Borgund Stavkyrkje

If I asked you to close your eyes and imagine how a church, built by a viking and excellent woodworker would look like… the Stavkyrkje from Borgund would probably be it.
It’s black as the night (from a wood-protective tar as we would learn), wooden all around including the shingles and the decorative figures are dragons.
It looks like straight out of a „Games of Thrones“ set. Except that the graveyard all around it has tombstones of current ages. „Takk for alt“, thank you for everything is the main reading. You wonder: Is that a thank you addressed at or spoken out for the dead? But it‘s a nice tradition. Thank you for everything, all the time, all the shared moments.
The church in Borgund is from timber felled in Winter 1180 and was built the next 2 years or so. It is one of 28 of this kind still remaining - and is still (or again) very close to its original form.
They came into existence because stone was not available (or builders that knew how you handled stone) to built the impressive churches like in Central Europe. So the Norwegians took the stone building as inspiration and crafted from timber in shapes and forms that was previously unheard of to attempt the same looks.
Norway became catholic in 1152, this explains why some of the art is unexplainably paisant (there is a Tiki mask, a cat, lions, snakes, dragons…). Light only came through 4 small openings. The altar was added in Mediaval times as well as a christening basin and a pulpit.
It was dark in here, it‘s lucky that with all the oil lamps the church never burnt down… ladies stood/sat to the left (North side), men to the right (South). The old, sick, pregnant (all deemed „unclean“) got to sit outside and got communion through a playing card sized hole (the women) or small window (the men).
Early born or otherwise unchristened children were refused a burial in sacred ground… several small boxes with miscarriages have been found shoved under the church, even from a more modern age. Probably an attempt of parents to get some sort of absolution for their kids…
The Stave Church was replaced in 1868 by the „new church“ just a stone throw away, after 1850 church law required the churches to be big enough for 1/3 of the population of the town/valley.Read more