Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record: Archaeologists, Folklore and Burial Mounds in Agder, Southern Norway 9781407306957, 9781407336961

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Contents
Figures and illustrations
Translations and abbreviations
Part I
1. Introduction
2. Burial mounds and folklore
3. Folklore genres
4. Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism
5. Sources and methods
Part II
6. Digging up burial mounds
7. Owning the buried goods
8. The rational and the magical
9. Knowing the past
10. Destroying burial mounds
Part III
11. Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology
12. Conclusions: indigenous and Norwegian archaeologies
Appendix 1: Spang
Appendix 2: Keywords in Spang: an encyclopedia of folklore about burial mounds
Appendix 3: Published sources in Spang
Bibliography

Citation preview

BAR S2153 2010 OMLAND STEWARDS AND STAKEHOLDERS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

B A R

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record: Archaeologists, Folklore and Burial Mounds in Agder, Southern Norway Atle Omland

BAR International Series 2153 2010

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record: Archaeologists, Folklore and Burial Mounds in Agder, Southern Norway Atle Omland

BAR International Series 2153 2010

ISBN 9781407306957 paperback ISBN 9781407336961 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407306957 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

UTSTILLING I (utkast til et minnesmerke)

Monumentet er et monument over sin egen glemsel. Og får mening først når det ikke finnes noen som kan gi det mening. Det er steinen du holder i hånden. Som du aldri når inn til. Bare speilet viser alltid riktig tid. Når steinen speiler seg, er det ikke av forfengelighet. Speilet røper alt, steinen ingenting. Som stein og speil er det du helst vil vite.

Ulven, Tor 1995: Stein og speil. Mixtum compositum. Gyldendal, Oslo, page 5.

EXHIBITION I (draft for a memorial)

The monument poses as monument over its oblivion. And gains meaning only when no one remains to invest it. The stone you are holding in your hand. That you will never fathom. Only the mirror always shows the right time. When the stone mirrors itself, this is not vanity. The mirror gives it all away; the stone nothing. All you want to know is like stone and mirror.

Acknowledgements This book is a slightly modified version of my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Oslo in December 2006 and defended in September 2007. Revision of the thesis was carried out during the winter of 2008, but also as a visiting scholar during the fall of 2009 at Stanford University, California. The research has been funded by a three years full-time scholarship from the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo. This gave me the privilege of being a research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, Art History and Conservation during the period March 2001–April 2004. The remaining part was finished during my position as university lecturer in archaeology during the academic year 2004/2005. I am also grateful to my employer from March 2006, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), for rendering it possible to spend part of my working time completing the research. The University of Oslo and the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) have also granted funding for publishing the thesis in the BAR International Series. The research has been a long process of which the book as presented here is the main result. The process is still not finite; rather, the book reflects my stage of reflection as it was during the winter of 2008, and literature published after this has not been included. The period of research can be characterized in many ways as solitary, with the daily company of just my sources and the computer. Still, the book was only possible with the support from colleagues, friends and family, of which only a few are mentioned here. First, I am grateful to my supervisor, Professor Lotte Hedeager, for her constant support, frankness and constructive suggestions for alterations. My second supervisor, Professor Anne Eriksen, is acknowledged for her introductions to the study of folklore. My colleagues at the department are acknowledged for creating a stimulating environment. I would give my gratitude to Professor Christopher Prescott, among others, with whom I worked with from the fall of 2001 on “the Schøyen case”, and monitoring this cultural property case was a stimulating, and indeed often frustrating, break from the current research. People who have commented on parts of the original thesis include my opponents at the doctoral defence, Professor Mats Burström and Professor Lynn Meskell, and some of their constructive critique has been included in this revised version. I also appreciated Cornelius Holtorf ’s critical assessment after the defence and suggestions for alterations. Other people who have read parts of the text include Herleik Baklid, Professor Saphinaz Amal Naguib and the late Professor Bjørn Qviller (chapter 9), Anne Lene Melheim (chapters 6, 7 and 8), Ørnulf Hodne and Inger Christiansen (chapter 8). General input and advice on literature has been received from among others Frans-Arne Stylegar and Katja Hrobat. Professor Jarl Nordbladh and Stine Wiell shared with me literature on the infamous antiquarian Arendt. Jan Henning Larsen provided updates on the excavation of burial mounds in Agder in the 1990s. Elizabeth Skjelsvik is acknowledged for sharing information related to archaeological surveys for the economic maps, but also for her great efforts on conducting surveys in the research area of Agder. Without these, this research would have been almost impossible to carry out. Several people helped me during the archive searches. These include among others Mette Hide (Kulturhistorisk museum), Inger Christiansen (The Norwegian Folklore Collection, University of Oslo), Arthur Fasteland (Bergen Museum), and Hans-Jacob Ågotnes (Hannaassamlingen, University of Bergen). Martina Gaux-Lorenz is acknowledged for transcribing the probably first Norwegian excavation report written in 1752 (Håndskriftsamlingen, The National Library of Norway, Oslo). Museumsprosjektet (University of Oslo) gave me electronic access to the survey reports after consent from the Directorate for Cultural Heritage (letter of April 25, 2001). All maps are produced in ArcView by using county maps of Norway (N1000 version 2002). The digital maps were purchased by the Norwegian Mapping Authority (Statens kartverk), and they are used according to agreement number MAD12005-R124775. I also express gratitude to colleagues for giving me tutorials and answering questions related to the software used, in particular Gry Wiker, Espen Uleberg and Lars Forseth. Economical support from Lise og Arnfinn Hejes fond made it possible to purchase a laptop and scanner. The local people whom I met during fieldwork deserve recognition for being willing to be interviewed or otherwise giving me important information. I do hope parts of this research also have some interest for them. Friends and family have been supportive during the research. Among others, I have enjoyed countless accompanied dinners at the university, with discussions of my work and other semantics, with the lexicographer Terje Svardal. I am especially grateful to my parents for offering accommodation on the family-farm in the study area of Agder, and in addition to my father and grandparents for stimulating my fantasy as a child by telling legends. This resulted in me as an adult again travelling into the exotic near past of the area where I grew up.

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Presentation of the research has been given at several seminars and conferences. Parts of the research have been previously published (Omland 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2005a, 2005b; Omland et al. 2005), and in addition some publications of a certain relevance to the research (Omland 2006a, 2006b). A short explanation of the reference system used in the book is given here. Published sources are referred to in brief in the text and the complete reference given in the bibliography. Information about archival sources and newspaper articles are given in footnotes. The location of archaeological sites mentioned in the text is given in footnotes (name of farm, municipality, county, ID number in Fornminneregisteret if surveyed). Biographical information not referred to in the text is usually from encyclopaedias (particularly Norsk arkeologisk leksikon, Store norske leksikon and Norsk biografisk leksikon). The names of medieval people follow the spelling used in an English translation of Snorri Sturluson’s work (1964). Finally, I am thankful to BAR Publishing for publishing this book. In particular, I acknowledge all the efforts of Brenda Stones for proofing and tidying up my English. Errors and ambiguities that remain in the text are entirely my own responsibility. Oslo, May 2010

The author, Atle Omland Standing in front of the burial mound Kongshaugen (the King’s Mound) at the family-farm in the research area of Agder (2004). In the 1930s, the railway that connects the cities of Kristiansand and Stavanger disturbed the burial mound.

Research and publication funded by:

Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo

The Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)

Picture on the title page: Restored burial mounds at the farm of Lunde in Agder (see section 10.6.2). Poem by Tor Ulven translated for this book by Lytle Shaw and Janike Kampevold Larsen.

