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Every summer for the last six years I have travelled to Gudvangen Viking Market in July, to live in the beautiful "valley of the Gods" by the Nærøyfjord in Western Norway. This year was however quite a new experience, as the people in Njardar Vikings who host the event are making big things happen — building a Viking village there that stays open for visitors from June through September! Lots of buildings with wonderful carvings have been raised already, including a chieftain house, and many smaller houses with little gardens where Vikings and tradesmen live, share their stories, and sell their crafts. 
We arrived Tuesday and stayed until Sunday, and the weather was great. :) We enjoyed walking barefoot in the grass and living in our dry linen tents (you learn to appreciate that after a few really wet markets — even though our tents stay waterproof, packing and drying them is a real hassle!). I had received a light linen dress from Klesarven which was a blessing in the hot summer sun. 
Life in the village... 
Tablet weaving. 
Leg wrappers/winding bands, used with the poofy Rus-trader style pants. 
My brother Steinar :) 
Posing at the beautiful entrance of the chieftain's house. 
Turid with her little Viking girl :) 
Sigrid and her herbs :) 
Sweet Theresia and I. 
Dinner-time in our camp. 
I didn't get a photo of our whole camp, but our little group of three families have formed a Viking group, for which we have chosen the name Folkvangr! I designed our logo in our colors, blue and white, with a circular bind-rune of the letters in our name in the Younger Futhark (which was the runic alphabet used during the Viking age) using long-branch runes. Did you know that, according to Norse mythology, Folkvangr is the home of Freyja in Ásgrðr? She chooses half of the slain to live there with her, while the remainder go to Valhalla with Óðinn. While the latter is much more known and discussed in contemporary sources, often with references to the more bloodthirsty warrior-aspect of the Viking era, the concept of Folkvangr seems more appealing to our group. Lars Christian painted it on his new beautiful shield, and I think it looks really good :) 
With Georg, the chieftain of Njardar Vikings :) 
The Viking ship Tyra :) 
After the feast on Saturday evening, there was time for a rather curious competition, inspired by a story about Loki from Skáldskaparmál. I'll leave these photos here without further explanation... ^^ 
And off they went! 
We had a blast, and all of a sudden the week was over and yet another Gudvangen Viking market is history. Thank you for your hospitality, Njardarheimr! See you again next year :) 
˜ Music: Emilia Amper - Bredals Nackapolska # Comments |
 
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