Tag Archives: Norway

Non-conversational reminiscences

The Hafrsfjord Jubilee in Stavanger. These are some of the many people I did not talk to in Norway.

No book review tonight. I’ve had a sudden onset of translation work, which is a development approved at the highest levels. It had been a while. But it slows down my reading.

So let’s pick up on a subject I left hanging. I wrote a lot here, before I left, about my self-education program to improve my conversational Norwegian. I downloaded an app to listen to Norwegian radio, and watched some Norwegian TV too. How did that go, you ask?

Not very well, to be honest.

During the course of my preparations, I thought I was comprehending the language a little better. That didn’t “translate” (pun unintended) into any actual benefit, in practice. When I faced real human beings in Norway, I found I still couldn’t understand them without several repetitions. And I hate inconveniencing people. Especially when they generally speak English already, and the whole thing could be done more efficiently that way.

Discursive interjection: What is it with language study books and the conversations they give you to memorize? I didn’t resort to any of those during this process, but I often thought back to my time as a student.

A model conversation for the student to memorize goes like this:

Student: “Kan du si meg veien til stasjonen?” [Could you tell me how to get to the station?}

Policeman: “Ja, rett fram til hjørnen, og så til venstre.” [Yes, straight ahead to the corner, then turn left.]

Now we all know what happens in real life:

Student: “Kan du si meg veien til stasjonen?”

Policeman. “Ja, rett fram til hjørnen, og så til venstre.”

Student: “Unnskyld? Vil du si det igjen?” [Excuse me? Could you say that again?]

Policeman: “Rett fram til hjørnen, og så til venstre.”

Student: “Si det igjen, takk?” [Say that again, please?]

Policeman: “You are an American, right?”

Student: “Yeah…”

Policeman: “Just go straight ahead to the corner, take a left and you’re there.”

Student. “Oh. Okay. Uh… takk.”

That’s how it actually works. And that’s how it generally happens in my experience. Carrying out a full conversation, when the other person is an English speaker, is just asking them to spend time being my teacher for free. And I can’t ask that.

Cant. Ask. That. It’s not in me.

However, on a few occasions, I did encounter people whose English was worse than my Norwegian. Then I was able to communicate, with some effort.

And that’s the return I got for my effort. I guess it’s something.

There was a joke I used to make, when I was young and studying Norwegian. I said, “I want to be able to not talk to people in a second language.”

Turns out I spoke prophetically.

I’m pretty sure a normal person would be conversational at this point. I think my real problem is psychological – I’m blocked by my social discomfort.

Still and all, my print-only language skills allow me to make some money in hard times. That’s nothing to nyse [sneeze] at.

Norway Journal, Final Installment, Day 13

June 24: Reporting from Gardermoen Airport in Oslo, where I am spending more of my life than I ever wished. It’s been a long day, and I’m only about half-way through.

I got up, not too early, and Trygve asked me if I wanted to see some more sights before I left. Why not? He took me to various places. We saw the Utne Hotel in Utne (which has no connection to his family, though he is related to the people who built the Ullensvang Hotel).

He took me to a fascinating place I’d never heard of (that I remembered). It’s Agatunet, the only partially preserved medieval klyngtun in Norway (if I remember correctly). A klyngtun was what I described the other day, where all the neighbors on various parcels on a farm lived clustered together in something like a village. One part of the tun’s main building, the Lagmandshus, was bujlt in 1221 according to dendrochronology. It was the home of Sven Bjorgulfsson Aga, a lawspeaker who was mysteriously murdered a little later and found beheaded across the fjord. Never solved. Otherwise, Agatun is a rare surviving klyngtun even without the medieval building.

The dark-colored end of this building is the surviving part of the 13th Century Lawman’s house in Agatunet.
Genuine 13th Century wooden wall.
Original carvings in the wood.
Inside the courtroom.
The other side of the building. Less interesting, but the light was better on this side.

We drove up to Voss, stopping for a few more photo opportunities…

Voss, I think.

