Happy Friday, and happy Tolkien’s birthday!

I often slough off my responsibilities on Fridays by posting videos, just as high school teachers used to wheel out the film projectors when they were too hung-over to teach that day. Tonight, for some reason, a short film about the Fantoft Stave Church, near Bergen, Norway. In winter, because it’s winter now.

This is a polite little film, clearly intended not to offend.

Because there’s a small detail the video leaves out. They tell you it burned down in 1992, and was rebuilt. True as far as it goes.

They do not tell you how it burned. It was not an accident.

A heathen burned it down, on purpose, to strike a blow against Christian oppression.

I saw the building during its reconstruction. My first trip to Norway was in 1995, along with my dad. While we were visiting a cousin in Bergen, he took us to see the building as it stood at the time.

Not much to see then. I remember black plastic sheeting covering the roof.

Anyway, it looks nice now, doesn’t it?