience it at least once!
The medieval tournament was also popular and continued after the Medeltids Veckan,
for which you paid between 308 and 427 SEK; between 25 and 36 euros!
Here they recreate medieval tournaments that had to train knights for possible battles.
They have made serious work of this and these tournaments attracted a lot of audience.
However, we were not that interested in this, I'm not that into tournaments myself
and a large part of the show is in Swedish so you also miss a few things.
The Battle of Visby
Every three years a re-enactment of the Battle of Visby is held.
In 2025 this was on Saturday, August 9th. To watch this spectacle you needed an event wristband and a 195 SEK admission fee.
The original battle took place in July 1361, when Danish King Voldemort, ehh, Valdemar IV and his troops attacked Visby.
Approximately 1,800 Gotlanders died in the Battle of Visby, a significant number for that time.
A year later, Danish King Valdemar claimed Gotland as his domain, but in 1369 the Swedish King Albert reclaimed it.
Gotland had long been disputed territory between Denmark and Sweden, but since 1645 it has belonged continuously to Sweden.
So, during the Medeltids Veckan of 2025 a battle was reconstructed in which the Danes won over the Gotlanders... a bit masochistic.
The Battle of Visby attracted a large audience. After an introduction we saw the Gotlandic troops
approaching from the tent camp on the right. From the left we saw women and children fleeing towards the Gotlandic troops.
When the Danish troops appeared a confrontation with the Gotlandic troops ensued.
The Danes also had cavalry, which charged right in front of us. This was an impressive sight in real life;
when several horses come straight at you, with armed men holding lances, it's like a tank coming straight at you.
We saw a knight on horseback ride straight into a group of infantry with a lance, his lance breaking off on a shield.
The Danish cavalry also moved around the foot soldiers to the rear with archers, who then made their escape.
We saw the first "casualties" fall before our eyes. This re-enactment of the Battle of Visby was based
as closely as possible on historical research.
It was said that people from all over the world had come to participate in this reenactment of the Battle of Visby,
people from Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Great Britain, Iceland, the United States,
Bulgaria, and Ukraine, among others. These people also participated in this re-enactment three years ago, but it was said that some
of the Ukrainians were not there this year; they had died in the current war in Ukraine. That really hit us.
(Consulted sources:
Neijman & Jensen,
Historiska.se,
youTube.com 13:44 min,
YouTube.com 23:22 min
& Wikipedia).
Forum Vulgaris & Forum Kapitulum
If you prepared well, you could see a lot of things for which you would have to pay extra in one case for free at another time!
That's how I discovered that Canardus Horribilis
and TRiX were also free to see at the
Forum Vulgaris at the foodcourt
and Canardus Horribilis also at the
Forum Kapitulum.
The program of the
Forum Kapitulum was nowhere to be found and the program of the
Forum Vulgaris
was difficult to find on the website of MedeltidsVeckan.se.
You could find most bands by filtering on concerts, the bands that performed at the
Forum Vulgaris only became visible when you clicked on more info at the item
Forum Vulgaris in the program.
The performances at the Forum Vulgaris
were somewhat shorter (maximum one hour) and because the stages were a bit smaller, the bands were less able to perform to their full potential.
Furthermore, it was an obstacle that the Medeltids Veckan program
on the website was only in Swedish and the translation programs had some difficulty with this.
The concerts
During this event there were also bands performing, partly included in the entrance fee, partly to be paid extra.
For example, if you want to attend concerts (bands, choirs) such as
Canardus Horribilis,
Daj Ognia,
Koenix,
Poeta Magica and
Volund,
then you paid between 10 and 17 euros per band per person extra.
The paid performances took place in the various ruined churches that Visby has.
After the reformation, several churches were no longer used and fell into disrepair.
During the Medeltids Veckan
they served as a stage for various, sometimes pagan bands. The dilapidated state, the lack of windows,
an open roof and the acoustics gave a great atmosphere! This was definitely worth paying extra for!
Volund
I went to a performance of Volund
in the St. Nicolai church ruins on Monday August 5th, 2024. It is a musical drama about the blacksmith Volund,
based on a picture stone from the year 750 found on Gotland. Eva Sjöstrand wrote the lyrics based
on this picture stone to the music of Jan Ekedahl and later published the story based on this picture stone
together with stories based on other picture stones found on Gotland in the booklet
A Gotlandic Edda
(See Sjöstrand P.30-39 & 118).
The booklet was for sale in St.Nicolai after the performance for 200 SEK, unfortunately I only had 160 SEK cash with me, but I still got the booklet for that amount! Great!
