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Sáhkkualso is a board game played by the Sami people. It was abandon by the government because of the missionaries of Christianity consider this game as a sinful game.

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Sáhkku set. Left to right: male soldier, queen of the men, king, queen of the women, female soldier. Front: sáhkku dice.

Years active

First documented in the 1600s.

Genre(s)

Board game
Running-fight game
Dice game

Players

2

Setup time

30 seconds - 1 minute

Playing time

30-60 minutes

Random chance

Medium ( dice rolling)

Skill(s) required

Strategy, tactics, counting, probability

Synonym(s)

"Bircu", "Percc", "The Devil's Game"

Sáhkku is a board game of the Sami people. The game is traditional among the North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi and Lule Sámi but may also have been played in other parts of Sápmi.

Sáhkku is a running-fight game, which means that players move their pieces along a track with the goal of eliminating the other players' pieces. Many different variants of sáhkku have been played in different parts of Sápmi. The oral transfer of the sáhkku rules between generations was largely broken off during the 1900s (see Sáhkku today). A few of the local variants have survived into our time, other local variants have been reconstructed based on a combination of memories and written sources, and for some places only fragments of the local rules are known from old documents.

A sáhkku board ( sáhkkufiellu, bircunfiellu or sáhkkulávdi) can traditionally be designed in a number of different ways. At its simplest, a sáhkku board has three parallel rows of short lines, and the pieces are placed on these lines. The lines are called sárgat (one sárggis) in Sámi.

It is common to draw the short lines as vertically connected to each other, so that the board appears to consist of just one row of very long lines, but the game is still played as if these were three separate rows of short lines. Such boards often also have three horizontal lines intersecting the vertical lines in order to illustrate that the lines are still in practice divided into three parallel rows. Some boards feature only a central horizontal line crossing the connected vertical lines, but the game is still played as if there were three rows of short lines.

A special type of sáhkku board is the so-called Návuotna board which has three rows of squares ( ruvttat, lanjat) instead of lines.

The central line/square of the middle row, sometimes referred to as "the Castle", is indicated by a sáhkku-symbol ("X"), sun symbol, or other ornament.

The game features several gálgut ("women") and olbmát ("men"), and one gonagas ("king"). The men and women are collectively referred to as "soldiers" in most variants. The most common number of soldiers on each side is fifteen, but the number has varied according to the length of the board. The smallest number of soldiers described as being used is eight ( Boris Gleb), and the highest is twenty. The latter is described as being "used in the Finnmark fisheries", without any further geographic specification.

Sáhkku pieces produced in accordance with traditional Sámi boardgame duodji (handicraft) are not disc-shaped like pieces in Checkers and Backgammon, but "standing" pieces more akin to Chess pieces. In the simplest design type, each piece's top ends in a sharpened "pyramid" which for the women has a notch cut into it. It is also possible to "elaborate" on this notch so that the female pieces effectively have two "horns" that stick out to each their side. Another tradition is to cut the tops in the shapes of traditional Sámi hats from the area where the game is produced, for example cone-shaped tops for the men and hooked-shaped tops for the women, symbolizing the traditional North Sámi laddjogahpir hat which disappeared at the end of the 1800s because Christian missionaries and evangelists attacked the design for being a symbol of "the Devil's horn".

As for the shape of the king, this varies a lot between game sets. At its simplest, the king piece is a tall, slender "pyramid" with four sides. More often, ornaments are cut into the sides. Many of the king pieces are so elaborately carved that the pyramidal shape is only suggested.

At the beginning of the game, rows of men and women face each other on opposite rows of short lines (one sárggis, multiple sárgát). The Castle is occupied by the king. Dice are thrown to determine who begins the game. The player who first throws a sáhkku (X) may start.

The dice used for sáhkku are four-faced long dice or "stick dice". They are shaped like slightly elongated cubes whose short ends are sharpened to points so that they can only land on four of their sides. One side of each die bears the mark "X", the sáhkku symbol. The numbers on the other sides of the die have been known to vary. A common combination is X-II-III-0, but many other combinations have been known to exist. The number of dice used has also varied, three being a rather usual number. The dice are traditionally thrown in a bowl, rather than on the table.

Pieces are moved in accordance with values shown on the dice after a throw. Some rule sets demand that the player utilize die values in a certain order such as f.ex. X-III-II-0, while other rule sets do not mention any such rule. One may choose to move one piece several times during one's turn, or to use the values of the different dice to move several soldiers. In some variants, several pieces are allowed to occupy the same sárggis (short line), while in other rule sets this is unclear or explicitly forbidden.

When the game begins, the soldiers are inactive - that is, unable to move. A player can activate a soldier by throwing a sáhkku. When activated, a soldier is moved one sárggis ahead.

Local rules differ regarding whether activation is forced or free - i.e. if soldiers have to be activated in turn, starting with the player's foremost soldier, and continuing towards the back, or if any soldier in the home row may be activated regardless of its place in the row.

After activation, dice are used to determine how many sárgát soldiers can move ahead during their turn.

The soldiers move in a set pattern or across the board. The shape of this "track" differs from variant to variant.

Rules for using the sáhkku king differ between local variants. In all variants the king begins neutral, not controlled by either player.

In nearly all variants, the king is recruited by a player who moves one of their pieces onto the sárggis currently occupied by the king. There are also some known historical variants where the king can be recruited in other ways.

Several different rules for how one may move the king exist. The following overview is not exhaustive.

(A) The king moves like the soldiers of the player who currently controls it.

(B) The king moves backwards or forwards.

(C) The king can move orthogonally right, left, up, and down.

What happens to the king during the course of the game is also subject to variation. In most variants of sáhkku, the loyalty of the king can change during the course of the game. The player not currently playing with the king may, for example, recruit it by moving a soldier onto the sárggis currently occupied by it. The king then becomes part of that player's army, until it is recruited by the opposing player again. In nearly all variants of the game, the king cannot itself be captured, only recruited.

The object of the game is to capture all of the opponent's soldiers, that is, to remove them from the board. An opponent's soldier is captured when a player moves a soldier, or the recruited king, onto a sárggis occupied by the opponent. If the sárggis in question is occupied by several opposing soldiers (in the cases where such "cohabitation" is allowed), all those soldiers are captured. A captured soldier is removed from the board, and not entered again. In Sámi, the act of capturing a soldier is referred to as goddit - "to kill".

In some areas, the rules prohibited the capture of inactive soldiers, while in other areas the capture of inactive soldiers has been allowed, or the rules were unclearly written. It is unknown what was the most widespread, or original, rule.

Some variants of the game include other pieces in addition to the king and soldier pieces. In the only surviving variant that has such pieces - Lágesvuotna sáhkku - these are called "queens".

Researchers have earlier called such "third pieces" in sáhkku game sets "king's children", theorizing that the pieces were imported from another Sámi board game, dablo, which has such pieces. The queens in Lágesvuona sáhkku, do however have an entirely different function than the dablo king's children.

The game uses a standard sáhkku board, i.e. an elongated board upon which is drawn three rows of fifteen sárgát (short, vertical lines - singular sárggis), on which the pieces may stand. The middle sárggis on the middle row is "the Castle" ( Šloahtta), marked by a sun symbol or other symbol. On each side of the Castle, five sárgát away, are two sárgát marked by an X (sáhkku symbol) or other symbol.

There are 3×15 sárgát. As the game begins, 15 soldiers are placed on the 15 sárgát that constitute their player's "home row". The soldiers are called "men" and "women" ( olbmát and gálgut). Each side's army is led by a queen ( dronnet), which the players place on the rightmost X-marked sárggis on the middle row. The king ( gonagas), which begins neutral, is placed in the Castle.

There are three dice, inscribed with X-III-II-blank. X signifies "move an activated piece 1 sárggis", "activate a piece", or "rethrow die". The latter means that when a player throws X, they are allowed to rethrow the X-giving die in the hope of getting another value, and may rethrow again until the die lands on another value than X.

It is not optional which die value is used first. One must first use the dice showing X, then use the ones showing III, and following this use the ones showing II. If you have a III that you can't use to perform a legal move, and a II that you could have performed a legal move with, then you can't use the II.

Soldiers must be activated in order - rightmost soldier first. Unactivated soldiers can't be moved and can't be captured. It is never allowed to move a piece onto a sárggis occupied by an unoccupied soldier.

The soldiers' "track" is that they move to the right on their home row, to the left on the middle row, and to the right on the enemy row.

If a soldier should survive the enemy row, it moves onto the middle row and walks towards the left again. When it reaches the middle row's end for the second time, it must move down instead of up. It goes back into the home row and repeats the movement pattern.

If you lose all your soldiers, you have lost the game.

The king moves similarly to what is described under (C). It may move orthogonally up and down, by using exact die values: from the home row it needs II to cross directly over to the enemy row, and X to cross directly over to the middle row, while from the middle row it needs X to cross over to the home row or enemy row. Also, the king may move both forwards and backwards within the "8"-shaped movement pattern of the soldiers.

When the game begins, the king is neutral. When you move a soldier or queen of yours onto a sárggis occupied by the king, you recruit it. From now on, you may use it as your own piece. The king may never be captured, but can be recruited back by your opponent at any time.

The queen moves just like the king. When the game begins, the queen is unactivated. This means that she can't be moved and can't be captured, and no piece may be placed on the sárggis where she stands. She may be activated by using a sáhkku (X). Her activation move may be up, down, left, or right - dependent on what moves are legal for her in the concrete situation. Unlike the king, the queen can be captured just like an ordinary soldier. If you lose your queen, you have lost the game.

There may be several active soldiers on one sárggis, but all of them are captured if an enemy piece is moved onto the sárggis where they stand.

A royal piece may not share a sárggis with any other piece. The only exception to this rule is that you can move your soldier or queen onto a sárggis occupied by the enemy-controlled king, upon which you recruit the king. In no other circumstance is it legal to move another piece onto a sárggis occupied by a royal piece, or to move a royal piece onto a sárggis currently occupied by a piece that is part of its own army.

The rule stating that a royal piece cannot share a sárggis with another piece in its own army, and the above mentioned rule stating that a sárggis where an unactivated piece stands may not be entered by any active piece, have the effect that royal pieces are not very mobile in the beginning of a sáhkku game, but as pieces are activated or captured, the royal pieces become increasingly free to move around on the board.

This version of sáhkku is traditional both to the Vuovdaguoika area in Ohcejohka on the Finnish side of Sápmi, and by the fiord Gávkevuotna near North Cape on the Norwegian side of Sápmi. It is likely that it was played in several other locations between these two villages. Unlike Lágesvuotna sáhkku, which is a reconstructed game, and Návuotna sáhkku, the rules of which were written down before the game went out of play for some decades - this variant of sáhkku has been transferred between the generations in an unbroken line until today. The rules were also documented during the 1970s by the Sámi author Oahpt'ii Hánsa (Hans A. Guttorm) who had learnt the game from his father.

The design of the game set is fundamentally similar to that of Lágesvuotna sáhkku.

There are 3×15 sárgát. As the game begins, 15 soldiers are placed on the 15 sárgát that constitute their player's "home row". The soldiers can be called "men and women", and may also be referred to collectively as the players' soahteveagat (armies). There is no queen in play in this variant. The king ( gonagas), which begins neutral, is placed in the Castle.

There are three dice, inscribed with X-III-II-blank.

X ( sáhkku or ruossa) signifies "move an activated piece 1 sárggis" or "activate a piece". Dice may only be rethrown if a player gets 3*X.

Blank signifies "move four" instead of "no move".

You may use the dice in any order you like.

Soldiers must be activated in order - frontmost soldier first.

Unlike in Lágesvuotna sáhkku, unactivated soldiers may very well be captured.

It is not allowed to move a piece onto a sárggis occupied by a soldier in your own army.

Furthermore, a soldier may not jump (move past) a soldier of its own army. Players may agree to not use this rule, before initiating a game.

The moving pattern of the soldiers is different from that of Lágesvuotna sáhkku. Soldiers move towards the right in their home row, left on the middle row, and towards the right in the enemy row - but upon returning from the enemy's home row and having for the second time traversed the middle row, the soldiers head back up into the enemy's home row again, and never return to their own home row.

This moving pattern is called vuosttut. The game can also be played mieđut. In the latter case, one player follows the pattern described above but the other player moves in the opposite direction: left in the home row, right in the middle row, left in the enemy row. This leads the players' soldiers to "chase" one another across the middle row and enter each others' home rows "from behind".

The king moves as described in the rules under (A) - as an ordinary soldier. The main exception is that, unlike a normal soldier, it may pass (jump) soldiers of its own army. Also, it has a special "ramming" feature that will be explained below.

When the game begins, the king is neutral. When you move a soldier onto a point occupied by the king, you recruit it. From now on, you may use it as your own piece. The king may never be captured, but can be recruited back by your opponent at any time.

When moving a soldier onto the spot occupied by the king - no matter who it currently belongs to - the soldier "pushes" ( cadjat) the king one sárggis ahead. If an enemy soldier is on this sárggis, the king "rams" it and it is captured.

This version of sáhkku is traditional to the Návuotna fiord in North Troms. It exists in two sub-variants, one known as Ráisa sáhkku and the other as Máze sáhkku. The rules were written down in the 1950s by the researcher Yngvar Mejland from Ráisa. During the 1980s, a local variant was developed in the Inner Finnmark village Máze.

The Návuotna sáhkku board is designed with squares, as in chess, instead of sárgát. The king is often topped with a bishop's crook.

There are 3×13 squares, with twelve soldiers on each of the sides' home rows. In the starting position, the rightmost square (from the player's perspective) is left open.

In the Máze variant, the soldiers are referred to as áhkut (grandmothers) and ádját (grandfathers), and when inactive they are placed "face down" (lying) on their places. They are then said to be "sleeping" ( oađđit) and activating them is referred to as "waking" them ( boktet).

Návuotna sáhkku calls for two dice, instead of three. The dice show X-I-II-III. X signifies "move an activated piece 1 square", "activate a piece", or "rethrow die". The latter means that when a player throws X, they are allowed to rethrow the X-giving die in the hope of getting another value, and may rethrow again until the die lands on another value than X.

In the Ráisa variant it is not optional which dice value is used first. One must first use the dices showing X, then use the ones showing I, following this use the ones showing II, and only then use the ones showing III.

In the Máze variant, the order in which one uses the dice is entirely optional. In terms of concrete rules, this is the only difference between the Máze and Ráisa variants of Návuotna sáhkku.

Soldiers may be activated in whichever order the player desires. Unactivated soldiers may not move but may be captured. In the Máze variant, the capture of inactive pieces is referred to as "killing in the bedchambers" ( goddit oađđenlanjain).

Soldiers move towards the right in their home row, towards the left on the middle row, and towards the right in the enemy row.

Upon returning from the enemy's home row and having for the second time traversed the middle row, the soldiers head back up into the enemy's home row again, never returning to their own home row.

The king moves as described in the rules under (A) - as an ordinary soldier. If a player is left with only the king, they have lost the game. The king is hence a weaker piece than the ordinary soldiers, as the possession of a soldier prevents a player from losing but possession of the king does not.

When the game begins, the king is neutral. When you move a soldier onto a point occupied by the king, you recruit it. From now on, you may use it as your own piece. The king may never be captured, but can be recruited back by your opponent at any time.

The North Sámi word "sáhkku", which is the name of both the game and the throw "X", means " fine", as in "mulct" or "penalty". Researchers have recorded that in one Lule Sámi area ( Huhttán) the verb for playing sáhkku was "sakkotet". This is akin to sáhkkudit in modern Lule Sámi spelling, which means "to fine". On the other hand, the North Sámi verb for playing sáhkku is sáhkostallat, which has no other meaning.

...this king may perfectly well have meant god with the signification the Sámit give to that word, i.e. a natural power, neither good nor bad, with whom one has to deal anyway by making offerings. In our language sáhkku means 'penalty'. You may know the Sámit often give things new names just to avoid the minister's wrath, so they could say penalty while they really thought of offering."

The game was also referred to as to play birccut, which simply means to play "dice" in North Sámi. An alternative name for the game in Skolt Sámi, percc, means the same.

Interestingly, the word for the popular boardgame chess in Hungarian - which also belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family as Sámi - is sakk, pronounced [ʃɒkː].

Sáhkku is part of a family of running-fight games that has its oldest traceable roots in the Eastern Mediterranean, and has been played at least since the 1300s. Members of this family bear obvious similarities to the Roman game tabula (the ancestor of backgammon), and the playing boards often have similarities to the board of tabula's probable ancestor, the Roman game XII scripta. There has been much scholarly debate, but no conclusive answers, as to how the games has spread from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe.

Tâb (also known as ''deleb'' or ''sîg'') is a game played in northern Africa and south-western Asia. A very similar game, tablan, is traditional to India. When compared to sáhkku, tâb has somewhat different rules for moving pieces, and uses sticks in place of dice. The board is often larger, using four rows instead of three, although variants played with three rows also occur in Northern Africa. Pieces can be stacked and moved together, on the risk that all but one of them are lost if the stack is placed on a point where one of the pieces have been before. There is no king or kings' children present in the game - that feature is exclusive to sáhkku.

The first description of a game which is certain to be tâb occurred in 1694, that is some decades after Schefferus' book Lapponia described the use of sáhkku dice in Sápmi (see below). However, a game assumed to be a predecessor of tâb was mentioned in a poem already in 1310. The researcher Thierry Depaulis argues that the game was played "by the 10th century at least".

The game daldøs, played in parts of Denmark and southern Norway, is an obvious relative of sáhkku and tâb. Daldøs uses dice that are more or less identical to the sáhkku dice. Its rules are more similar to Ráisá sáhkku than to how sáhkku is generally played, but still different enough to be described as a fundamentally other game than Ráisá sáhkku. In place of moving pieces on short lines or squares on a board, daldøs applies pegs that are moved from hole to hole on a board. Several pegs are not allowed to occupy the same hole (something that they obviously cannot, physically, do), and pegs belonging to the same player cannot pass one another. Furthermore, the pegs move in the same direction, as one player enters the middle row from the left, whereas the other enters the middle row from the right. The middle row is also one hole longer than the home rows, a similarity shared with a version of tâb played in Algeria. Finally, daldøs features neither a king, nor queens or for that matter "king's children".

Daldøs is first mentioned in passing in a Danish work of fiction from 1876, the plot of which was set to the 1600s. The rules were not explained by the author, but an interested reader tracked down a person who knew the rules during the 1920s. The oldest surviving game set is no older than the early 1800s.

It is generally assumed that tâb, daldøs and sáhkku have not developed separately, but are related to one another, and that the game has its origin in the Middle East. Several theories have been put forth as to how the tâb tradition travelled from such southern latitudes to the northernmost reaches of Sápmi. Borvo referred to three opportunities as the ''Pomor track'', the ''Kven track'', and the ''Viking track'', while Depaulis argued for a ''Varangian track'', and added a hypothetical ''Vandal track''.

The ''Varangian track'' favored by Depaulis posits that Vikings who travelled in Eastern and Southeastern Europe between the 800s and 1000s may have learnt a game of the tâb family in Byzantium, brought it home, and that daldøs and sáhkku developed out of this. Depaulis notes that objections to this theory include that there is no evidence that the tâb type of games existed in the Middle East at such an early point in history, and that the east-faring Vikings were mainly from contemporary Sweden, whereas daldøs and sáhkku are generally known to have been played only within the contemporary borders of Norway and Denmark - the confirmed exceptions to the latter being localities in Finland and Russia that were immediate neighbors to the Coast Sámi of Norway.

The ''Pomor track'' posits that a tâb-type game was introduced to the Sámi by Russian merchants through the Pomor trade (ca. 1740-1917). The ''Kven track'' suggests that the Kvens, immigrants from Finland who arrived in the 1700s and 1800s, brought the game with them. Sáhkku was generally played on the North Coast of Sápmi, the areas where the Sámi were most involved in the Pomor trade, and which were targeted by Kven immigration. Borvo notes that the absence of any traditional tâb-type game in Russia, except the sáhkku of the Russian Sámi, speaks against the Pomor track, and that the same applies for the Kven track since the Finns have no tâb-type games of their own. Depaulis additionally doubts the Kven and Pomor tracks because he finds it hard to imagine that the Norwegians and Danes based their daldøs game on the Sámi sáhkku game, but he does not give any arguments as to why this is any less likely than the opposite; nor does he address the possibility that daldøs and sáhkku could have developed separately, but with roots in the same Middle Eastern progenitor.

The ''Viking track'' preferred by Borvo posits that west-faring Norse seafarers learnt the game in the south, adapted it to daldøs, and introduced the game to the Sámi, who again made sáhkku from that basis. If this is to have happened in the Viking Age, táb-type games must be older than what written sources indicate. Depaulis adds to Borvo's ''Viking track'' theory by pointing to relationships between the Western Vikings (of contemporary Denmark and Norway) and Islamic Spain during the 800s, although this again presupposes that tâb is older than what written sources indicate. Borvo notes that the absence of sáhkku and daldøs traditions on the long stretch of coastline between Jæren in the south and Ivguvuotna in the north does not speak in favor of this theory, or indeed any theory presupposing that tâb-type games were at one point played along the entire western coast of Scandinavia. He speculates that the game may have died out south of Ivgovuotna because it was only in the far north that the Coast Sámi made certain innovations to the game that made it interesting enough to keep playing for centuries (i.e. the king and king's children, the increased freedom of pieces to move). This explanation presses the question of why the less "exciting" version, daldøs, did survive in southern Scandinavia.

The general idea that the game spread from Africa and Asia along the west coast of Europe, gets some support from the findings of what is assumed to be related game boards stemming from seafaring communities around southern England: What appears to be a board for a game in the same family was found in the wreckage of the English warship Mary Rose, which sank south of England in 1545. Likewise, a 13th-century manuscript from Dorset includes a drawing of a game board which is seen as having probably been used to play a game of this family. This last finding predates the first mention a game called "tâb", and both findings predate the first description of tâb. Like daldøs, both the Mary Rose game board and the Dorset board feature an "extra" point on the middle row.

Finally, Depaulis points to a speculative opposite direction of this game family's spread - the ''Vandal track'', in which a three-rowed running-fight game was brought from the North to Northern Africa by Vandals in the period 400-500 CE, and spread from there to the Middle East. This would imply that tâb developed from a North European game tradition, and not the other way around. It also implies that sáhkku and its northern relatives may be direct descendants of the original North European running-fight game.

