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Raud the Strong

January 9

Far north in the Salten Fiord By rapine, fire and sword Lives the Viking, Raud the Strong; All the Godoe Isles belong To him and his heathen horde…

With rites that we both abhor He worships Odin and Thor So it cannot yet be said That all the old gods are dead And the warlocks are no more…

Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When King …Read more

Leif Erikson Day

October 9

Leif Erikson arrived in the New World 500 years before Columbus. But you don’t hear any schoolchildren singing, ‘In 1002, Leif Erikson sailed the ocean blue.’

August Werner with Leif Erikson statue

Leif was the son of Norseman Erik the Red. According to the Norse sagas, Erik’s family had been exiled from Norway because of his father’s part in some killings there.

In Iceland, Erik continued the family tradition by getting exiled from Iceland, after …Read more

St. Olav’s Day

July 29

Almost a thousand years after he sailed the fjords of Norway, King Olaf is remembered with Olavsfestdagen (Olaf’s Feast Day) — a week of music, entertainment, and partying.

Legends abound of King Olaf’s heroic deeds. According to “Scandanavian Folk-lore – Illustrations of the Tradition Beliefs of the Northern Peoples”

When St. Olaf came to the farm of Sten, where his mother is said to have lived, he resolved to build a …Read more

Constitution Day – Norway

flag_norway

May 17

 

In 1814 the four-century union between Denmark and Norway abruptly ended when Denmark was forced to cede Norway to Sweden following the Napoleonic Wars. Norway also lost what had once been its own. Iceland and Greenland, settled by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries, would remain in Denmark’s possession.

With the emergence of a national ‘farm culture’ in Norway, and a growing awareness of the French and American …Read more