tirsdag 13. januar 2009

The Curse of Many Friends

The first Norwegian king who has an entire saga written about him is Halvdan Svarte (ca 810-860). According to the myth: He expanded his territory quite a bit, but was still only one of many small kings in Norway at the time. Yet he was well-liked by his people, and had many friends. At the age of only 40 his slead drove across a fjord(Randsfjorden) that was frozen, but the ice broke and him and many of his men drowned.

Later on the body was recovered. Important men came from each of the 4 districts he had governed, (Ringerike, Romerike, Vestfold and Hedmark), all of them wanted the body to berry it. Believing if would give a good harvest. As an agreement they parted the body in 4, and each were made a grave for. The vikings berried their kings in huge piles of earth, and each of his piles were called Halvdanshaugen (haugen meaning pile). They are all still visible today, and Norwegian archeologists have agreed not to dig up in these piles so that they won't destroy what is a really cool myth. However, checking the earth layors in the piles they have found that they are from about year 870, just 10 years after the king died.

Fact or fiction.. 4 graves for one person still classifies as weird in my book.

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