All of these theories have in common that there is little to no textual or material evidence to back any of them up. In addition to the sparse written sources, a key difficulty is that the tâb types of game were generally made from "ephemeral" materials which do not leave long-lasting material remains: often wood in the North, and in the Middle East the game has often simply been drawn in the sand, using twigs and stones for pieces and dice.

As regards sáhkku, this lack of material artifacts problem was made worse by Nazi Germany's burning of Finnmark and North Troms in 1944-45. Operation Nordlicht targeted the region with scorched earth tactics, and destroyed the pre-World War II material culture of the Coast Sámi almost in its entirety. The Wehrmacht had done the same in Finnish Lapland before initiating the destruction of Finnmark and North Troms. Since this calamity struck precisely the region where sáhkku had mainly been played, it is unlikely that any game sets older than 1944 survived, except those that were stored in museums outside of the region.

It is unknown how long sáhkku has been played among the Sámi. The earliest mention in writing of what could be sáhkku was made by Johannes Schefferus in his book Lapponia (1673), where he states that the Sámi use dice that he describes as having the shape and markings of contemporary sáhkku dice. He credits Olaus Sirma with giving him this information. Schefferus did not, however, describe any game similar to sáhkku. After this, it is not until 1841 when a written source speaks of a game called sáhkku being played, then in the Lule Sámi area. This is generally assumed to have been the same game as the one described here, although no further description of that game was given. The first unambiguous description of sáhkku was made by J. A. Friis in 1871, who accounted in detail for a version played in Finnmark (see drawing below).

Friis' description shows that the king piece unique to this tâb-type game had by then been invented, but he makes no mention of queens or for that matter "king's children". However, the oldest existing sáhkku board (1876) features markings that indicate the place where the queens are set in Lágesvuotna sáhkku, although the set does not include the actual pieces.

Likewise, Michaelsen speculates that in some variants the third pieces may have been not queens but king's children inspired by the Sámi board game dablo which has such pieces. Tablut was documented in the 1700s, while dablo was mainly documented in the 1800s and early 1900s. Both of these are, like sáhkku, specifically Sámi board games that belong to a larger family of games - tablut is of the North European tafl family, while dablo is of the alquerque family that has its earliest traceable roots in the Middle East, and came to Europe through Spain.

While descriptions of tablut and dablo are generally from the South Sámi area, more precisely Jämtland and southern Swedish Lapland, sáhkku has to our knowledge generally been played on the coast and the eastern inland of the North Sámi and Skolt Sámi area, in a region ranging from Ivguvuotna to Peäccam. According to Anders Larsen the game was also played by coastal Sámi further south, in Nordland county. Hence, sáhkku has at least during the last two centuries mainly been played in the core area of the Coast Sámi culture. The game is, however, also known to have been played in northern parts of Finnish Lapland, more precisely Ohcejohka and Aanar, and among the Skolt Sámi of contemporary Norway, Finland and Russia. See also the above mention of a game called sáhkku being played among the Lule Sámi of Huhttán, Swedish Lapland.

Outside of Sápmi, what is speculated to be a sáhkku king has been found in Spitzbergen (1890), although this piece could also be a chess king. It has, however, been documented by V. Carlheim-Gyllensköld (cited by researcher Peter Michaelsen) that Russians in Spitzbergen did indeed play sáhkku in the 1890s. This variant employed 2*13 soldiers and one king, on a board with 3*13 lines. Uniquely, they also used six-sided dice. One of the sides was marked "X", one was blank, and the remaining sides marked with strokes (I-II-III-IIII). The "X" was referred to by the Russians as sakko, a name confirming that these Russians had indeed learnt the game from the Sámi, or alternately that they themselves were Russian Sámi.

Sáhkku today

Sáhkku was considered a sinful game by Christian missionaries and Laestadian evangelists. As a result of this religious pressure - in addition to official Norwegianization policy's pressure to abandon all aspects of Sámi culture and identity, and the destruction of Coast Sámi material culture during World War II - sáhkku began to fall out of use in Sámi communities after the 1950s. In some localities the game was still played regularly during the 1960s (often in secrecy to avoid negative reactions from those with religious objections to it) but it eventually fell out of widespread usage.

Sámi cultural revitalization began to pick up speed during the 1970s and 1980s, and in this period some copies of old sáhkku game sets were made. During the 1980s and 1990s the game began to be sporadically played again in Máze, Inner Finnmark, and Lágesvuotna, coastal eastern Finnmark.

In the period around the change of the millennium, researchers began to take an interest in sáhkku and its history, leading to several articles published about the subject in English and French. Since then, several small internet-based actors have begun to offer sáhkku sets for sale, but the game is still not widely available on the market.

During 2018, there have been several sáhkku playing events in Sápmi and southern Norway, among others an open cup held by Sámi organizations in Oslo. The cup was played in accordance with the Lágesvuotna rules.

Daldøs, a south Scandinavian relative of Sáhkku.

Tâb, a possible Middle Eastern relative of Sáhkku.

Tablut, the Sámi version of the Scandinavian Tafl games, from which the rules of modern Hnefatafl are drawn. Although the name is similar, tablut is not a relative of tâb.

Dablot Prejjesne, a Sámi game similar to alquerque and draughts.

1. Larsen 1950, p. 171. For comparison, the modern North Sámi word for "to fine" is ^ sáhkkohit'.

2. Although ^ Anders Larsen described a game called cuhkkálávdi, essentially dablo without officer pieces and on a smaller board, as being played by the Coast Sámi of Northern Troms, cf. Michaelsen 2010, p. 218, 220; Larsen 1950, 171

3. Brenli, Erik: ^ "Verdenspremiere". Ságát 19.10.2018; Brenli, Erik: "Verdens første sáhkku-cup i Oslo: Furuly til topps"

Larsen, Anders (1950), Mearrasámiid birra. In Mearrasámiid birra - ja eará čállosat / Om sjøsamene - og andre skrifter. Edited by Ivar Bjørklund and Harald Gaski (2014)., 4, Karasjok: ČálliidLágádus SÁMIacademia

Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel (2018), Ná sáhkostalat!, Daabloe/Vuonnamárkanat

Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel (2018b), Hvordan spille dablo og sáhkku. Mer om samiske brettspill., Daabloe

Friis, J. A. (1871), Lappisk mytologi. Eventyr og folkesagn., Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer

Hansen, Jostein (2013), "Samisk avdeling og samiske studenter på Lærerutdanninga i Alta" in Lund, S. "Samisk skolehistorie 6", Karasjok: Davvi Girji

Mejland, Yngvar (1953), "Sakko", Bygd og by, Oslo, 8

Michaelsen, Peter (2000), "Daldøs og Sakku - to gamle nordiske spil", Ord & Sag, Aarhus: Institut for Jysk Sprog- og Kulturforskning, 19: 15-29, ISSN 0108-8025

Lagercrantz, Eliel (1939), Lappischer Wortschatz, Helsinki

Depaulis, Thierry (2001), "An Arab Game in the North Pole?" (PDF), Board Games Studies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 4: 77-82, ISBN 90-5789-075-5, ISSN 1566-1962

Michaelsen, Peter (2001), "Daldøs, an almost forgotten dice board game" (PDF), Board Games Studies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 4: 19-31, ISBN 90-5789-075-5, ISSN 1566-1962

Michaelsen, Peter (2003), "On some unusual types of stick dice.", Board Games Studies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 6: 9-25

Michaelsen, Peter (2010), "Dablo - A Sámi game.", Variant Chess, St. Leonards-on-the-Sea, East Sussex, 64: 218-221

Walker, Damian (2011), Tablan, 43, Cynningstan. Traditional board game series

Østergaard and Gaston, Eric and Anne (2001), "Daldøs - the rules" (PDF), Board Games Studies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 4: 15-17, ISBN 90-5789-075-5, ISSN 1566-1962

Cazaux, Jean-Louis (2012), Les jeux des parcours. A travers les siecles et les continentes., Toulouse: Pionissimo, pp. 87-90, ISBN 978-2-9541313-1-3

Depaulis, Thierry (2001), "Jeux de parcours du monde arabo-musulman (Afrique du Nord et Proche-Orient)" (PDF), Board Games Studies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 4: 53-76 (English summary p 149), ISBN 90-5789-075-5, ISSN 1566-1962

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Sáhkku set. Left to right: male soldier, queen of the men, king, queen of the women, female soldier. Front: sáhkku dice. Years active First documented in the 1600s.

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It's a strategy board game originate from Norse, which was very similar to the game that the Viking plays.

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A tablut set made in about 2007

Played in Lapland till the eighteenth century, tablut is the version of hnefatafl for which we have the most complete rules. A king attempts to reach the edge of the board, which has nine rows of nine squares. Eight defenders aid him in his quest, while sixteen attackers attempt to capture him.
History of Tablut

History of Tablut

An account of tablut was recorded by the young Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1732. Unbeknown to Linnaeus, this was a version of a game that had been played in his homeland centuries before, hnefatafl. The game must have been passed to the Saami people of Lapland by the Norwegians or the Swedes in mediaeval times, as chess had displaced it in those countries shortly after the thirteenth century.

The Saami pasted a theme onto the game: this was a battle with a Swedish king and his eight defenders, who were being attacked by sixteen Muscovite attackers. Apart from the theme, this game is assumed to be very close in its rules to the games that the Vikings played.

Linnaeus recorded the game in Latin. He left out only a few details, for instance, who moved first. Some rules were included by example, rather than by direct statements. Some rules were apparently exceptions to others, but were not explicitly stated as such, making them look like contradictions. All this made translation and interpretation difficult.

This led to a faulty English translation, which appeared in 1811 as the first publication of the rules. Done by British biologist James Edward Smith, this translation attempted to resolve the "contradictions" by ignoring or correcting contradictory rules. Thorough playtesting, not within Smith's remit, would expose these rules as unbalanced.

From this situation there sprang a multiplicity of variants of tablut, and of hnefatafl in general, that attempted to rebalance the game by misdirected reinterpretation (of the English rules), by borrowing from other games, or by sheer imagination. This process started in 1855 with the publication of Imperial Contest, the first commercial tablut game, and continued till the 21st century.

Some time after 2010 an untranslated version of Linnaeus' early work was digitised and made available on-line, allowing anyone to see the original Latin rules for themselves. This resolved many problems, and showed that with the exception of a few details, Linnaeus had recorded a perfectly balanced and playable game.

These rules have been re-translated into English and other modern languages, and have been given a number of thorough play-tests in competition. They are now becoming a standard for tablut, and for other versions of hnefatafl on larger boards too.
Rules for Tablut

Rules for Tablut

The rules recorded in Latin by Carl Linnaeus give almost a complete game, lacking only a few particulars, such as who moves first. Below is presented a complete and playable scheme, followed by notes on what has been added, or in one instance changed, from Linnaeus' original Latin description.

1. Tablut is played on a board of 9×9 squares.

2. There are 25 pieces: a king and his eight defenders, and sixteen attackers. These are placed in the shape of a cross with serifs, as in the diagram.

3. The attacking side takes the first move.

4. Pieces move any distance orthogonally, not landing on nor jumping over other pieces on the board.

5. No piece may land on the central square, called the "castle", not even the king once he has left it.

6. A piece other than the king is captured when it is surrounded orthogonally on two opposite squares by enemies. The king can pair up with a defender for the purpose of capturing attackers.

7. A piece may also be captured between an enemy and the empty castle.

8. When in the castle, the king is captured by surrounding him on four orthogonal sides with attackers.

9. When stood beside the castle, the king may be captured by surrounding him on the remaining three sides with attackers.

10. Elsewhere on the board, the king is captured as other pieces.

11. If the king when in the castle is surrounded on three sides by attackers, and on the fourth by a defender, the defender may be captured by surrounding it between an attacker and the king.

12. The king wins the game on reaching any square at the edge of the board. The attackers win if they capture the king.

13. The game is drawn if a position is repeated, if a player cannot move, or if the players otherwise agree it.

Rule 3 is a modern invention. Linnaeus does not state who moves first, but having the question settled one way or another makes it easier to record games and hold tournaments.

In rule 5, the king is barred from his own castle. Linnaeus states that no piece can enter this central square, and this rule interprets that literally.

An addition to the rules not found in Linnaeus' Latin text is the word "empty" in rule 7. This has been added because, without it, rule 11 would be completely redundant. As it is, rule 11 describes the one instance where a defending piece can be captured against the non-empty central square.

Rule 12 is formulated by inference. Linnaeus gives only a few examples of where the king must reach to win the game, all at various points on the edge of the board.

Rule 13 is a modern invention designed to prevent games going on forever or coming to a standstill when neither player is able to win.
Strategy in Tablut

Strategy in Tablut

The 9x9 board used by tablut is the smallest in which the blockade becomes a major strategic consideration. There are enough attacking pieces to close off the defenders' access to the board edge, if the defenders do nothing to stop this.

The king is relatively safe in his castle. But once out into the field, he becomes vulnerable. Though he is captured in the same way as a defender, his vulnerability is greater as his loss ends the game, thus in reality making him a weaker piece. A defender may make bold attacks with the possibility of sacrifice to obtain a better position for its side, the king does not have this capability.

Because the king wins at the board's edge, the defenders must try to make use of open ranks or files, that is, a rank or file with no pieces upon it. If the king can reach an open rank or file, giving simultaneous routes to two opposite edges, then his victory is certain unless he can be immediately captured. It is not possible to block off both routes at once. The attackers must try to take control of open ranks and files as soon as possible, and in the mean time prevent the king from reaching them.

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Played in Lapland till the eighteenth century, tablut is the version of hnefatafl for which we have the most complete rules. A king attempts to reach the edge of the board, which has nine rows of nine squares. Eight defenders aid him in his quest, while sixteen attackers attempt to capture him.

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This is a traditional sports games from Norway, which the players will have their own circle and they are going to kick on a special ball called "basse". The purpose of the game is to score and defends other from kicking the ball into your circle

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What is basse?
Instructions and info in English.
Basse is an old Norwegian game reminiscent of bag ball, where you defend your square (actually, it's a circle). In the game everyone plays against everyone else.
Check out our page on facebook here
First and foremost it is a game, but you don't have to compete and crown a winner to enjoy basse. You can also play basse stricktly for recreational (or meditative) purposes, making tricks or just passing the ball between the players.

A relaxing game of basse...

It is Trondheim and the Trøndelag counties which is most often connected to this game, but other cities in Norway, such as Mo and Larvik, also have solid basse-traditions.

People have probably always had the need for kicking things. Either to compete, or simply to get something out of the system. Basse originated a long time ago, maybe around the year 1900 and there are many theories as to how and why.

Some say it was a result of the "invention" of football (soccer) and developed as a cheap or free alternative, when one (maybe) could not afford a leather ball.

As time went by basse earned a place in culture as a sport in its own right, especially from around the 1950s.
VIDEO: See how a basse is made here.
The basse is made from cut bicycle rubber tubes. The tube should be worn out or well used.

You do not need a lot of muscle to play basse, but good technique, balance, speed and agility is an advantage.

How to play basse

The rules and regulations of basse depend upon the time and place. Part of the charm of the game is that there are no written rules or regulations. Parts of the descriptions below are collected from the rules of the World Championships of Basse. It is, of course, all right to make ones own variations based on these.

Make the squares
The first thing one has to do is to make the squares (circles) on the ground. Every contestant makes his own square, and aims to make it as similar to the others as possible. A diameter of 1-1,5 meters is suitable.

Try to draw the squares so that one has a square in the middle. The other squares are drawn with equal distance to each other around the middle square.

It is important that the squares are not drawn too close to each other. 30-40 cm apart is okay. Make sure to agree upon from which square to enter and exit the middle square.
Run-through of the game:
If you are at the receiving end of an approved goal, you get a dot against you. Agree upon how many dots it takes before you are out. 3 is most common.

The serve
The game starts with a server. The serve must not be lower than knee-height, and must be done with just one hit at the basse with the foot.

The game
You can hit the basse with all parts of the body except arms and hands.
The point of the game is to defend your square so that the basse doesn't hit the ground inside it, but rather get the basse into someone else's square. If you get an approved goal against yourself you are given a dot. It is not allowed to stand in someone else's square. If the basse hits the ground outside the squares, a new serve is done by the player closest to the basse (or whoever playing).

Goal
The whole basse must hit the square within its boundaries for the goal to be approved. If its touching the circle, it's not a goal ("strek"). If there's any doubt wether the basse did touch the circle, it's a nice rule to say it wasn't a goal.

After an approved goal everyone moves one square clockwise before the next serve. The reason for this is that everyone gets the chance to defend the most 'demanding' squares.

Annulling the goal
The goal is annulled if;
a) the basse is dropped from 'potty' (between the thighs, the mouth or other bodily cavities) and into another players square
b) the player who scores steps into the square of the player with the goal against him

Goal on the receiving end of serve is annulled if:
c) the serve does not have a bent orbit
d) the serve is not in knee-height at any point of the orbit
e) the serve is an extension, i.e., a very hard shot by way of the receivers body and into his square

All goals are annulled at return serves ("gjenlegg"), i.e., the recipient of the serve plays straight back into the square of the player who just served, before the basse has been in contact with a third player (or the server himself).

Dead-squares
When a player leaves, the square he or she was defending becomes a dead-square. If the basse hits the dead-square, the following may occur, depending upon which rules you have chosen to follow:

1. The last one in touch with the basse leaves the game, no matter what the dot-status is
2. The last player in touch with the basse gets a dot
3. Nothing happens, if you choose to disregard the dead-square rules. Just pick it up and serve again.

Hands and penalties
Hands is counted only after a deliberate touching of the basse with the arm. If the basse falls into the perpetrator's square right after the hands it is counted as a goal and no penalty is taken.The penalty is made by the one who last touched the basse before the hands. There are many variations on the penalty-shot, the most common rules are:

: executor should try to put or kick the basse in the perpetrator's square.
: executor must touch his square with at least one foot.
: the basse should be laying still on the foot before executing.
: the perpetrator must touch the circle at the back of his square with one foot until the executor has lifted his foot from the ground.
: no knee-height rule during a penalty shot.
: executor is allowed to pass the basse to another player.
: if the penalty shot is saved and the basse still is in the air the basse is back in ordinary play.

Basse out of play
The basse is put out of play as a result of the following incidences:
a) the basse hits the ground
b) hands
c) during "stamp" (downward movement of the foot where the basse is hit or is thought to be hit with the sole of the foot) close to another player
d) during high kicks close to another players head
e) when a player is physically attacked with pushing and shoving

One shall attack the basse, not the player.

Final
When there are only 2 players left a final is played. During the final there is alternate serves until a winner as been declared. Difficult serves can be objected to and must then be served again. During finals return serves are allowed.

Judging
The players are their own judges and in most cases the majority rules. Players who have left the game are welcome to continue to rule.The players are responsible to keep track of the number of dots they have incurred. To aid this you have occasional rounds where everyone announces.
Grounds
Hints for playing

Basse can (and should) as a principle be played on any kind of surface.

Gravel: It is easier to draw the squares, but they are quicker to be erased. You get dirtier, but the danger of twisting your ankle is less than on tarmac. On this surface it is easier to judge if the basse was inside the square, as it leaves marks in the dirt. It is easier to let go and make the game more spectacular on this surface. Avoid the driest and dustiest grounds.

Tarmac: Drawn with white / signal spray paint, paint or chalk the squares are more durable on this surface. Increased danger of twisting joints and ankles. No trace-marks from the basse to help judge goals or penalties. When painting permanent basse-grounds it is recommended to plan the size, the number of squares and the distance between them with utmost care before you commit paint to the tarmac.

Grass: Grass is always an excellent choice of grounds for sport. It maybe difficult to draw squares here, but if you play net-basse grass feels wonderful to play on. Also when you are training, i.e., centring and practicing tricks grass is a firm favourite to play on.

Indoors: Basse can easily be played indoors, but maybe it is best to concentrate on centring. Fine motor skills, passes and balance can also be practiced indoors, but move antiques and valuables out of the way!

Indoor play in halls and gyms is fine, but also here you could face difficulties drawing up the squares. You should ally yourself with owners and maintenance-staff before spraying or painting squares in places like this.

Making squares
Make the square with your heel, the inside of your shoe, a rock or a stick. If you use a piece of string as the radius and a stick at the end of it you get perfect circles as well as even thickness of the line.

If you use one of your feet as the center and draw the square with the other foot, the square is fine, but the line has a tendency to be on the thick side.

If you play on tarmac you can use white/signal spray paint, chalk or a colored rock to draw the squares. Painting squares takes more planning ahead and time.

Try to work out a reasonable collection of squares; take the number of players into account. If it's not too many players it is a good idea to draw the middle square first and the others around this one.

Distance between squares
It is important that the squares are not drawn too closely. You get more space for 'runs' and you don't bump into each other all the time. Recommended distance between squares is 30-40 cm.

Number of players
To get the best out of a round of basse, 4-8 players is recommended. 5-6 is the optimum. If you are too many players there is just too little room and you do not get involved enough in the game. Also it takes too long for the round to finish. If you are a lot of players it is better to split into groups to play and have a final between the groups at the end.

Kicking the basse/balance
Basse is largely a question of balance and swift changes of the centre of gravity. If you are in balance when you have the basse you are well advised to use the inside of your foot. With regards to the mobility of the foot this gives the best control for centring and tricks.

During harder shots (smashes) the ankle is often used. It's easier to get power behind the shot when you turn around in the air to kick the basse downwards.

The inner side of the foot is also good to make shots with, but it takes a lot of practice to get them hard enough. However, with the inner side it's normally easier to hit the target more accurate.

Experienced basse-players have 'basse-muscles' and are able to produce spectacular shots from any angle or side.

Reception
It is often a good idea to lower the velocity of the basse on thighs or the chest to find your balance again before you shoot or centres on - or hit a giant smash.

Attack
Even if the point of the game is to get the basse into someone else's square, it doesn't mean that co-operation and playing beautifully is taboo. Spectacular runs, centres and turns are encouraged. The term 'back-room' gets a new dimension in basse.

Defence
Because one shall defend the square it is important to place oneself in relation to where the basse is. It is well advised to stand at the front of the square and make yourself 'big', but note that too wide a scope will make it easier to hit a tunnel.

If you play a final, one should leave the square to make it smaller, but note the risk of a lob.