…and had lunch in Voss. Biffsnirper, an unusual Norwegian dish consisting of shredded tags of beef which you dip in a sauce. Served with French fries and a salad. I quite liked it. Not sure what the sauce was.

Biffsnirper.

Finally we went to the bus station and figured out what I was supposed to do with my suitcase (keep it with me) and where to get on the train. Trygve and I said goodbye. He really delivered a tremendous visit, especially considering how I jerked him around about the dates. It seemed to mean a lot to him that, after 16 years, he’d been able to keep his promise to take me to Svelland farm. It meant a lot to me, too.

The Bergensbanen is considered one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. It takes something over seven hours, and crosses the Hardangervidda plateau and stops at various localities headed for Oslo. I arrived some time after 10:00 p.m.

I’d been told that there were buses to the airport right there, and that I could just ask someone where to find them. In fact, I spent about an hour and a half wandering through the railway station, across the footbridge to the bus station, and back. Almost nobody was working at that hour. I saw no security officers. The people I worked up my nerve to ask knew nothing.

Finally I decided to just take the airport train, which was clearly signed and for which buying a ticket was easy. The track was easy to find too. So that’s how I got to the airport, a little after midnight.

Since then I’ve been vegetating here at the airport. If I had any class I’d have gotten a room at a motel and slept decently, but I nodded in a chair, reading when I couldn’t sleep (which was most of the time). I was waiting for instructions to appear on the big board to tell me where to check in. Finally I stopped checking (didn’t want to lose my seat) and arbitrarily chose 9:00 a.m. as the time I’d check again. The desk number was up by then. I proceeded down to desk 2, where there was a very, very long line doing that switchback, stay-between-the-ropes Disney thing. I assume they were understaffed due to the strike. I got my boarding pass at last, went through security, and got over to the gate side, where I now sit recharging my cell phone and waiting for the time to come to go to the gate. Many challenges lie ahead.

Final note: Challenges indeed. The flight to Reykjavik was packed and uncomfortable. I asked about Lost & Found at the airport, to see if I could get back the Amazon Fire I lost. They told me it had to be done online. The check-in line was long again, but the flight to New York was only about half full, and thus comfortable. At JFK customs took forever, and then security took forever and ever, amen. I ended up missing my connection, spent a night in a cheap hotel in Jamaica, NY, got onto a (delayed) flight to Minneapolis on standby, and finally arrived after 10:00 p.m.

I refuse to think about all that. My trip to Norway was, considered in itself, a wonderful experience and could hardly have gone better. Many thanks to all the friends and family who went to such trouble to make it such a good time for me.

Norway Journal, Day 12

June 22: A day of disaster that ended better than I feared. “The thing that I have greatly feared has come upon me,” as it says in Job. I’d worried that this trip was going too well, and today I discovered a serious problem – all of my own making.

Yesterday I told Trygve that I needed to take time to fill out some US Customs re-entry forms (turned out they didn’t apply to me after all) and book my tickets for my bus trip to Oslo Friday. I chose a bus to ride, started the checkout, and came up against a problem I’ve encountered before and should have remembered. I can’t buy anything online with a credit card in this country. They want to text me a security number, but the cell phone tied to the card is my American one, which doesn’t work in Europe.

Then I realized that I’d made the same calendar mistake I made before with Trygve. First I told him I was coming Tuesday, and then (for some unknown reason) I bought a ticket for Monday. Now, I realized (to my horror) that my plane leaves Friday, not Saturday. So Thursday needs to be my travel day. That’s tomorrow.

I apologized profusely to Trygve, who seemed fairly sanguine, however. After trying a couple things, including a call to my credit card company, he said the best thing was to drive to Voss and buy a train ticket to Oslo there. This is the Bergensbanen, a famous rail line I’ve ridden before. We weren’t sure my card would work there either, but what choice did we have?

Statue of Knut Rockne in Voss. You can tell from the look on his face he thinks I’m a moron.

