From Hof to Stave Church (v5).pdf - Dan Peterson, May 2021

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From Hof to Stave Church By Daniel Peterson, May 2021 In 2016 I began visiting the Stave Churches (ON: Stavkyrkje) in Norway. An often-overlooked aspect of these early Medieval Christian churches is that they frequently contain common Heathen allusions often hidden in plain view which consist of motifs, décor and carving ornamentation as well as stylized construction techniques of the pre-Christian past. Stav or stave in modern Norwegian comes from the Old Norse term Stafr, referring to the ore-pine posts used in the construction to support the roof-bearing timbers. Post churches, which pre-date stave churches, have corner posts dug into the ground bearing a resemblance to the construction of pre-Christian structures where archaeological discoveries have determined this post-hole technique.1 When the stave churches replaced the initial post churches, the posts were placed on top of a sill and that sill was frequently laid across solid stone foundations. As many of them are today, the stave churches were originally protected in a coating of pine resin tar giving them the notable black appearance.2 At least 1,300 of these Stave Churches once existed around the country and possibly several hundred more, while today just 28 of them remain.3,4 For this article, I am going to discuss the structures themselves and their relation to the religious transition period. Keeping in mind there are countless other aspects of these marvelous standing relics which are worth the interested mind and understanding. East of the fjords are deep valleys with long lakes. Up the side of a valley near Ryfoss in Innlandet county sits the Høre Stave Church constructed in 1180 from timbers felled in 1179. Here, runes carved inside the pulpit of the church describe two brothers named Elling and Audun who had timbers felled for the church that summer with a reference to Earl Erling who “fell at Nidaros”, a reference to the Battle of Kalvskinnet which occurred in the same year.5 800 years after the first timbers for Høre were felled, an archaeological excavation was conducted by Jorgen H. Jensenius who determined the remains of an older, smaller church on the site which is one of six other similar stave church discoveries. Christian burials took place at Høre before the current and possibly the previous church was raised according to coins discovered during Høre Stave Church, June 2016 with the covered entrance gate excavations. However, what is quite interesting on the left. Photo by Daniel Peterson. at Høre is the covered gate entrance to the graveyard which contains animist carving décor featuring distinct features of intertwined animals. The panels from the covered gate were originally used in the main portal door of Høre until 19th century renovations removed the fine wood carvings with some of them being lost or destroyed. 6 1 What the Høre covered gate animal carving décor represents remains as convoluted in any particular theme but does clearly display various styled zoomorphic creatures gripping flowing-shaped body parts with their jaws. This is characteristic to several Viking-age art styles such as the “gripping beast” of the Oseberg style (c. 780-850 AD), ribbon- shaped animal figures of the Borre style (c. 840-970 AD) and almond-shaped or pear- shaped eyes of the Ringerike style (c. 980– 1070 AD). If the covered gateway panels were once a part of Høre’s main entrance, it’s possible that they were originally carved for the previous church on the site when the 1979 excavated coins were dated falling within the Ringerike style.7 West of Høre along the E16 highway, the Photo by Kjell Arne Finstad, July 2019 of the covered gateway. valley opens up into a lake called Google images. Vangsmjøse where the town of Vang is nestled along the shores and the famous Vang rune stone (N 84, carved around the year 1000 CE) can be seen on the North side of the highway. An animal figure is carved along the top with a circular eye, teeth, a long tail, four powerful prancing legs and a bit of an upper neck mane. This appears to bear a striking resemblance to a lion thus displaying Christian influences. At the West end of this long lake is a small community called Øye where the Øye Stave Church is located between the lake and the North side of the road. Øye is interesting and unique in that its design is of an ordinary saddle roof with no structural connection to the interior posts. Descriptive signs posted along the parking area tell it was originally constructed in 1125 CE while the stave church database indicates an original construction date of 1180 CE. The signs further explain that the church along with the graves were subject to flooding and for that reason it was torn down in 1746 or 1747 and a new one built across the road in a more suitable location. In the 1930’s when restoration work was being done on this replacement church, 156 parts of the Vang rune stone carved around 1000 CE with the animal at the top bearing a old stave church were discovered under the floor and by the end of striking resemblance to a lion and the 1950’s the original stave church at Øye was reconstructed with distinguishable from the Urnes North Portal Door animal carving. Photo by those discovered materials. For this reason, there is little pre- Daniel Peterson, July 2019. 