Dead-square
It might be advisable to move the dead-square in relation to how many players are left and where they are located. If the basse lands in the dead-square the player is out of the game ("blakka") or is given a dot.

It is also common to play without dead-squares, but the rounds will take longer to complete. This should all be agreed upon before the round commences.

Game exit
To be the first to leave the game is boring, but there is no use crying over spilt basse (!). Make sure you have a number of basses available, so that you can practice and keep warmed up and limber until the next round starts.

Final
The final is a game between the last two who are stil in the game. It's recomended that the player with the least dots serves first in the final. With an equal number of dots it is noble to offer to serve first.

To avoid getting too close during the final it can be a good idea to play with a square between the two finalists.

It is best to play without dead-squares in the final. It is no fun loosing that way, besides, it is more worthy of a winner to finish off with a smash or a lob.

Rules
There are many variations on the rules of basse and one can make ones own as one tries out different kinds of basse-play. Just agree upon which rules apply before the game begins.

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Lars Haugdal Andersen, bidragsytere og forfattere

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Instructions and info in English. Basse is an old Norwegian game reminiscent of bag ball, where you defend your square (actually, it's a circle). In the game everyone plays against everyone else. Check out our page on facebook here First and foremost it is a game, but you don't have to compete and crown a winner to enjoy basse.

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Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield-particularly in the British Isles and Iceland-during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries CE. Viking art has many design elements in common with Celtic, Germanic, the later Romanesque and Eastern European art, sharing many influences with each of these traditions.

Generally speaking, the current knowledge of Viking art relies heavily upon more durable objects of metal and stone; wood, bone, ivory and textiles are more rarely preserved; human skin, which historical sources indicate was often elaborately tattooed[citation needed ], is nowhere extant and is unlikely to have survived. The artistic record therefore, as it has survived to the present day, remains significantly incomplete. Ongoing archaeological excavation and opportunistic finds, of course, may improve this situation in the future, as indeed they have in the recent past.

Viking art is usually divided into a sequence of roughly chronological styles, although outside Scandinavia itself local influences are often strong, and the development of styles can be less clear.

The Vikings' regional origins lay in Scandinavia, the northernmost peninsula of continental Europe, while the term 'Viking' likely derived from their own term for coastal raiding-the activity by which many neighbouring cultures became acquainted with the inhabitants of the region.

Viking raiders attacked wealthy targets on the north-western coasts of Europe from the late 8th until the mid-11th century CE. Pre-Christian traders and sea raiders, the Vikings first enter recorded history with their attack on the Christian monastic community on Lindisfarne Island in 793.

The Vikings initially employed their longships to invade and attack European coasts, harbours and river settlements on a seasonal basis. Subsequently, Viking activities diversified to include trading voyages to the east, west and south of their Scandinavian homelands, with repeated and regular voyages following river systems east into Russia and the Black and Caspian Sea regions, and west to the coastlines of the British Isles, Iceland and Greenland. Evidence exists for Vikings reaching Newfoundland well before the later voyages of Christopher Columbus came to the New World.

Trading and merchant activities were accompanied by settlement and colonisation in many of these territories.

Wood was undoubtedly the primary material of choice for Viking artists, being relatively easy to carve, inexpensive and abundant in northern Europe. The importance of wood as an artistic medium is underscored by chance survivals of wood artistry at the very beginning and end of the Viking period, namely, the Oseberg ship-burial carvings of the early 9th century and the carved decoration of the Urnes Stave Church from the 12th century. As summarised by James Graham-Campbell: "These remarkable survivals allow us to form at least an impression of what we are missing from original corpus of Viking art, although wooden fragments and small-scale carvings in other materials (such as antler, amber and walrus ivory) provide further hints. The same is inevitably true of the textile arts, although weaving and embroidery were clearly well-developed crafts."

With the exception of the Gotlandic picture stones prevalent in Sweden early in the Viking period, stone carving was apparently not practiced elsewhere in Scandinavia until the mid-10th century and the creation of the royal monuments at Jelling in Denmark. Subsequently, and likely influenced by the spread of Christianity, the use of carved stone for permanent memorials became more prevalent.

Beyond the discontinuous artifactual records of wood and stone, the reconstructed history of Viking art to date relies most on the study of decoration of ornamental metalwork from a great variety of sources. Several types of archaeological context have succeeded in preserving metal objects for present study, while the durability of precious metals in particular has preserved much artistic expression and endeavour.

Jewellery was worn by both men and women, though of different types. Married women fastened their overdresses near the shoulder with matching pairs of large brooches. Modern scholars often call them "tortoise brooches" because of their domed shape. The shapes and styles of women's paired brooches varied regionally, but many used openwork. Women often strung metal chains or strings of beads between the brooches, or suspended ornaments from the bottom of the brooches. Men wore rings on their fingers, arms and necks, and held their cloaks closed with penannular brooches, often with extravagantly long pins. Their weapons were often richly decorated on areas such as sword hilts. The Vikings mostly used silver or bronze jewellery, the latter sometimes gilded, but a small number of large and lavish pieces or sets in solid gold have been found, probably belonging to royalty or major figures.

Decorated metalwork of an everyday nature is frequently recovered from Viking period graves, on account of the widespread practice of making burials accompanied by grave goods. The deceased was dressed in their best clothing and jewellery, and was interred with weapons, tools, and household goods. Less common, but significant nonetheless, are finds of precious metal objects in the form of treasure hoards, many apparently concealed for safe-keeping by owners later unable to recover their contents, although some may have been deposited as offerings to the gods.

Recently, given the increasing popularity and legality of metal-detecting, an increasing frequency of single, chance finds of metal objects and ornaments (most probably representing accidental losses) is creating a fast expanding corpus of new material for study.

Viking coins fit well into this latter category, but nonetheless form a separate category of Viking period artefact, their design and decoration largely independent of the developing styles characteristic of wider Viking artistic endeavour.

A non-visual source of information for Viking art lies in skaldic verse, the complex form of oral poetry composed during the Viking Age and passed on until written down centuries later. Several verses speak of painted forms of decoration that have but rarely survived on wood and stone. The 9th century skald poet Bragi Boddason, for example, cites four apparently unrelated scenes painted on a shield. One of these scenes depicted the god Thor's fishing expedition, which motif is also referenced in a 10th-century poem by Úlfr Uggason describing the paintings in a newly constructed hall in Iceland.

A continuous artistic tradition common to most of north-western Europe and developing from the 4th century CE formed the foundations on which Viking Age art and decoration were built: from that period onwards, the output of Scandinavian artists was broadly focused on varieties of convoluted animal ornamentation used to decorate a wide variety of objects.

The art historian Bernhard Salin was the first to systematise Germanic animal ornament, dividing it into three styles (I, II and III). The latter two were subsequently subdivided by Arwidsson into three further styles: Style C, flourishing during the 7th century and into the 8th century, before being largely replaced (especially in southern Scandinavia) by Style D. Styles C and D provided the inspiration for the initial expression of animal ornament within the Viking Age, Style E, commonly known as the Oseberg / Broa Style. Both Styles D and E developed within a broad Scandinavian context which, although in keeping with north-western European animal ornamentation generally, exhibited little influence from beyond Scandinavia.

Although preliminary formulations were made in the late 19th century, the history of Viking art first achieved maturity in the early 20th century with the detailed publication of the ornate wood-carvings discovered in 1904 as part of the Oserberg ship-burial by the Norwegian archaeologist Haakon Shetelig.

Importantly, it was the English archaeologist David M. Wilson, working with his Danish colleague Ole Klindt-Jensen to produce the 1966 survey work Viking Art, who created foundations for the systematic characterisation of the field still employed today, together with a developed chronological framework.

David Wilson continued to produce mostly English-language studies on Viking art in subsequent years, joined over recent decades by the Norwegian art-historian Signe Horn Fuglesang with her own series of important publications. Together these scholars have combined authority with accessibility to promote the increasing understanding of Viking art as a cultural expression.

The art of the Viking Age is organised into a loose sequence of stylistic phases which, despite significant overlap in style and chronology, may be defined and distinguished on account both of formal design elements and of recurring compositions and motifs:

Oseberg Style

Borre Style

Jellinge Style

Mammen Style

Ringerike Style

Urnes Style

Unsurprisingly, these stylistic phases appear in their purest form in Scandinavia itself; elsewhere in the Viking world, notable admixtures from external cultures and influences frequently appear. In the British Isles, for example, art historians identify distinct, 'Insular' versions of Scandinavian motifs, often directly alongside 'pure' Viking decoration.

The Oseberg Style characterises the initial phase in what has been considered Viking art. The Oseberg Style takes its name from the Oseberg Ship grave, a well-preserved and highly decorated longship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold, Norway, which also contained a number of other richly decorated wooden objects.

A characteristic motif of the Oseberg Style is the so-called gripping beast. This motif is what clearly distinguishes the early Viking art from the styles that preceded it. The chief features of the gripping beast are the paws that grip the borders around it, neighbouring beasts or parts of its own body.

Currently located at the Viking Ship Museum, Bygdøy, and over 70 feet long, the Oseberg Ship held the remains of two women and many precious objects that were probably removed by robbers early before it was found. The Oseberg ship itself is decorate with a more traditional style of animal interlace that does not feature the gripping beast motif. However, five carved wooden animal-head posts were found in the ship, and the one known as the Carolingian animal-head post is decorated with gripping beasts, as are other grave goods from the ship. The Carolingian head represents a snarling beast, possibly a wolf, with surface ornamentation in the form of interwoven animals that twist and turn as they are gripping and snapping.

The Oseberg style is also characterized by traditions from the Vendel era, and it is nowadays not always accepted as an independent style.

Borre Style embraces a range of geometric interlace / knot patterns and zoomorphic (single animal) motifs, first recognised in a group of gilt-bronze harness mounts recovered from a ship grave in Borre mound cemetery near the village of Borre, Vestfold, Norway, and from which the name of the style derives. Borre Style prevailed in Scandinavia from the late 9th through to the late 10th century, a timeframe supported by dendrochronological data supplied from sites with characteristically Borre Style artifacts

The 'gripping beast' with a ribbon-shaped body continues as a characteristic of this and earlier styles. As with geometric patterning in this phase, the visual thrust of the Borre Style results from the filling of available space: ribbon animal plaits are tightly interlaced and animal bodies are arranged to create tight, closed compositions. As a result, any background is markedly absent - a characteristic of the Borre Style that contrasts strongly with the more open and fluid compositions that prevailed in the overlapping Jellinge Style.

A more particular diagnostic feature of Borre Style lies in a symmetrical, double-contoured 'ring-chain' (or 'ring-braid'), whose composition consists of interlaced circles separated by transverse bars and a lozenge overlay. The Borre ring-chain occasionally terminates with an animal head in high relief, as seen on strap fittings from Borre and Gokstad.

The ridges of designs in metalwork are often nicked to imitate the filigree wire employed in the finest pieces of craftsmanship.

The Jellinge Style is a phase of Scandinavian animal art during the 10th century. The style is characterized by markedly stylized and often band-shaped bodies of animals. It was originally applied to a complex of objects in Jelling, Denmark, such as Harald Bluetooth's great runestone, but more recently the style is included in Mammen style.

Mammen Style takes its name from its type object, an axe recovered from a wealthy male burial marked a mound (Bjerringhø) at Mammen, in Jutland, Denmark (on the basis of dendrochronology, the wood used in construction of the grave chamber was felled in winter 970-971). Richly decorated on both sides with inlaid silver designs, the iron axe was probably a ceremonial parade weapon that was the property of a man of princely status, his burial clothes bearing elaborate embroidery and trimmed with silk and fur.

On one face, the Mammen axe features a large bird with pelleted body, crest, circular eye, and upright head and beak with lappet. A large shell-spiral marks the bird's hip, from which point its thinly elongated wings emerge: the right wing interlaces with the bird's neck, while the left wing interlaces with its body and tail. The outer wing edge displays a semi-circular nick typical of Mammen Style design. The tail is rendered as a triple tendril, the particular treatment of which on the Mammen axe - with open, hook-like ends - forming a characteristic of the Mammen Style as a whole. Complicating the design is the bird's head-lappet, interlacing twice with neck and right wing, whilst also sprouting tendrils along the blade edge. At the top, near the haft, the Mammen axe features an interlaced knot on one side, a triangular human mask (with large nose, moustache and spiral beard) on the other; the latter would prove a favoured Mammen Style motif carried over from earlier styles.

On the other side, the Mammen axe bears a spreading foliate (leaf) design, emanating from spirals at the base with thin, 'pelleted' tendrils spreading and intertwining across the axe head towards the haft.

The Ringerike Style receives its name from the Ringerike district north of Oslo, Norway, where the local reddish sandstone was widely employed for carving stones with designs of the style.

The type object most commonly used to define Ringerike Style is a 2.15-metre (7 ft 1 in) high carved stone from Vang in Oppland. Apart from a runic memorial inscription on its right edge, the main field of the Vang Stone is filled with a balanced tendril ornament springing from two shell spirals at the base: the main stems cross twice to terminate in lobed tendrils. At the crossing, further tendrils spring from loops and pear-shaped motifs appear from the tendril centres on the upper loop. Although axial in conception, a basic asymmetry arises in the deposition of the tendrils. Surmounting the tendril pattern appears a large striding animal in double-contoured rendering with spiral hips and a lip lappet. Comparing the Vang Stone animal design with the related animal from the Mammen axe-head, the latter lacks the axiality seen in the Vang Stone and its tendrils are far less disciplined: the Mammen scroll is wavy, while the Vang scroll appears taut and evenly curved, these features marking a key difference between Mammen and Ringerike ornament. The inter-relationship between the two styles is obvious, however, when comparing the Vang Stone animal with that found on the Jelling Stone.

With regard to metalwork, Ringerike Style is best seen in two copper-gilt weather-vanes, from Källunge, Gotland and from Söderala, Hälsingland, both in Sweden. The former displays one face two axially-constructed loops in the form of snakes, which in turn sprout symmetrically-placed tendrils. The snake heads, as well as the animal and snake on the reverse, find more florid treatment than on the Vang Stone: all have lip lappets, the snakes bear pigtails, while all animals have a pear-shaped eye with the point directed towards the snout - a diagnostic feature of Ringerike Style.

The Ringerike Style is a Scandinavian animal style from the late 10th century and the 11th century, which evolved out of the earlier Mammen Style. It has received its name from a group of runestones with animal and plant motifs in the Ringerike district north of Oslo. The most common motifs are lions, birds, band-shaped animals and spirals. Some elements appear for the first time in Scandinavian art, such as different types of crosses, palmettes and pretzel-shaped nooses that tie together two motifs. Most of the motifs have counterparts in Anglo-Saxon art and Ottonian art.

The Urnes Style was the last phase of Scandinavian animal art during the second half of the 11th century and in the early 12th century. The Urnes Style is named after the northern gate of the Urnes stave church in Norway, but most objects in the style are runestones in Uppland, Sweden, which is why some scholars prefer to call it the Runestone style.

The style is characterized by slim and stylised animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animals heads are seen in profile, they have slender almond-shaped eyes and there are upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks.

The early style has received a dating which is mainly based on runestone U 343, runestone U 344 and a silver bowl from c. 1050, which was found at Lilla Valla. The early version of this style on runestones comprises England Runestones referring to the Danegeld and Canute the Great and works by Åsmund Kåresson.

The mid-Urnes Style has received a relatively firm dating based on its appearance on coins issued by Harald Hardrada (1047-1066) and by Olav Kyrre (1080-1090). Two wood carvings from Oslo have been dated to c. 1050-1100 and the Hørning plank is dated by dendrochronology to c. 1060-1070. There is, however, evidence suggesting that the mid-Urnes style was developed before 1050 in the manner it is represented by the runemasters Fot and Balli.

The mid-Urnes Style would stay popular side by side with the late Urnes style of the runemaster Öpir. He is famous for a style in which the animals are extremely thin and make circular patterns in open compositions. This style was not unique to Öpir and Sweden, but it also appears on a plank from Bølstad and on a chair from Trondheim, Norway.

The Jarlabanke Runestones show traits both from this late style and from the mid-Urnes style of Fot and Balli, and it was the Fot-Balli type that would mix with the Romanesque style in the 12th century.

The Urnes-Romanesque Style does not appear on runestones which suggests that the tradition of making runestones had died out when the mixed style made its appearance since it is well represented in Gotland and on the Swedish mainland. The Urnes-Romanesque Style can be dated independently of style thanks to representations from Oslo in the period 1100-1175, dendrochronological dating of the Lisbjerg frontal in Denmark to 1135, as well as Irish reliquaries that are dated to the second half of the 12th century.

Anker, P. (1970). The Art of Scandinavia, Volume I, London and New York, 1970.

Fuglesang, S.H. (1996). "Viking Art", in Turner, J. (ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Art, Volume 32, London and New York, 1996, pp. 514-27, 531-32.

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Arwidsson, G. (1942b). Die Gräberfunde von Valsgärde I, Valsgärde 6, [Acta Musei antiquitatum septentrionalium Regiae Universitatis Upsaliensis 1], Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1942.

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Bruun, Per (1997)."The Viking Ship," Journal of Coastal Research, 4 (1997): 1282-89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4298737

Capelle, T. (1968). Der Metallschmuck von Haithabu: Studien zur wikingischen Metallkunst, [Die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu 5], Neumunster: K. Wachholtz, 1968.

James Curle, "A Find of Viking Relics in the Hebrides," The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 162 (1916): 241-43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/860122

Fuglesang, S.H. (1981). "Stylistic Groups in Late Viking and Early Romanesque Art", Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia, [Series altera in 8°] I, 1981, pp. 79-125.

Fuglesang, S.H. (1982). "Early Viking Art", Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia [Series altera in 8°] II, 1982, pp. 125-73.

Fuglesang, S.H. (1991). "The Axe-Head from Mammen and the Mammen Style", in Iversen (1991), pp. 83-108.

Fuglesang, S.H. (1998). "Swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century: Ornament and Dating", in Düwel, K. and Nowak, S. (eds), Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinärer Forschung: Abhandlungen des vierten internationalen Symposiums über Runen und Runeninschriften in Gottingen vom 4.-9. August 1995, Göttingen: Walter de Gruyter, 1998, pp. 197-218.

Fuglesang, S.H. (2001). "Animal Ornament: the Late Viking Period", in Müller-Wille and Larsson (eds) (2001), pp. 157-94.

Fuglesang, S.H. (2013). "Copying and Creativity in Early Viking Ornament", in Reynolds and Webster (eds) (2013), pp. 825-41.

Kershaw, J. (2008). "The Distribution of the 'Winchester' Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw", Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 15 (2008), pp. 254-69. (Academic.edu registration required)

Krafft, S. (1956). Pictorial Weavings from the Viking Age, Oslo: Dreyer, 1956.

Lang, J.T. (1984). "The hogback: a Viking colonial monument", Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 3 (1984), pp. 85-176.

Myhre, B. (1992). "The Royal Cemetery at Borre, Vestfold: A Norwegian Centre in a European Periphery", in Carter, M. (ed.), The Age of Sutton Hoo. The Seventh Century in North-West Europe, Woodbridge: Boydell, 1992.

Owen, O. (2001). "The strange beast that is the English Urnes Style", in Graham-Campbell, J. et al. (eds), Vikings and the Danelaw - Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, Oxford: Oxbow, 2001, pp. 203-22.

Paterson, C. (2002). "From Pendants to Brooches - The Exchange of Borre and Jelling Style Motifs across the North Sea", Hikuin 29 (2002), pp. 267-76.

Reynolds, A. and Webster, L. (eds) (2013), Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World-Studies in Honour of James Graham-Campbell, Brill: Leiden and Boston, 2013. ISBN 9789004235038

Richards, J.D. and Naylor, J. (2010). "The metal detector and the Viking Age in England", in Sheehan, J. and Corráin, D. Ó. (eds), The Viking Age. Ireland and the West. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010, pp. 338-52.

Roesdahl, E. (1994). "Dendrochronology and Viking Studies in Denmark, with a Note on the Beginning of the Viking Age", in Abrosiani, B. and Clarke, H. (eds), Developments around the Baltic and the North Sea in the Viking Age, Stockholm: Birka Project for Riksantikvarieämbetet and Statens Historiska Museer, 1994, pp. 106-16.

Roesdahl, E. (2010a). "Viking Art in European Churches (Cammin - Bamberg - Prague - León)", in Sheehan and Ó Corráin (eds) (2010), pp. 149-64.

Roesdahl, E. (2010b). "From Scandinavia to Spain: a Viking Age Reliquary in León and its Significance", in Sheehan, J. and Corráin, D. Ó. (eds), The Viking Age. Ireland and the West. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010, pp. 353-60.

Salin, Bernhard (1904). Die altgermanische Thieronamentik, Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1904.

Shetelig, H. (1920). Osebergfundet, Volume III, Kristiania, 1920.

Wilson, D.M. (2001). "The Earliest Animal Styles of the Viking Age", in Müller-Wille and Larsson (eds) (2001), pp. 131-56.

Wilson, D.M. (2008a). "The Development of Viking Art", in Brink with Price (2008), pp. 323-38.

British Museum: Explore / World Cultures: Vikings

Sorabella, Jean, "The Vikings (780-1100)", in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. Updated October 2002.

Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Oseberg Ship

Oseberg Style Cart

Borrehaugene

Jane Kershaw, Viking-Age Scandinavian art styles and their appearance in the British Isles - Part 1: Early Viking-Age art styles - The Finds Research Group AD 700-1700, Datasheet 42, 2010. (Academia.edu registration required).

Jane Kershaw, Viking-Age Scandinavian art styles and their appearance in the British Isles Part 2: Late Viking-Age art styles - The Finds Research Group AD 700-1700, Datasheet 43, 2011. (Academia.edu registration required).

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Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield-particularly in the British Isles and Iceland-during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries CE.

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There are six major art styles of Vikings art . The pattern on the weapons and jewelries reflect the styles of the art.

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Viking art is emblematic of the surprisingly ornate material culture of the Northerners. Vikings loved elaborate decorations and they decorated many of the things they used: weapons, jewelry, runestones, ship woodwork and even their common, everyday items. They loved abstract and intricate animal designs and multiple interlacing lines. The animals depicted in their art include serpents, horses, wolves, birds and unreal, fantastic animals. As the Viking Age progressed, craftsmen varied the designs and six distinct but overlapping art styles developed. Each style is named for an area where a decorated object was found. We'll take a look at each of the art styles.