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Contents Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................................................................................................iii Contents..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................v Translations and abbreviations..................................................................................................................................................................................x

Part I 1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 1 .1 Folklore and disturbances – the later life histories of burial mounds...................................................................................................... 1 1 .2 Reflexivity – archaeological practices and divergent interests.................................................................................................................. 3 1 .3 Indigenization – including other voices?....................................................................................................................................................... 4 1 .4 Norwegian archaeology..................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 1 .5 Research area of Agder ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 1 .6 An interdisciplinary approach......................................................................................................................................................................... 8 1 .7 Research process ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9 1 .8 Structure of the book.......................................................................................................................................................................................10 1 .9 Ethical considerations......................................................................................................................................................................................11 2 Burial mounds and folklore...........................................................................................................................................................................13 2.1 Burial mounds....................................................................................................................................................................................................13 2.2 Folklore...............................................................................................................................................................................................................18 2.3 Conclusions........................................................................................................................................................................................................24 3 Folklore genres...................................................................................................................................................................................................25 3.1 Traditions....................................................................................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Folk-beliefs..........................................................................................................................................................................................................25 3.3 Legends (sagn)...................................................................................................................................................................................................25 3.4 Place-names........................................................................................................................................................................................................27 3.5 Disturbances.......................................................................................................................................................................................................28 3.6 Conclusions........................................................................................................................................................................................................28 4 Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism...............................................................................29 4.1 Early antiquarians (pre-1800 and early 1800s)...........................................................................................................................................29 4.2 Folklore illuminating the grey fog (c.1800–40)..........................................................................................................................................30 4.3 Rejecting folklore (c.1840–1900)..................................................................................................................................................................31 4.4 Archaeologists discover the people and folk-wisdom (c.1900–1960)...................................................................................................34 4.5 Folklore on the fringe of archaeology (c.1960–90)...................................................................................................................................37 4.6 Neo-folklorism (c.1990–)...............................................................................................................................................................................38 4.7 Conclusions........................................................................................................................................................................................................40 5 Sources and methods.......................................................................................................................................................................................41 5.1 Published versus unpublished sources.........................................................................................................................................................41 5.2 Source criticism: whose beliefs are present in the sources? ....................................................................................................................42 5.3 Historical-topographical literature...............................................................................................................................................................43 5.4 Folklore collections .........................................................................................................................................................................................46 5.5 Local historical publications..........................................................................................................................................................................55 5.6 Archaeological sources....................................................................................................................................................................................54 5.7 Other published sources ................................................................................................................................................................................56 5.8 Fieldwork...........................................................................................................................................................................................................58 5.9 Method: constructing the corpus database Spang.....................................................................................................................................60 5.10 Conclusions......................................................................................................................................................................................................64

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Part II 6 Digging up burial mounds.............................................................................................................................................................................66 6.1 Norms and digging............................................................................................................................................................................................66 6.2 Breaking burial mounds (Viking and early Middle Ages).........................................................................................................................68 6.3 Treasure digs (nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources)......................................................................................................................70 6.4 Opening burial mounds (eighteenth to twentieth centuries)...................................................................................................................75 6.5 Excavating burial mounds (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)............................................................................................................77 6.6 Conclusions.........................................................................................................................................................................................................94 7 Owning the buried goods.............................................................................................................................................. 95 7.1 Ownership controversies.................................................................................................................................................................................95 7.2 Means to regulate ownership...........................................................................................................................................................................96 7.3 Local objections and criticism of sources....................................................................................................................................................100 7.4 Objections against excavations......................................................................................................................................................................103 7.5 Objections against State ownership of antiquities....................................................................................................................................106 7.6 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................................................................................................115 8 The rational and the magical........................................................................................................................................................................116 8.1 Contested perceptions: ruins, monuments and sacred sites...................................................................................................................117 8.2 Source criticism and the magical...................................................................................................................................................................118 8.3 Supernatural creatures and burial mounds.................................................................................................................................................123 8.4 The invisible people.........................................................................................................................................................................................127 8.5 Trolls...................................................................................................................................................................................................................133 8.6 Ghosts.................................................................................................................................................................................................................137 8.7 The stolen drinking horn................................................................................................................................................................................141 8.8 Archaeologists and magic...............................................................................................................................................................................144 8.9 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................................................................................................150 9 Knowing the past............................................................................................................................................................................................151 9.1 Contested knowledge about the past...........................................................................................................................................................152 9.2 Historical legends.............................................................................................................................................................................................153 9.3 Burial mounds and historical legends..........................................................................................................................................................157 9.4 Royalty and burial mounds............................................................................................................................................................................158 9.5 Giants and burial mounds..............................................................................................................................................................................169 9.6 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................................................................................................176 10 Destroying burial mounds...........................................................................................................................................................................178 10.1 The significance of destruction...................................................................................................................................................................178 10.2 The death of burial mounds in Agder.......................................................................................................................................................180 10.3 Combating destruction................................................................................................................................................................................183 10.4 The function of legends and folk-beliefs...................................................................................................................................................187 10.5 Christianity.....................................................................................................................................................................................................192 10.6 The Cultural Heritage Act..........................................................................................................................................................................198 10.7 Archaeological practice................................................................................................................................................................................202 10.8 Conclusions....................................................................................................................................................................................................204 Part III 11 Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology.................................................................................................................206 11.1 Stewards and stakeholders of the archaeological record........................................................................................................................206 11.2 Current local interests in burial mounds..................................................................................................................................................207 11.3. Stakeholders and the Norwegian controversy between identity and difference.............................................................................219 11.4 Stewards of the archaeological record.......................................................................................................................................................221 11.5 The role of expertise in the knowledge society........................................................................................................................................222 11.6 Conclusions....................................................................................................................................................................................................225 12 Conclusions: indigenous and Norwegian archaeologies...................................................................................................................226 12.1 Implications for Norwegian archaeology.................................................................................................................................................226 vi

12.2 International relevance.................................................................................................................................................................................226 12.3 In support of archaeology ...........................................................................................................................................................................227 Appendix 1: Spang..................................................................................................................................................................................................229 Appendix 2: Keywords in Spang: an encyclopedia of folklore about burial mounds..............................................................................234 Appendix 3. Published sources in Spang............................................................................................................................................................234 Appendix 4: Lists of burial mounds....................................................................................................................................................................234 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................................................................................................235

Figures and illustrations List of maps Map 1.1: Scandinavia in the world.......................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Map 1.2: Norway........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 6 Map 1.3: Agder............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Map 5.1: Farms visited 2001–4.............................................................................................................................................................................59 Map 6.1: Burial mounds associated with interred treasures and treasure digs.............................................................................................71 Map 6.2: Number of burial mounds excavated by archaeologists 1871–98.................................................................................................82 Map 6.3: Reasons for excavating burial mounds 1900-60................................................................................................................................89 Map 6.4: Reasons for excavating burial mounds 1960–2000..........................................................................................................................91 Map 8.1: Burial mounds associated with supernatural creatures .................................................................................................................123 Map 8.2: Burial mounds associated with those under the ground...............................................................................................................128 Map 8.3: Burial mounds associated with tusser................................................................................................................................................130 Map 8.4: Burial mounds associated with vetter................................................................................................................................................131 Map 8.5: Burial mounds associated with other creatures ..............................................................................................................................132 Map 8.6: Burial mounds associated with trolls.................................................................................................................................................134 Map 8.7: Motifs connecting trolls with burial mounds..................................................................................................................................135 Map 8.8: Burial mounds associated with ghosts...............................................................................................................................................138 Map 8.9: The stolen drinking horn.....................................................................................................................................................................142 Map 9.1: Burial mounds associated with male royalty....................................................................................................................................161 Map 9.2: Burial mounds associated with female royalty................................................................................................................................161 Map 9.3: Burial mounds associated with giants...............................................................................................................................................171 Map 10.1: Burial mounds protected against disturbance by various beliefs..............................................................................................188 Map 10.2: Burial mounds interpreted from a Christian worldview............................................................................................................194 Map 11.1: Burial mounds used for congregations the night before St John’s day.....................................................................................215 Map 11.2: Burial mounds and stone-circles interpreted as the assembly for a “thing”............................................................................217 List of tables Table 2.1: Time chart used in Norwegian archaeology....................................................................................................................................15 Table 6.1: Number of burial mounds associated with interred treasures and treasure digs......................................................................71 Table 8.1: Burial mounds associated with supernatural creatures ...............................................................................................................124 Table 8.2: Terms used for supernatural creatures.............................................................................................................................................126 Table 8.3: General views and responses towards magic c.1750–2000.........................................................................................................144 Table 9.1: General views and responses towards historical legends c.1750–2000....................................................................................152 Table 9.2: Number of burial mounds associated with royalty.......................................................................................................................160 Table 9.3: Number of burial mounds associated with giants.........................................................................................................................171 Table 10.1: Number of burial mounds protected against disturbance by various beliefs........................................................................188 Table 10.2: Number of burial mounds interpreted from a Christian worldview......................................................................................194 Table 11.1: Burial mounds used for congregations the night before St John’s day...................................................................................215 Table 11.2: Burial mounds and stone-circles interpreted as the assembly for a “thing”..........................................................................217