2 Christian décor and carvings found on the reconstructed stave church but it does contain numerous vine and animal decorations carved on the inside with a medieval door ring knocker. Yet the steeply sloped shingled roof gives it a distinct and remarkable appearance, nearly resembling a truncated Viking long house with the u-shaped interlocking shingles to help keep snow off in the winter months.8 In Vestland county, East of the Sognefjord is the Lærdal valley and river where Borgund Stave Church is located, constructed in 1180. Borgund may be one of the most iconic of the stave churches with its four carved dragon or serpent heads fixed on the tip of the gable ridges. What purpose would serpent heads serve on an early Medieval church in a country that had recently adopted Christianity? The early Icelandic law code Grágás addressed that the dragonheads fixed on the prow of Viking ships should be removed when returning home so as not to intimidate the native land spirits or rather to avoid offending the landvættir.9 In The Book of the Settlement of Iceland, provided slightly more detail, citing “the heathen laws that men should not take ships to sea with carved figure heads upon their sterns, but if they did, they should take them off before they came in sight of land and not sail to land with gaping heads or yawning snouts lest the guardian feys of the land should be scared thereat.”10 Grágás was used from about 927, but like The Book of the Settlement of Iceland, it wasn’t written down until after conversion sometime in the 12th century when both Høre and Borgund stave churches were constructed. Has the “Three roots there grow in three directions purpose of the serpent heads as seen on Under Yggdrasill’s ash; Borgund’s stave church shifted from once Hel lives under one, under the second, the frost- provoking fear and agitating land spirits of giants, Heathen enemies in the Viking age to Under the third, humankind. protecting a structure and its worshippers Ratatosk is the squirrel’s name, who must scurry from evil spirits in the new Christian age? and tell to Nidhogg below. Or perhaps serpent heads were found on the roofs of Heathen temples or God There are four harts too, who browse on its shoots, Houses and the builders of Borgund were with their necks tilted back; emulating a cultural Germanic style, Dain and Dvalin, something that would have been taught, or Duneyr and Durathror. even witnessed for holy structures. At the ends of the two lower roof sections are More serpents lie under Yggdrasill’s ash crosses. Today, a commonly interpreted than any numbskull fool can imagine: point of a serpent extending from a holy Goin and Moin, they are Grafvitnir’s sons, Grabak and Grafvollud, structure may represent protection, or Ofnir and Svafnir I think for ever will symbolize a danger. To the Heathen in erode the tree’s branches. ancient times, it would have been interpreted differently. A serpent on a holy Yggdrasill’s ash suffers agony structure signifies that its presence extends more than men know: across many realms as the God temples were intended to be portals to them and the a stag nibbles it above, but at its side it’s decaying, holy ash tree Yggdrasil reaching across and Nidhogg rends it beneath.” them all. The Poetic Edda explains the (The Poetic Edda, 32-35 Grimnir’s Sayings)1 following: 3 Whatever the intention and interpretation of these erect serpent heads with tongues extended and jaws partly opened, it can be agreed that they symbolize a holy building. The portal doors to Borgund are flanked by posts containing intertwined serpents biting one another including winding and braided vine fauna up and down the posts (see below). One of the most interesting connections to the Heathen past found on any of the stave churches is the runic inscription classified as N 351 which reads, “Þórir reist rúnar þessar þann Ólausmessaptan, [e]r han fór hér um. Bæði gerðu nornir vel ok illa, mikla mœði … skǫpuðu þær mér”. For those of us not fluent in Old West Norse, the inscription is translated as “Þórir carved these runes on the eve of Olaus-mass, when he travelled past here. The norns did both good and evil, great toil … they created for me”.11 This is apparently a reference to King Olaf II Haraldsson who reigned from 1015 to 1028 and passed through the valley in 1023 where Borgund was later built attempting to convert people to Christianity. However, the