Tag Archives: Viking ships

My ancestors in the news

Avaldsnes Church on Karmoy island. Picture by me June, 2022.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this blog hasn’t been providing enough Viking News lately. Why would anyone come to a book blog, except to read about Viking News? Sure, I’ve given you a few saga reviews in recent weeks, but what you want (I have no doubt) is the kind of breaking, “you read it here first” information for which my name is, perhaps not renowned, but definitely -nowned.

Well, I’ve got one today. Not only is it a major archaeological story, but there’s a personal connection to me – which makes all the difference, I know.

The story was announced yesterday, but I waited till an English version appeared today to share it. Because I hate translating for free.

This from Sciencenorway.no: New Discovery of a Viking Ship in Norway

Just over a hundred years ago, the archaeologist Haakon Shetelig was incredibly disappointed when he did not find a Viking ship during an excavation of the Salhushaugen gravemound in Karmøy in Western Norway.

Shetelig had previously excavated a rich Viking ship grave just nearby, where Grønhaugskipet was found, as well as excavated the famous Oseberg ship – the world’s largest and most well-preserved surviving Viking ship – in 1904. At Salshaugen he only found 15 wooden spades and some arrowheads.

“He was incredibly disappointed, and nothing more was done with this mound,” says Håkon Reiersen, an archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger.

It turns out, however, that Shetelig simply did not dig deep enough.

About a year ago, in June 2022, archaeologists decided to search the area using ground-penetrating radar or georadar – a device that uses radio waves to map out what lies below the surface of the ground.

Now if you’ve been following this blog, you know that I have a personal connection to Karmøy island. My great-grandfather Walker was born there (under another last name, naturally), and baptized at Avaldsnes Church (pictured above). The three mounds described in this article are a short distance north of the church, and I don’t believe I’ve actually ever seen them.

Still, I was at Avaldsnes last June, precisely when they were doing the georadar surveys. That pleases me immensely. I was On the Scene – if clueless as usual.

The Viking Ship Museum

More video tonight. This is an amateur video, but pretty well done, of the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. I’ve been there, of course, but I’ll probably never see it again. They closed it down recently for a five-year expansion. While they’re at it, they’re also working on stabilizing the old ships (I personally blame their deterioration on a guy I know, whose name I won’t divulge, who once put his hands on the Gokstad ship while the guards weren’t looking). By the time the renovation project is done, I’ll probably be too old to travel over there.

The one with the curly prow and stern is the Oseberg Ship, the oldest of the two. It seems to have been sort of a royal yacht, and two women were found buried in it. One assumes they’re a mistress and her slave, but they still haven’t worked out who’s who.

The one with the plain prow and stern is the Gokstad, which is larger and a genuine fighting ship. A tall man, wounded in the leg, was found buried in it. Among his grave goods was a peacock. That always amused me. A questionable tradition says its occupant was Olaf Gierstad-Elf, an ancestor of Saint Olaf, who plays a small role, as a ghost, in my novel-in-progress.

The transmission lockdown, continued

I’m reading a book right now that I’m enjoying very much. But it’s long. Looooooooong. So the stream of consciousness blogging must continue, regardless of the cost in pain and suffering to our audience.

On the automobile front, my car, Miss Ingebretsen, yet languishes in durance vile, in the transmission shop. I learned today that the transmission itself is all right. It’s the shifter that’s broken. They’re trying to find me a used shifter, and I guess those things must be harder to find than you’d expect. Maybe tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll have to use Door Dash for groceries again.

If you skipped the video above, take a minute to watch it. It’s not much longer than that. It’s the Dragon Harald Fairhair, the big Viking ship I hoped to see in Duluth a few years back, but was disappointed. Seriously, was anything ever more romantic than that graceful ship cutting through a stormy sea? That (or the idea of it, anyway) was what surprised me by joy nearly 60 years ago, making me a lifelong Viking nut, and pointing me to my destiny, as a highly peripheral figure in the world of Norwegian history, literature, and entertainment. And, oh yes, a novelist.

I can report that I’m still working on the new Erling book, King of Rogaland. Its current status hovers in a weird space where the book is essentially written, but far from finished. We speak of “polishing” a manuscript, and that’s what it is. Very like sanding wood. Going over the same surface again and again, smoothing out the rough spots. I’ve got a few passages where I’ve left out place names I still need to select, with a map. And there are joints that aren’t tight. Once this current pass is finished, working onscreen, I think I need to print the next draft out, and labor over it on paper. Some things work better with a red pen and notes and swoopy arrows. Especially when you need to hunt through the pages multiple times.

Also, I’ve never gotten a splinter polishing a manuscript.

Viking news, and Erling’s grave

Archaeologists in Vestfold county, Norway, recently discovered what they’re pretty sure is a Viking Age ship burial.

A burial site featuring what seems to be a complete viking ship has been discovered in the Vestfold county in Norway. Many spectacular finds have been unearthed in the region over the years, including the famous Oseberg and Gokstad ships now housed in Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum. The latest discovery of the grave in Borreparken was announced at a press conference in the Midgard Viking Center in Horten.

“The data clearly shows the shape of a ship, and we can see weak traces of a circular depression around the vessel. This could point to the existence of a mound that was later removed,” said a spokesperson for cultural heritage in Vestfold county. Researchers will now carry out detailed investigations to assess the size of the find.

Read the rest here.

It’s interesting that the article says nothing about any plans to actually excavate the ship. All the work so far has been done by georadar. That’s cool – it’s definitely a conservative (conservative is always good) way to prevent damage to the site. But it seems to me they’ll want to actually look at possible grave goods at some point. Don’t expect to see the ship resurrected like the ones in the museum in Oslo. Those were very special cases, where the vessels were buried in anaerobic (I think that’s the right word) blue clay, which prevented rotting of the wood. Most Viking ships found in modern times are pretty much decomposed, and you recognize them from the way the iron rivets are distributed in the earth.

Vestfold has always been an important part of Norway – it has good agricultural land and it’s close to the shipping lanes. The king of Denmark generally considered himself the rightful ruler of Vestfold (and often of Norway as a whole) in Viking times. Cultural development and foreign influences were both rich in Vestland.

I hope they dig it up in time. I’m not like Native Americans; it doesn’t offend me if somebody excavates my ancestors’ graves. Especially if they find cool stuff.

In case you’ve ever wondered about Erling Skjalgsson’s grave, it’s never been identified. A history of Sola which I read related a local legend: During a period of hard times, when erosion had stripped much of the topsoil in the area, the farmer at Sola decided to dig up an ancient mound on his property, and distribute the dirt in his fields. Rumor said that he came into sudden wealth at that time. Some suspected he’d found a rich Viking grave, and sold off its treasures.

However, if the story’s true – which is questionable in itself (we had a not dissimilar legend about the farm where I grew up in Minnesota, and it was also dubious) – there’s no reason the grave would have been Erling’s. As a Christian he would have been buried in the churchyard, not in a mound, and with minimal or no grave goods. It would be more likely to be his father, Thorolf Skjalg’s – or that of any of a number of other powerful ancestors.

Unleash the Dragon!

Dragon Harald Fairhair
Photo credit: Jack_IOM from Douglas, Isle of Man.

I wrote the other day about the problem the replica Viking Ship, the Dragon Harald Fairhair, has gotten into in the great lakes. They’re stuck in Bay City, Michigan, having discovered they’re required to take on a pilot, something that will cost north of $400,000.

The Sons of Norway Foundation has started campaign to raise money for these fees. The donation site is here. You don’t have to be a Sons of Norway member.

Personally, I think it would be more prudent to burn a few buildings and demand Danegeld. But that’s just me.