We drove to Voss (famous as the birthplace of Knut Rockne, and a beautiful place in its own right), and found a ticket machine in the entry hall – out of order. You can’t buy a ticket from an agent anymore. It’s all automated. Trygve led me up to the platform, and we found a machine there that did sell me a ticket. And my card worked.

Sigh.

Relieved, we did some driving around, doing some of the sightseeing Trygve had been planning but now will be prevented from doing. Three waterfalls, plus the Norwegian Nature Center in Eidfjord.

I forget what these falls are called. Voringfoss, maybe.
This one is called the Skjervsfossen. I could have gotten a better picture if I’d stepped closer to the edge of the observation platform, but I didn’t want to show off.

Up to the Hardangervidda plateau itself (at least the edge of it), where we looked at Sysenvatn, an artificial lake built for hydroelectricity and some other sights on the plateau.

Just a random, picturesque spot.

Then we drove back (it took a while). I was feeling better by now, though I still feel dumb. I think I ought to have my mental acuity checked by a doctor when I get home.

We went out again about an hour later to pick Trygve’s son Kjell up from dayschool. We then went to a few picturesque spots above the town to take pictures. It really is quite dramatic. I think I’m going into Sublimity Shock. I need the Midwest to get my blood sugar level back down.

Tomorrow we may do some more sightseeing before my train leaves, but we need to give ourselves time to get to the station, because those narrow mountain roads are prone to long traffic delays.

Norway Journal, Day 11

June 21: Up bright and early for the big day of this leg of the visit. Trygve drove us to Odda, which he told me is where the series Ragnarok was filmed (Odda was a good place for that project, as it combines stunning natural beauty with some genuine industrial blight. I helped translate Ragnarok, but had missed that fact), and we met his uncle Knut there. Knut joined us for the trip.

First he drove us to Rosendal Baroniet, the only barony in Norway, and long the place to which many of our ancestors paid rent . I embarrassed myself a little by asking (when the guide asked) for a Norwegian translation of his talk. I then rescinded that, because I realized it would prolong the tour, and I really needed to use a bathroom. I finally asked him to direct me to one, which he did (a staff toilet), so I missed a portion of the tour. Generally I could understand what he was talking about, though I missed a lot of the details. Most of the details?

Rosendal Barony, main residence.

Then we drove on, around the Åkrafjord, to Åkra itself, where we met a local fellow named Lars Erik, who was delighted to tell us all about the place. He showed us a place on Vika farm, across the road, where a fire devastated the tun (cluster of buildings where various families on the farm lived together) when it burned spectacularly in 1790 (?). Lars Swelland’s father, if I recall rightly, was born on Vika farm.

The old tun site at Vika.

Then to the old church. The present building began construction in the 1790s. This was after the people started refusing to enter the old stave church, which was swaying in high winds so that the bell rang by itself. It was later remodeled a couple times.

Aakra Church.

Sadly, the remodels removed a number of wall paintings in a naïve style, of which only a few traces remain.

A trace of the old church wall paintings, preserved under a door frame. It’s thought to be Samson and the lion.

The church possesses a 12th century brass and lapis lazuli crucifix, its oldest possession

There is also the old baptismal font…

… the original baptismal basin (not in the old font now)…

…and the pulpit.

The original wood joinery is visible in many places, including very handsome “ships’ knees” pillars along the walls.

Outside there’s a long stone on which they used to set coffins before funerals…

and several soapstone crosses, a couple in a Celtic cross pattern, which seem to have been “erased” and re-inscribed many times, so there’s no way of saying how old they are. These crosses are chained to the wall to prevent theft.

The harbor at Aakra, from the churchyard.

We paused for a pancake and jam snack at a nearby café (next to the general store), and then we started climbing the mountain. I’m probably exaggerating when I say the drive took about an hour, but that’s how it felt – switching back and forth along narrow paths and finally gravel roads. We were very high up. Trygve kept apologizing for the bad weather, but I found it grimly beautiful, suitable for a Romantic painting.