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List of figures Fig. 5.1: Records in Spang according to year (1600-2006)..............................................................................................................................63 Fig. 5.2: Records in Spang according to source category .................................................................................................................................64 Fig. 5.3: Surveyed archaeological localities and records in Spang according to municipality..................................................................64 Fig. 6.1: Number of burial mounds excavated each decennium 1870–2000...............................................................................................78 Fig. 6.2: Number of burial mounds excavated by archaeologists 1871–98..................................................................................................82 List of illustrations Title page: Restored burial mounds at the farm of Lunde in Agder Acknowledgements: The author, Atle Omland Illus. 2.1: Bronze Age burial mound in today’s agricultural landscape..........................................................................................................13 Illus. 2.2: Burial cairn along the coast ..................................................................................................................................................................14 Illus. 2.3: Rich find from a Migration Age burial mound................................................................................................................................16 Illus. 2.4: Jacob Breda Bull (1853–1930) and wife’s burial mound...............................................................................................................17 Illus. 4.1: Martin Friederich Arendt (1773–1823)............................................................................................................................................30 Illus. 4.2: Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911).......................................................................................................................................................31 Illus. 4.3: Oluf Rygh (1833–99)............................................................................................................................................................................32 Illus. 4.4: Ingvald Undset (1853–93)...................................................................................................................................................................34 Illus. 4.5: Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884–1951).............................................................................................................................................36 Illus. 4.6: Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955) and Gabriel Gustafson (1853–1915)........................................................................................36 Illus. 4.7: Helge Gjessing (1886–1924)...............................................................................................................................................................37 Illus. 4.8: Caricature of Elizabeth Skjelsvik (1925–) ........................................................................................................................................38 Illus. 5.1: Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614).....................................................................................................................................................44 Illus. 5.2: Jens Edvard Kraft (1784–1853)...........................................................................................................................................................45 Illus. 5.3: Amund Theodor Helland (1846–1918)............................................................................................................................................46 Illus. 5.4: Andreas Faye (1802–1869)..................................................................................................................................................................46 Illus. 5.5: Johannes Skar (1837–1914).................................................................................................................................................................48 Illus. 5.6: Johan Theodor Storaker (1837–72)...................................................................................................................................................49 Illus. 5.7: Ole Glambek Fuglestvedt (1843–1902)............................................................................................................................................49 Illus. 5.8: Tore Bergstøl (1884–1970)..................................................................................................................................................................50 Illus. 5.9: A contemporary parish-book committee..........................................................................................................................................52 Illus. 5.10: Magnus Breilid......................................................................................................................................................................................53 Illus. 5.11: The natural Angar’s mound................................................................................................................................................................62 Illus. 6.1: Morten Smith Dedekam (1793–1861).............................................................................................................................................66 Illus. 6.2: Burial mound targeted for a treasure dig, October night, 1849...................................................................................................67 Illus. 6.3: Boningshaugen........................................................................................................................................................................................72 Illus. 6.4: Tyrholm’s drawing of a burial mound excavated in 1743 ..............................................................................................................79 Illus. 6.5: Illustration from the 1836 instructions on how to excavate burial mounds..............................................................................80 Illus. 6.6: Haakon Shetelig’s 1898 plan documenting the applied shaft technique....................................................................................83 Illus. 6.7: Plan of burial site before excavation....................................................................................................................................................84 Illus. 6.8: Young, strong local labour ....................................................................................................................................................................88 Illus. 6.9: German soldiers excavating a burial mound......................................................................................................................................90 Illus. 6.10: Excavation according to the quadrangle principle 1977..............................................................................................................92 Illus. 6.11: Excavation using mechanical digger 1973.......................................................................................................................................92 Illus. 7.1: Anders Lund Lorange (1847–88).......................................................................................................................................................95 Illus. 7.2: Svarthaug in 1877 and 1917...............................................................................................................................................................103 Illus. 7.3: The chamber of the burial mound Rishaug opened in 1776........................................................................................................109 Illus. 7.4: Sketch of a proposed archaeological museum for Agder..............................................................................................................113 Illus. 7.5: A giant replica of the Migration Age Snartemo sword unveiled in 1997..................................................................................114 Illus. 8.1: Peder Hansen (1746–1810)...............................................................................................................................................................116 Illus. 8.2: Tussehaugen ..........................................................................................................................................................................................117 Illus. 8.3: Vettehaugen............................................................................................................................................................................................122 Illus. 8.4: Tuptehaug...............................................................................................................................................................................................127 Illus. 8.5: Underjordshaugen................................................................................................................................................................................129 Illus. 8.6: Vetehaugen.............................................................................................................................................................................................131 Illus. 8.7: An alleged troll grave............................................................................................................................................................................136 Illus. 8.8: Røysheivarpet........................................................................................................................................................................................140

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Illus. 8.9: The Nerstein-horn................................................................................................................................................................................142 Illus. 8.10: The Ime-horn.......................................................................................................................................................................................142 Illus. 9.1: Jan Petersen excavating in 1918 a burial mound at Lista..............................................................................................................151 Illus. 9.2: Oluf Rygh’s drawing of a boathouse interpreted as a burial mound...........................................................................................156 Illus. 9.3: Dronninghaug.......................................................................................................................................................................................162 Illus. 9.4: King Gaut’s burial mound...................................................................................................................................................................163 Illus. 9.5: Burial cairn interpreted as a defence by a king................................................................................................................................164 Illus. 9.6: Kjempehaugen.......................................................................................................................................................................................171 Illus. 9.7: Atlakshaug..............................................................................................................................................................................................173 Illus. 10.1: Burial mound reused as a potato cellar...........................................................................................................................................181 Illus. 10.2: Lighthouse built on a burial cairn...................................................................................................................................................182 Illus. 10.3: Burial mound reused during World War II as a bunker..............................................................................................................182 Illus. 10.4: Restoration of burial cairn after its excavation.............................................................................................................................184 Illus. 10.5: Burial cairn rebuilt in 1998 as a “fortification”.............................................................................................................................186 Illus. 10.6: Protected trees growing on burial mounds...................................................................................................................................189 Illus. 10.7: Burial cairn at Kjørkjebakken (the Church Hill) interpreted as a church..............................................................................195 Illus. 10.8: Artist’s reconstruction of monks worshipping at Krosshaug/Munkehaug............................................................................197 Illus. 10.9: A grave moved to a rectory...............................................................................................................................................................197 Illus. 10.10: Parents and children demonstrate against the protection of burial mounds.......................................................................201 Illus. 10.11: Restoration of the burial mounds at Lunde................................................................................................................................201 Illus. 11.1: The annual whitewashing of the Majersteinen stone..................................................................................................................211 Illus. 11.2: Annointing sacred pines with beer in the 1980s..........................................................................................................................211 Illus. 11.3: Board set up in the late 1990s by the county council and local municipality........................................................................212 Illus. 11.4: Board set up in 1997 on local initiative.........................................................................................................................................213 Illus. 11.5: Wedding in 2002 at the burial site of Sausebakk.........................................................................................................................215 Illus. 11.6: Women assembling 1 May 1990 on a newly restored burial mound.......................................................................................216 Illus. 11.7: Drawing of Tinghaugen....................................................................................................................................................................218 Illus. 11.8: Standardized board at a stone-circle...............................................................................................................................................218 Illus. 11.9: A wreath laid on 17 May 2000 on a memorial at a burial mound............................................................................................219

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Translations and abbreviations Institutions and organizations mentioned in the text Institution in Norwegian

Abbreviation

English translation

Foreningen til norske Fortidsminners Bevaring

Fortidsminneforeningen

The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments (established 1844)

Fornminneregisteret

The Sites and Monuments Registry

Nasjonalbiblioteket i Oslo

NBO

The National Library of Norway, Oslo

Norsk folkeminnesamling

NFS

Riksantikvaren

Ra

Universitetets Oldsaksamling

Oldsaksamlingen

The Norwegian Collection of Folklore (established 1914, University of Oslo) The Directorate for Cultural Heritage (established 1912) The University’s Museum of Antiquities (established 1811/1829, University of Oslo)

From 1999 the collection was part of Universitetets kulturhistoriske museum (UKM), in 2004 renamed Kulturhistorisk museum (KHM). The old name of the collection is still used in this book. Universitetets Oldsaksamlings topografiske arkiv

University Museum of Cultural Heritage Museum of Cultural History

UO top.ark.

The University’s Museum of Antiquities’ topographical archive

Major categories of archaeological monuments and sites referred to in the text • bautastein – standing stone (Iron Age) • bygdeborg – hill-fort (Iron Age) • flatmarksgrav – flat-grave (Bronze Age – Modern Period) • gravhaug – burial mound (Bronze Age – Iron Age) • gravrøys – burial cairn (Bronze Age – Iron Age) • langhaug – oblong mound (Iron Age) • steinsetning – stone-circle (Iron Age) Abbreviations Ab. – Yearbook of Fortidsminneforeningen B – museum number of antiquities in Bergen Museum (followed by a number) C – museum number of antiquities in Oldsaksamlingen (followed by a number) ID – identification number of archaeological monuments and sites in Fornminneregisteret (followed by a number) ML – migratory legend (followed by a number), drawn from Christiansen, Reidar Th. 1958 The migratory legends. A proposed list of types with a systematic catalogue of the Norwegian variants. FF communications. Vol. 175. Suomalainen tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.