Oseberg

The Oseberg style lasted most of the 9th century and appears in some Viking religious iconography. Its main feature is the gripping beast motif and sinuous animal forms. Paws grip borders, the neck of the creature, other creatures or other parts of its body. The gripping beast must have echoed something in the culture of Viking art as it stood fast for a good 150 years.

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Borre

The Borre style was named for a set of bridle mounts from a ship burial at Borre, Norway. The Borre overlaps with the Oseberg and the Jelling styles, periods specific to the Viking Age. While the gripping beast remains, the sinuous creature of the Oseberg style now boasts a triangular head, a cat-like face with round eyes and protruding ears. This style appears to be purely Norse with no outside influences. It has appeared in Iceland, Russia, England, which shows Viking art existed wherever they went. Borre was prominent from the end of the 9th century to the middle of the 10th.

Jelling

The Jelling style appears from the start of the 10th century and continues for about 75 years. Stylistic animals are S-shaped and intertwined, with profiled heads, spiral hips and pigtails. Borre and Jelling overlap and occasionally both are used on the same object.

Mammem

The Mammem Viking art style emerged from the Jelling style and was prominent in the last half of the 10th century. Almost naturalistic lions and birds are featured as well as serpents and foliate patterns. The name comes from a small ax head from a grave site in Mammem, Denmark. The ax head was carved, then inlayed with silver. On one side of the axe head is a foliate pattern and on the other is a stylized, ribbon-like bird with tendrils on wings and tail.

Ringerike

The first half of the 11th century featured the Ringerike style in Viking art. Lion-shaped beasts still appear as well as plant motifs and foliate patterns. Also during this time, runestones became more prominent and were decorated in the Ringerike fashion. Ringerike animals are exceedingly curvy and thin with almond-shaped eyes and thinner, longer tendrils.

Urnes

The Urnes style dates from 1050 to the 12th century and gets its name from a stave church in Urnes, Norway. Carved wooden panels reveal sinuous animals interlacing and looping, with long eyes pointed forward. Snakes and plants are also featured. The greyhound-like creature appears to be fighting with a serpent.
This article is part of our larger selection of posts about Vikings history. To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to Vikings history
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Viking Art: The Six Art Styles - History

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Loading... Viking art is emblematic of the surprisingly ornate material culture of the Northerners. Vikings loved elaborate decorations and they decorated many of the things they used: weapons, jewelry, runestones, ship woodwork and even their common, everyday items. They loved abstract and intricate animal designs and multiple interlacing lines.

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Vikings art comprises many different categories, such as gold work, wood carving and different styles of art.

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Art of the Vikings (Art History Documentary) | Perspective

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Decorative traditional folk art originated from Scandinavia. The design and pattern on the art are partially flowers.

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The Story of Norwegian Rosemaling

Rosemaling is the decorative folk painting of Norway and its history began in the low-land areas of Eastern Norway about 1750 inspired by upper-class artistic styles when Baroque, Regency and Rococo were introduced to Norway's rural cultures. At first Norway's painters followed these European styles closely.

If you came across this article as a student preparing a research paper, consider delegating the task to https://essayhub.com/ essay writing help professionals. Yet, in case a brief overview will suffice, keep reading this article!

At the beginning of the century, Norway had a population of a mere 500,000 - with only 40,000 people living in what was defined as urban areas. It was a society based on the age-old ways of agriculture, fishing and hunting - and people lived on farms or in cottages scattered across the long-stretched landscape.

The story of Norwegian rosemaling
Compared to the art of woodcarving and textile art, rosemaling is a much younger art form, at least on a larger scale, and it may come as a surprise that the history of rose painting and its place in Norwegian folk art is not as old as one might think. Painter and author, Nils Ellingsgard, has chronicled the journey of the art form.

The painters who rosemaled for their livelihood were trained within a "guild" and they traveled from county to county painting churches and/or the homes of the wealthy for a commission of either money or merely room and board. Thus, rosemaling was carried over the mountains and toward Norway's western coast.

Related: Norwegian Stave Churches

How did Rosemaling come to America?
Norwegian rosemaling continued its westward migration all the way to America. Emigration was heavy from some of the areas where rosemaling was well established. Travelers packed beautifully rosemaled trunks to make their journey across the Atlantic. Well-known as well as lesser known painters traveled to the New World.

Per Lysne, a Norwegian immigrant from Stoughton, Wisconsin rekindled an interest in Scandinavian folk art when his "Smørgaasbord" plates were sold in Chicago's Marshall Fields department store in the late 1930's. European folk art was rediscovered through home decorating magazine articles in the 1930's and 1940's.

Related: Art and Culture in Norway

A traditional form of art
Some of the artists in Norway often worked as farmers during the summer, subsidizing their living in the winter months painting rooms and furniture for more successful farmers.

The art displays many stylized flowers and scroll forms, combining blended colors and fine outlines on a plain background color. Traditional paint colors were derived from local raw materials, for example, rust red came from red iron oxide in the ground. Brushes were made of hairs from a squirrel's tail or a cow's ear.

Related: A Short Introduction to Norwegian Literature, Art and Music

Once farther away from the influence of the guilds, these artists tried new ideas and motifs. Soon strong regional styles developed. The Norwegian authority on the art of decorative painting - or rosemaling Nils Ellingsgard has through his gem of a book, Norsk rosemaling, given us a better understanding of this world of artistic beauty.

As time passed the Telemark and Hallingdal valleys became known for their fine rosemaling.Upon their exposure to rosemaling, rural folk would often imitate this folk art. Not having been taught in an urban guild, the amateur became spontaneous and expressive in his work on smaller objects such as drinking vessels and boxes.

The future of rosemaling
Rosemaling went out of style in about 1860-1870. Whether the traditions will continue to bloom is difficult to predict, but the many surviving objects will stay on and give joy to future generations for centuries to come. Objects that are symbols of our common history - and the many people who created them.

The Story of Norwegian Rosemaling, written by Tor Kjolberg

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The Story of Norwegian Rosemaling - Daily Scandinavian

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The Story of Norwegian Rosemaling Rosemaling is the decorative folk painting of Norway and its history began in the low-land areas of Eastern Norway about 1750 inspired by upper-class artistic styles when Baroque, Regency and Rococo were introduced to Norway's rural cultures. At first Norway's painters followed these European styles closely.

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Another couple traditional dance but with different Tempo. It was related to the Swedish dance called "Snoa"

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Polska, (Swedish: Polish), Scandinavian folk dance originating in the 16th century, possibly influenced by Polish courtly dances. Polska in Finland refers nonspecifically to many dances in 34 time, both for individual couples and for sets of several couples. In Sweden the polska is a turning dance

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Pols is a couple folk dance. In a performance or ceremony, it can be performed in individual, sets or several couples. The prototype of the dance is originated from the Nordic Polska (Pols is a faster version)

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The Halling is a folk dance traditionally performed in rural Norway, although some versions of the dance may also be found in parts of Sweden. It has been documented as the oldest folk dance in Northern Europe.
The dance is traditionally performed by men at weddings and other solemn ceremonies. The Halling is a dance expression that includes acrobatic, athletic competition between the dancers. It is a rhythmic acrobatic dance that consists of a number of steps which requires a lot of strength. The dance is associated with the valleys and traditional districts of Valdres and Hallingdal, and is often referred to as 'laus'. The name refers to it being danced solo, not in couples, although coupled Halling dancing is traditional in the western parts of the country.

An experienced fiddler musician is a necessity in Halling. The musician has to give the dancers enough impetus to perform the various challenging moves that are involved in the dance such as neck jump, spinning, kicking and especially the throw, 'Hallingkast'. In this move, a girl traditionally holds a hat up high using a stick or something similar, and the dancer is supposed to kick down the hat. Kast is seen as the test of strength, which involves kicking the hat that is held about 230 to 280 cm above the floor.

Frikar Dance Company has toured 29 countries with Halling the last years. The company's founder and choreographer Hallgrim Hansegård is known as the reinventor of Halling, exploring the tradition in meeting with new artistic expressions and arenas as for example in the computer game "Age of Conan".

Text by: Anette Broteng Christiansen, ThorNews

Photo: Ingevalds

Source: Wikipedia

Categories: Culture, History

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Norwegian Traditional Folk Dance 'Halling'

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The Halling is a folk dance traditionally performed in rural Norway, although some versions of the dance may also be found in parts of Sweden. It has been documented as the oldest folk dance in Northern Europe. The dance is traditionally performed by men at weddings and other solemn ceremonies.

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Norwegian flatbread that was often made by potato. One of the common way that Norwegian eat their breads are called "lefse-klenning", which they add butter and roll it up with the lefse. This is a very common type of bread that can be found in Norway in the past

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Norwegian Potato Flatbread (Lefse) - Food Wishes

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Kransekake is a Scandinavian cake that forms an impressive showpiece at celebrations including weddings and Christmas.

Equipment and preparation: for this recipe you will need six kransekake moulds (available from cookware specialists or online). Each mould comprises three rings, giving 18 rings in total.

Method

1. Place the ground almonds and icing sugar in a large electric mixer. Add the egg whites and almond extract and mix with a dough hook. This could be done by hand but is easier with a mixer due to the large quantities. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill in the fridge for a minimum of two hours, or preferably overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 200C/400G/Gas 6.

3. Lightly brush the insides of the kransekake moulds with vegetable oil. Sprinkle a little semolina into each mould and tip the moulds to distribute the semolina evenly around the inside, shaking out any excess.

4. Divide the chilled dough into six equal-sized pieces.

5. Divide one of the pieces of dough into three different-sized pieces: one small, one medium and one large. Dust a work surface lightly with flour and roll each piece out into finger-width lengths that are long enough to wrap round the kransekake moulds.

6. Fit the longest piece of dough inside the largest kransekake ring, pressing the ends together to seal. Do the same with the medium-sized and smallest pieces of dough. Repeat this process with the remaining five pieces of dough.

7. Bake the kransekakes in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown, then remove from the oven and set aside to cool in their moulds until hardened. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

8. Meanwhile, for the icing, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until frothy. Gradually whisk in the icing sugar a spoonful at a time, until stiff, glossy peaks form when the whisk is removed.

9. Spoon half of the icing into a separate bowl and add the red food colouring. Whisk until the icing is bright red, then spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small plain writing nozzle. Spoon the white icing into a separate piping bag fitted with a small plain writing nozzle.

10. To assemble the kransekake, sort the cooked rings into size order.

11. Pipe a few dots of white icing onto the base of the largest ring and stick it to a large serving plate.

12. Pipe zig-zag patterns onto the largest ring using first the white, then the red icing, overlapping the two. Sprinkle with red, green and silver edible glitter.

13. Place the second-largest ring on top of the largest ring and repeat the icing and decorating process.

14. Continue to stack the rings in decreasing size order until you have a tower of 18 iced and glittery rings. Allow the icing to set (this will stick the rings to each other), then serve.

Recipe Tips

These buns can be frozen, just pop them in the oven for a few minutes to refresh them. Perfect for starting your Christmas prep early.

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Kransekake is a Scandinavian cake that forms an impressive showpiece at celebrations including weddings and Christmas. Equipment and preparation: for this recipe you will need six kransekake moulds (available from cookware specialists or online). Each mould comprises three rings, giving 18 rings in total.

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A Norwegian cake that is commonly made during Christmas time, it will formed a shape that is similar to Christmas tree by adding various ring shape cakes.

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One of Norway's most intriguing foods (to foreigners at least) is eaten daily by many Norwegians for breakfast, lunch, or as a snack.

Norway's national diet harks back to its days as a poor country, with a focus on preserving fish and meats in salt, lots of potatoes and simple sauces. This heritage still dominates today with delicacies such as lutefisk eaten through choice rather than necessity.

Read more: Norwegian food & drink

One of Norway's best loved culinary treats is also one of its simplest and I'm surprised it's taken me ten months to write about it. Perhaps that's because it took me ten months to even begin to understand it!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you the Norwegian phenomenon of... brown cheese. Yes, it really does look like this:

Shortly after I arrived in Oslo, my friend Ståle decided to "treat" me to my first taste of this Norwegian phenomenon. I agreed, but on the condition that he try none other than Marmite on toast. It was a cultural culinary exchange like no other!

Brown cheese has a lot in common with Marmite:

Both are eaten at breakfast, lunch or tea

Both are made using a by-product of another process

Both sound utterly disgusting

You either love it or hate it

Both foods have spawned mad fan groups

Anyway, back to the point. You've probably found this article because you are wondering one thing above all else.

What is brown cheese?

In simplest terms, brown cheese, or brunost as it is written in Norwegian is a tan-coloured 'whey cheese' with a distinctive caramel flavour.

Part of me feels it's cheating to use the word cheese in its name at all, because, well, it isn't technically cheese!

The production process is actually quite simple. The water from the whey of goat's milk is boiled down, which caramelises the sugars. The resulting gloop is left to cool and bingo, you've got yourself some real Norwegian brown cheese.

It's then set into small blocks most commonly of around 500 grams, wrapped and can be eaten (and by some, enjoyed!) immediately.

Types of brown cheese

In Norway most brown cheese is mainly produced by the national dairy TINE, although many regional variations exist. Everyone seems to have a favourite, and somewhat unsurprisingly that also seems to be the variety from the region closet to where they're from!

Read more: Norwegian cheese

But local rivalries aside, if there's any kind of brown cheese on the breakfast or lunchtime buffet table, its fans will make a beeline for it whatever its origin. I'm not normally in that queue, but I think you've cottoned on to that by now.

The most common brand you'll find is Gudbrandsdalsost, marketed by Tine as the 'original' brown cheese. It's made from a mix of goat's and cow's milk, with a history that can be traced back more than 150 years. Tine describes the taste as 'rounded and full-bodied'.

For a lighter taste, try Fløtemysost, made only with cow's milk.

How to eat brunost

The most common way to serve brunost is by using the unique cheese slicer that you can see in some of the pictures on this page. This item is an integral part of any Norwegian kitchen.

You slice off a slither from the block and can eat it atop toast, on a crispbread topped with strawberry jam, or even with waffles. Those are the most common methods, but I've seen it consumed in all manner of inventive ways.

Ståle didn't give up after my first taste of brunost ended quickly with a screwed up face and a mess in the bin. A few weeks later he tried again, but this time incorporated some brown cheese into a sauce for pancakes.

This was much better and made the most of the brunost's sweetness. I recommend trying this out as a good introduction to the unique flavour.

For me, the most off-putting aspect of brunost is the colour. During my first tasting session, I couldn't help but notice the similarity in hue with my floor. So much so, I had to take a photo.

What does brown cheese taste like?

This is a difficult one to describe. Let's return to Marmite for a moment. That's commonly described as a "strong yeasty spread", which although accurate, isn't descriptive enough for someone who's never tried it. It's exactly the same with brown cheese, you just have to try it.

The trick is to not think of it as a cheese at all. If you are expecting to taste a fine cheddar you will find the taste repulsive! But if you expect to taste a creamy, caramel yet also savoury mixture, you're in for a treat.

A few other blogs I've read describe the taste as "salty goat's fudge" so I guess that's as good a description as any. Let's go with that. Salty goat's fudge. Mmmmm!

An update

When I first published this post I'd been in Norway for just a few months. I had written that I was slowly becoming accustomed to the charms of brunost. Seven years later, I have to report that I haven't eaten the stuff for years!

There's almost always something else on the table or in the fridge that I prefer to eat. As with all traditional foods, it's each to their own. If you grew up eating brown cheese, you're probably going to love it. Much like Marmite!

What do you think of brown cheese? Let me know in the comments below 🙂

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This Is Brunost: Norwegian Brown Cheese - Life in Norway

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One of Norway's most intriguing foods (to foreigners at least) is eaten daily by many Norwegians for breakfast, lunch, or as a snack. Norway's national diet harks back to its days as a poor country, with a focus on preserving fish and meats in salt, lots of potatoes and simple sauces.

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The Hailing dance is one of the traditional dance of Norway which was originally performed by males during wedding or other ceremonies. This dance is considered a rhythmic acrobatic dance.

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The folk daances in Norway are mostly originated from the Scandanavian dances

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Traditional Sámi spiritual practices and beliefs are based on a type of animism, polytheism, and what anthropologists may consider shamanism. The religious traditions can vary considerably from region to region within Sápmi.

Traditional Sámi religion is generally considered to be Animism. The Sámi belief that all significant natural objects (such as animals, plants, rocks, etc.) possess a soul, and from a polytheistic perspective, traditional Sámi beliefs include a multitude of spirits. Sámi traditional beliefs and practices commonly emphasizes veneration of the dead and of animal spirits. The relationship with the local animals that sustain the people, such as the reindeer, are very important to the kin-group.

Aside from the bear worship, there are other animal spirits such as the Haldi, who watch over nature. Some Sámi people have a thunder god called Horagalles. Rana Niejta is "the daughter of the green, fertile earth". The symbol of the world tree or pillar, similar to that found in Finnish mythology, which reaches up to the North star may also be present.

The forest spirit of some of the Sámi people, Laib Olmai, is traditionally associated with forest animals, which are regarded as his herds, along with granting either good or bad luck in hunting. His favour was so important that, according to one author, they made prayers and offerings to him every morning and evening.

In the landscape throughout Northern Scandinavia, one can find , places that have unusual land forms different from the surrounding countryside, and that can be considered to have spiritual significance. Each family or clan has its local spirits, to whom they make offerings for protection and good fortune. The Storjunkare are described sometimes as stones, having some likeness to a man or an animal, that were set up on a mountain top, or in a cave, or near rivers and lakes. Honor was done to them by spreading fresh twigs under them in winter, and in summer leaves or grass. The Storjunkare had power over all animals, fish, and birds, and gave luck to those that hunted or fished for them. Reindeer were offered up to them, and every clan and family had its own hill of sacrifice.

A was a male mediator between the human world and saivo, the underworld, on the behalf of the community, usually using a Sámi drum and a domestic flute called a fadno in ceremonies.

One of the most irreconcilable elements of the Sámi's worldview from the missionaries' perspective was the notion "that the living and the departed were regarded as two halves of the same family." The Sámi regarded the concept as fundamental, while the Christians absolutely discounted any possibility of the dead having anything to do with the living. Since this belief was not just a religion, but a living dialogue with their ancestors, their society was concomitantly impoverished.

The Sami religion differed somewhat between regions and tribes. Although the deities were similar, the spelling of their names could vary between regions. The deities could also overlap: in one region, one deity could appear as several separate deities, and in another region, several deities could be united in to just a few. Because of these variations, they have therefore been somewhat confused with each other. They main deities of the Sami were as follows:

Akka - a collective group of fertility goddesses, including Maderakka, Juksakka and Uksakka.

Beaivi - goddess of the sun, mother of humankind.

Bieggagallis - husband of the sun goddess, father of humankind.

Bieggolmai 'Man of the Winds' - god of the winds.

Biejjenniejte - goddess of healing and medicine, daughter of the Sun, Beaivi.

Horagalles - god of thunder. His name means 'Thor-man', also called "Grandfather", Bajanolmmai, Dierpmis, and Tordöm.

Jahbme akka - the goddess of the dead and mistress of the underworld and the realm of the dead.

Ipmil 'God' - adopted as a native name for the Christian God (see the related Finnish word Jumala), also used for Radien-attje.

Lieaibolmmai - god of the hunt, and of adult men.

Madder-Attje - husband of Maderakka and father of the tribe. While his wife give the newborns their bodies, he gives them their soul.

Mano, Manna, or Aske - god of the moon.

Mubpienålmaj - the god of evil, influenced by the Christian Satan.

Radien-attje - Creator and high god, the creator of the world and the head divinity. In Sámi religion, he is passive or sleeping and is not often included in religious practice. Created the soul of human kind with his spouse. He was also called Waralden Olmai.

Raedieahkka - wife of the high god Radien-attje. Created the soul of mankind with her spouse.

Rana Niejta - spring goddess, the daughter of Radien-attje and Raedieahkka. Rana, meaning 'green' or by extension 'fertile earth', was a popular name for Sámi girls.

Radien-pardne - the son of Radien-attje and Raedieahkka. He acts as the active proxy of his passive father, performing his tasks and will.

Ruohtta - god of sickness and a death god. He was depicted riding a horse.

Stallo - feared cannibal giants of the wilderness.

Tjaetsieålmaj - "the man of water", god of water, lakes and fishing.

Bibliography

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Traditional Sámi spiritual practices and beliefs are based on a type of animism, polytheism, and what anthropologists may consider shamanism. The religious traditions can vary considerably from region to region within Sápmi. Traditional Sámi religion is generally considered to be Animism. The Sámi belief that all significant natural objects (such as animals, plants, rocks, etc.)

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A History of Religion in Norway

Here is a brief history of religion in Norway, and how you can explore the country's religious past on your trip.

Norway's religious history has helped shaped the country's political, cultural and architectural landscape. Here is a brief history of religion in Norway, and how you can explore the country's religious past on your trip:

Ancient religions

Before the 9th century, the early Norwegians practiced the Norse religion. Polytheistic and full of dramatic stories of conflicts and wars between the gods, Norse mythology was a fascinating world view that still captures peoples' imaginations today. According to the legends, the gods lived in a realm called Asgard, but would occasionally travel to other realms as well - including Earth, which was known as Midguard. In addition to internal conflicts, the gods also fought with other unearthly beings, mainly a breed of giants. The Norse creation myth centers around a conflict with these giants - an epic battle between the gods and the giants led to earth being destroyed by a fire giant. However, the land rose anew from the ashes, and that is the world in which we live today.

Catholicism

Christianity made its way to Norway in the early 8th century. Vikings, who had been converted to Catholicism during their travels, brought their new religion home when they returned. In addition to converted Vikings, monks and kings were also incredibly influential when it came to bringing Christianity to Norway. One man in particular - King Olav Haraldsson - was responsible for a dramatic shift toward Christianity. During his life, this was through force. It was his death, however, that most noticeably changed the tide: Reports of miracles occurring around his tomb led many people to convert in his wake. Olav Haraldsson was canonized, and is now the patron saint of Norway.