When we finally reached Indre Svelland, Trygve found the neighboring farmer, Knut, who’d said he’d be happy to show us the old farmyard. It turned out to be just across a couple fences – the old house is long gone. Just a rocky place on the hillside.

Old site of Indre Svelland farm.

Knut ‘s old photo of what the place used to look like. I can’t recognize anything from the picture above.

But he was delighted to tell us all about “America Lars,” as my great-grandfather was known to the neighbors, because he came back twice (before his final, permanent return to Norway) to visit.

I’ve written of his story here before. Briefly, though he was quite successful as a farmer in Minnesota, Lars Swelland got overwhelmed after the death of his wife. When his son, who was renting his farm, missed a payment during the Depression, and he received one (1) dunning letter from the mortgage company, Lars packed up, got on a train for New York, and then boarded a ship back to Norway. Telegrams sent to intercept him either missed him or were ignored. The farm was lost to the family, and he spent the rest of his life in penury — somewhere else than Indre Svelland. He died during the Occupation.

Knut and his wife invited us in for coffee (I drank some, because it was the only low-sugar beverage on offer). We discovered that we’re third cousins. so we constituted a happy family gathering. They were very interested in the family in America, and we had a long chat. They showed me a door in their house that was salvaged from Lars’ old home. Nicely made – I seem to recall that Lars’ father, who made it, was a skilled handyman.

Knut and his wife with my great-great-grandfather’s door.
The view from Svelland farm.

We’d been out several hours now, but we stopped on the way back in the town of Rosendal for some supper. It turned out to be hard to get supper in Rosendal. Everything was shut down. At last we found what seemed to be a sort of nightclub, where they served us hamburgers (Knut had a chicken salad). Not bad either. I picked up the check.

Rosendal.

Finally we headed back to Odda, dropped Uncle Knut off, and then headed home. It felt like a long drive (we were gone almost exactly twelve hours).

Lots of beauty, lots of new experiences and people met, and a bucket list experience. It was a big day. I’m ready for bed now.

Evening idyll in Hardanger.

Norway Journal, Day 10

June 20: Up, fed, and generally on time for my trip to Ullandsvang via Hardanger. Caught the Kystbussen (Coastal Bus) at 7:45 or so, and it took me by way of several tunnels and a ferry ride. Tore was waiting for me at Haugesund, and we set out north in his car.

Change in plan, not for today, but for my ride home. Tore said the strike was spreading at the Oslo airport, and he believed the best thing for me to do, to avoid missing my plane, was to take the Haukeli Express bus on Friday. Easy to get a bus from the bus station to the airport, he says. I’ll go with his advice. I rely on the kindness of new acquaintances. Also, I’ve ridden the Haukeli Express before, and liked it very much.

We were met at the town of Etne by Trygve’s uncle, Knut. Knut knows a lot about local history, and filled the time before Trygve got off work by showing me several local sites.

One was Stødle Church, on the site of the farm of Erling Skakke.

I’ve written about Erling Skakke (1115-1179) before in this journal. This was not my Erling (Skjalgsson), but another nobleman, even more powerful in his prime. He participated in a Crusade along with Ragnvald Kali Kolsson, Earl of Orkney (whose poems I reviewed on this blog once upon a time). During a sea battle in the Mediterranean, he took a wound in the neck. It healed up, but the muscles tightened on that side, so that he always held his head crooked thereafter (“skakke” means tilted). He married Kristin Sigurdsdatter, daughter of King Sigurd the Crusader.

When there was a temporary dearth of viable candidates to inherit the throne of Norway, Erling worked a deal with the church to get his son Magnus crowned, on the strength of his being a king’s grandson. This violated the law, which said that inheritance went through the male line. So there was resistance to the innovation, and new claimants appeared, and this launched Norway’s Age of Civil War, a long and bloody time. Erling was regent during Magnus’ minority, and remained powerful up until the time when both of them died in battle against the Birkebeiners (Birchlegs).

Erling Skakke’s view, from Stodle farm.