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Part I Introduction

This book discusses folklore about burial mounds in the two Norwegian southern counties of Agder. These mounds were constructed as the burial places for the dead, in Norway built with a changing frequency during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (c.1800 BC–AD 1050). These narratives, told by those people who have lived in their vicinity, document a local interest in the monuments, but also question who are the stakeholders and who should be the stewards of the archaeological record.

The work in this book originated from a contemporary international movement that seeks an inclusive archaeology. It started from the assumption that local people, but also other non-archaeologists, are stakeholders and that their interests should be assessed. These issues are discussed by scrutinizing the following three main topics: 1. Discussion: of selected parts of the later life histories of burial mounds, mainly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, confined to oral narratives and folkbeliefs about them, but also their disturbance.

Internationally, in relation to indigenous peoples, local interests are often used to identify stakeholders and to question stewardship. Conflicts of interests can even be approached as a cultural clash between the knowledge-systems of Western archaeology and that of indigenous peoples. However, as argued in this book, similar tensions can be found in Scandinavia, in Norway, between archaeologists and local people with the same ethnic affiliation. For instance, in the mid-nineteenth century, archaeologists not only rejected several local interests, but I suggest that they also aimed at dissuading local interest in archaeological monuments in order to establish themselves as the main stewards and stakeholders.

2. Reflexivity: attaining knowledge on how archaeologists – but also other scholars – have viewed and responded to the discussion of life histories of archaeological monuments, mainly from the establishment of archaeology as an academic discipline around 1840 and until around the year 2000. 3. Indigenization: considering to what extent the interests of non-archaeologists should be included by archaeologists and in heritage management, which has also been termed ethnocritical archaeology.

This argument rests on a study of what is here termed the later “life histories” of burial mounds, that is, their history during mainly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With changing frequency, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (c.1800 BC–AD 1050), these mounds were constructed as the burial places of the dead. However, in later periods too they have been important as local people have reinterpreted and told stories about them. The anthropologist Jerome Voss puts this local interest in archaeological monuments as follows: “Although professional archaeologists have excavated and studied many such monuments during the past century, there is a much longer history of folk interpretation” (Voss 1987: 80). Folklore has still only recently become the subject of detailed analysis in Norwegian archaeology (Aannestad 1999, 2003), although calls for such studies have been made earlier (Brøgger 1945: 43-4; Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 9; Hagen 1997: 242).

The sources about the later life histories of burial mounds, with divergent interpretation of them, are also made available for the reader. A corpus database – named Spang (see chapter 5) – has been constructed for the purpose of storing, analysing and presenting the sources, and the database follows the text as Appendix 1. The content of this book is further popularized through Appendix 2: an “encyclopaedia” that describes the life histories of burial mounds through keywords with which each record in Spang has been analysed. 1.1 Folklore and disturbances – the later life histories of burial mounds The main objective of this book is to discuss parts of the later life histories of burial mounds by studying local interests in them through folklore (Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999a), but also disturbances and reuses of them (Bradley and Williams 1998). The life histories discussed are limited to the later period, mainly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some older sources are also used in order to gain knowledge on how burial mounds have been interpreted after their construction.

In this book, the analysis is confined mainly to burial mounds in the two counties of Agder in southern Norway, but examples from other areas in Norway are also brought into the discussion, together with other categories of archaeological monuments. The book is also limited to folklore and interpretations found mainly in sources from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because it was then that archaeology was established and flourished as a discipline which aimed at constructing other kinds of knowledge. However, some older material is used too that is often included in later sources.

Still, only a selection of the life histories are discussed, and they are confined to five major themes explored in Part II 1

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Map 1.1: Scandinavia in the world (chapters 6–10). These include the act of digging burial mounds (chapter 6), controversies concerning ownership of the retrieved antiquities (chapter 7), their magical world (chapter 8), narratives about the period when burial mounds were constructed (chapter 9), and finally their disturbances and destruction (chapter 10). Although these themes are only selections of the later life histories of burial mounds, the book does give a generally broad overview of such narratives that often focus at entertainment, a fantastical interpretation of the past, or the special importance of a place.

been critically commented upon as their “cultural biography” (Kristiansen 1998: 117-18). Several studies take such a cultural historical approach towards writing the history of archaeological monuments (Chippindale 1994 [1983]; Eriksen 1999b; Roymans 1995). Such works can also include divergent interests in the monuments (Bender 1998). Influenced by the postprocessual emphasis on meaning pluralism, the Swedish archaeologist Mats Burström uses the term “cultural value”, and he stresses that folklore is part of a cultural value of archaeological monuments and is important for writing their history (Burström 1993: 8-9). This view has later influenced archaeology in Sweden (Burström et al. 1997; Zachrisson 1994; 1998: 37-54; 2003), but also in Norway (Aannestad 1999, 2003). From c.2000, the perspective of archaeological ethnography has also been developed, both by archaeologists and anthropologists, wherein ethnographic descriptions are made of the current importance of monuments and sites (e.g. Breglia 2006), or “the ways in which archaeology works in the world” (Meskell 2005: 84).

This approach to writing the life history of burial mounds rests on the idea that not only humans but also objects have a life history, an idea developed about commodities by Kopytoff (1986). From this perspective, reception studies of archaeological monuments can be seen as their biographies, argued for in these terms by the archaeologist Cornelius J. Holtorf: Things, like humans, can be considered to have lives. Things are made somewhere; they often do something, and some move from place to place. Their meanings and functions can change in different contexts, and as time goes on they age. Eventually most things die, and whatever is left out of them is discarded somewhere and gradually disintegrates. Things can reach very different ages, from a few minutes to many millennia, but once dead only very few are brought back and given new meanings in a new life. Accounts of things’ life-histories are ‘biographies’ of things. (Holtorf 2002b: 185; see also Holtorf 1998b: 23)

Other approaches include Richard Bradley’s, who uses the term “afterlife” of the monuments for the periods after their construction, and he argues that the archaeology of monuments is the place where the dialogue between archaeology and the public starts (Bradley 1993: 129). The term “afterlife” is, however, criticized because it refers to the deceased builders of the monuments and not the monuments that were meant to outlive their builders (Holtorf 1998b: 24; 2002b: 186). Holtorf therefore suggests that the term “life histories” represents a better conceptual framework, as used in his study of megaliths (Holtorf 1998b, 2000-5, 2002b; 2005b: 78-91; cf. Holtorf 1996, 1997, 1998a), and it is also used in this book.

Archaeologists have given this empirical approach to the life histories of archaeological monuments various names. It can be seen as a “cultural history” (cf. Morris 2000), or what has

2

Introduction According to the perspective of writing a life history of monuments and sites, it is not considered to what extent the narratives are “true” or the beliefs “old”. Archaeologists have still argued, as in the Dutch context, that elements of folklore collected in the nineteenth century can contain pre-Christian elements (Roymans 1995: 15). The Irish archaeologist Tok Thompson further warns against current restraints in archaeology of accepting continuity of traditions. He argues that certain elements in Irish folklore about Neolithic megalithic mounds are actually rooted in pre-Indo-European cultures and retain their vitality into the written record (Thompson 2004: 363). Although the possibility might exist that some beliefs can have a great age, in this book, older elements in folklore are not given higher value than more recent stories, or “wrong” interpretations that are part of the life histories too and that often focus on the unusual and different (cf. Bø et al. 1981).

current readers as she situates them in a contemporary context (Skjelbred 1998: 20-22, 24-5). Although folklore texts can be given contemporary relevance, in this book, they are approached as narratives and interpretations that document interests in the monuments by people who have lived in their vicinity, and the stories can make them legible, but also entertain. Despite the source value of several researched sources being uncertain (see chapter 5), they are used because it is these collected texts that are preserved for us today, and the challenge is similar for archaeologists who use sparse and fragmentary remains of artefacts and structures to gain knowledge about the past. The texts even have a continuing relevance since later readers approach them. Consequently, it is not important if the stories are “true”, a view that is comparable to perspectives taken by some archaeologists and historians who discuss the source value of medieval written sources (e.g. Hedeager 1999: 11; Hastrup and Sørensen 1987: 14; Solli 2002: 70).

A potential danger of the life historical approach is that folklore is given too idealistic a role compared with archaeological knowledge. The approach should therefore be seen in light of the following four characteristics of folklore about archaeological sites (after Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 4-5):

From this perspective, folklore discussed in this book can be seen as images about burial mounds that are comparable to images about archaeology in contemporary popular culture. Most people do not believe, for instance, that Indiana Jones is a correct representation of archaeologists, but this character is an image about archaeologists found in contemporary popular culture (cf. Holtorf 2005b). However, these images about burial mounds can – because the texts are given new meanings – regain their importance, such as when they are again taken up for discussion in this book.

