“Easier” is a 3 syllable word

When I were a young lad in the dim and distant past I loved reading. My favourites were Enid Blyton (The Adventurous Four is a book I still look back on as a favourite all these years later), Biggles, Henry Treece and Roger Lancelyn Green. The last 2 authors have a particular resonance to me these days. I recall reading Treece's Viking Trilogy which tells the story of Harold Sigurdson and his various voyages. Obviously I just googled that info, would never remember then otherwise. But I have particularly fond memories of the various Lancelyn Green books, each of which contained the mythologies of various countries - Greece, Norway and Egypt immediately spring to mind.

Why mention these books? Well my week has been bookended by trips to places which feature in Norse Mythology.

There are many different versions of the legend of the Seven Sisters, some of which even include the Dønnaman. One version tells of 2 great kings that lived in Helgoland. The King of Vågakallen had a son called Hestmannen while the King of Sulitjelma had seven daughters. None of these children were particularly well behaved and the daughters were banished to the island of Landego where they met Lekamøya. One day they were all bathing and Hestmannen saw them and he immediately fell in love with Lekamøya. On horseback he began to chase them. The women all ran as far and as fast as they could. The sisters gave up at Alstahaug and lay down there. Lekamøya was able to continue until almost daybreak when Hestamannen gave up the chase. Disappointed, he decides to shoot her with an arrow. This is observed by the King of Sømna and to save the life of Lekamøya he threw his hat in the way of the arrow. The arrow makes a tiny hole in the hat and just then the sun rises and all the maidens, Hestamannen and the hat are all immediately turned to stone.

Since I arrived here in Norway, the Seven Sisters and Torghatten had been on my to - do list.

The first one ticked off was Skjæringen - one of the Seven Sisters - Helga and her son, John Arne, invited me to join them on Saturday.

I had been assured that Skjæringen (1037m) was easier than Lovund (isn't everything?) but in my naïveté I focussed far too much on the first 2 syllables to the neglect of the 3rd. The Skjæringen is the 3rd most northern Sister and is beside Tvillingan (the Twins). Skjæringen and Tvillingan are linked together by Aksla (the shoulder) which is where we stopped for lunch. John Arne had shot far ahead of us and managed to go up and down Tvillingan before we all headed off for our intended summit. Obviously I could have done that as well but I thought it might be rude to abandon Helga....

It certainly was easier than Lovund and is apparently described as "the family route" as it's good for families with older children and I didn't feel a permanent sense of impending death as we descended. Rather than lots of small rocks which might slip (the fear on Lovund) the nervous bit was the large smooth rocks on which you could slip.

I came much better prepared this time - vast amounts of food and drink which were consumed on the way up (and down). At first the summit was quite quiet but after a while all these young people shot up and then shot down again - presumably as part of doing all 7 in one day. Not for me this year!

Spectacular views from the top always make it worthwhile - which is what I kept telling myself as I struggled to walk for the next 4 days.

On Friday I had a wee jaunt down to Brønnøysund with Trine to visit Torghatten - the mountain with a hole through it (ie the hat from legend above).

It was probably the easiest of the walks I've done so far and in fact we spent much longer on the ferries to get there and back than we did walking (no bad thing obviously). As mentioned in a previous post I do love the ferries and I told Trine that my plan B if the organ playing didn't work out was to apply for a ferry job.

Obviously the legend above is really how the hole was created but more outlandish theories have also been put forward - wave action gradually creating the hole or apparently the current thinking is that it was created by ice.

King Oscar visit Torghatten in 1873 and some point before he arrived, some workers created a stairway out of granite which I much appreciated. Oscar left his signature on one of the walls and it can still be seen today.

On Tjøtta we stopped at the Soviet War Cemetery and International War Cemetry. In November 1944 a ship was attacked by Allied bombers on the Helgeland Coast. It wasn't a cargo ship as thought but was in fact carrying Prisoners of War back to Germany. In all 2456 people died but because the records were lost they have been buried in unmarked graves. In 1951, the Norwegian government took the decision to provide suitable surroundings for the Soviet War dead and Tjøtta was chosen as the place for all the Soviets who had fallen in Northern Norway.

On our way back to Herøy, we had time for a quick bite to eat in Brønnøysund itself. It is the biggest town in the municipality with a population (according to the 2018 record) of just over 5,000. We only had about 30 minutes to eat so it had to something that could be served fairly promptly. And that something was reindeer with rice. As I sat down to eat it I was telling myself "it's not Rudolph, it's not Rudolph.." but then Trine said "enjoy Rudolph"....

The night before Skjæringen I pottered (it's the only way I travel) across to Sandnessjøen for a performance by Alsta Vocali in the Gammelkinon (the old cinema). Helga and Laila had fv kindly invited me along and we were entertained by a very talented group directed by Anja. Everything was done by memory (which never fails to impress me) and as well as performing a lot of numbers unaccompanied they also played various instruments - a particular favourite was the Fleetwood Mac section performed with banjo/ ukulele/ tambourine/ accordion.

Obviously I do do some work as well as all these jaunts. Last Sunday was the instillation of Jørg as the Preist in Charge of Herøy. As well as the instillation there were 3 baptisms (as well as one in the morning in Dønna) and obviously there was a wee party afterwards, held in Herøy Museum. If there is communion at the service, there are normally four pieces of organ music and as I don't like to repeat myself that means 8 new pieces each Sunday.

Services at the old folk homes are now up and running and, certainly in Herøy, alternate between a communion service and Andakt which is more of a relaxed event with the songs not necessarily being hymns.

My online Norwegian lessons are now back on and I had what I think was an end of unit assessment. I was shown 2 sides of A4 questions which were to go through - first off I would answer the question and then ask it to my teacher. It started off fairly straightforwardly - What's your name (hva heter du?) - my name is Graeme (jeg heter Graeme). It gradually got more complicated - talking about family/ differences between home and here/ what I wanted to work on in Norway (?) and the one I saw ahead and was dreading - talk about your first love! Fortunately we ran out of time so didn't have to answer that one.

Ann-Edel said very nice things about my attempts (something along the lines of a "shining example for other pupils" - shucks :-) )and over the next few weeks we're going to go through the questions again (so do need to decide on "first love") in the hope that I'll get faster and more fluent.