Viking choir Valkyrie
On Monday August 4, 2025, we went to a performance by the Viking choir Valkyrie at the
St. Lars church ruins (199 SEK).
This choir performed passionately and powerfully, as befits a Viking choir, mainly Swedish songs and a few English songs.
Normally I wouldn't go to a choir myself, but my traveling companion Celinda, who is also a choir conductor, was eager to see this one.
Celinda described the choir's accompaniment as professional, and the choir had a strong Viking feel with rousing shouts;
some singers sounded more professional than others; all in all, strong female voices that reminded her somewhat of
Värtinä.
I certainly enjoyed this choir as well and will definitely seek them out again if I happen to see them perform somewhere!
Canardus Horribilis
Tuesday August 6th, 2024, we went to a concert of Canardus Horribilis together with
Starur (149 SEK) and later
Canardus Horribilis could be heard again with a free entrance performance at the
Forum Kapitulum (kapitelhusgarden.se)
and we found out that Canardus Horribilis
could also be seen for free at the Forum Vulgaris at the Food court.
However, these free performances were on a small stage which limited some shows somewhat.
The paid performances in a church ruin had a lot of added value so I can highly recommend listening to the bands in a church ruin;
the bands perform to their full potential much more there!
One song started as a nod to a song by Abba and in another song I thought I recognized The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe!
Unfortunately they didn't have any CDs with them, so I immediately ordered them via their website.
You can also find Canardus Horribilis on: YouTube.
Poeta Magica
Wednesday August 7th, 2024, we visited a concert of Poeta Magica
who just like the previous band also performed in the St.Lars church ruin.
The band brings Nordic Pagan Folk and sang in Swedish as well as some songs in English.
They sounded great so I immediately bought some CDs of them.
These CDs can be listened to in their entirety on their website.
At home I ordered some more of their CD's at Discogs.com!
On Thursday August 7, 2025, I went again to a concert of Poeta Magica,
this time in the Helge And church ruins.
By then I had become somewhat familiar with their music, so I was familiar with several of the songs they performed.
Guest singer Saga Starur was once again fantastic, and the Poeta Magica
musicians played a variety of instruments (including a Nyckelharpa, Celtic harp, something resembling a Moroccan oud, Guzheng, etc.)
masterfully! If you have the chance to see Poeta Magica live, I highly recommend it!
Koenix
On Thursday August 8th, 2024, we attended a concert by Koenix in the tournament arena.
Apparently a large audience was expected, but the arena was only half full; still a fairly large and very enthusiastic audience!
For this band we also had to pay an additional 199 SEK (±€17,35) per person.
The performance started off great with four band members who entered the stage in animal like costumes with light-up eyes.
Later dancing elves also appeared on stage. After a few songs the (warm) costumes came off, in the intros to the energetic songs
they spoke of fantasy and magic, which we do not find on TV or online, but do find at events like this, where like-minded people meet.
Of course I bought a few of their CDs after their concert.
I went again to a concert of Koenix on Monday August 4, 2025,
this time in the ruins of St. Nicholas Church.
We also paid 199 SEK per person. The show was similar to last year's. They started in animal costumes that later came off, and we saw elves
and other characters during the show. They created beautiful fire effects, including those from the bagpipes and guitars.
The music was fantastic again, the only downside being that everything was too loud. As a result, the vocals and music were
distorted because it was too loud and many people were wearing earplugs.
Daj Ognia
On Friday 9th of August, 2024, we went to a concert by Daj Ognia (Polish, means "give fire").
We had already seen them perform somewhere in the wild on the marketarea and on the Forum Vulgaris, where they sounded great!
We were curious to see how this band would sound in a ruined church, and were willing to pay the extra entrance fee of 199 SEK
(±€17,35) for that.
Daj Ognia turned out to be absolutely fantastic
and really reached their potential in the St.Nicolai ruin church!
They played a wide variety of instruments, including a Viking helmet, which gave the different songs their own atmosphere.
At one point they even got most of the people out of their seats to dance in the church with their enthusiasm and captivating music!
During the last song, lead singer Anna Sitko came off the stage and led the audience in a polonaise through the church!
For us, Daj Ognia was the highlight of the bands we saw at
Medeltids Veckan!!!
Daj Ognia started in 2018 and has released two albums, the first in 2020 and the second in 2023,
which I of course bought both from the band! Their first CD; Wykrot, has been in my CD player for weeks!
We visited Daj Ognia again in 2025, both their unamplified performances in the market area of the
Medeltids Veckan and later
their amplified performance in the ruins of St. Nicholas Church on August 8, 2025.