Protestantism and the Church of Norway

In the 1500s, Norway, like much of Europe, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. This shift came when the royal family converted to Lutheranism, and the country followed suite. Although the state church wasn't officially established for nearly another century, this shift to Protestantism was the first glimpse of the modern Church of Norway. In 1660, the country instated absolute monarchy, at which point "Church of Norway" became an appropriate term. The country is no longer officially religious, however - Norway's constitution, which once referenced a specific religion of the state, now simply says that Norway's values are built on religious and humanist roots. That's not to say that the population has strayed far from the state religion, however - approximately 75 percent of Norwegians still consider themselves members of the Church of Norway.

Sami religious traditions

Today, most Sami people practice Christianity. However, the traditional Sami religious practices still echo into modern times, and are followed by a minority of Sami. Their religion was centered around shamans, called noaidi, who were able to connect the physical and spirit worlds. These noaidi would go into trances to reach the spirit world on behalf of the community, and used this spiritual access to perform acts of sorcery. Gods in the Sami religion were mainly nature-based, and represented various forces and structures found in the Sami environment, such as the sun and the trees.

Religious sites

Norway's long-standing religious history means that it has plenty of beautiful historic religious sites for visitors to explore today. One of the most famous of these sites is the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, which was built around St. Olav's tomb. In Harstad, visitors can tour the Trondenes Church, the northernmost stone church in all of Norway. This church has been standing since the mid-1400s, and holds an incredible surprise - its simple outward appearance leads visitors to assume the inside will be bare as well. This makes the stunning and ornately decorated interior as unexpected as it is awe-inspiring. These are just a few of the religious sites you can explore on your trip through Norway - each town has its own church and history.

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Here is a brief history of religion in Norway, and how you can explore the country's religious past on your trip. Norway's religious history has helped shaped the country's political, cultural and architectural landscape. Here is a brief history of religion in Norway, and how you can explore the country's religious past on your trip: Before the 9th century, the early Norwegians practiced the Norse religion.

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What is Northern Lavvu? Who are the Sami?

Welcome to Northern Lavvu...

Northern Lavvu designs and produces both traditional and modern style Lavvus (pronounced "LAA-voo", and often-spelled lavvo, laavu or laavo). The people who work, design or mentor the craft of Lavvu making are of Sami ancestry and have experience in living and camping in Lavvus. Sami Elders have taught and guided the Lavvu makers in this craft.

The Sami people - also known as the Sá©, Saami, and more derogatorily known as 'Lapps' or 'Laplanders', are the indigenous peoples of northern Scandinavia, which is in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The Sami are one of the oldest indigenous groups in Europe.
What is a Lavvu?

The Lavvu is a temporary dwelling used by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia. Its simplicity enabled the Sami to move quickly with their semi-domesticated reindeer herds at a moment's notice. This structure enabled the indigenous cultures of the treeless plains of northern Scandinavia and the High Arctic of Eurasia to live in harmony with nature.

Although the Lavvu can be easily confused with the Native American Tipi - it's not a Tipi! The differences between the two structures are reflected in their respective environments and cultures. Being more centered to the ground, the Lavvu is better able to endure the fierce winds of the Scandinavian tundra, thus a more stable structure. Few structures used by indigenous peoples, with the exception of the Inuit (Eskimo) Igloo, are as stable in strong winds.

The Lavvu's centuries old design also reflects the Sami culture as a community. Traveling in small, single family groups, the Lavvu is designed so that even one person could quickly set it up with little effort. The Native Americans replica rolex who traveled in larger, several family groups had the extra hands to help in the assembly of their Tipi.
The Lavvu is also still in use today as a temporary shelter by the Sami reindeer herders of northern Scandinavia and as a year-round dwelling of the Nenets and Khants of the Russian Federation.

If you've owned a Lavvu before, then you know how functional this structure can be. If not, then you are in for a treat.... Explore this website. If you have any questions about our Lavvus feel free to email us.

What We Offer

Traditional Lavvus: The lavvu is a design that dates back many hundreds - if not thousands of years. Our traditional Lavvus reflect the "leave no trace" philosophy using natural materials that will go back to the Earth after use.

Sunforger Lavvu: Simular to traditional lavvus, these lavvus offer the look of traditional lavvus with the mildew protection of Sunforger fabric.

Lavvu Pole Kits: We now offer wooden lavvu poles that can be shipped right to your doorstep.

Explore this website. If you have any questions about our Lavvus feel free to email us.

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What is Northern Lavvu? Who are the Sami? Welcome to Northern Lavvu... Northern Lavvu designs and produces both traditional and modern style Lavvus (pronounced "LAA-voo", and often-spelled lavvo, laavu or laavo). The people who work, design or mentor the craft of Lavvu making are of Sami ancestry and have experience in living and camping in Lavvus.

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Stave churches are considered to be among the most important examples of wooden Medieval architecture in Europe. In the Middle Ages, there were probably more than 1,000 stave churches in Norway. Today, only 28 remain, including Urnes stave church, which is included on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

A stave church is made of wood, and the construction is made out of poles ("staver" in Norwegian), hence the name. Most of the remaining stave churches in Norway were built between 1150 and 1350. In the middle ages there were similar types of churches all over North-Western Europe. In Norway there was a tradition for using wood in artwork as well as in constructions, and this lead to the development of a unique technique that the stave churches are a perfect example of. The decoration is a fascinating mix of both Christian and viking symbolism.

Due to the Black Death and the reformation, many stave churches disappeared. In 1650 there were around 270 stave churches left, and during the next 100 years 136 of them disappeared as well. Today only 28 of them remain - many in Fjord Norway.

Norway's oldest stave church is Urnes stave church in Luster in the Sognefjord area. The church from around 1130 is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and belonged to a rich family. It is richly decorated.

Borgund stave church in Lærdal (around 1180), also in the Sognefjord area, is the most visited and most photographed church. It is also the stave church that has been the best preserved, and several runic inscriptions have been found on the walls of the church.

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Stave church - See the unique Norwegian stave churches

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Stave churches are considered to be among the most important examples of wooden Medieval architecture in Europe. In the Middle Ages, there were probably more than 1,000 stave churches in Norway. Today, only 28 remain, including Urnes stave church, which is included on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

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Finds of clothes from the Viking period are rare. These often consist of small pieces of material preserved by chance. Our knowledge about Viking clothes is supplemented by written sources, as well as clothes depicted on small figures and tapestries.

Like today's men and women, the Vikings dressed according to sex, age and economic status. The men preferred trousers and tunics, whilst the women dressed in strap dresses worn over undergarments. Ordinary Viking clothes were made of local materials, like wool and flax, woven by the women.

On the other hand, finds from the graves of wealthy individuals show that some clothes were definitely imported. The upper classes displayed their wealth by adorning themselves in silk and gold threads from foreign parts, like Byzantium. The Vikings supplemented their attire with jewellery and furs from different animals.

Female clothes

The Viking woman typically wore a strap dress with an undergarment or smock underneath.

The strap dress was a close-fitting dress, made of coarse material, which was sewn together. It was either open or sewn together at the sides. In addition, gussets could be sewn into the dress to give it shape. The strap dress fitted over the chest and was held up by a strap on each shoulder. The strap was fastened at the front with a shell-shaped brooch. Between the two brooches there was often a string of beads.

Under her strap dress the woman wore an undergarment or smock. Research shows that Danish Viking women preferred plain undergarments, whilst Swedish Viking women wore pleated ones. There was therefore even an element of fashion in undergarments.

The woman of the period also wore a cloak over her shoulders, which was fastened with a small round or trilobite brooch. The cloak and the dress could be decorated with woven borders and bands of fur.

Around the waist the woman wore a belt, with small leather purses for the keeping of small items, such as sewing needles and strike-a-lights. A strike-a-light was a curved piece of iron used to produce sparks.

The Viking woman wore leather shoes on her feet.

Children's clothes

The clothes worn by children reflected those of their parents, both in their type and fineness. Young girls wore smocks, whilst young boys wore tunics and trousers.

Viking women on expeditions?

The Arabic diplomat Ibn Fadlan wrote that travelling Viking women in Russia wore beads of green glass. On the chest they carried a case of iron, silver, copper or gold. In this case was a knife. The case mentioned may have been the item of jewellery that archaeologists call a concave brooch.

Concave brooches have been found in various parts of Europe where the Vikings settled, including England, Ireland, Russia and Iceland. This indicates that Viking women may have been present on expeditions.

Male clothes

The Viking male often wore a tunic, trousers and a cloak.

The tunic was reminiscent of a long-armed shirt without buttons and might go down to the knees. Over his shoulders the man wore a cloak, which was fastened with a brooch. The cloak was gathered over the arm that he drew his sword or axe with. In this way it was possible to see whether a Viking was right- or left-handed.

We do not know a great deal about the shape of the trousers. They were perhaps a type of plus fours, which were gathered up under the knee. The plus fours must have required socks or puttees wound around the shins. Puttees are a variety of legwarmers in which a long narrow piece of material is wound around the legs to give warmth. As footwear, men wore leather shoes or boots.

As their clothes had no pockets or elastic, men wore belts or had string fastened around the waist to hold their clothes up. On his belt, the man might carry a purse or knife. The purse could contain various items, like a strike-a-light, comb, nail cleaner, gaming pieces and silver coins.

Some men also wore caps, which were either pointed or had rounded crowns. The caps were made of material or skin.

The Viking warrior's clothes

In addition to the clothes that he wore, the warrior also carried weapons. These might consist of an axe, sword, helmet, spear, lance and a round shield. Iron was expensive in the Viking Age and by no means all warriors had a full range of equipment.

Waterproof clothes

The Vikings were also familiar with waterproof clothes. These were made from skins treated with beeswax to make them soft and fish oil so that they were waterproof.

The Byzantine court fashion and the upper class

In the Viking period the upper class had contact with many different parts of the world and this was reflected in their attire. The Byzantine court style, in particular, inspired the clothes worn by the Danish upper class.

It is clear from Danish burials dating to the late 900s, that the Viking upper class were part of Christian European court circles, which had contacts with Byzantium. Within these circles silk was amongst the most sought after materials. Silk was associated with prestige. It was a relic of the rule of the Byzantine emperor Justinian (527-565), who used it to display his power. In the following 600 years Byzantium maintained a monopoly on silk production in Europe.

In addition, different silk colours could signal wealth and power. The bright blue and red colours were especially sought after. We find these associated with the Mammen prince from Bjerringhøj in Jutland, Denmark. His red and blue clothes were those of a magnate.

Fabrics and colouring

Clothes were woven in many different colours. Coloured yarn could be produced in the Viking Age by boiling the material with various colour-yielding plants. The colours that archaeologists know were used in Viking Age clothes are yellow, red, purple and blue. Blue has only been found in the burials of wealthy individuals, as it was apparently a precious colour. The blue colour came from either the local plant woad or the dye indigo, which was purchased abroad.

Around 40% of finds of Viking Age fabric have been identified as flax. Flax must therefore have been an important plant for the production of Viking clothes. Research shows that more than 20 kg of flax plants was needed to produce enough material to make a tunic. In addition, the task - from when the flax was sown until the tunic was stitched - probably required almost 400 work hours. Several sites have been found in Denmark, at which flax was produced on an almost industrial scale. Flax must therefore have been an important product in Viking Age trade.

Jewellery in the Viking Age

$Men and women from all layers of society wore jewellery, in the form of arm rings, necklaces and brooches. Some of the jewellery was ornamental and it could also indicate wealth. Other items, such as brooches, often had a practical function as well - to fasten clothes. In addition, there were pieces of jewellery that had symbolic value, such as Thor's hammers.

Apparently the Vikings did not wear ear rings. But it was not because they were unfamiliar with them. They must have encountered them on expeditions where they came into contact with Slavic peoples.

Jewellery could be made from various materials, such as wood, glass, amber, bronze and gold. Pieces of jewellery were often decorated with geometric designs, plaited bands, animal heads and gripping beasts.

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Finds of clothes from the Viking period are rare. These often consist of small pieces of material preserved by chance. Our knowledge about Viking clothes is supplemented by written sources, as well as clothes depicted on small figures and tapestries. Like today's men and women, the Vikings dressed according to sex, age and economic status.

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Hulpa = Puvun helman alaosa. Risku = Naisen puvun kanssa käytettävä koru, jolla huivi kiinnitetään rinnan kohdalta. Sisna = Poronnahka, joka on kasviparkittu käsin ilman kemikaaleja. Paulat = Kudotut nauhat, jotka kiedotaan kengän varren ympärille. Ahku = Isoäiti. Sana tulee pohjoissaamen isoäitiä tarkoittavasta sanasta áhkku. Gákti = Saamenpuku pohjoissaameksi.
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Hulpa = Puvun helman alaosa. Risku = Naisen puvun kanssa käytettävä koru, jolla huivi kiinnitetään rinnan kohdalta. Sisna = Poronnahka, joka on kasviparkittu käsin ilman kemikaaleja. Paulat = Kudotut nauhat, jotka kiedotaan kengän varren ympärille. Ahku = Isoäiti. Sana tulee pohjoissaamen isoäitiä tarkoittavasta sanasta áhkku. Gákti = Saamenpuku pohjoissaameksi. ****

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Brown cheese is the traditional type of cheese that is found in Norway, It has the sweet taste came from the caramel when they are producing the cheese.

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As a part of old traditions in Norway, hunting for minke whale is being done in Norwegian waters. After a five year break, whaling started up again in 1993. In Norway, whale hunting has always been done in combination with traditional fisheries.

The Norwegian whaling is sustainable and legal. Norway's resource management is based on the principle of sustainable use of natural resources. The harvesting of marine resources, including whales, is based on scientific criteria.

Annual quotas are set on the basis of procedures developed by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Norway has worked, and will continue to work, within relevant international fora, to develop measures that will protect endangered species and, at the same time, allowing for sustainable harvesting of abundant stocks.
Minke whales
Minke whales are hunted from vessels between 40 foot and 80 foot, with crew from 4 to 8 persons. Hunting takes place in the Norwegian economic zone, in the zone around Svalbard, Jan Mayen and in international waters.

Hunting season starts in april and ends in august/september. All vessels need to mount a tachograph ("blue box"), surveillance system. This will register all hunting activity.

There is also a large crew of inspectors to make sure rules are being followed. Hunters need to take an annual course where killing and security are key topics.

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As a part of old traditions in Norway, hunting for minke whale is being done in Norwegian waters. After a five year break, whaling started up again in 1993. In Norway, whale hunting has always been done in combination with traditional fisheries.

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Norwegian National Costumes - The Bunad by Ken Smith

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Ken Smith | profile |all galleries >> Vintage Photographs >> Norwegian National Costumes - The Bunad

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This description is not available in your language. Click here to read it in English Close description

In the Gudbrandsdalen valley, one hour north of Lillehammer, Henrik Ibsen's drama "Peer Gynt" is celebrated in one of Norway's leading cultural festivals

With the Norwegian mountains as a backdrop, the festival is a nine-day celebration with 35 events, concerts, exhibitions and lectures. The main event of the festival is the theatre production of "Peer Gynt" by lake Gålåvatnet.

The festival is a celebration of Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" and the historical person Per Gynt, who lived in the Gudbrandsdalen valley. The tales about Per have been told thorugh generations, and these, together with the nature and culture in the valley, is what inspired Henrik Ibsen to write the dramatic poem.
A festival with traditions
The Peer Gynt festival is built on old traditions. In 1928 the first Peer Gynt Festival was held in Vinstra, and volunteers from the valley gathered to create the festival. Ever since then the volunteers have been involved in almost every activity, and they are essential to the success of the Peer Gynt festival.
Peer Gynt at Gålå
The theatre production of Henrik Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" at Gålå has been a success since 1989, and has gathered some of the best professional actors and musicians in Norway. At the theatre venue by lake Gålåvatnet, the professional theatre meets professional musicians and 80 local amateur actors, and the result is one of the most popular theatre productions in Norway.

The production is well suited for an international audience, with English and German introductions, summary booklets and audio guides.
The mountain concert "by Rondane"
Powerful music meets grand nature when the Peer Gynt festival presents famous artists at the outdoor stage on Kvamsfjellet mountain, overlooking the Rondane National Park.

The concert gathers about 2000 spectators, and is considered one of the highlights of the festival program. This concert is suitable for an international audience.
The Peer Gynt Art Exhibition
Every year the Peer Gynt Festival holds a new art exhibition. Art painters like Magne Furuholmen, Håkon Gullvåg and Ørnulv Opdahl are among the exhibitors that have previous exhibited at the festival. The exhibition is open every day during the festival, from 11 am to 5 pm.
The Church concert
During the festival you can experience a unique concert in the Sør-Fron church, one of the most beautiful churches in the region. This is an acoustic concert, featuring Norway's most celebrated artists.
The Peer Gynt award
Each year, a prominent Norwegian person is awarded the Peer Gynt statuette. The members of the Norwegian Parliament select the winner. Amongst the winners you can find Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway, explorer Thor Heyerdahl and author Jo Nesbø. The winner is celebrated in a ceremony at the festival.
Guided walks
The nature surrounding the festival is easily accessible for hiking. The Norwegian Trekking Association offers guided tours during the festival as a supplement to the cultural events.

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With the Norwegian mountains as a backdrop, the festival is a nine-day celebration with 35 events, concerts, exhibitions and lectures. The main event of the festival is the theatre production of "Peer Gynt" by lake Gålåvatnet. The festival is a celebration of Ibsen’s "Peer Gynt" and the historical person Per Gynt, who lived in the Gudbrandsdalen valley.

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Homepage - Nordlysfestivalen - Nordlysfestivalen

29 January - 6 February 2021

About the Festival

The Northern Lights Festival has since its beginning in 1988, developed from a small classic music festival, to a huge ten days music festival in Tromsø.

The festival has kept its core in the classical but will also present a broad genre of musical expressions.

On our venues you can discover everything from world stars to local talents.

Photos from 2020

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Homepage - Nordlysfestivalen - Nordlysfestivalen

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Homepage - Nordlysfestivalen - Nordlysfestivalen 29 January - 6 February 2021 The Northern Lights Festival has since its beginning in 1988, developed from a small classic music festival, to a huge ten days music festival in Tromsø. The festival has kept its core in the classical but will also present a broad genre of musical expressions.

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Hilmar Festival 2017 Review (Hilmarfestivalen)

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The Hilmar Festival is one of Norway's largest folk music festivals. Each year, about 150 artists are presented through around 70 different festival events to 9,000 visitors. The program is adapted to all ages with its own children's program, youth program, as well as free age limit on the festival itself.

The Hilmar festival key focus is on folk music and any type of music with a folk strand is welcome to be involved be it hard rock to Electronica. The festival has been featured by the media as a national event and public festival.

The Hilmar Festival offers an open dance floor with live music both during the day and in the evening, so there is no excuse not to dance.

In 2019 we set a new record with over 10 000 visitors, and a special day for storytelling. We will continue to expand the storytelling part of the festival.

The Hilmar Festival is held in week 45 every year.

For 2020 the festival runs from the 31. October - 8. November.

Hilmar Festival and Steinkjer welcome all the public to the municipality with the slogan "open, light and happy".
Film from the 2017 Hilmar Festival.
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About the Hilmar Alexandersen Foundation The Hilmar Festival is one of Norway's largest folk music festivals. Each year, about 150 artists are presented through around 70 different festival events to 9,000 visitors. The program is adapted to all ages with its own children's program, youth program, as well as free age limit on the festival...

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Gjerstadspringar - Norwegian Folk Music on Hardanger Fiddle

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by David Golber
American Lutherie, Number 36, Winter 1993
Someone has walked into your shop with yet another weird instrument. This time, it's sort of a like a violin, but it has a whole lot of pegs, the top is carved funny, it has pearl and bone inlay, and it's decorated with flowery drawings. He says his grandfather brought it from Norway in 1890, and he wants you to put it in playing condition.
Reprinted with some changes by the kind permission of the editors of American Lutherie.

Well, it's a Hardanger fiddle ( hardingfele in Norwegian). The instrument originated in the area around the Hardanger fjord, whence its name. It is distinctly Norwegian; in fact, it is played in only about a quarter of Norway, the western and south-central areas. The oldest instrument found has a date of 1651. The musical tradition is still very much alive, and continues unbroken up to the present.

Beginning in about 1850, there was an absolutely enormous emigration from Norway to America - something like a third of the population. Those who played fiddle of course brought their fiddles with them. In addition there were tours by professional players who performed for their emigrated countrymen and then returned to Norway. But the instrument and the music died out in America. The children of the emigrants rarely learned to play, and father's fiddle lay in its case in the attic, or was hung on the wall like an icon of a lost era. Now there is something like a revival here in America, not only among the descendants of the emigrants, but also among those not of Norwegian ancestry who have discovered the music.

The construction of the Hardanger fiddle is basically like that of a violin. In comparison with violins, however, the amount of variation from instrument to instrument is enormous. Older instruments usually will have smallish bodies, rather tubby, narrow but with a very high arching. About 1850, the outline began to be more like a violin. Nowadays, most makers use a more or less normal violin outline, but there is still a lot of variation to be seen.

Older instruments were made entirely of native materials, using the native spruce for the face, and either native maple or black alder ( sartor) for the sides and back. The fingerboard and tailpiece were faced with cowhorn, and the inlay was bone and mother of pearl from local shellfish. Pegs were from a hard local wood, such as pear or apple. Today, ebony has replaced the cowhorn, and many makers buy standard violin wood from the usual sources, although some still use the local spruce and maple or black alder. Older instruments may have no linings, and may have a bass bar carved in one piece with the top. Modern construction techniques are the same as for the violin.

All that inlay of pearl and bone into the ebony fingerboard is laborious. Some makers instead glue the pearl and bone pieces to a backing piece, fill in around them with one or another kind of black epoxy-like substance, and then file and sand the surface smooth. This can produce very fine results, but as you can imagine, there are those who regard anything except real inlay into ebony as a kind of cheating. One maker, Sverre Sandvik, uses a material called "Steinkitt," which he says is used by carvers of cemetery monuments to correct mistakes.

If you are interested in making a Hardanger fiddle, I suggest that you first learn to make a violin. Almost every technique that you will learn in making a violin is needed in making a Hardanger fiddle, and there are much better resources available for learning to make a violin. Once you have learned to make a violin, come to one of the HFAA meetings and look at and measure some quality Hardanger fiddles properly adjusted.

Strings and Tuning
The book Vi byggjer hardingfele (We Build a Hardanger Fiddle) by Sverre Sandvik is out of print, and is (in my opinion) not a particularly good book about making techniques. You may find the appendix diagrams useful, particularly because they define some important measurements that are not mentioned in the text. The English translation by Eldon Ellingson of Sandvik's book is not good, but would be worth purchasing just to get the appendix diagrams.