Uncle Knut obtained a key at the hotel to get inside the church. The interior is what I believe to be simple Romanesque, with a small chancel, and a tiny chapel at the very end. This small chapel, I am told, was probably built by Erling himself in the 12th Century.

Interior of Stodle Church. Note the naive paintings on the left-hand wall, the chancel, and the small inner chancel at the end.
Chancel.
Erling Skakke’s inner chancel.

The portions built later are decorated with naïve images of the gospel writers (as I recall), and also of the five foolish virgins. These paintings were apparently uncovered during the last restoration of the church. There is also a hogback gravestone outside the church wall, which reminded me of English ones. A Viking Age style.

Hogback gravestone.

There was also Grindheim church, which features a genuine rune stone set up against one wall (its inscription pretty much unreadable today, alas), and a fascinating stone cross. This one has had its capital knocked off, but has a notable feature – there’s a hole through the junction of the arms. This is reminiscent of Irish crosses, and suggests an Irish influence

Irish-influenced stone cross at Grindheim Church.

He took me to his home, where his wife Valborg made a delicious lunch. Then they both took me out to a nearby nature area for a walk through the woods. As we were about to leave we met a couple they knew coming in. They told us someone else from America had recently been through, asking about Vika farm (one of my ancestral places).

Then back to the house for dessert. By now we were all great friends. Trygve showed up, had some dessert himself, and then we took pictures all around and headed further into the Etne region, and on to Hardanger.

I’m already forgetting all the places we saw. As I mentioned before, Etne is a remarkably beautiful place, and Hardanger is the same but more dramatic. Trygve showed me the places where his family had lived in the past. He showed me the farm where my brother’s wife’s family came from.

Across the water, Frette farm, where my sister-in-law’s family came from.

He showed me a place to get a better picture of the Langfoss waterfall, which is indeed quite long.

Langfossen.

Also the Låtefossen, a magnificent double falls.

Laatefossen.

Kyrping, a picturesque cove at the edge of the Åkrafjord, home of Kyrping-Orm, father of Erling Skakke.

Kyrping.

Nearby was the bronze plate in the mountainside dedicated to honor the journalist Eric Severeid, whose family came from Severeid farm. We stopped for ice cream at a place where Trygve likes to shop. We drove over to Hardanger (avoiding a tunnel at one point for a more dramatic ride), which I still consider insanely beautiful.

Just a random picture taken while waiting for the light to change on a one-lane, mountainside road.

Kind of like a real-world rollercoaster, where falling off the world is a serious possibility. I was amazed at farms and homes where the driveways run upward at more than a 45⁰ angle. And in the end we drove up a similar driveway ourselves, to reach Trygve’s home.

Trygve and his personal view.

Norway Journal, Day 9

June 19: Today was not as exertive as the day before, but quite satisfactory. I slept the sleep of the just, and woke feeling OK except for the congestion I’ve been having. I doubt this is Covid, as there’s no headache and no particular sore throat, not to mention no change in my sense of taste.

My hosts were kind enough to wash my dirty clothes, and to hang them to dry.

Then we headed for the Stavanger Archaeological Museum, where they’re having a special Viking exhibition for the Hafrsfjord Jubilee. I’ve been to the museum before, and like it very much. The exhibition turned out to be free, because of the festival.

We saw a fascinating collection of Viking artefacts, many of them from the Stavanger area, though a number of them were carted off to Bergen, where they remain, in the old days before there was a museum here. We saw three fine Viking swords…

…and some of the gullgubber, mysterious images on gold foil, thought to be votive offerings to the old gods…

I’d never guessed they were as tiny as they are.

Also gold arm and neck rings, and various pieces of silver treasure.

And a piece of a ship’s dragon head, recovered from a bog, something I never knew existed. And displays of various kinds.

A piece of a dragon head.

Other rooms showed area history from other ages, back to the stone age. Of particular interest was a loop of projected video of a young blonde woman doing a sort of haka dance, wearing the famous bronze age string skirt, often depicted in history books. She was very lovely and quite topless, and I liked her right off.