1. Folklore does not offer accurate or reliable representations of past beliefs, events, etc., but neither do archaeological presentations, and both fields give us knowledge about the significance of the past. 2. Folklore is an expression of what the archaeological record means to different people. 3. Folklore does actually in some cases offer plausible interpretations of the archaeological record, whether or not because of continuity of transmission. 4. Folklore reflects part of the later and contemporary interpretations of archaeological monuments.

1.2 Reflexivity – archaeological practices and divergent interests Under objective 1, it was established that people other than archaeologists have an interest in the archaeological record. These are often called interest groups who – like archaeologists – speak on the behalf of monuments, sites and archaeological artefacts. Secondly, this book therefore discusses how archaeologists – but also other scholars – have responded to divergent local interests in burial mounds as present through folklore, folk-beliefs and disturbances, mainly from the establishment of archaeology as an academic discipline around 1840 until today, around the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The sources used to gain knowledge about folklore of burial mounds are interpreted qualitatively through a detailed reading of them (see chapter 5). However, interpreting the texts is a hermeneutical challenge that is, according to the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, not purely a method, but an ontology, something we live with, as the texts are given meaning through a fusion of horizons (context) in which both the texts and the researcher are situated (Gadamer 1989 [1975]). From this perspective, the experiences of the researcher shape the interpretation of the texts, but in a constant dialogue with the text that gives feedback to the interpretation. Moreover, the texts can be given a contemporary relevance.

The approach of studying how archaeologists have responded to divergent interests can be termed an ethnography of the archaeological practice, whereas the ethnographic lens is turned towards ourselves, but seen from outside and as an “Other”. The consequence of this approach is, as put by the British archaeologist Matt Edgeworth, that the archaeological practices “are accorded no special privilege just because they could be described as part of scientific or academic activity” (Edgeworth 2006: xii).

Inspired by an intertextual approach, the Norwegian folklorist Skjelbred interprets folklore texts. Skjelbred argues that folklore is characterized by a dynamic and a constantly changing flexibility and variation. Folklore that was originally recorded to document old folk-beliefs can be given, from this perspective, new meaning for people today. Folklore has therefore no finite meaning, but several, and does not belong to a certain historic period or place (context), but can be detached from chronology and geography. Skjelbred therefore gives the older collected legends and beliefs a meaning for

This perspective rests on the assumption that scientific disciplines, including archaeology, can be defined as a “culture” that can be defined as “a complex way of life that has evolved in a group of people with shared traditions, which are transmitted

3

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record and reinforced by members of the group” (Ziman 2000: 24). Academic disciplines can be analysed similarly to other cultures, for instance, through ethnographic observations of where scientists work, such as in a laboratory (Latour and Woolgar 1986; Latour 1987). In archaeology, fieldwork would typically be the place for ethnographic studies of archaeology as a social and cultural practice (e.g. Edgeworth 2006). However, in this book, the practice of archaeology is researched by a qualitative study of publications written by people within the discipline.

of archaeological knowledge, but shows that trends have shifted and even repeated themselves. The intention of taking a reflexive approach is not to give legitimacy to the archaeological discipline, as several works on the history of archaeology aim to do, according to the Norwegian archaeologist Asgeir Svestad (1995: 13-14). On the contrary, this book discusses the history of Norwegian archaeology critically in order to stimulate reflection upon archaeological practice by investigating how archaeologists have approached divergent interpretations of burial mounds. Despite archaeologists having, in various periods, included different interests, it is highlighted that archaeologists have appropriated both the ownership and the “true” interpretations of burial mounds.

In recent years, reflexive methods have been employed in ethnographic studies of archaeological practices. However, the reflexive approach also aims at including divergent interests in archaeology. The British archaeologist Ian Hodder has defined reflexivity in broad terms as: (...) the examination of the effects of archaeological assumptions and actions on the various communities involved in an archaeological process, including other archaeologists and non-archaeological communities. (Hodder 1999: 194; 2000a: 9)

1.3 Indigenization – including other voices? To what extent other voices should be included in the contemporary archaeological practice, or management should be handed over to interest groups, also termed indigenization or ethnocritical archaeology, is considered as the third objective and as a consequence of the former two. The Australian archaeologist Denis Byrne was already asking in 1991: “If, in a postmodern world, there can be alternative histories why can’t there be alternative heritages and alternative models of heritage management?” (Byrne 1991: 273). This issue is briefly discussed mainly in chapter 11, and it is based on a review of current interests in burial mounds. Although divergent interpretations are approached from a positive perspective in the book, a critical stance is taken towards an indigenization.

The excavation of the early Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, is one example of an archaeological project aimed at applying a reflexive approach in order to include various interest groups (Hodder 2000b). Anthropologists participate in the project, they collect folklore and assess the interaction between villagers and archaeologists (Shankland 1996, 1999b, 1999a, 2000). The reflexive method further intends to produce reflection on the construction of archaeological knowledge through the documentation of the excavation process. Enhancement of multivocality is in addition one aim of a reflexive method, although reflexivity has been criticized for supporting a traditional hierarchical system where the specialists retain importance (Berggren 2001: 17; cf. further discussions on reflexivity in Berggren and Burström 2002; Hassan 1997; Hodder 1997, 1998).

The concepts of “stakeholder” and “stewardship” are often applied when issues of plural interests are considered in archaeology. The notion of stakeholders is borrowed from corporate theory developed in the 1980s, and it questions to what extent a company shall maximize the value of the shareholders’ investments or if it shall recognize the interests of several stakeholders, ranging from employees to society. However, in the context of archaeology, stakeholders might refer to a variety of groups and individuals who have an interest in the archaeological record, who might include archaeologists, owners, tourists, and society. The concept of stewardship is developed from a steward, an official who can be in charge of another’s household or property. In archaeology, stewardship might refer to those scholars who manage the archaeological record on behalf of society.

In this book, how archaeologists in Norway have reflected upon the archaeological practice and responded towards divergent interests is also seen as a reflexive approach. This is partly in accordance with the following definition of reflexivity: Reflection on values implied in human aspirations and projects. The process by which individuals involved in knowledge production try to operate from the standpoint of all the actors involved. (Gibbons et al. 1994: 168) In the early stages of writing this book, the general assumption was, as Ian Hodder has argued in respect of the archaeological discipline in general (Hodder 1999: 195-6), that archaeologists have spent much time defending and demarcating the discipline from divergent interpretations. However, the study indicates that in Norway archaeologists have been in constant dialogue with other interpretations: they argued against the value of folklore in those periods when the discipline was influenced by rationalism, but they did in various ways include folklore in those periods influenced by romanticism (cf. this general cycle in sciences in Kristiansen 1998; 2002: 223; Sherratt 1996). Consequently, the history of archaeology is not approached from the perspective that it represents an accumulating growth

Internationally, questions have increasingly been raised on who should be the stewards of the archaeological record when a wide range of stakeholders’ interests are recognized. In some contexts, the handing over of stewardship to those groups who see the record as “theirs” can be seen as one method to include indigenous values. Such an indigenization rests partly on the argument that if archaeology can be defined as a “culture” (see the section above), the knowledge produced by the “culture” of a scientific community of archaeologists often clashes with the knowledge held by other “cultures”. This again questions the issue of which culture should gain prerogative interests in the archaeological record. In the nineteenth and twentieth 4

Introduction centuries, the “culture” of archaeology was spread throughout the world due to colonial and imperial doctrines that approached the past from a Western point of view (Trigger 1984). However, a critique opposed to these Western values in archaeology was formulated in the 1980s: indigenous peoples now claimed their rights over the archaeological record that they regarded as their heritage (Layton 1989a, 1989c; Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990). This conflict has been characterized as a crisis in global archaeology (Hodder 1999: 1-19), but at the same time, some archaeologists aimed at overcoming this and related conflicts, by arguing for a radical pluralism in archaeology (Shanks and Tilley 1989; 1992: 245).

the same reasons (...). (Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 18-19) This ideal role given to folklore represents on the one hand the recognition of indigenous values in archaeology. However, on the other hand the statement can even be seen as a critique against the constituency of what has been termed indigenous archaeologies as a separate field of archaeology (cf. Watkins 2000). This critique is of special relevance in Norway as the discipline of archaeology, and research in general (NESH 2002), have been challenged by values of the Sámi, acknowledged in Norway as an indigenous people according to the ILO Convention no. 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples (1989).1 However, archaeology has been challenged to a lesser extent by divergent values held by the majority of ethnic Norwegians.