stave church was not constructed until 157 years later. So where did this runic carving come from? Since N 351 is not identified by any particular date yet references events from the early 11th century, how was it incorporated into a Christian church well over one hundred years later? I have inspected a variety of runic carvings around the The extended serpent heads on the Borgund Stave main entrance porch of the West portal doorway and were Church. Photo by Daniel Peterson, July 2019. informed by the staff that much of it was indiscernible and thus classified as middle ages graffiti. A few clear plastic panels are fixed over this West portal porch runic graffiti for preservation so where in the church the N 351 inscription resides (I was told behind the pulpit which is roped off and not accessible to the public) remains inconclusive even after some recent inquiries with the church Association. This runic carving with references to the Norns displays not only a blending of the old beliefs incorporated with the new, but also that the old Heathen ways were still observed after construction of Christian stave churches. An obscure medieval runic carving may further support the view that the décor of stave churches wasn’t simply a pagan tradition carryover but seemingly validation of continued Heathen observation and even worship. 4 The Urnes Stave church is located on a peninsula of the Lustrafjord, a Northeastern branch of the larger Sognefjord. “Nes” translates to point in a fjord or ocean, in contrast to an inlet or bay known as “vik”, hence the n-e-s in Urnes. The church’s location sticks out prominently high up a steep hill overlooking the whole fjord. The position of the stave church there is aweing, offering inspirational vistas and is situated midway up the sloped peninsula just before reaching the utterly steep mountain backdrop. It is included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The roof has steep interlocking u-shaped pieces to ensure snow slides off in the winter time. Not a single nail was used in the construction of Urnes to create the Romanesque basilica design plan. In 1956 when archaeologist Håkon Christie conducted excavations, he found evidence of post holes and graves that were older than the current building concluding that there were at least two older wooden buildings on the site. 12 The peninsula is particularly interesting as the community there called Ornes is very small, limited by jagged mountain cliffs rising immediately behind it with but a few acres of tillable land. It is connected by One of the portal doors to Borgund with ornate, a small car ferry at the shore across the fjord from a tendril fauna motif. The iron door knocker ring, frame and key hole displays stylized serpent heads, small coastal town called Solvorn. There is one paved with the door knocker ring resembling an Ouroboros single-lane road leading to Ornes coming in from the symbol. Photo by Daniel Peterson, July 2019. North along the East side of the Lustrafjord, connecting the few farms along the way. It is for the most part, very remote despite its high visibility. Wooden structures and remains are dated using the scientific technique called dendrochronology which is how Urnes obtained a construction date of 1132. But this turns out to be the younger part. Another method known as photodendrometry involves photographing to determine the dating of wood and is less invasive providing researchers like associate professor at NTNU University Museum Terje Thun with the possibility of more accurate results. This methodology determined that Urnes contains timbers felled in 1069 and 1070 incorporated in the current version, over sixty years older than previously determined.13 5 On the North side of Urnes stave church is another door, the remarkable North Portal Door. Taking the shape of a key hole, round at the top and expanding slightly in width towards the bottom. It is surrounded in high-relief carvings by whorls of foliage, and serpents blending into vines interconnected, wrapping and twirling between them all. It is as though you are viewing one huge tangle encompassing a doorway, perhaps to display how all living things are interconnected. The door panel itself contains a lesser relief of the same swirling vines almost in a figure eight pattern. To the left of the is a slender, long-legged animal biting into one of the many vines which in turn is grasping the animal’s neck. The animal contains an almond-shaped eye an upwardly curved snout, flowing hair off the back of the neck and what appears to be two small horns protruding from the top of the head. Could this be an allusion to the Poetic Edda’s reference in Grimnir’s Sayings, one of the young male deer, a hart? “There are four harts too, who browse on its shoots, with their necks tilted back; Dain and Dvalin, Duneyr and Durathror.” (See previous Poetic Edda notation). If the