The gift shop had many tempting items, but I restricted myself to a blue glass ring.

The afternoon was quiet, and we said goodbye to the nephew at last, as he was picked up for his flight back home to England.

Tomorrow I must get up early to catch my bus for the first leg of my trip to Hardanger.

Norway Journal, Day 8

View of Hafrsfjord from Yterroy. You’ve read about the Hafrsfjord in my Erling books.

June 18: A big day for me. I got up in good time to get going to put my Viking togs on and get some breakfast before we headed out for a fjord cruise. It was raining as predicted, but clear skies were obviously coming on. We caught a big motorized catamaran doing a circular course through the Hafrsfjord. Our first stop was Ytterøy, an ancient peninsula where there’s a “bygdeborg” (a hill fort for local defense). We debarked and took a walking tour that involved a lot of climbing to the top of the hill, where there was a performance of Haraldskvadet (the skaldic poem about the Battle of Hafrsfjord) by a singing group (quite nice). Further on, a group with lurs (long, wooden traditional Norwegian horns) did an instrumental/performance piece that meant nothing at all to me. Perhaps it’s the sort of thing the Vikings really listened to, but to me it seemed postmodern and atonal. Our trip back down the hill was rather rugged, and involved some very steep descents. Some of the people around me were watching to make sure the old man in Viking clothes didn’t fall, which I have to admit was reasonable. The final descent had no handrails at all and seemed to me genuinely too dangerous for public use.

Another one of those plexiglass installations to spark the imagination.

Then there was a long walk along the shoreline (sometimes on top of half-submerged rocks). Happily, I came through neither broken on the rocks nor soaked. Finally we made it back to the quay, and caught another catamaran to Møllebukta, where the Viking market was being held. We walked around, and then my hosts left me by myself. I assumed they would take the further legs of the boat tour, but I guess they actually spent their time at the market. Their nephew the Viking enthusiast was with them, so it may have been to please him as much as me.

One of the Viking ships on the Hafrsfjord.

It was quite a deal. I’m told it’s far from the largest Viking market in Norway, but it was the biggest this American had ever seen. Hundreds of reenactors with their tents and sales stands ranged along several paths through an area around a brook. All kinds of goods for sale, artisans demonstrating their skills, the odd fight show or Viking game. We had a brief spot of rain, but the day had cleared up essentially. Beautiful weather, crumb-hungry seagulls swooping around, and in the distance the unforgettable Sverd I Fjell monument.

Viking battle.

I found my friends from Vikingklubben Karmøy, and they generously offered me a stool, where I took my seat. Except for a walk around to see what there was to see at one point, I stayed there, happy to be playing Viking in Erling Skjalgsson’s personal domain. The Karmøy people were good to talk to, and I was quietly and serenely happy. I’d been waiting for this day since I was 12 years old.

Me with the leader of Vikingklubben Karmoy.

At 4:30 my hosts began to leave, and so we went to Sola for pizza (I like to think of it as feasting at Sola), and then home to wind down.

A great day in my life. I will not demean it with a joke. I feel very happy.

Norway Journal, Day 7

June 16: Mari Anne and her husband Michael drove me out to Bø farm, near Randaberg, north of Stavanger, where Cousin Sigve lives (turns out he’s not actually a cousin, but a relation by marriage. But he’s had trouble finding relatives in America, and has settled for me). He’s retired, but used to be a farmer and was be involved in scientific breeding programs for hogs and cattle.

He told me he had a chest that had belonged to the grandmother of Prof. Sven Oftedal of Augsburg College, one of the people we study in the Georg Sverdrup Society, whose journal I edit. Oftedal’s mother, he explained, was born on a neighboring farm and he had acquired the chest.

Me sitting on the Oftedal chest. I’m happy to report I did not crush it.