This clash of cultures can be seen as positive if one accepts that archaeology should be contested in order constantly to reinforce a self-critical and reflexive practice. However, the conflict also challenges the position of the “culture” of archaeology itself. The Australian archaeologist Laurajane Smith has presented a powerful contribution to this debate with a comprehensive and critical study of the politics of cultural heritage that questions the privileged position of archaeologist (Smith 2004; see also Smith 2006). Smith scrutinizes the practice of archaeology by analysing the conflicting trinity of “archaeologists” – “cultural resource management” – “indigenous peoples”. Smith’s argument is that archaeology, claiming to be an impartial science seeking truth for the benefit of all, is through its practice in cultural resource management entwined in politics, power and control – and this causes a clash of cultures. Identity is the pertinent issue discussed by Smith, and she points out that what archaeologists view as “data” represents “heritage” for indigenous peoples and is important for their identity. Further, the identity of archaeology as a scientific enterprise is now threatened by indigenous claims.

Norway was, until immigration from Asia increased during the 1960s, relatively culturally homogenous and was populated mainly by ethnic Norwegians. However, the ethnic minority group of the Sámi, who live mainly in the northern parts of Norway, but also in Sweden, Finland and Russia, was until the early 1980s assimilated by the ethnic Norwegian majority. Changes in the heritage management regime have been part of granting the Sámi stronger conditions and rights to preserve and develop language, culture and social life. However, the unusual situation in Norway is that the current Cultural Heritage Act of 1978, with its later provisions, constructs two different heritage management regimes: one for what is seen as the cultural heritage of the Sámi, and the other for the alleged cultural heritage of ethnic Norwegians. The most striking difference is that the law, according to §4, ascribes different protection orders based on ethnic affiliation: automatic protection of remains more than hundred years old if Sámi, but predating AD 1537 if Norwegian. In 1994, the management of the Sámi cultural heritage was also delegated to Sámi institutions, and from 2001 to the independent and democratically elected body of the Sámi Parliament (Holme 2001a: 142; Falch and Skandfer 2004).

Smith scrutinizes archaeological practice from the 1960s onwards in the US and Australia. Her research clearly highlights a strong conflict between the discipline of archaeology and other “cultures” of American Indians and aboriginal people. According to Smith, the analysis is relevant also in other settings: various interest groups in several countries do claim stronger involvement in archaeological research and management. The tendency is still present in Smith’s analysis that archaeology clashes mainly with the interests of indigenous peoples.

While in Norway the management of cultural heritage is partly based on ethnic affiliation, archaeologists have also, from the 1980s, critically reflected on the political consequences for the Sámi of archaeological practice and how the Sámi past is interpreted by Norwegian archaeologists (e.g. Schanche and Olsen 1983; Næss 1985; Olsen 1986, 2007; Hesjedal 2000). Archaeologists even often accept that Sámi contemporary values in the archaeological record demand particular ethical awareness, and they might acknowledge the value of Sámi oral stories about the landscape. These values can even cause constraints on research on and management of the Sámi archaeological record, such as mortuary remains, or that archaeologists accept resistance to inform them or other specialists about the location of sacred sites (e.g. Andersen 2002; Falch and Skandfer 2004; Mulk 1994; Schanche 1990, 1993, 2000, 2002; Sellevold 2002b; Skandfer 2001, 2003).

The following argument, as explored in this book, can be seen as an extension of Smith’s argument: if one accepts that the conflict is due to a cultural clash, and archaeologists should consider and include indigenous interests, then other groups ought to be reflected on and included as well. Along similar lines, the importance of including folklore in archaeological narratives has been programmatically argued for as follows: It has been argued (...) that in non-Western cultures indigenous traditions of knowing the past ought to be fully respected and must not be eradicated on behalf of Westernstyle science and enlightenment. Archaeologists are not the only people with a legitimate and genuine interest in the past. (...) In this book we extend the argument to include also non-academic understandings of the past within the Western world itself. They too deserve to have a voice, for

However, when Norwegian archaeologists research what is often seen as their “own” and “Norwegian” past, the consequences Available at http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C169 (accessed January 24 2008) 1

5

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Counties 1 Akershus 2 Aust-Agder 3 Buskerud 4 Finnmark 5 Hedmark 6 Hordaland 7 Møre og Romsdal 8 Nordland 9 Nord-Trøndelag 10 Oppland 11 Oslo 12 Rogaland 13 Sogn og Fjordane 14 Sør-Trøndelag 15 Telemark 16 Troms 17 Vest-Agder 18 Vestfold 19 Østfold

by the academic disciplines. What can be termed as a scientific approach to the archaeological record is not inherent to the people of Europe, but developed during the nineteenth century among a group of scholars named archaeologists who then became the protagonists for their interpretations. The archaeological interest now gained pre-eminence compared with those of most ethnic Norwegians too, and conflicts are not confined to Norwegian archaeologists versus the Sámi. Still, educating for the proper interpretation of the archaeological record is only a minor part of various attempts by the elite in postmedieval Europe to enlighten the people (cf. Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 207-43; Hylland 2002; Oja 2000).

The question to what extent other interests and interpretation of the archaeological record should be given a voice – that is an indigenization – is therefore discussed in chapter 11. Although a life-historical approach towards burial mounds is recognized, and the book aims at producing reflection upon archaeological practice, the argument is still vaguely developed that these other interests are Map 1.2: Norway not necessarily better than With counties and important cities mentioned in the book. Agder is marked as grey. those held by archaeologists. Archaeologists further have of archaeological practice for interest groups, such as the local an obligation to perform research according to methods people, are to a lesser extent considered. The contradiction is, as and theoretical positions established by the discipline, the Norwegian archaeologist Anders Hesjedal also points out, that questions such as “who do we write for” or “who writes” but also to communicate knowledge that stands in opposition are less important for archaeologists who construct what they to the interpretations held by other groups. A critical view is therefore developed in the book towards an indigenization consider as the past of their own people (Hesjedal 2000: 289). of archaeology if this denotes a handing over of stewardship As will be seen in this book, the second half of the nineteenth to groups considering the archaeological record as “theirs”. century was a formative period for archaeology, and it was a However, archaeologists still have to be aware of, assess and in time when archaeologists taught what was seen as the proper some cases take into account other interests. interpretations towards Western people too. Hence, education and enlightenment – a shaping of knowledge, world-views and ways of thinking – are not confined to Western influence on indigenous peoples, but represent the dominant way of thinking that pervades the education of knowledge produced

1.4 Norwegian archaeology Norwegian archaeology is chosen for this study, among other reasons, because archaeologists in the mid-nineteenth

6

Introduction century argued strictly against folklore about burial mounds during the establishment and formalization of the discipline. Consequently, not only the indigenous Sámi can be said to have been detached from “their” archaeological record, but also ethnic Norwegians.

1.5 Research area of Agder

Agder is the main research area discussed in this book. Agder is located in the most southern part of Norway and is composed of two counties, Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder (West and East Agder). The size of Agder is approximately 15, 000 km2, which is 5 per cent of the total land area of Norway. In 2005, Agder The archaeological record is also under strong legal protection had a population of 265,000, or 6 per cent of the people living in Norway. In 1905, the first Cultural Heritage Act was adopted in Norway. The population density in Agder is generally low, and gave priority to the research interests of archaeologists who around 18 people per km2. The majority of people live along in addition became the stewards of the record. All monuments the coast or in the fertile valleys stretching from the sea in the and sites in Norway with traces of human activity older than south and northward to the mountain plateaus in the inland AD 1537 are according to the current law of 1978 automatically areas, reaching up to around 1,500 metres above sea level. protected (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §4). Found antiquities, Agder has currently 30 municipalities, with a population objects older than AD 1537, are the property of the State and ranging from 76,000 in the major city of Kristiansand to 850 shall as a rule be cared for only by five designated university in the inland municipality of Bykle (Statistisk sentralbyrå museums (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §12). The competent 2005: Tables 47 and 54). authorities – represented by archaeologists – also have the right to excavate, restore or display archaeological monuments 1 Introduction In 2002, about 2,300 sites in Agder had preserved burial and sites on private property, provided that the landowner or mounds that according to the Cultural Heritage Act of 1978 user is notified (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §11). were protected. However, the number of individual burial systematic study of the interpretations of burial mounds limited, to the site landscape mounds is is much higher however, because a surveyed can have up Trends in Norwegian archaeology in general are discussed to to about 50 mounds. In Agder, most burial mounds are found of Agder. gain a broad picture on how archaeologists have approached in the fertile and populated valleys, although some are also other interests and interpretations of burial mounds. The located in more remote areas. The highest density of burial systematic study of the interpretations of burial mounds is mounds is found on the peninsula of Lista, which is often limited, to thearea landscape of Agder. 1.5 however, Research of Agder referred to throughout this book, but also in the parishes of

Aust-Agder 1 Arendal 2 Birkenes 3 Bygland 4 Bykle 5 Evje og Hornnes 6 Froland 7 Gjerstad 8 Grimstad 9 Iveland 10 Lillesand 11 Risør 12 Tvedestrand 13 Valle 14 Vegårshei 15 Åmli

Vest-Agder 1 Audnedal 2 Farsund 3 Flekkefjord 4 Hægebostad 5 Kristiansand 6 Kvinesdal 7 Lindesnes 8 Lyngdal 9 Mandal 10 Marnardal 11 Sirdal 12 Songdalen 13 Søgne 14 Vennesla 15 Åseral

Map 1.3: Agder Map 1.3: Research area ofAgder Agder with municipalities and important place-names mentioned in the text. Research area of Agder with municipalities and important place-names mentioned in the text.