The Hardanger fiddle plan offered by the Guild of American Luthiers is very abbreviated, and is at least partly copied from Sandvik's book. The chapter on building a Hardanger fiddle in Irving Sloane's book "Making Musical Instruments" is based on museum observations and Sloane's guesses, rather than actual visits to contemporary makers, which result in some very strange conclusion. In particular, Sloane carves the bridge of his instrument in a shape which no maker in Norway uses. And Sloane's guess that the shape of the top is achieved by bending is just plain wrong.

A Hardanger fiddle has four playing strings, which are bowed in the usual way, plus four or five "understrings" which run under the fingerboard. The instrument is tuned in many different ways, depending on the piece being played. The following table shows the most usual tuning, which accounts for about three quarters of the music. The actual pitch varies, depending on the player's preference and what makes that particular instrument sound best. The pitch of the "A" string, or kvart, may vary from b'b to c"#, with all the other strings tuned proportionally higher or lower. (The traditional music is solo music, so universal agreement is unnecessary.)

Tuning of playing strings

Tuning of understrings

The highest understring is tuned to the same pitch as the kvart. If the instrument has only four understrings, it is the fifth which is omitted.

Another way to understand the tuning: If you start with a violin (tuned EADG), to tune it like a Hardanger fiddle, raise the lowest string one whole tone, and then tune the whole instrument up about one whole tone. (Stop! Don't actually do this; it would likely damage the violin!)

Figure 1. Stringing diagram, after Sandvik. "E," "A," "D," and "G" should be understood as the names of the strings, not how they are tuned. Tuning is described in the text.

Figure 1 shows the arrangement of the strings on the pegs. The arrangement of the understrings is that used in the inland regions; there is another arrangement used by players on the west coast.

The strings are somewhat unusual. The playing strings are in general lighter than violin strings. They come in weights 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5 and 12. For 11 weight, perhaps the most commonly used, the set breaks down as follows. The kvint is 0.009" steel. The kvart is 0.027" gut or 0.011" steel. A Pirastro/Eudoxa violin E "Stark" can be used. The ters is 0.041" open-wound gut. This is 0.009" wire wound over 0.025" gut, with about twelve turns per inch. The bass is 0.027" gut.

Understrings are steel and are named by their thicknesses in millimeters. Thus, a 0.0086" string, the most common size, is called "0.22". Understrings are available in sizes 0.20, 0.22, 0.24, and 0.26 (0.0079", 0.0086", 0.0094", and 0.0102"). Some players use graduated sizes for the understrings.

If you put violin strings on a Hardanger fiddle, don't tune it up above A ( kvart tuned to A) -- this would likely damage the instrument, since violin strings are heavier than Hardanger fiddle strings.

The instrument is traditionally played only in the first position; the highest point on the fingerboard which is actually fingered is approximately at the edge of the body. The traditional music uses double stops almost continually.

The action of a Hardanger fiddle is lower than that of a violin. I suggest the following approximate numbers:

These are what I have come to regard as nominal. I have seen them lower, particularly on the kvint side. The action is measured form the fingerboard to the under side of the string. I use an automobile feeler gauge at the nut end. Note that the ters is usually lower than the other strings. If the fingerboard is uneven right next to the nut, then you can use the numbers 1/2" from the nut.

The fingerboard is usually straight lengthwise. Crosswise, it is much flatter th an the fingerboard of a violin. There is a regional difference here: players from the west coast of Norway, where there is less use of double stops, prefer a more rounded fingerboard than those from the inland regions. A fairly normal roundness (for inland players) would be a radius of curvature of about 2.5" at 2" from the nut, or a rise of 0.029" between two points 3/4" apart (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Fingerboard and neck, 2" from nut.

What so you do when the fingerboard wears? The strings wear into the fingerboard just as they do on a violin. The ters, with its open winding, cuts in particularly badly. On a violin, one just scrapes down and reshapes the fingerboard, and then replaces it when it is too thin to use anymore. In contrast, the fingerboard of a Hardanger fiddle, with all of its decoration, cannot be scraped down, and to replace it would be to destroy a significant part of the maker's art (and would be difficult, too).

What I do (and what at least some respectable Norwegian repairmen do) is to fill in the worn spots with Super Glue. You can level it out a bit before it dries with waxed paper. Then file or scrape it level with the rest of the fingerboard and bring it up to a polish with successive grits of sandpaper. It is even possible to do this without removing the fingerboard from the instrument, but guard against accidental runs of the glue down into the varnish. You will probably want to remove the nut.

Spacing between the strings should be about 0.24" at the nut and about 0.50" at the bridge.

The understrings should be about 0.10" apart at the bridge. They want to be as high up on the bridge as possible, as close as they can be to the playing strings. However, if you get them too high, they will clang against the underside of the fingerboard. The better the instrument, the more life in the understrings, and the trickier this problem gets! About 0.10" clearance between the understrings and the underside of the fingerboard at the end of the fingerboard is usual. Look down the tunnel under the fingerboard from both ends. Sometimes I have gotten the needed clearance to prevent clanging just by lowering the understring nut.

Typical mensure (nut to bridge) of modern instruments is 11.9". Figure 3 shows two typical bridges, with dimensions and usual locations of the sound post and bass bar.

Figure 3. Two typical bridges. Thicknesses of the Viken bridge are maximums of an unfinished bridge.

Because of the playing technique, the bridge is much flatter on top than a violin bridge. Preference will vary from player to player, of course, with the west coast preferring a more rounded bridge. But for inland style, about 8 degrees seems to be the proper angle across the strings (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Angles across the strings.

The tailpiece is held on by wire, instead of gut. I suggest 0.040" hard stainless.

A sickness that sometimes affects Hardanger fiddles is the neck bending forward, bringing the end of the fingerboard down towards the face. Sometimes this is due to movement in the neck joint; sometimes it seems that the whole upper end of the instrument has given way slightly. In any case, it raises the action. When the end of the fingerboard rests of the fact of the instrument, even the most obstinate player will admit there is something wrong.

The standard violin treatment for this would be to reset the neck, or a neck splice: replace the neck and splice on the old head. If the trouble is in the neck joint, which is continuing to move, this may be the only thing to do. However if there is only a little movement, and it seems to have stopped, then a simpler treatment is to remove the fingerboard and insert a thin wedge of wood under it, to bring the action back to normal. Since one doesn't play in positions, the slight change in the thickness of the neck does not disturb the player. Many Hardanger fiddles have a thin wedge like this in them.

Some makers in Norway use a white glue called Casco. In some places, this does its nasty, gummy thing. How to remove it? With the help of Sverre Sandvik, I was able to identify that toluene dissolves the stuff and does not affect the varnish.

Well, look: I wouldn't be deep into this instrument if I wasn't crazy about the music. And so I have to have my chance to infect you.

First, some orientation: What do most Norwegians listen to now? Well, normal western pop music, of course. Going further back to the middle of the 19th century, there was a big industrialization, which brought in all sorts of foreign laborers. They came with their accordions, and polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, and reinlanders. In Norway, these are now called gammaldans -- old dance -- and the music is gammaldansmusikk.

But before this, and miraculously surviving up to the present, was an older tradition of solo Hardanger fiddle playing, and a parallel tradition on violin in areas where Hardanger fiddle is not play ed.. The old tunes are called slattar (struck: as the bow on the strings) and the corresponding dances are called bygdedans (regional dances: they vary greatly from region to region.) Is this slatt tradition that I am preaching to you. I'll say just a little about the music; the references include recordings and sources.

I feel that this music has a certain strictness and seriousness that is more akin to "classical" music than to what we usually call "folk" or "pop." The music is handed down aurally, but with great emphasis on exact preservation. The rhythms and melodic organization will be unfamiliar to you. The best players are truly virtuosos, and this you can hear in an instant even if without understanding the music. Most of the tunes are at least nominally dance tunes, and there is something very special in dancing to fine and subtle music.

Most Norwegians are not into this stuff. It's somewhat analogous to the relation of the average American to real old-time Appalachian hill music (but only somewhat!). On the other hand, there's an association (Landslaget for Spelemann [LFS] - The National Fiddler's Association) of people involved with this music and dance, with about five thousand members, and this is in a country with a total population of about four million. They publish a substantial magazine, and organize numerous concerts and competitions. More and more, even those Norwegians who personally do not like this music recognize it as a substantial tradition and an important part of their national artistic heritage.

If you go to Norway, you can check with the Den Norske Folkemusikkveka Web site to find out about concerts and competitions (a music and dance competition is a kappleik). The competitions range from a one-afternoon affair in a small town with all of thirty people in attendance, to the Landskappleik (countrywide competition) which lasts for four or five days with a thousand competitors in various kinds of music and dance, several thousand in the audiences, and concerts and parties until late into the nights. Don't be afraid to go; you'll be sure to find someone who speaks English who will point you in the right direction.

And be sure to contact the HFAA for news of players and dancers visiting America, as well as local workshops and fiddle groups in North America.

Sigh... that old exasperating question.

NO! NO! NO! The right questions are "What does the music sound like? or "How can I learn to play it?" or "Can I hear another tune?"

But people persist in asking, so here's an attempt to answer. [Author's note: The following were my estimates of prices in 1993 when this article was originally published; prices have now gone up considerably since then.] First of all, there are no public auctions to establish prices (either in Norway or in the U.S.) There are no factories producing bottom-end fiddle kits, with fiddle, bow and case for $119.95 (1993). I have seen beginner fiddles for about $800; these are instruments that look right, are solidly put together and have some sound in them. Reasonably good current instruments seem to go for about $2000 to $3000. "Name" instruments (some famous names are Helland, Steintjønndalen, and Røstad) might start at $3000 and move up towards $5000, with the very best perhaps up to $15,000. [All the above prices have now gone up considerably. D.G. 1999] The best instruments are rarely sold publicly at all, but pass from one player to another within the circle, or are passed down within a family. The right strategy for getting a good instrument begins with getting a not-so-good instrument, learning to play a little, and then going to Norway. Learning to speak some Norwegian somewhere in-between helps. There are good instruments to be found in the United States, too, often gathering dust in an attic or on a back shelf in a shop. But you may well be looking $1,000 - $2,000 in repair costs to make such an instrument playable.

The following sections have been modified from the original American Lutherie article.

Recordings (some available from the HFAA Merchandise Catalog)

Fire of the Amazons (Skjoldmøyslaget) by Hallvard T. and Torleiv H. Bjørgum. Sylvartun CD SYLVCD2. Cassette SYLV2.

Edvard Grieg: Slåttar / Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72 by Knut Buen, Hardanger fiddle and Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, piano. Simax CD PSC 1040.

Sigbjørn Bernhoft Osa by Sigbjørn Bernhoft Osa, Hardanger fiddle and violin. Buen Kulturverkstad BD BKCD1

Spel til dans (Playing for Dancing), Vols. I, II, III and IV by Knut and Hauk Buen, Hardanger fiddle. Buen Kulturverkstad BKMC 4, 30, 31, 32 (also available in CDs).

David Golber is a member of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. He can be reached by e-mail at dgolber@aol.com.

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What You Should Know About the Hardanger Fiddle - Hardanger Fiddle Association of America

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by David Golber American Lutherie, Number 36, Winter 1993 Someone has walked into your shop with yet another weird instrument. This time, it's sort of a like a violin, but it has a whole lot of pegs, the top is carved funny, it has pearl and bone inlay, and it's decorated with flowery drawings.

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The banner photo shows Mari Boine and her band on her first West Coast tour of North America, in a concert cosponsored by PSS, Nov. 8, 2019, Nordic National Museum, Seattle. Photo by Julie Whitehorn.
Luohti, Vuolle, Lu'dd, Juoiggus

Joik (also spelled yoik) is a traditional Sámi song form thought to be one of the longest-lived music traditions in Europe. The verb for presenting a joik (e.g. Northern Sámi juoigat) is transitive, which is often interpreted as indicating that a joik is not about something, but that the joiker evokes something (a person, animal, thing) through song.
"A yoik is not merely a description; it attempts to capture its subject in its entirety: it's like a holographic, multi-dimensional living image, a replica, not just a flat photograph or simple visual memory. It is not about something, it is that something. It does not begin and it does not end. A yoik does not need to have words - its narrative is in its power, it can tell a life story in song. The singer can tell the story through words, melody, rhythm, expressions or gestures." -Ursula Länsman
Beginning in the 17th century, Christian missionaries attempted to banish the traditional pagan faith of the Sámi, denouncing joik as sinful. The pietistic Laestadian revival of the 19th century pushed joik further underground. As recently as the 1950s, joik was forbidden in Sámi schools, as well as many homes. Mari Boine, one of its most influential and celebrated performers today, said her family considered joiking "the devil's work." Some see in Laestadian practices remnants of the old ways, however. Lawyer and reknowned joiker Ande Somby has remarked that Laestadian hymns include many of the techniques used in yoiking.

In the 1970s, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää and others pushed joik back into the light, and Boine's "Gula Gula" (Hear the Voices of the Foremothers) brought the genre to a new generation, particularly after it was released on Peter Gabriel's "Real World" label and then remixed into an electronica dance track in 2000. Today joik spans many genres, including rock, metal, blues, and hiphop.

Joik continues to play a powerful role in the Sámi renaissance and cultural self-determination.

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The banner photo shows Mari Boine and her band on her first West Coast tour of North America, in a concert cosponsored by PSS, Nov. 8, 2019, Nordic National Museum, Seattle. Photo by Julie Whitehorn. Luohti, Vuolle, Lu'dd, Juoiggus Joik (also spelled yoik) is a traditional Sámi song form thought to be one of the longest-lived music traditions in Europe.

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The Norwegian music scene is modern, diverse and interesting in many ways, but one must not forget one of the most traditional forms of music in Norway; Norwegian folk music. Folk music in Norway has been around for centuries and is still very popular in many parts of the country. However, someone who has never gone on any Norwegian cruises or taken any other round trips to Norway has likely never experienced Norwegian folk music before. Therefore, here is a brief guide regarding the origins and current state of Norwegian folk music.

Types of Norwegian Folk Music

Despite what some people may think, there is more than one type of Norwegian folk music out there. Generally speaking, this genre can be split up into two different categories, North Germanic and Sami. North Germanic music tends to include a lot of improvised songs and ballads which are used as hymns and work songs. When it comes to Sami music, it uses a vocal style called joik which is fairly similar to the vocal style used in traditional Native American music.

Both of these categories can be broken up even further into two more categories, which are vocal and instrumental. Any folk song that is instrumental is usually meant to serve as dance music.

Hardanger Fiddle

There are a variety of instruments that can be used in Norwegian folk music, especially in modern renditions of it. However, one of the most prominent instruments that has been used since the 1700s is the Hardanger fiddle. This distinctive instrument bears a close resemblance to a traditional fiddle and is played in the exact same way. The only main differences are that the Hardanger fiddle is only played using two strings at a time, giving it a clear bourdon sound.

Some of the other fairly popular instruments that can be found being used in Norwegian folk music are the bukkehorn, which is made out of a goat horn, the langeleik, which is a box dulcimer, and a harpeleik, which is a chorded zither.

Hilmar Festival

Norwegian folk music has grown to the point where it is so big that there are massive music festivals dedicated solely to it. The most well-known one is the Hilmar Festival, which involves around 150 artists performing in the folk music industry to a massive crowd of about 9,000 people. This festival has had some of the biggest up-and-coming names in the Norwegian folk music industry play on its stage during past years.

Modern Norwegian Folk Music

As proven by the presence of things like the Hilmar Festival, Norwegian folk music is still very much alive in the country. This is, in part, thanks to modern musical acts that have managed to modernize Norwegian folk music to make it more easily accessible to younger audiences.

One of the best examples of this is the Norwegian band Gåte, that is widely known for their unique combination of folk and metal music. Lumsk is another band that has managed to do the same thing and has also found success in doing it.

Fans of History Channel's "Vikings" series will also be familiar with the sounds of Wardruna - a band that is inspired by ancient folk songs and instruments, as well as singing/chanting lyrics based on the Norse myths and historical writings.

Other musical acts decided to go the other way by infusing traditional Norwegian folk music with modern pop sounds. Perhaps the biggest example of this is the artist Odd Nordstoga who has managed to sell over 160,000 copies of his debut album in Norway.

However, there are some fairly big musical acts practicing traditional Sami folk music as well. By far the most popular example is Mari Boine who has found massive success with her unique combination of jazz and rock influences with her traditional joik sound. Today, there's also a wide array of artists combining joik with contemporary genres like hip-hop or electronica creating unique new expressions from the mix of ancient/modern.

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The Ultimate Guide to Norwegian Folk Music

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The Norwegian music scene is modern, diverse and interesting in many ways, but one must not forget one of the most traditional forms of music in Norway; Norwegian folk music. Folk music in Norway has been around for centuries and is still very popular in many parts of the country.

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The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. The correct title is a-ha.

a-ha is a Norwegian pop music band. The trio, composed of Morten Harket, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen formed in 1983, and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. 'Take on Me', their debut single, was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1985 . Sales were aided in the US by an innovative video on MTV which utilized a sketchy animation/live action combination that tells a fantasy thriller story to the song. In spite of the single's greater popularity in the US, the album, Hunting High and Low, sold better in the UK. Critics at the time mostly dismissed the band as bubblegum pop.

a-ha's second album was Scoundrel Days ( 1986), and represented a move towards alternative rock. In 1987, they provided the title song for the James Bond film The Living Daylights. Stay on These Roads ( 1988) received more mixed reviews than the previous albums. In spite of a drastic decline in sales in the next few years, a-ha continued to record two more albums, East of the Sun, West of the Moon ( 1990) and Memorial Beach ( 1993).

a-ha split up in 1993, their members focusing on solo activities, but not until after coming together in 1994 to perform for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, including their song composed for the Winter Para-Olympics, 'Shapes That Go Together'. After a very well-received one-off performance of 'The Sun Always Shines on TV' and a new song, 'Summer Moved On', at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 1998, the threesome returned to the studio and recorded 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, which resulted in a new tour, and a videocast performance of a-ha (with Briskeby) opening the new Vallhall stadium in Oslo. This album and 2002's were both proof of the fact that their fanbase was still there and they were also able to attract new audiences, especially in Central Europe and Scandinavia, where the albums sold extremely well. They appeared again at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, in 2001. A live album (from their 2002 tour) with the title How Can I Sleep With Your Voice in My Head was released in March of 2003, preceded by a live single of the 1986 classic 'The Sun Always Shines on TV'. In 2004, an in-depth book entitled The Swing Of Things was published, also featuring a CD of early demo material. In 2004, A-ha celebrated their 20th anniversary with the release of a new singles collection: 'The Singles: 1984-2004'. Throughout their career, a-ha has officially released 32 singles. 13 of them became top ten singles in the UK, and 14 singles have been number one on the radio lists over the world. The new singles album includes some of the highlights from a-ha's last 20 years. In 2005, plans are underway to stat recording their next studio album later this year. The band are currently compiling new material, tour dates will be announced later.

Albums

DVDs

External link

This biography is published under the GNU Licence

Items to buy by Aha

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The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. The correct title is a-ha . a-ha is a Norwegian pop music band. The trio, composed of Morten Harket, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen formed in 1983, and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business.

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Noticeable songs of Aha

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photo by Cecilie Owren

One of the oldest instruments in Norway, if not the oldest, is the bukkehorn. It is the horn of the billy goat, in use since the Stone Age.

Setra, the summer mountain farm, is where farmers take the animals in the summertime so that they get enough to eat in the pasture. In the old days, budeia, the milkmaid, took care of the cows and the goats there; she milked, made butter and cheese. Her instruments were the wooden lur and the bukkehorn. She used them for scaring and calling: scaring away the predators - wolves, bears, lynx - and calling the cattle and the goats. To emphasize - playing on animal horns is a human, world-wide tradition, not unique to Norway.

Anywhere in the world where people have animals, in any culture, I guess that they have taken up a horn and wondered if they could make sounds from it.

At all times, man has used horns to warn, to give signals, to scare, and to call. To communicate. They have been used in wars and conflict, as well as in religious ceremonies.

Horns from a ram or a cow, a buffalo or an antelope sound different than goat horns. In Norway, the billy goat is the main supplier of horns.

I focus on the Norwegian bukkehorn: this is my heritage, so few people are playing it, and the culture of budeias' use of these instruments is not that far in the past.

It was not the historical facts or the strange instrument itself that evoked my passion for it. It was the sound. I was moved by this sound and got myself a horn, ready to explore the instrument. As a horn player, I of course have some advantages, like the lip technique and a way of playing that always searches for the tones to "ring", to feel the richness of overtones in a way not all non horn players could. Another advantage I have as a natural horn player is a trained ear and practical knowledge of the natural tones, as well as the flexibility to "lip" tones upwards and downwards when necessary. And perhaps also the experience (or ability?) to let the instrument lead the way, not always fight against it.

When I started to play the bukkehorn, I had to play with it, not only on it. Maybe it has to do with personal interest, or maybe with the fact that I am a horn player (and not a trumpet player, for instance), but my focus on this instrument from the start has been the sound. I wanted to get inside the sound, to find the soul of the instrument, rather than to develop a fast or virtuoso technique. I found it natural to use the soft tongue-technique that I was used to on the natural horn, not the modern way of tonguing. I doubt there is one correct historical way of playing the bukkehorn, the history being what it is. I chose to follow my heart and ears.

For me, it has been a creative process learning to play the bukkehorn, with a different approach than I ever had to use when playing the modern horn. It is very basic and you may say, primitive, and it has very few tones and many limitations. So to get to the music, which is the main point in playing...I had to dig down to the real basics. Of both the instrument and my own musicality.

photo by Hans Olav Granheim

In a strange way, these bukkehorns often sound best in minor. The range is about a fifth, more or less, and it is not fully chromatic. The wonder of the horns is that because of the billy goats, no horn is similar to another. The billy goats are quite like us- they are all different! That makes each horn unique - in size, shape, curves, structure - and of course how it sounds, which tones they have. Which sound and timbre. To learn to play the bukkehorn is to learn to play a new instrument every time. I have realized that I do not even think in the same theoretical way when I play those horns. The fingerings differ from horn to horn, and I do not have the same relation to which tones I play. I try just to be open and play it. Like singing. I guess you could approach it as you would a modern instrument and be theoretical about which natural tones are there or not, but I find it much more interesting and playful to use my ears and heart. As far as I know, no one has yet found a mathematical way of making these horns, due to the aforementioned factors that make them unique. You never know until a horn is finished if it is a nice instrument or not. And even then, there is a lot to explore and research. This is where the magic lies. Of course, I admit that my sense of humor is also triggered by playing a strange kind of horn, with the smell and everything, and my historical passionate side enjoys the fact that this is the oldest Norwegian instrument we have.