swirling foliage surrounding the door, complete with animal are branches and the lower-relief door itself is a trunk then what the viewer sees is Yggdrasil itself. Urnes Stave Church, the third version of a wooden structure at this site. The North Portal Door is shown but difficult to make out due to the shadow. Photo by Daniel Peterson, July 2019. These carving characteristics of slim, stylized animals interwoven with foliage are similarly found on runestones (see rune stones U 344 and U 871) and classified by art historians as the Urnes style which followed the Ringerike style. This stylized portal carving like that of Høre’s gateway are Germanic in style and would otherwise be inappropriate to correlate the carvings to Roman or Abrahamic influences. Allusions are common in Germanic Heathenry, through the use of kennings in poems, on rune stones and in the sagas. The panel carving artist was depicting an ambiguous motif and inconclusive scene of a cultural décor perhaps specific to the region. A style which is consistent with the notorious 6 allusions found in Germanic Heathenry. This would have been learned from grandparents or perhaps even parents who would have been Heathen if the panels were carved around 1069-1070. If there were previous church renditions at Urnes and the current structure contains materials used from them, what would be the reason it was rebuilt some sixty years later? Were the original structures overly Heathen in appearance? Or, even more compelling is the thought of a Heathen temple on the site having been converted into a Christian church following the example of the directives and suggestions of Pope Gregory to the Abbot Mellitus much earlier in the 7th century on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory had written to Mellitus in July of 601 CE on the matter, “that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed”. Citing that the temples were familiar places of worship “to which they have been accustomed” and acknowledging the impossibility of eradicating their beliefs at once due to stubbornness and claiming that “he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps.”14. It may explain the prior two wooden structures found at Urnes by archaeologist Christie and further explain the former abundance of 1,300 or more stave churches scattered The North Portal Door of Urnes. Photo by Daniel Peterson, July 2019. across Norway most of which did not survive. This was assimilation through moderation and a tolerance of some Heathen aspects necessary to facilitate a challenging conversion. If the two prior church version were indeed Christian churches why was an early medieval stave church built in such an obscure and remote location other than to embrace the breathtaking and phenomenal view? Was it once home to a sacred grove used for sacrifices and offerings to the Gods? 7 This is also possible as holy sites were a continuation of religious practices from one generation to the next and as Pope Gregory noted, familiar areas of worship. I have also visited Undredal Stave Church, Gol Stave Church and Oye Stave churches. Undredal, as quaint and well-restored as it is does not maintain the typical stave church appearance as it is painted white. Seating for just 40 people, it is one of the smallest stave churches and was constructed in 1147 CE nestled in a remote valley along the Aurlandsfjord in the small village of Undredal. 15 Near Oslo, not far from the Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy is the reconstructed Gol Stave Church found at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. Only about 1/3 of the materials in the dismantled church are from the Middle Ages but it does contain four serpent heads jutting out from the two top-tier gables as its reconstruction followed the Borgund style. It was originally constructed between 1157 and 1200 CE when it was later moved in 1880 to land bought by King Oscar II where most of the exterior dates to 1884-1885. Gol is still worth visiting and seeing in person as it towers into the sky and contains ornate portal door frame carvings of swirling interconnected vines and figures. There are replicas of Gol at the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, North Dakota and in the town of Gol, Norway itself not far from the original site.16 G. Ronald Murphy of Georgetown University described the religious correlation of the decor and motifs as, "how those who introduced Christianity to Scandinavia deliberately adapted and “translated” Norse religious motifs and practices in two parallel ways; through literary works, especially as seen in the 'Heliand', but also through church art and architecture.” His essay points out how noticeable the beliefs on Yggdrasil and Ragnarok are incorporated and displayed in the design and ornamentation of these early Medieval stave churches in Norway. Murphy’s essay labels stave churches as “a Christian Yggdrasil” noting coincidences from poetic insight where he referenced that “salvation as the inner space of Yggdrasil, the holy wooden place of protection at doomsday”, where at the “heart of the evergreen tree’s space is Christ on his wooden tree, the cross”.17 Still there are others who reject the Germanic Pagan connections such as Margrete Syrstad Andås who likens Urnes’ portal door animal carving to a lion, not a deer, thus correlating a Christian connection.18 If we recall the animal at the top of the Vang rune stone, the appearance and style is very distinguishable from the animal found on the North Portal door at Urnes. Vang is far closer to the resemblance of a lion than Urnes and it was carved some seventy years prior to the oldest panels determined at Urnes. This means that carving artists were aware of these characteristics choosing to reflect a Germanic and thus Heathen animal representation. 8 It should be noted, when drawing these conclusions on stave churches, that additional Germanic Heathen examples exist in the way of intricate wood carving panels from both the Hylestad and Vegusdal stave churches. Both stave churches are no longer standing but some of the panels were saved which depict multiple scenes from the legend of Sigurd Fåvnesbane the dragon slayer. It is estimated that Hylestad was constructed19 in the late 12th or early 13th century while Vegusdal20 was founded in the mid-13th century several decades after the construction of both Urnes and Borgund. To dismiss any resemblance of Yggdrasil on the panel carving displayed on Urnes’ North portal door, let alone it’s Germanic artistic influence and replace it entirely with a Christian viewpoint is a mistake and overly assumptive. Based upon the variety of other panel carving and Hylestad portal frame carving of Sigurd roasting the heart of the dragon while sucking his thumb on display at the Museum of Cultural History, Oslo. runic examples with clear pre- conversion themes and not having any carvings or scene-depicting artifacts remaining from Heathen temples from the pre-conversion era to go by, the view point that these stave churches incorporate Germanic Pagan elements is a reasonable analysis. As recently as 2020, archaeological excavations discovered the remains of a late 8th century Heathen temple at Ørsta, Norway the first of its kind in the country near the coast just South of Alesund. Archaeologist Soren Diinhoff explained that “Norse religious worship became more ideological and organized, and god houses at Ose were patterned on Christian basilicas that travelers had seen in southern lands”. Diinhoff further noted, “As a result, Old Norse temples featured a distinctive high tower above the pitched roof, which was a copy of the towers of early Christian churches”.21 These noted influences manifesting in the design structure of a Heathen temple are limited to the basilica layout and high tower. The rest of the structure would have displayed purely Heathen artistic décor and ritual symbolisms with a similar, if not identical construction technique as the stave churches built a few centuries later. The post holes of this temple at Ørsta along with the readily available pine, are consistent with the findings in which archaeologist Christie was able to identify that Urnes and Høre 9 had prior structures built on their sites, post holes and their subsequent dimensions. These techniques show Norwegians know how to construct buildings to with stand the elements of heavy snow fall, ice, wind and rain. There is little to no justification in the thought that the last temples or hofs and the first churches had major differences between them and should be considered the best evidence for Heathen temples and their appearances. As far as the one or two design influences, is there no way that the Norse could have come up with the idea to build rectangular, vaulted ceiling structures on their own? Maybe this is another reason for the second and third versions of holy structures at Urnes and Høre; where a distinctive high tower as noted at Ørsta was initially placed on them and a later Christian Chieftain or King ordered that the central tower be moved to the front to become a steeple. In viewing these magnificent relics of the past, you have to consider what the local craftsman used for supplies and where they gained their construction and design knowledge. The Germanic artistic allusions were in contrast to Christian doctrine, yet were still incorporated to facilitate the transition period. The runic carving N 351 at Borgund with along with the serpent heads (also found on reconstructed Gol, Lom and Hopperstad stave churches) and panel portal carvings at Urnes, Hylestad and Vegusdal stave churches display that the cultural Germanic Heathen influences went beyond a transitional carry-over. They were more than a blending of traditional Viking-age art décor but meaningful, spiritual symbolism connecting prior generations to a new way of life in the continuity of local holy sites. 