He took me up to Hodnefjell on Moster Island (not to be confused with Moster on Bomlø, which I visited the other day). Some of my ancestors lived there and were converts to the Moravian movement. They heard about Hans Nielsen Hauge, the Lutheran lay evangelist, and invited him to visit them there. It was with them Hauge stayed when he first visited the Stavanger area. They became followers (“friends”) of his. One of their community was John Haugvaldstad, who went to Stavanger and became a prominent Haugean leader and businessman. He established several businesses, always with the goal of employing the poor and supporting mission work. I understand he was considered the de facto head of the Haugeans after Hauge’s imprisonment for leading meetings while not ordained. My relatives were friends and supporters of Haugvaldstad. There is a bust of him in Stavanger, outside the mission school.

Hodnefjell farm, home of my ancestors, in the background.

We visited Utstein Kloster, the only medieval monastery in Norway that remains standing. Smaller place than I expected, but very interesting. A chance to get in out of the rain, which was pretty steady all day.

We went to another medieval church, whose name I forget. But it is well preserved (or restored) and quite beautiful in a simple, Romanesque way. We visited a German coastal installation from World War II along the coast, which included gun emplacements and a tunnel through the rock.

On the island of Finnøy, we saw the replica of the sloop “Restauration,” in which Cleng Peerson led the first organized group of Norwegian immigrants to America. 52 people (53 on arrival, as a baby was born) traveled on this tiny vessel, which authorities later declared inadequate for the purpose and seized (after it had arrived). These people were mostly Quakers, along with some Haugeans, fleeing religious pressure from the state church. Finnøy was Cleng Peerson’s home.

The replica of the “Restauration”

Sigve also drove me past the one place he has found in the area where (he’s personally satisfied) Hans Nielsen Hauge set up a sea salt refinery. (After several years in solitary confinement, the pressures of the Napoleonic Wars induced the government to grant Hauge temporary parole so he could set up sea salt refineries to relieve the salt shortage. After he had performed this service well, the conditions of his imprisonment were eased a little.)

Plausible site of Hauge’s sea salt refinery.

Back to Sigve’s house and a lovely dinner with his wife and daughter. We talked quite a long time about Vikings and other matters. Then back to Sandnes and my hosts. I am stimulated but tired. I hope I’m not coming down with a bad cold.

Sigve and I.

Norway Journal, Day 6

June 15: I experienced a certain measure of distress this morning, when I found that the zipper on my jeans had broken. Einar convinced me that there was no shame in wearing my Viking pants, so that’s what I did. I greatly missed my pockets, however.

We used Einar’s girlfriend’s car, and they drove me to Stavanger. We left right on time. It was a pleasant drive, interrupted by several tunnels of varying lengths (under fjords) and a ferry ride. We arrived in Sandnes, home of Mari Anne, a local historian, and her family, precisely on schedule. We were treated to a tasty lunch. To my amazement, we had buns to make sandwiches with, and no knives or forks. So everybody ate their sandwiches with their hands. You’d have to know Norwegians to know how surprising that was to me. In my experience, Norwegians always cut sandwiches up with a knife and fork. I can only assume they were going the extra mile to make me feel at home. (Only the same thing happened everywhere I went. I can only conclude it was a conspiracy. The idea that I’m mistaken about Norwegian eating habits is obviously absurd) I got to meet their nephew who is staying with them, and who is keenly interested in Vikings. This gave me ample opportunity to hog the conversation.

They took me to a store called Dressman (“Dress” in Norwegian means “suit,” so don’t get the wrong idea). There, in spite of the fact that you rarely see a Norwegian as fat as I am, we were able to find a pair of black chinos that fit me. This was a great comfort to me in my old age.

Then they took me on a tour. We saw the ancient stone circle popularly called Erling Skjalgsson’s Thingstead, though it’s certainly much, much older than Erling. A sort of Stonehenge thing, but the stones are much smaller and there are no capstones. Its original purpose is a mystery, but it provides plenty of scope for speculation.

“Erling Skjalgsson’s Thingstead,” as it’s called.