As for the style - well, I guess that is quite personal. But a knowledge of the traditional music from my country is of course a necessity. In recent years, I've really understood how my singing experience influences my playing. I have always sung a lot in various styles: alone, in small groups, and in choir. The awareness of music made by voices is something I cannot emphasize enough. After all, the voice is our most natural instrument.

I am honored to be invited to the International Horn Symposium in Ghent this summer as a featured artist, and I will fill my lecture with some of the content of my TEDx-talk. I will also be happy to answer questions from the audience afterwards. Hopefully I can offer both insight and some musical experiences. In the late-night nocturnal recital, I will play Norwegian music, both on the modern horn and the bukkehorn. I will also sing, as I do in all of my concerts. I am thrilled that the IHS invited me and that they appreciate my versatile musicianship. I hope we can create a magical night together, with a musical focus on the raw powers of nature as well as the connection between the Norwegian tradition and modern music.

A Frozen magical journey from the Norwegian mountains | Sissel Morken Gullord | TEDxArendal

Sissel Morken Gullord's website: www.gullord.no

Sissel Morken Gullord is a Norwegian musician, singer and artist. She lives in Biri with a view to Lake Mjøsa. She is known as a passionate player of the Norwegian Bukkehorn and was headhunted to play in Disney's Frozen. She plays in "Lilyhammer" and recorded some tunes together with Steven Van Zandt, who wanted "the amazing Norwegian horn" to be heard in the NRK/Netflix TV series.

Sissel represents "Norway" in the turn-based strategy-game Civilization VI with her music.She was awarded the government work grant for three years from the Arts Council of Norway in 2015. She plays the modern horn, the bukkehorn, the wooden lur, the baroque horn and the classical natural horn. She sings traditional music, jazz, pop, rock, - she loves music and doesn't want to limit herself to one kind of style- she wants to play them all!

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photo by Cecilie Owren One of the oldest instruments in Norway, if not the oldest, is the bukkehorn. It is the horn of the billy goat, in use since the Stone Age. Setra, the summer mountain farm, is where farmers take the animals in the summertime so that they get enough to eat in the pasture.

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What is a lur? A lur or lur horn is a wind instrument cast in bronze dating to the Late Bronze Age (c. 1000 BC).

Most of these lurs have come from Denmark, where a total of 39 have been found. Sweden, Norway and northern Germany too have produced examples. The curving shape of the tubes recalls ox horns, on which the lurs may have been modelled. In Denmark the lurs are usually found in pairs and always in bog deposits.

The name 'lur' is of recent date. It was used by archaeologists at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Originally it comes from the Icelandic sagas, which say that 'the warriors were summoned to battle with the lur'. The design and size of the lurs vary. Thanks to this variation we can trace the development of the lur over time.

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What is a lur? A lur or lur horn is a wind instrument cast in bronze dating to the Late Bronze Age (c. 1000 BC). Most of these lurs have come from Denmark, where a total of 39 have been found. Sweden, Norway and northern Germany too have produced examples.

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He is a noticeable Norwegian music composer, who is one of the leading figure of percussionists in Europe. He  often uses  material from nature, especially ice to create instrument and perform his music by these unique instruments. He was also the establisher of the Ice music festival. and sometimes compose music for Jazz festivals, Dance  or theatre.
Biography

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Terje Isungset is one of Europe's most accomplished and innovative percussionists. With over two decades experience in jazz and Scandinavian music he is taking these types of music far beyond their traditional boundaries, becoming more like a cross between a sound artist and a shaman. Crafting his own instruments from Norwegian natural elements such as arctic birch, granite, slate, sheep bells and even ice, he is highly recommended to those sensible to the poetry and simplicity of sounds. "Timbres" and "colours" are central in Terje Isungsets music and compositions. In the press, his work has often been described as innovative, visual, energetic, and different from any previously known concepts. Isungset has also been commissioned to compose music for Jazz Festivals, Dance Performances, Theatre, Film, etc. (40 commissed concerts) His composition efforts have also brought nine critically acclaimed solo CD`s.

In the book Percussion Profiles Isungset was given a thorough presentation. "Interviews-articles and discographies of 25 of the worlds most creative percussionists". He has been given the Norwegian awards Jazz musician of the year and
composer of the year.

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Terje Isungset is one of Europe's most accomplished and innovative percussionists. With over two decades experience in jazz and Scandinavian music he is taking these types of music far beyond their traditional boundaries, becoming more like a cross between a sound artist and a shaman.

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Norwegian Institute of Public Health / COVID-19

We shall be operating a fully COVID-19 compliment concert environment and all our plans for venue construction and audience engagement is being designed around compliance laid out by the Norwegian government. The pandemic's status is in constant change and even with the advent of vaccines, we envisage no key changes to current coronavirus safety measures.

Due to a myriad of travel restrictions that is governed country by country, we want to ensure that you have the latest information offered by the Norwegian Government. Please check the following official links before making any final travel decisions.
Norwegian Institute of Public Health Government.no

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We shall be operating a fully COVID-19 compliment concert environment and all our plans for venue construction and audience engagement is being designed around compliance laid out by the Norwegian government. The pandemic's status is in constant change and even with the advent of vaccines, we envisage no key changes to current coronavirus safety measures.

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The purpose of the Kaleidoscope project is to preserve the fading or the minor culture of the world. Therefore, I’m going to create a website introducing the fading culture or traditions to be able to help the under threat culture of Norway. The website will be accessible to anyone in the online community. On that account, I'm using “padlet”’s template, which is in the form that is similar to a mind map for better organization. The website will allow the people in the online community to have an understanding of the culture or specific item that is only celebrated by the minority. The viewer who has access to the website can only view the website. On this website, I’m tempted to introduce the culture in Norway that is not frequently or rarely practiced. Since the Viking age, Norway was strongly influenced by the culture in Scandinavia, including Sami culture (indigenous people in Scandinavia) and Vikings. The culture was often related to the ocean due to its geographical location and Viking’s culture. Since the country became more and more international and the improvement of technology, people tend to appeal to modern life and mainstream culture, so without people practicing the culture will definitely fade away.

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This was a festival that has been practiced over 25 years., which was used to celebrate the appear of Northern light every year. The top artist of Norway will be performing during the festival and it also includes some out doors events.

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Hilmar festival is a festival for folk music in Norway, which is also one of the largest folk music festival in Norway. The various types of  folk music will be performed in the festivals with all ages audience approach. This festival allow the Norwegian to maintain the traditional folk music.

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The Ice music festival is a music festival, which all the instruments that are used in the performance are all made from ice. The built of the stage

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Peer Gynt festival has been practiced since 1928, which exhibitions, lectures and events will be present during the festival. The purpose of the festival is to celebrate the historical figure "Peer Gynt" which the tales of him has been pass through many years.

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Norwegian pop-music group in mid 1980s. They created synth pop music that virally spread around the world.  They are considered one of the most noticeable figure of pop music in 1980s.

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Joik is the vocal folk music that are sung by the Sami people. The purpose of the music is to evoke a person, place or animals. This was believe as one of the oldest music in Europe.

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The Hardanger Fiddle was a instrument that is very often used in the instrumental folk music that are  composed for dancing. The instrument are traditionally used in festivals or dances.

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The bukkehorn was a instrument made from goat horn. It is traditionally used by the milkmaids to scared or deliver signals. It's an ancient instrument that was found in Scandinavia.

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Lur is a long blowing horn that was originated in Scandinavia, which the shapes of the horn are various. The  instrument  can reach about 2 meters long. The original purpose of the instrument is similar to all the war instrument that can frighten the enemies.

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During the Viking age, Viking' clothing were mainly made of wool, linen and animals skins, which female wore dress and male wear tunics. The weaving technique of Vikings is very developed, which they also use natural colours from nature to dye their clothes.  Jewelries are also essential, they are known for their fabulous jewelries

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This is the traditional clothing of the Indigenous people (Sami people), which all the colors , patterns designed are made by their relatives or friends. The design of the clothes can reflect the person's gender, family, home region and so on. Therefore, the traditional clothes are still often worn in festival. To represent their culture.

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Finland is home to around 10,000 Saami people. This quick guide will help keep you up-to-date with Saami culture! Listen to the Saami national anthem, learn what Saami clothes mean to their wearers and find out what it means if someone yoiks you. All links take to English websites except some which are marked as (FI).

Traditional Saami clothing. (Picture: Vesa Toppari 2015)

Sámi Gákti - Saami Clothing

The Saami national clothes are a source of personal joy and pride for Saami people. Saami clothing is often made by the wearer's family members, relatives or close friends. It is not only special because of its ornate appearance, but also because of the information included in the garments. The clothing and its different parts indicate the gender of the wearer, his or her home region, family and marital status. Saami people still wear their national clothing actively, and their glamour can be seen especially at celebrations. The clothing is known as gákti in North Saami, mááccuh in Inari Saami and määccaǩ in Skolt Saami. The national Saami clothing has a great significance in Saami culture.

Image Gallery: Me and my Saami clothing (FI) and more information about Saami clothing

The Saami clothing is the most clearly visible and well-known feature of Saami culture. This also makes it a source of cultural appropriation. Check out the visual guidelines for presenting Saami culture. (FI)

"The gákti and Sámi clothing are not a costume. They are an integral part of a cultural identity and should be worn only by those who understand and appreciate them." An article discussing about cultural appropriation from a Saami person living in Norway.

"The gákti is like a second skin"

- Outi Länsman

The Yoik Tradition

The yoik is a kind of Saami folk music. In the words of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, who modernised the tradition, a yoik is also much more than a song. It is also a kind of social business card. In places that still have a thriving yoik tradition, people sing yoiks about places and animals, but also about each other. When a Saami person meets a friend, he or she may greet them by singing a yoik devoted to that person, or, in other words, yoik them.

Traditionally, a yoik has several functions in everyday life. A reindeer herder watching over his herd may yoik for many different reasons. A yoik repels predators, for instance, because they recognise the human voice. A yoik is also a good way for remembering things, yoiking and thinking about friends or events related to them is a good way to pass the time.
Watch Saami Jon Henrik yoik his late friend on Talent Sweden:
"There is a special rule related to personal yoiks: it is inappropriate to sing a yoik composed about oneself. This is viewed as a form of self-flattery" - Encyclopaedia of Saami Culture

The different Saami languages have their own names for their traditional music. The music is different in terms of both name and style, which can be compared to the regional variation in Saami clothing. In the Saami areas of Finland, you can hear the North Saami luohti, Inari Saami livđe ja Skolt Saami leu'dd (FI).
A traditional yoik (YouTube)A yoik in a fusion song (YouTube)
"People also yoik in different social situations, such as a marriage proposal. Proposal yoiks have been composed for brides." Read more about the Saami musical tradition.

Root handicrafts by Skolt Saami Mirva Haataja (2016)

Saami duodji - handicrafts

Saami handicrafts, known as duodji, show the Saami people's strong connection to nature - most of the materials have traditionally been and continue to be gathered from nature. The gathering of handicraft materials is also a good example of how closely connected Saami culture is to the seasons, different materials can and should only be collected at a certain time of year.

kuva: Erica Huuva (2016)

The Saami Duodji label is the symbol of genuine Saami handicrafts

Saami handicrafts were traditionally made to suit practical needs. Fur from the reindeer's legs and scalp is used to make warm fur boots and mittens for the winter, reindeer calf pelts are used for hats, and tanned reindeer leather is used for bags, slippers and, nowadays, also phone cases. Artisans known how to use all parts of a reindeer or tree, including the veins, bones, bark and roots. Nowadays, Saami duodji is also a form of art, and objects are made for decorative purposes.

"The problem is that tourists can't see the difference and don't know what is actually made by Saami artisans and what is not."" You can recognise a genuine piece of Saami handicraft by the Saami Duodji label.
Duodji-shop online store selling Saami handicrafts Read more about Saami handicrafts Erica Huuva - silver jewellery

The Saami flag was granted official status in 1986

Basic Facts

The Saami National Day is celebrated on 6th of February. The Saami flag, the national symbol of the Saami, was granted official status in 1986.

The official national anthem of the Saami is Saami soga lávlla (YouTube), which was composed by Norwegian Arne Sørlie with lyrics by Saami Isak Saba.

However it is generally known that many Saami people consider Nils-Aslak Valkeapää's yoik Saami eatnan duoddariid to be their national anthem:

Finland is home to around 10,000 Saami people. The Saami National Day is celebrated on February 6

Estimates of the total Saami population range from 50,000 to 100,000. In Finland, the Saami population is around 10,000. Questions about defining who is Saami make it difficult to estimate the size of the population. Saami people are the only indigenous people in the EU.

Three Saami languages are spoken in Finland: North Saami, Skolt Saami and Inari Saami. There are nine Saami languages altogether, all of which are endangered. is an early childhood education website in Saami. You can find other tools for studying the languages here and a complete list of all the Saami languages here.

The Saami homeland, Sápmi is located in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia, transcending the national borders. The Saami area of Finland is made up of the municipalities of Enontekiö, Utsjoki and Inari as well as the area of the Lappi reindeer herding cooperative. More than half of the Saami in Finland now live outside of the Saami area. There is a relatively large and active Saami minority in Helsinki, for instance. City-Saamit ry (FI), an organisation operating in the Helsinki metropolitan area, aims to promote a sense of community among the Saami people living in the south.

The Saami Parliament is the highest political body of the Saami in Finland. Its elections are held every four years. YleSápmi is responsible for news broadcasts on Saami topics in Finland.

kuva: Suohpanterror (2013)

The Suohpanterror artivist collective takes a visible stand on Saami politics through artistic means

Suohpanterror, a collective of Saami artists, takes a visible stand on Saami politics. Suohpanterror is known for its critical and provocative propaganda posters. In 2016, Suohpanterror received the Kritiikin Kannukset -palkinto (FI) arts prize, awarded by The Finnish Critics' Association.

@OutiLansman, @TiinaSanilaAikio and @PetraLaiti are a few Twitter users who tweet about Saami-related matters. For more Saami fashion and handicrafts on Instagram, check out: @Samekofter and @Kautokeino_Solvsmie. Some Saami films: Sami Blood, Kaisa's Enchanted Forest and Saami artists: Amoc (rap), Sofia Jannok (pop) and Ylva (electronic).

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Finland is home to around 10,000 Saami people. This quick guide will help keep you up-to-date with Saami culture! Listen to the Saami national anthem, learn what Saami clothes mean to their wearers and find out what it means if someone yoiks you. All links take to English websites except some which are marked as (FI).

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"Bunad" is the traditional clothing of Norway in 20th century. It combines the rural dress with some other elements. The clothing was developed during Norwegian national romanticism, therefore bunad is a vital tradition that combines their self-identity.

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The colourful Norwegian folk dress has gained in popularity in recent years. We take a look at the history and the detail of the designs.

A bunad is a traditional folk costume that you find all over Norway. Although much more popular with women, men's bunads are also available.

The best time to see the outfit is on Norway's national day, when the streets are full of bunad-wearing Norwegians of all generations! You may also people wearing one at weddings and other celebrations.

A modern tradition

The smart, colourful outfits are made with wool, meant to be tight-fitting, and are adorned with metal buckles, buttons and jewellery. Accessories vary and can even include blades.

Although believed by many tourists to be a tradition dating back hundreds of years, that's not exactly true. Far from it in fact, as you can see from archive photographs from more than one hundred years ago.

The design of the modern bunad does take plenty of cues from traditional folk costumes dating back a few hundred years. However the modern dress we're talking about in this article is very much a 20th-century invention.

While we're on that subject, let's take a look at how the costume came to be. For that, there's one Norwegian woman to thank.

The mother of the bunad

The person most often credited with the outfit's 'invention' - or at least rekindling interest in traditional folk costumes - is Hulda Garborg.

The writer, novelist, playwright, poet and dancer spent many years travelling the country participating in debates and promoting Norwegian culture. This was a tough job, as it was during the time when many families were leaving Norway in search of a better life in America or elsewhere.

During the early-to-mid 1900s, Klara Semb took over the campaign and put the focus on developing "historically correct" bunads. Aagot Noss started to develop a written account of the traditions that modern bunads were based on in the 1950s.

When do Norwegians wear bunads?

Despite the wishes of some camera-wielding tourists, wearing a bunad is not something Norwegians do every day. Day-to-day, simple, practical clothing that suits the Norwegian climate is worn for work and regular social ocassions.

Since a bunad is a festival garment, less ornate traditional dress is more suitable and practical for work situations. Everyday cotton or wool costumes, colored and patterned shirts and aprons, and simpler silver accessories are among the possibilities.

However, the bunad does play an important role in a Norwegian's major life events and special occasions.

Norwegians use it for various celebrations including weddings and possibly important birthdays and folk dances. It's also often worn on religious occasions such as baptisms, confirmations, and sometimes at Christmas.

But without doubt the best day to admire the bunad out in public in Norway is on the 17th of May for the country's Constitution Day celebrations, when almost everyone dons the national dress.

Consider getting an everyday (hverdags) dress, which is less expensive and easier to make and care for. If fabrics are carefully chosen and workmanship is excellent, you will have appropriate clothing for traditional events.

The rules of the bunad

Designs vary massively between regions. One primary function of a person's bunad is to serve as a public appreciation of and homage to your Norwegian heritage in general and to your town or region of Norway in particular.

It is customary to wear a bunad or folkedrakt from an area to which you have a genetic or residential connection. Then you won't have to explain to those who greet you (feeling they've found someone from their region) that you just liked that particular colour!

Your bunad should always display excellent quality fabric and workmanship. It should fit nicely, and be clean and in good repair. Staying in shape to fit in a bunad after many years can be quite the challenge!

Read more: On Wearing A Bunad For The First Time In 20 Years

Because you are wearing traditional (or traditionally related) clothing, conservative makeup and hairstyles are suitable.

More contemporary additions such as earrings, high heels and nylons are out of place. References to the bunad police are made partly in jest!

Popular regional variants

One of the lesser known facts about the traditional dress is that there are a few hundred local varieties, with some saying there are up to 400.

That's quite a selection for a country of little more than five million people! Here are some of the most notable versions:

Nordland

One of the most popular regional variants is the Nordlandsbunad, from the county of Nordland. The men's version dating back to 1924 features dark blue stockings and a floral brocade vest over a stand-up collar shirt.

The female version is a rich blue dress with embroidered floral patterns on the skirt and top. Accessories include a shawl, apron, bag and a hat, all in blue of course. The Nordland outfit has regularly won the title "Norway's most beautiful bunad" from the Norwegian media.

Hardanger

Known as "the first bunad", Hardanger's collection of designs vary in detail but are best known for their distinctive red body and white apron.

It is common to add a belt to the outfit at confirmation. According to tradition, the headgear worn depends on marital status.

Telemark

With a rich history in textile production and craftsmanship, Telemark in southern Norway is regarded by some as having the "Norwegianest" bunads.

Based on costumes from the 19th-century, Telemark's bunads differ between the west and the east, but at first glance appear similar: both feature a predominantly deep shade of blue, the same cut, and red/green embroidery.

Hallingdal (Buskerud)

The distinctive elements of the Hallingdal bunads include the contrast between the dark fabric and the vivid colours used in the embroidery.

This bunad is designed without a belt, although one can be added if desired. Embroided headgear is also a common accessory.

Trøndelag

While different variations do exist within the vast region, the Trøndelag bunad was created in 1923 in an attempt to create a common bunad for the entire region of central Norway.

Inspired by Roccoco fashion from the 18th-century, it is one of the easiest to spot even though it can come in green, red or blue varieties, the latter being the most common.

Bunad jewellery & accessories

Silver was (and still is, in some parts!) a very important material in Norway, steeped in superstition and legend. According to one legend, the silver mines belonged to the mountain trolls as they were such good silversmiths.

For many years silver was used by locals to protect themselves against bad weather and storms, to heal illness, and even to consecrate water. According to some stories, a silver brooch would often be pinned on the clothing of a baby so trolls couldn't swap the infant with one of their own!

Because of this spiritual connection and ancestral value, pieces of silver were often handed down for generations within families.

As with the bunad itself, the design of the associated jewellery varies in design regionally. Some of the silver jewellery often found on a woman's bunad includes:

Neck pin/button to hold the shirt together at the neck

Brooch fastened across the front of the shirt rather than the bunad

Accessories including cufflinks, shoe buckles, rings, and belts

Typically, less is more when it comes to accessorising the national costume.

FAQ: Frequently asked questions

We're getting a lot of questions from this article! We'll do our best to answer them in this section.

How expensive is a bunad?

This is without doubt the most frequently asked question!

A bunad is a complex and unique piece of clothing that's designed and produced to last a lifetime. In this world of Asia-produced off-the-peg disposable clothing, it can be easy to forget what a truly handmade item of clothing costs to make.

Prices vary hugely, of course. A typical woman's bunad made to order will likely cost in the region of 30-40,000 Norwegian kroner. Yes, that's several thousand dollars.

For a more standard design that only needs minor adjustment, prices start from about 20,000 Norwegian kroner. That's still a substantial investment, of course!

These days it's also possible to buy a foreign-made bunad with less quality materials and craftsmanship. It's going to be much cheaper, but it certainly won't last lifetime.

Where can I buy a bunad?

You won't find one in a Norwegian H&M or Cubus store! A bunad is almost always bought from a specialist store. There are independent stores, particularly in smaller counties and/or those that specialise in a specific type.

But there's also a few national retailers with outlets in some of the bigger cities. They are also likely to have websites with more information or ranges, prices, ordering, etc. Ckeck out norskebunader.no and norskflid.no to begin with.

Any more questions?

Well, that's all for now! The whole team at Life In Norway hopes you've learned something about this integral part of Norway's culture.

We're not sure we're qualified to answer any questions, but feel free to ask a question anyway or leave a comment below. You never know who else is reading that may be able to provide an answer.