This year, Daj Ognia performed both familiar and new songs. They played an interesting variety of instruments, as you can see under the photos alongside.
With these they created wonderful, varied, and very captivating music! For me, Daj Ognia was once again the absolute highlight of the
Medeltids Veckan this year!
(About Daj Ognia: Celtcast.com,
EtnoKrakow.pl,
Polskieradio.pl)
Finding the Witch's Way
This workshop was unfortunately cancelled last year. The witches workshop, which was offered on several days, was fully booked quite quickly this year.
Fortunately, I had booked it weeks in advance. The workshop cost was only 50 SEK (approximately 5 euros), and the witchcraft theme was clearly very appealing.
The workshop was indeed about finding your way: where do you want to go, what's holding you back, how does your energy flow? The approach focused on both the
mind and the body; after all, the energy of your feelings and emotions manifests in your body, so you can focus your attention there as well.
During the workshop, we used guided visualizations and physical representations, among other things. The workshop brought up emotions in most people.
The workshop formed the first steps of this holistic approach, which you could continue with the information described in
Doris C. Rusch's book.
(See also: Finding the Witch's Way - Doris C. Rusch)
Home of Beowulf
On Friday August 8, 2025, we attended an English-language lecture on Beowulf. The information on the
MedeltidsVeckan.se website was in Swedish,
so we assumed the lecture would also be in Swedish. Fortunately, we had met Hans Wanneby and Rikard Evertsson
the week before at the Viking camp of Stavgard on Gotland;
they told us about the lecture in Visby and that it was being given in English.
The authors reexamined the Beowulf poem, which describes how Beowulf arrived in Denmark from Sweden after
a journey of several days, arriving at a longhouse with King Hrothgar, who was being tormented by the monstrous Grendel.
Considering the ocean currents, Beowulf's point of departure could have been on Gotland.
The landscape described in the poem resembles the Danish coast when sailing from Gotland to Denmark.
The authors also found many clues on Gotland itself that align with the Beowulf text. The authors found historical
explanations for all the elements in the story, so they believe Beowulf is not fiction.
An interesting perspective on the Beowulf story!
(See also: Home of Beowulf - Hans Wanneby & Rikard Evertsson
& Wikipedia)
Castlefest or Medieval Week?
Actually, you can't compare these events, but since they take place almost simultaneously, you will have to make a choice between either
Castlefest in Lisse or the
Medeltids Veckan in Visby.
Lisse and Keukenhof Castle pale in comparison to the medieval atmosphere of the town of Visby with its beautiful city wall and medieval buildings.
During the Medeltids Veckan,
you'll encounter people in medieval attire everywhere in town; the whole of old Visby is the event location.
The Medeltids Veckan in Visby has been called the largest medieval event in Scandinavia and even in Europe!
The atmosphere of the event is similar to Castlefest, but Castlefest with 55.000 visitors seems busier and larger.
Although Medeltids Veckan attracts between 50,000 and 100,000 visitors,
it's quieter, more relaxed, actually more like the old Keltfest in Dordrecht.
In that respect, I would choose to go to Visby instead of the overcrowded Castlefest.
Castlefest has more to offer in terms of the number of market and food stalls and the variety of what's offered there.
You can easily discover many different bands during Castlefest,
and you won't find anything like the Wicker Burning at Castlefest during
the Medeltids Veckan.
What attracted a similar amount of audience as the Wicker Burning at Castlefest was the fire show on Wednesday evening.
Besides a workshop on witchcraft, a play about Freya and a pagan band, I didn't encounter much else in the way of spiritual offerings at the
Medeltids Veckan in Visby, as if people weren't spiritual in the Middle Ages.
Castlefest had more to offer in terms of spirituality and ancient religion with the pagan gang,
where you can get to know different pagan / heathen groups.
I missed a 'spiritual court' at the Medeltids Veckan.
A downside for me was that you had to pay extra for many bands, which makes it less likely to discover new bands by seeing if you like them.
Fortunately I only paid once for a band I didn't like. However, the ambiance of the performances in the ruined churches was fantastic!
You should definitely experience the Medeltids Veckan in Visby at least once,
and who knows you might keep coming back to Visby!
(YouTube videos about the Medieval Week of 2024:
Lisa Raspopa 22 min.,
Nils Lemonnier 2 min.,
Rebecca Bylander 8 min.,
Three Star Vagabond 13 min.
and 2025:
This is Geeky! 24 min.,
Rebecca Bylander 7 min.
)
In the middle/right the St.Nicolai church ruins