Agder is the main research area discussed in this book. Agder is located in the most southern 7 part of Norway and is composed of two counties, Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder (West and East Agder). The size of Agder is approximately 15, 000 km2, which is 5 per cent of the total land area of Norway. In 2005, Agder had a population of 265,000, or 6 per cent of the people

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Fjære and Spangereid.

Cultural History), is located in Oslo, and even today it takes from three to seven hours to drive from the museum to Agder. Archaeologists have been active in Agder mainly when they have conducted excavations, surveys or when the local people have applied to release protection of an archaeological site. Until 1990, when the county council received some responsibility for the management of archaeology, archaeologists have therefore been associated with people coming from far-away Oslo.

Agder is chosen as the research area because burial mounds here have not, compared to some other areas in Norway, gained a high value due to the influence of National Romanticism or nation building. In Agder, almost no antiquarian or archaeological work was conducted during the National Romantic period in the first half of the nineteenth century. Agder has further relatively few finds from the Viking Age – the main archaeological period used in the construction of a Norwegian national identity – and is in addition poorly represented in written sources from the Viking period and the Middle Ages (Petersen 1951: 72; Larsen 2000: 29; Låg 1999: 13; but see Stylegar 2000).

Finally, a subjective dimension is present in choosing Agder as a research area because I – the researcher – grew up there and I am to some extent “indigenous” to the research area. This still requires, as the Danish anthropologist Kirsten Hastrup argues, a distance to the field (Hastrup 1999: 223). Although I grew up in Agder, and I know this part of the country well, the research became a journey into an exotic dimension of both the past and the present of Agder that I did not previously know. Not having lived in Agder since 1991, I also felt like a stranger who approached the area and people I met as an outsider. Presenting the research in a foreign language – English – also encouraged me to view both the research area of Agder and Norwegian archaeology from the outside, although I have recognized with disappointment that this choice of language prevents the book from being read by several local people.

Folklore and post-medieval material culture from Agder has also only marginally been used to construct a national identity. Being located on the coastline, Agder was seen as a part of the country where “authentic” Norwegian customs had been diluted by foreign influence, such as from Denmark and Holland. The exceptions were the inner areas of Agder, particularly the valley of Setesdal, which was seen as a “relict area” for survivals of folklore, customs and material culture. Folklore about burial mounds in Setesdal is also rich considering that the number of burial mounds here is sparse compared with other areas in Agder. Historians have even argued that what can be termed the civilization process started later in the inner areas of Agder than in other parts of Norway because, until the seventeenth century, these areas were at the periphery of the central powers of king and church. The area had therefore more cultural reminiscences from the Viking Age than other places of Norway (Sandnes 1990: 78; Løyland 1992: 24). Still, the sources analysed in this book indicate that folklore about burial mounds is not necessarily poorer on the coasts that have more foreign influence, since several coastal parishes, such as Lista and Spangereid, have both a high density of burial mounds and rich folklore about them.

1.6 An interdisciplinary approach Over the last few years, in Norway, burial mounds have been studied from different disciplines, even according to approaches developed by landscape architecture and biodiversity (Tveit 2006). This book takes, however, an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeology and folkloristics. Archaeology and folkloristics share a common origin as they can both be traced back to the same antiquarians and topographers who, before the mid-nineteenth century, used the term “antiquities” for both the material and oral remnants from the past. When the disciplines separated in the mid-nineteenth century, the material remnants belonged to the field of archaeology and the oral remnants to the field of folkloristics. From 1846, these oral remnants were termed “folklore” in English, which superseded the terms “popular antiquities” and “popular literature” (Simpson and Roud 2000: 130). Despite the division of the disciplines, they have in several cases overlapped and some archaeologists have included folklore in their writings (see the overview of European examples in Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 9-10; Zachrisson 1997c: 92-4).

Furthermore, burial mounds in Agder have only in a few cases been connected to people mentioned in written sources from the Middle Ages, such as the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson’s (1179–1241) history of the Norwegian kings (Snorri Sturluson 1964). Snorri connected royal persons with burial mounds and these mounds gained a special value, and from the early seventeenth century and onwards topographers attempted to identify them (e.g. Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]; Schøning 1771). The role of Snorri and historical archaeology in shaping current interpretations of burial mounds is, together with the source value of Snorri or other medieval sagas, therefore to a lesser extent discussed when Agder is chosen as the research area. The importance of the medieval sagas is still considered because these works did in the nineteenth century shape people’s general knowledge about the past, while significant themes such as royal personalities, great people and battles are important in folklore narratives too.

Although folklore about archaeological monuments is often referred to in both folkloristic and archaeological literature, it has generally not been studied in detail, possibly because the topic does not belong to either of the two disciplines. The topic might immediately seem to belong to the field of folkloristics. However, considering that archaeologists are responsible for the archaeological record, it should be a concern especially for them to attain knowledge about divergent interpretations and interests.

Preservation conflicts between archaeologists and the local people further occurred in Agder especially from the 1960s. Partly, these conflicts might have been strengthened because the archaeological museum in charge of the archaeology of Agder after 1905, Oldsaksamlingen (currently the Museum of

Interdisciplinary work does pose challenges if one is trained in one of the disciplines only (archaeology) and not the other 8

Introduction (folkloristics). One obstacle is that the questions raised in this book are related to current issues in archaeology, but not to current trends in folkloristics. Folklorists might find the questions raised, sources used and parts of the discussion as obscure and peripheral as they do not relate – and might even be obsolete – to current trends in folkloristics. For instance, the inclusion of “other voices” might be a “radical” assumption in archaeology, but might be seen in folkloristics as an echo of views held by national-oriented nineteenth- and early twentieth-century folklore collectors.

This could possibly have meant that local values to do with burial mounds decreased, which in turn caused an acceleration of their destruction (Omland 1999: 92-5). In retrospect, this preliminary assessment of the complex situation in the nineteenth century does seem to have been naïve (see chapter 10.7). Nevertheless, it produced an initial attempt to pursue a critical reflection on the role and effect of archaeology in the nineteenth century by considering how the archaeological interest in and control over the archaeological record could possibly influence the interests of the local people. Gradually, the idea arose of carrying out a larger research project with the aim of analysing local interpretations of burial mounds, but also pursuing the question of whether archaeological practices have influenced the interests of the people living in the vicinity of the monuments. The research started in March 2001, and several questions raised earlier soon seemed naïve as they emphasized too much of a dichotomy between interpretations and interests of archaeologists and the local people. As the research progressed, I further became increasingly aware of the danger of giving folklore a rather idealized role compared with archaeological knowledge (Omland 2004a: 41). This included issues such as:

A second challenge is that by being trained in archaeology, archaeological interpretations are better seen in the context of the history of the discipline. Conversely, folkloristic sources are seen as results although they are historically situated too. The consequence might be gross simplifications when one person working in an interdisciplinary way aims at controlling several fields, but I agree with the archaeologist Ian Morris that this “is no reason not to try” (Morris 2000: 29). 1.7 Research process A short overview of the research process will be given in order to situate the reader within the context of how the work on the book originated and developed. Hence, the reader is invited to the “laboratory” where the knowledge presented in the book was constructed (cf. Latour and Woolgar 1986). This emphasizes that the arguments proposed in the book are the result of a still ongoing process.

• Static: Folklore is presented as an entity not changing through hundreds of years. • Speaks for itself: The folklore narratives speak for themselves; they are to a lesser extent subjects for critical analysis, but become self-referential and seen as meaningful by arguing that they are parts of the cultural value of monuments. • People’s voice: Folklore is given an ideal role compared to archaeological knowledge by representing the voice of the people – but who is this people and what value do they give the discussed narratives? • Genuine: Folklore represents something genuine, free and popular in narratives that contrast with archaeological science, in which knowledge is constructed and represents control over interpretations of the past.

