The Lodden Hills lie on Ansager Vestermark as three landforms that are still easy to read: two round mounds and one elongated mound. They are not smooth museum monuments, but grass-covered and bushy rises, where scrub and oak growth are part of the expression.
From the path and field track, you get a sober but powerful impression of ancient burial sites as something that was placed visibly in the landscape. The mounds do not seem large from a distance, but they change the rhythm of the field and make the place more than an accidental patch of farmland.
Langloddenhøj is the most distinctive of the three, because its shape breaks with the round mounds beside it. The name “lodden” also suits the place well: it points to something overgrown or covered with bushes, and the mounds still have that slightly untidy, shaggy look.
Locally, people have told of dwarf trolls or gnomes by the mounds, of noise coming from inside the ground, and of a hidden treasure no one dared to approach. Such stories do not make the mounds any less historical; they show how old burial places were also understood as restless and mysterious in the local community.
Store Loddenhøj is a protected round burial mound from antiquity, 3 metres high and about 18 x 21 metres. It lies in farmland, covered with grass and with remains of oak scrub.
The most striking feature is not a perfect mound, but the damage: the mound has been heavily cut away on all sides, and at the top there is a hole of about 3 x 6 metres and around 1 metre deep. As early as 1893, it was described as a destroyed round burial mound.
At Loddenhøjene, prehistory and folklore are closely intertwined. Local tradition tells of dwarf trolls, no bigger than small boys, who were seen several times by the burial mounds, and of noise coming from beneath the ground.
It was also believed that a treasure lay in the mounds, but fear of the trolls kept people away. The mounds are protected ancient monuments and are best seen from the path and field road; there is approximately 100 metres from the parking area by Skovlund-Ansager Hallen .
Langloddenhøj is the odd one out among the Loddenhøje mounds: not round, but 60 meters long and 32 meters wide. The protected long barrow is broadly dated to prehistory, without a more specific period.
The mound bears clear traces of later use and disturbance: an overgrown gully on the western side, old potato pits to the south, and several holes in the top. It is best seen from the path and farm track; there is no information board by the mound.
Lille Loddenhøj is the smallest of Loddenhøjenes three protected ancient burial mounds, but it is still striking: 3.6 meters high and 35 meters in diameter. It lies at the edge of arable land, covered with grass and bushes.
What is special is the gash in the mound. From the east, an overgrown cut enters the monument, up to 10 meters wide and about 1.5 meters deep. As early as 1893, the mound was described as partially destroyed.