1 Nikel, David. “Sensational Find of Pagan Temple Remains in Norway.” Life in Norway, Word of Norway AS, 29 Sept. 2020, https://www.lifeinnorway.net/sensational-find-of-pagan-temple-remains-in-norway/, accessed 4/2/2021 2 Jensenius, Jørgen H. Maintained by Alexander Refsum Jensenius, Stavkirke.info, University of Oslo, www.stavkirke.info/english.html, accessed 4/2/2021 3 Urnes Stave Church.” Unesco World Heritage List, UNESCO, 2021, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/58/, accessed 4/1/2021 4 “Valuable Stave Churches.” Stavkirkeprogrammet, Riksantikvaren, 4 July 2004, https://web.archive.org/web/20080421161219/http://www.riksantikvaren.no/Norsk/Fagemner/Bygninger/Kirker/Stavkirker/?module=Articles%3 Baction%3DArticle.publicShow%3BID%3D2201, access 4/1/2021 5 “Høre Stavkyrkje.” Edited by The Norwegian Environment Agency, Høre the Stave Church, National Heritage Board, 21 May 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20160404213447/http://www.miljostatus.no/hoere, accessed April 2nd, 2021 6 “Høre (Hurum)” The Oldest Bygdelag in America - 1899, Valdres Samband, 11 Feb. 2004, copyright 1997-2005, https://web.archive.org/web/20050306075707/http://www.valdressamband.org/churches/hore.html, accessed April 2, 2021 7 Beard, David. “The Broa/Oseberg Style (c. AD 780-850), The Borre Style (c. AD 840 – 970), The Ringerike Style (c. AD 980 – 1070).” Archaeology in Europe, Archaeology in Europe, 18 Oct. 2013, http://viking.archeurope.com/art/viking-art-styles/, accessed 4/4/2021. 8 “Øye Stave Church.” Kirkebyggdatabasen, Kirkesøk (KA Employers' Organization), https://kirkesok.no/kirke/054500201. Accessed 5/1/2021 9 Synnøve Vea, Tekst Marit. “Dragonships.” Avladsnes Norges Esdste Kongesete, Nordvegen Historiesenter, https://avaldsnes.info/en/viking/drakeskip/, accessed 4/10/2021 10 Þorgilsson, Ari, and Thomas Ellwood. “Part IV, Chapter VII.” The Book of the Settlement of Iceland, T. Wilson, 1898, pp. 176, The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/booksettlementi02ellwgoog/page/n4/mode/2up, Accessed 10 Apr. 2021, digitized by Google (12/3/2009) from the collections of the University of Michigan 11 “N 351 Borgund Kirke.” Pan-Nordic Run Text Database, Uppsala University Department of Nordic Languages, www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm. Accessed 14 Apr. 2021. [Note on translation: The Old West Nordic dialect may have translated the runic inscription as the following, “Þórir built these runes that Ólausmessaptan, [e] r he went around here. The witches did both good and bad, they made me very sad”] 12 Jensenius, Jørgen H. Maintained by Alexander Refsum Jensenius, “Urnes I og II” Stavkirke.info, University of Oslo, http://www.stavkirke.info/stolpekirker/urnes/ , accessed 4/29/2021 13 Tveter, Nina, and Kjersti Lunden Nilsen. “Stave Churches in Norway Older than Previously Believed.” Edited by Christina Benjaminsen, Norwegian SciTech News, NTNU and SINTEF, 11 June 2019, https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2019/11/stave-churches-in-norway-older-than- previously-believed/. 10 14 “Medieval Sourcebook: Bede (673­735): Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, Book I.” Translated by Alexander Pyle, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University, 21 Jan. 2021, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/bede-book1.asp. Accessed 5/1/2021 15 “Undredal Stave Church.” Kirkebyggdatabasen, Kirkesøk (KA Employers' Organization), https://kirkesok.no/kirke/142100101. Accessed 5/1/2021 16 “Gol Stave Church.” Kirkebyggdatabasen, Kirkesøk (KA Employers' Organization), https://kirkesok.no/kirke/030100201. Accessed 5/1/2021 17 Murphy, G. Ronald (2012) "Yggdrasil and the Stave Church," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 31 : No. 1 , Article 2 18 Haugan, Idun. “What Do the Animals in Stave Church Ornamentation Signify?” Edited by Nina Tveter and Christina Benjaminsen, Norwegian SciTech News, NTNU and SINTEF, 28 May 2019, https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2019/04/what-do-the-animals-in-stave-church- ornamentation-signify/. Accessed 4/30/21. 19 Beard, David. “Hylestad Stave Church.” Viking Archaeology, Http://Archeurope.info/, http://viking.archeurope.info/index.php?page=hylestad- stave-church. Accessed 5/1/2021. 20 “Vegusdal Old Church.” Cultural Heritage Search, National Heritage Board Posted by Riksantikvaren, Head Office, 2014, https://kulturminnesok.no/minne/?queryString=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.kulturminne.no%2Faskeladden%2Flokalitet%2F85791, accessed 5/1/2021. 21 Metcalfe, Tom. “1,200-Year-Old Pagan Temple to Thor and Odin Unearthed in Norway.” LiveScience, Purch, 8 Oct. 2020, www.livescience.com/ancient-viking-temple-to-thor-odin-unearthed.html. Accessed 4/27/2021. 11