We went to Sola Ruin Church, which can plausibly be considered the site of the place where Erling worshiped (though not in this building, which must be later). If this is where Erling’s church stood, I’d wager he must be buried under the floor. Nearby, I assume, his farm lay, though no archaeological evidence has been found in that well-worked soil. So I greeted Erling again on his home ground.

The Sola ruin church. The Germans actually dismantled it during the war, but thoughtfully numbered the stones. So after the war it was simply reassembled, like an Ikea kit.

Then they showed me the two stone crosses at Tjora, whose age is uncertain but which are certainly among the earliest memorials of Christianity in Norway. There were originally four, but now only two stand, and their location has been moved a bit. Still and all… they are unquestionably early medieval.

The stones at Tjora. Unquestionably Viking Age. Certainly dating to Erling’s time; perhaps to Haakon the Good’s.

We also saw a weathered petroglyph near a farm fence.

Then back home for a delicious supper. They brought out a bunch of books about Vikings to discuss. And I tried to book bus tickets to Haugesund on the Norwegian mass transport web page, with great frustration, as I discovered that my credit card, which I made sure to be acceptable in Norway, is not usable over the internet (validation issues). A resolution was found, but not one that pleased me greatly.

Norway Journal, Day 5

June 14: I got up in good time to leave at 9:00 a.m., in spite of getting very little sleep. Our goal: Etne and Hardanger, two of the most picturesque areas of Norway.

Einar and Tore Ravn with King Magnus Erlingsson. Note the “Tinghus” in the background. I’ve told you about “Tings,” right?

At Etne we stopped at the statue of King Magnus Erlingsson, who was not the son of Erling Skjalgsson but of a later magnate, Erling Skakke (“Erling Wry-neck,” due to an old injury incurred during a Crusade-adjacent raid in the Mediterranean). Norwegian law said that only a king’s son could inherit the throne. The problem was, there were no acceptable kings’ sons available at the time. So Erling Skakke, who was married to a daughter of King Sigurd the Crusader, managed to get his son Magnus crowned. In order to wangle this, he agreed to have his son crowned by the archbishop in Nidaros Cathedral (Norwegian kings had always been elected by the Things up to that point). This was the first time a Norwegian king was crowned and anointed in a religious ceremony, and it won him support from the Church. Resistance to this innovation led to generations of bloody civil war in the country.

We also stopped at the ancient church on Erling Skakke’s one-time estate.

As we drove through the Etne area, I realized I had to tell my sister-in-law, whose maiden name was Frette, that she absolutely must visit the land of her ancestors. The Etne area features stunning mountain and valley landscapes, made doubly dramatic by the misty weather today. I thought it was some of the most glorious scenery I’d ever seen.

Langfoss

We stopped to photograph the Langfoss, one of Norway’s largest waterfalls. I don’t have words for it. Dramatic and powerful.

After passing through a long tunnel we reached the area of the Hardangerfjord, even more dramatic than Etne, though I might not have believed it. The drama was increased by the ridiculous precariousness of the road we took. It clung to the shoulders of the mountains, often only one lane wide. In some places, if you encounter a driver coming the other way, one of you has to back up into one of the periodic pull-over spots. Farms and even small communities teeter on mountain ledges high above you, and sometimes when the rock ledge falls away on your right, you catch a glimpse of an isolated clearing where someone has built a smallholding, in a valley or a fjord cove. It all took my breath away. I came home drunk with beauty.

The ferry to Skaanevik

We were delayed returning by a one hour wait for the ferry going to Skånevik, which used to be the address of the farms across the fjord where my Swelland ancestors came from (because before cars and road-building, the water united rather than divided). But that governmental arrangement has been changed now.

Viking ships docked at Kopervik.

After we returned, I was taken to visit Gerd, who I think is the oldest of my relatives on Karmøy, by Cousin Tor Bjørn. He also took me to the docks at Kopervik, where most of the Viking fleet was docked. Tomorrow they’ll head for Stavanger.

And so will I.