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The Norwegian Bunad - A Modern Tradition in Norway

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The colourful Norwegian folk dress has gained in popularity in recent years. We take a look at the history and the detail of the designs. A bunad is a traditional folk costume that you find all over Norway. Although much more popular with women, men's bunads are also available.

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Since Norway 's geographical location, whaling is definitely a vital industry for ancient Norwegian. It is one of the   significant industry that people rely on. Therefore, many daily supplies or cuisine in Norway are related to whale meats or oil.

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The lifestyle of Sami people (Indigenous people) . Hunter-gatherers society is contrast to the agricultural society, they obtain their supplies through foraging. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the major lifestyle in Norway's ancient or earlier society.

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Alta, Norway - Although modes of communication have changed considerably over the millennia, the use of simple illustration continues in pretty much the same form it has since around the dawn of human evolution. The application of ancient art as communication is vividly on view in the form of rock art in this Northern Norway area, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

The rock art in this wide geographical region has been created through the chipping or carving of the rocks, and through painting on individual and blocks of rock. The Alta-area rock art makes up the largest known collection of rock carvings in northern Europe, and many of the existing pieces of rock art in the region date back to around 5000 B.C.E.

Alta's rock art appears to shed light on the worldview of the hunter-gatherers of prehistoric times. The pictures they created function as both simple expression as well as a form of communication between the living and the spirit worlds. The various activities depicted - processions, rituals, dancing, hunting, fishing, boat travel - also serve as a record of prehistoric social life, expressing as well the relationship between the people and the harsh physical landscape they inhabited. The various extant panels include countless representations of elks, reindeer, fish, goose, duck, swan, other birds and more, all well preserved throughout time.

Maintenance of these precious artifacts remains a continual challenge due to the weathering process caused by vegetation, frost and other natural processes - as well as the threat of modern-day vandalism. And the designation of World Heritage Site shines a strong spotlight on the need for preservation. Methods for limiting and slowing the weathering process are continually being developed.

The mission and impact of the World Heritage Sites upon our shared humanity can best be summed up in UNESCO's own description: "Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration . . . What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located." (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/)

The rock art of Alta can now be viewed in an online digital archive maintained by the Alta Museum (www.alta.museum.no). The expansion of this archive is an ongoing project, and the intention is to also include texts, videos and other documents containing information about the rock art and its history.

Having the opportunity today to observe evidence of the creativity of the human spirit manifested so long ago, one is reminded of the words of Philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, who said: "Human feelings of hope, love, anger and fear are communicated to us through the artist's work. The vibrations of the artist's spirit set off similar vibrations within our hearts. This is the essential experience of art, and it is a shared feeling that links the creator and the viewer, transcending boundaries of time and space."

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Rock art of Alta in Northern Norway, a World Heritage Site, inspires visitors even thousands years later

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Alta, Norway - Although modes of communication have changed considerably over the millennia, the use of simple illustration continues in pretty much the same form it has since around the dawn of human evolution. The application of ancient art as communication is vividly on view in the form of rock art in this Northern Norway area, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

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The Viking boathouse is a architecture use for keeping the boats that are not sailing during winter time. During the Viking age, there will be boathouse built along the site, which each boathouse can held one boats.  The boathouse is about 25 meters or longer. The wood curving technique that are used in the boat houses has influence in develop in Norway, which the stave church is one of the architecture that was impacted by boathouse.

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Vikings

The Viking Age was the years between 750 - 1100 when people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark made a name for themselves and became a political force to be reckoned with throughout Europe. From their travels in Europe, they adopted new ideas, cultural impulses and a new religion - Christianity.

The Vikings are best known as pirates and warriors, but they were also sailors, merchants, craftsmen, farmers, fishermen, poets, explorers and nation-builders. The Scandinavian national states were founded during the Viking Age. And it is now the Northerners develop a vessel that better organized and wealthier societies on the Continent don't have; The Viking ship. It was the seaworthiness of the Viking ships, together with the sailors' knowledge of navigation and seamanship, which made it possible for them to conquer the ocean .
Read more here

Viking Farm

The Viking Farm is situated a ten minutes' walk from the Middle Age church at Avaldsnes. You will find it on a small, forested island, just inside the rocks where king Olav Tryggvason in 998 drowned a group of wizards.

In the farmyard you will find a longhouse, a boat house for a Viking warship, a roundhouse and several smaller buildings. Outside the farmyard there are paths through the forest for those who will just seek some peace and tranquility.

In the summer season the Viking Farm is open for tourists. All year in the evenings and in weekends it is possible to rent the longhouse for guided tours and banquets. Each year in June there is a Viking Festival at the Viking Farm. Then Vikings from many countries set up their tents among the reconstructed buildings.
Read more here

History Centre

Nordvegen History Centre tells the story about how Avaldsnes became The First Royal Throne of Norway. Harald Fairhair, the king who unified Norway into one kingdom, will present you for princes and kings who ruled the "North Way" from Avaldsnes.

Some of these rulers we know from the sagas of the Norwegian kings, the heroic sagas and old skaldic poems. Others have become known to us through archaeological digs.
You will also get a glimpse into the magic world that people once believed to be true and meet sorcerers, shield maidens and Norse gods.

At the Nordvegen History Centre, we tell these stories of old using films, sound clips, lights, figures and objects. WELCOME TO AN EXCITING VISIT!
Read more here

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Leidangsnaust Avaldsnes. Naustet er ein rekonstruksjon av eit naust funne på Rennesøy. Det er ca 32m langt og 15m bredt på det vidaste og 7.5m høgt på det høgaste.

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The slash and burn culture is a significant kind of life style of the Forest Finns (one of the early ethnic groups in Norway) , which they farmers will cut down the trees in the area and burned it down so the trees can be used as a nutrient for the lands.

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Svedjebruk is a Swedish and Norwegian term for slash-and-burn agriculture that is derived from the Old Norse word sviða which means "to burn". This practice originated in Russia in the region of Novgorod and was widespread in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Medieval period. It spread to western Sweden in the 16th Century when Finnish settlers were encouraged to migrate there by King Gustav Vasa to help clear the dense forests. Later, when the Finns were persecuted by the local Swedes, svedjebruk farming was spread by refugees to Eastern Norway in the Eastern part of Solør, in the area bordering Sweden known as Finnskogen ("the Finnish woods").

The practice also spread to New Sweden in North America. Reinforced by the use of fire in agriculture and hunting by Native Americans, it became an important part of pioneering in America (Pyne, 1997:470).

Svedjebruk involved stripping a ring of bark completely around the trunk of coniferous trees like pine or spruce or felling them, allowing them to dry, setting fire to the dried forest and growing crops on the fertile ash-covered soil. The resulting ash was highly fertile, but only for a short period. The clearing was initially planted to rye as soon as the ash had fully settled and sufficiently cooled. When the rain came, it packed the ash around the rye. The rye germinated & grew prolifically, with anywhere from 25 to 100 stalks (or straws), each with multiple grains.

Only two tools were required, the axe and the sickle. The axe cut the trees to start the cycle. When the rye had ripened, it was harvested with a sickle, which could reach among the rocks and stumps where a scythe would have been ineffective.

In the second and third year the field would be sown with turnips or cabbages. It then might be grazed for several years before being allowed to return to woodland.

Svedjebruk required felling new forest and burning a new area every year. It was necessary to allow the former fields to regrow with forest for 10-30 years before repeating the cycle. As a result, the dwellings were often many kilometers from the fields. Further, since the process was man-power intensive, extended families tended to work together and live in compact communities.

The svedjebruk farming approach requires a large area. When forest was plentiful, the Finns were very prosperous. As population grew and restrictions were placed on the forest which could be burned, it became increasingly difficult. By 1710, during the conflict with Sweden, because of their suspect loyalties Norwegian authorities considered expelling them from the border area but did not do so because it was judged they were too poor to survive if evicted.

Sawyer, Birgit; Sawyer, Peter H. (1993). Medieval Scandinavia: from Conversion to Reformation, Circa 800-1500. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1739-2.

Nesholen, Birger. (1994). "Svedjebrukerne," Østlandske Skogsområder, Den Norske Turistforening.

Pyne, Stephen J. (1997) Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97596-2

Stagg, Frank Noel. (1956). East Norway and its Frontier. Allen & Unwin.

Conklin H.C., 1961, The Study of Shifting Cultivation, Current Anthropology, vol. 2, no. 1, Chicago.

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Svedjebruk is a Swedish and Norwegian term for slash-and-burn agriculture that is derived from the Old Norse word sviða which means "to burn". This practice originated in Russia in the region of Novgorod and was widespread in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Medieval period.

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The shamanism is the traditional religion of Sami people, which they believed in spirits. The Sami shamanism still remain today, they also have shaman (the person who interact with the spirits)

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The Old Norse religion was practiced in Norway before the 9th century, which Old Norse religion was also a religion believed by the early Vikings. The religion Mythology was mainly about the wars between the titans and the Gods in Norse mythology. Since the Vikings are ethnic that invade other territories, they mostly believe in the Gods that are related to battle or wars in the Mythology.

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The religion spread into Norway by the contact between the travelers and the Persian. The religion gradually spread around in late 1900s.

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The Baháʼí Faith in Norway began with contact between traveling Scandinavians with early Persian believers of the Baháʼí Faith in the mid-to-late 19th century. Baháʼís first visited Scandinavia in the 1920s following ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's, then head of the religion, request outlining Norway among the countries Baháʼís should pioneer to and the first Baháʼí to settle in Norway was Johanna Schubartt. Following a period of more Baháʼí pioneers coming to the country, Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assemblies spread across Norway while the national community eventually formed a Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly in 1962. The 2008 national census reported around 1,000 Baháʼís in the country however the Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 2700 Baháʼís in 2010.

The first mentions of the religion happened in the era when Norway was politically united with Sweden; the first mention of the Báb, who Baháʼís view as the herald to the founder of the religion, Baháʼu'lláh, was published in accounts of Persian travels in 1869, and the first mentions of Baháʼu'lláh were made in 1896.

Ragna Linné was a nineteenth and twentieth century classical soprano born in Oslo during the period of Union between Sweden and Norway and of Swedish/Norwegian roots who encountered the Baháʼí Faith after she moved to Chicago. She traveled back to Norway at least in 1908. She was visible as a Baháʼí circa 1908 in newspapers and to 1916 in the magazine Star of the West by Baháʼís. She was at the 1912 convention, attended by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion.

Swedish Sufi Ivan Aguéli was able to meet ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, in 1912 in Egypt.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan

The next steps in the history of the Baháʼí Faith in Norway start after the political independence of Norway from Sweden in 1905. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916-1917; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the tablets was the first to mention several countries in Europe including beyond where ʻAbdu'l-Bahá had visited in 1911-12 and 1912-13. Written on April 11, 1916, it was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 - after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. World traveling Baháʼí journalist Martha Root's subsequently visited King Haakon VII of Norway among her many trips. The seventh tablet was translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 1919.

"In brief, this world-consuming war has set such a conflagration to the hearts that no word can describe it. In all the countries of the world the longing for universal peace is taking possession of the consciousness of men. There is not a soul who does not yearn for concord and peace. A most wonderful state of receptivity is being realized.... Therefore, O ye believers of God! Show ye an effort and after this war spread ye the synopsis of the divine teachings in the British Isles, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, Balearic Isles, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Malta, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Shetland Islands, Hebrides and Orkney Islands."

Following the release of these tablets a few Baháʼís began moving to or at least visiting countries across Europe. August Rudd became the first Baháʼí pioneer in Scandinavia (Sweden) in 1920. Johanne Høeg became the first citizen of Denmark to become a Baháʼí (see Baháʼí Faith in Denmark.)

Period of pioneers

Johanna (Christensen) Schubarth is called the "Mother Baháʼí of Norway". She was born in 1877 in Sandefjord. She moved to the United States and learned of the Baháʼí Faith from May Maxwell in 1919. She returned to Norway in 1927. Dagmar Dole was another early pioneer. In 1934 Martha Root returned to Oslo for a number of speaking engagements through 1935 and met up with Lidia Zamenhof whom she had known for a decade since her conversion to the religion, for some Esperanto conventions. A 1946 telegram of Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion after the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, called for pioneers to the capitals of several countries including Norway. The first Local Spiritual Assembly of Oslo formed in 1948 with Schubartt. A 1950 European Teaching Conference in Denmark, including Dagmar Dole, coordinated pioneers - two Americans settled in the Lofoten Islands in 1953 and in 1955 a pioneer reached extreme northern Batsfjord. Schubarth died in 1952 and is buried in Oslo. Svalbard is sometimes mentioned as a remote location - it's off northern Norway. A Baháʼí had settled there in 1958.

The first Local Spiritual Assembly was formed in Oslo in 1948. As the religion spread across Scandinavia it reached the point where a regional National Spiritual Assembly for Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark was established in 1957. Meanwhile, pioneers continued to arrive from other counties-a British Baháʼí settled for a time in Spitsbergen in 1958 though later a Norwegian couple moved there in 1970. The second Norwegian Local Spiritual Assembly formed in Bergen in 1955, and a third in Stavanger in 1960.

In 1962-3 Norway added two Local Spiritual Assemblies in Bergen, and Hetland, with smaller groups between one and nine adults in Bærum and Fana and isolated Baháʼís in Ås, Harstad, Kristiansund, Laksevåg, Narvik, Sandefjord, Sandnes, and Stokmarknes.

In 1962 Norway, also, elected its own National Spiritual Assembly. The Sami people had a Local Spiritual Assembly in Trondheim in 1969 with the conversion of the first of their people to the Baháʼí Faith. In 1973 Local Assemblies were added in Lillehammer, Bærum and Bodø; in 1979 in Hurum and Gjøvik and in 1984 in Tromsø.

Since its inception the religion has had involvement in socio-economic development beginning by giving greater freedom to women, promulgating the promotion of female education as a priority concern, and that involvement was given practical expression by creating schools, agricultural coops, and clinics. The religion entered a new phase of activity when a message of the Universal House of Justice dated 20 October 1983 was released. Baháʼís were urged to seek out ways, compatible with the Baháʼí teachings, in which they could become involved in the social and economic development of the communities in which they lived. Worldwide in 1979 there were 129 officially recognized Baháʼí socio-economic development projects. By 1987, the number of officially recognized development projects had increased to 1482. The National Spiritual Assembly of Norway established an institution-the Norwegian Agency for International Development Cooperation-and in 1988 it began a working relationship with India's New Era Development Institute (see New Era High School), with support for a two-year rural community development program. In 1989, funding was extended to cover a one-year community development facilitators course and short courses on agriculture, rural technology, literacy, and domestic science. But controversy has also served to focus the efforts of the community. In 1983 the Universal House of Justice, current elected head of the religion, addressed a letter to the National Assembly of the Baháʼís of Norway concerning practices of meditation -it appears many Norwegian Baháʼís were particularly attracted to the practice but had differences of opinion about the place and practice of meditation. In an attempt to start "a campaign of spiritualization of the Baháʼí community" called for by the House of Justice, a committee in Norway had established a meditation class at a summer school that offered one particular method. Observing that as Baháʼu'lláh had not outlined any method of mediation, the House of Justice cautioned that any private personal choice on a method of meditation should not be institutionalized or mandated. The House of Justice elaborated that the community was struggling with the regrettable atmosphere of appalling suffering brought on by religions in the past -that there had arisen a kind of revulsion of various kinds of personal and public spiritual practices of religion that the Baháʼí Faith nevertheless does stress and outlined them as follows:

The recital each day of one of the Obligatory Baháʼí prayers with pure-hearted devotion.

The regular reading of the Sacred Scriptures, specifically at least each morning and evening, with reverence, attention and thought.

Prayerful meditation on the Baháʼí teachings, so that we may understand them more deeply, fulfil them more faithfully, and convey them more accurately to others.

Striving every day to bring our behaviour more into accordance with the high standards that are set forth in these teachings.

Selfless service in the work of the religion and in the carrying on of our trade or profession.

From 1998 through 2001 the Baháʼí International Community and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Norway committed to participating in Norwegian interfaith initiatives resulting in an Oslo Declaration on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

In the late 1990s by one count there were 173 Baháʼís per million population in Norway which implies around 800 Baháʼís while by 2005 a Norwegian Census reports just over 1000 Baháʼís. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 2,700 Baháʼís in 2010. In May 2001 the Baháʼí youth gathered for "Project Panacea" for a Baháʼí Youth Workshop (see Oscar DeGruy) including public performances. There have been successive Youth Conferences across Scandinavia since 2004 and there exists a Baháʼí Student Club of Oslo University. In July 2008, the Norwegian translation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas was unveiled.

In 2000 Norway rose in support of a United Nations human rights resolution about concern over the Baháʼís in Iran as well as taking steps to further document conditions. The Norwegian government supported the declaration of the Presidency of the European Union when he "denounced" the trial of Iranian Baháʼís announced in February 2009. See Persecution of Baháʼís.

Lasse Thoresen has been a Baháʼí since about 1971 (he was elected as NSA Secretary in 1975) and is a professor with the Norwegian Academy of Music with a graduate degree in composition from the Oslo Music Conservatory, where he studied under Finn Mortensen. From 1988 to 2000 Thoresen occupied the principal chair of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. Among his compositions is The Carmel Eulogies, a symphony that premiered in Oslo in 1993 with repeated performances since. Commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra on the occasion of its 75th jubilee, the symphony consists of two parts, "Fragrances of Mercy" and "Circumambulations." The rhythm of saying "Allah'u'Abha" ("God the All-Glorious") is inherent in the work, which is based on the Baháʼu'lláh's Tablet of Carmel. The symphony was critically acclaimed, and many members of the audience were visibly moved during the performance. It was broadcast live on national radio and taped for later airing on the national television network.

Margun Risa is another Norwegian Baháʼí artist - she's a singer/teacher who studied at Rogaland academy in Stavanger. Risa became a Baháʼí about 1976 and in 1986 was invited to sing for the opening of the Lotus Temple in New Delhi. In 1992 Thoresen asked Risa to sing as part of the opening of the Second Baháʼí World Congress. Later Risa studied under Anne Brown, an American who was the first to sing the part of Bess in Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Bess.

1. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (1991) [1916-17]. Tablets of the Divine Plan (Paperback ed.). Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. p. 43. ISBN 0-87743-233-3.

2. The Baháʼí Faith: 1844-1963: Information Statistical and Comparative, Including the Achievements of the Ten Year International Baháʼí Teaching & Consolidation Plan 1953-1963, Compiled by Hands of the Cause Residing in the Holy Land, pages 22 and 46.

3. Married name Strobel - ^ Strobel - Theodore, beloved..., Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois), 8 Mar 1905, p. 9

4. * ^ Plan temple to prophet, The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois)27 Sep 1908, Page 11

New Chicago Church will cost $500,000, The Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois)28 Sep 1908, Page 8

Persian prophet will have Chicago temple, Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, North Carolina)12 Nov 1908, Page 5

Temple to Bahai, The Evening Star (Independence, Kansas)23 Nov 1908, Page 8

Program Baha'i Festival Service Star of the West, May 17, 1910, p. 3

Sixth Annual convention of the Bahai Temple Unity, by Alfred E. Lunt, Star of the West, May 17, 1914, p. 53

Sixth Annual convention of the Bahai Temple Unity, by Alfred E. Lunt, Star of the West, May 17, 1914, p. 55

Bahai Temple Unity Convention, Star of the West, Sep 8, 1914, p. 147

The Opening Session, by Joseph H. Hannen, Star of the West, July 13, 1916, p. 53

5. ^ The Public meetings of the Fourth Annual Convention of the Bahai Temple Unity, by Joseph H. Hannen, May 17, 1912, pp. 3-5, 32...

6. ^ Collins, William (1982). Moojan Momen (ed.). Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, volumes 1, chapter: Kenosha, 1893-1912: History of an Early Baháʼí Community in the United States. Kalimat Press. p. 248. ISBN 1-890688-45-2.

7. ^ The Pivot on Which Hinges Success and footnote, This Decisive Hour, Messages from Shoghi Effendi to the North American Baháʼís 1932-1946, by Shoghi Effendi, Wilmette, IL: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1992, ISBN 0-87743-249-X

8. ^ The Baháʼí Faith: 1844-1963: Information Statistical and Comparative, Including the Achievements of the Ten Year International Baháʼí Teaching & Consolidation Plan 1953-1963. Haifa, Israel: Hands of the Cause Residing in the Holy Land. 1963. pp. 22 and 46.

9. ^ Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi (1997). "Education of women and socio-economic development". Baha'i Studies Review. 7 (1).

10. ^ Momen, Moojan; Smith, Peter (1989). "The Baha'i Faith 1957-1988: A Survey of Contemporary Developments". Religion. 19: 63-91. doi:10.1016/0048-721X(89)90077-8.

11. United Nations Commission on Human Rights. ^ Question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in any part of the world. E/CN.4/2000/L.16, 2000.

12. ^ "Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the trial with seven Baha'i leaders in Iran" (PDF) (Press release). Council of the European Union. 2009-02-17. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2009.

13. ^ Baháʼí International Community (April-June 1998). "In Norway, a classical composer strives for a new musical paradigm". One Country. 10 (1).

14. ^ Levin, Mona; Siger, Translation: Virginia (2002-09-25). "Lassse Thoresen: Aural Explorer". Listen to Norway. 4 (1). Archived from the original on 2007-10-14.

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The Baháʼí Faith in Norway began with contact between traveling Scandinavians with early Persian believers of the Baháʼí Faith in the mid-to-late 19th century. Baháʼís first visited Scandinavia in the 1920s following ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's, then head of the religion, request outlining Norway among the countries Baháʼís should pioneer to and the first Baháʼí to settle in Norway was Johanna Schubartt.

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Stave churches are wooden churches that were built during Middle ages.  People estimate  that there are over 1000 stave churches built in middle ages. Nowadays, there are only 28 of them are left. The churches are the heritage that represent the significant moment  in human history. Therefore, the existence of the churches also influence some architecture in Norway.

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The lavvu is the traditional tent of Sami people. Since Sami people are mostly hunter gatherers, the tents a allow them to carry it around when they move to a new place. Also, the designed of lavvu can endure the wind of  tundra,.

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A log cabin is the traditional log house in Scandinavia. The log cabins

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The white and red colors were used to represent the union between Denmark, as well as the blue, which symbolized the union with Sweden before Independence.
The combination of three colours symbolized Liberty.
The Nordic cross (the blue cross) represents the main religion which is Christianity.