The initial thoughts about researching folklore to do with burial mounds began during the autumn of 1998 after submitting my Norwegian Masters dissertation on the UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972. Working on World Heritage issues, I became increasingly concerned about indigenous responses to Western interests in the cultural heritage. An essential precursor was a three-month stay in Zimbabwe during the spring of 1998 in order to learn how archaeologists and local people in a former colonized country responded to the notion of a World Heritage that should be held in common (Omland 1998, 1999, 2006). I realized that similar problems were also incumbent in a Western setting. These issues had been raised earlier in Norway too (Solli 1996b, 1996c), although the project did not emerge from these writings, but from my own experiences in encounters between archaeologists and local people in Norway, both when I was growing up and later as a student and a professional archaeologist. These experiences, together with knowledge about the indigenous response, caused a reconsideration of the practice of archaeology in my own country. One can say that I was drawn to the “exotic within”, and I intended to study conflicts in a Western setting between archaeologists and local people with the same ethnic background.

I further became aware that the current research could be used to sustain such views, and I was at some points even opposed to my own research. One issue was still nagging: to what extent should nonarchaeologists be included in current archaeological practice? Due to the distance in culture and time, it was easy to give sympathy to the voices and interests of people living in the nineteenth century and critical of the views held by archaeologists – they are dead and do not talk back and their views are present in written sources only. Contemporary divergent interests were, however, more difficult to cope with. While in theory being positive to contemporary plural interpretations, I am actually not a populist person, and I often become quiet and start observing when I meet people with views that do not correspond with the archaeological interpretations I endorse. As a consequence, I became critical not only of archaeologists who exclude local interests, but also of a tendency in various international contexts for local, or

The critical assessment first originated in a smaller comment on the relationship between archaeological practice in Norway and local perceptions of burial mounds. I suggested that the appearance of archaeology in the nineteenth century, with the large-scale excavations of burial mounds, broke several beliefs that previously had sustained their protection locally.

9

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record indigenous, values to be treated as having an importance equal to that of archaeological knowledge. These issues, however, did not become the focus of the main parts of the book, but are considered in chapter 11.

current local interests in burial mounds in Agder and by discussing the indigenization of archaeology. The question is who the stakeholders are and who should be the stewards of the archaeological record.

Despite these obstacles and increasing critical reflections on my own work, the main objectives remained to discuss folklore about burial mounds and how archaeologists have responded. The folklore and beliefs discussed are therefore seen as images of burial mounds, and not necessarily as interpretations people have held as true, although these images can also communicate a belief, message or an ethic held by people.

This chosen structure for the book is still problematic. The thematic presentation of folklore can sustain the view that it is a static entity, contrary to the chronological overviews of archaeological responses that might present archaeology as dynamic. Overviews in each chapter of how archaeologists have approached divergent interpretations also cause repetitions. This structure is, however, one solution that gave at least some order to the researched material. Although the researcher has aimed at imposing order, which is a subjective act, the reader might find that the researcher is rather absent in the main section of the book, as it aims for a neutral presentation of the interpretation of burial mounds and how archaeologists have approached these.

1.8 Structure of the book The book follows a rather old-fashioned academic approach to how to present research results, the IMRAD approach: Introduction, Method, Results And Discussion. This strict formal approach to academic writing is not necessarily the best, but it is recognized that if one’s analysis is to be given academic authority, the established procedure for communicating research results in the discipline usually works best, especially if the message might be unpopular in the same circle.

A short account of the chronological periods in which the archaeological responses towards folklore are placed is given in the following. This includes a short history of Norway and Norwegian archaeology since 1750: c.1750–1840: Pre-disciplinary period when topographers and antiquarians were active in the archaeological field. Parts of the knowledge then constructed is today regarded as folk-interpretations. Increasingly specialized archaeological studies occurred in the early nineteenth century when collections of antiquities were founded. The late eighteenth century is distinctive for its rationalism, enlightenment and emerging Norwegian patriotism, but National Romanticism and emerging nationalism characterize the early nineteenth century. Since 1380, Norway had been in various unions with the neighbouring country of Denmark, with a joint Danish monarch, high officials and clergymen coming from Denmark, while Norwegians studied in Denmark until the establishment of the first university in Norway in 1811 (the current University of Oslo). In 1814, after the Napoleonic wars, Norway gained independence from Denmark, but entered a new union with Sweden. The countries had a joint king, and the foreign policy was governed from the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Norway, however, gained its own constitution and received a government and Parliament in the capital of Christiania (renamed in 1925 with the medieval and current name of Oslo).

The structure of the book further reflects what the Norwegian historian of ideas, Espen Schaanning, argues satisfies researchers most: imposing order so that the researcher and reader make the unknown known and remove ambiguities (Schaanning 1997: 84). Several discussed sources are, however, highly ambiguous and unclear. Although these uncertainties in some cases must be communicated, the presentation of these sources aims at not being ambiguous. Creating order out of elusive sources is hence an important function of the structure of the book, although this process causes simplifications. The book is structured in three main parts to impose order: • Part I presents the setting of the work with its introduction. What burial mounds and folklore represent is discussed, and also the sources used and methods applied. • Part II answers research objectives 1 and 2 by exploring both a selection of later life histories of burial mounds and the responses taken towards these by archaeologists. Five general themes are discussed through five chapters: digging burial mounds, ownership controversies of antiquities, the magic world of burial mounds, narratives about the period when burial mounds were constructed, and their disturbances. The archaeological responses to these interpretations are presented chronologically. Some topics encompass interpretations that antiquarians often held until the mid-nineteenth century, but that are now usually regarded as folk-beliefs. Each chapter is also introduced with a short overview on the international debate regarding the issues discussed. Although the Norwegian controversies discussed share similarities with the international debate, the context is still different and shares only broad resemblances. • Part III answers research objective 3 by assessing

1840–1900: The years around 1830/1840 can be identified as the early years of the establishment of archaeology as a scientific discipline in Scandinavia, including Norway. This period is given a special emphasis in the book because the new group of professional archaeologists, who were few and came from the upper middle class, rejected several interpretations held by earlier antiquarians, and also by the common people. Archaeologists focused on the newly discovered prehistoric periods and aimed at ordering the archaeological record after the three ages of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The formalization of the discipline is argued to have first taken place between 1870 and 1900, when the archaeological record was used as a source to write a larger synthesis about prehistory (Svestad 1995: 182).

10

Introduction 1900–1960: Archaeologists in this period were strongly influenced by nationalism in the wake of the dissolution of the union with Sweden on 7 June 1905, and they used this national movement to give archaeology a stronger contemporary application. The adoption of the first Cultural Heritage Act on July 13 of the same year further allocated the stewardship of the archaeological record to the main archaeological museums. The excavation of the famous Viking ship of Oseberg in 1904 became especially important for shaping national identity. Archaeologists in this period also trusted to a higher extent the long survivals of traditions, and some even included folk-beliefs in their writings. This strong national approach was disregarded, however, during the German occupation of Norway from 1940 to 1945 and afterwards, although archaeologists could even in the 1950s include folklore in their writings.

questioning issues of rights to own, manage and interpret it. These issues are especially incumbent since archaeologists impose protection on the property of other people, and in addition spend private or public money to excavate and interpret the archaeological record. Therefore, considering other interests is of vital importance since archaeologists have a privileged position in the management of the archaeological record. However, the current considerations too:

research

raises

some

ethical

First, the book focuses mainly upon a distinction between local people and archaeologists. This focus can conceal several shared interests, agreements and cooperation between these groups. This one-sided focus in the book on divergences might even have the unwelcome effect of increasing the distinctions and making cooperation more difficult. Despite this possible negative effect, I choose to focus on disagreements from the stance that, in order to reflect upon archaeological practice, these are also important to acknowledge.

1960–1990: Archaeology was now influenced by approaches that were seen as more scientific. This had several consequences, most importantly in this context that the management and protection of the archaeological record became tighter, and folklore was again omitted, but was increasingly referred to again from the late 1980s. The period is further characterized by the post-war, social-democratic transformation of Norway to a welfare state. Large developments occurred and an increasing number of archaeologists, who came from more varied social backgrounds than earlier, received positions to protect, rescue and interpret the archaeological record.

Second, it is hoped that the research can increase local interest in burial mounds, but this aim balances several possible outcomes. That people want burial mounds to be preserved and to gain knowledge about the past might be a positive result, but a possible negative consequence is that patriotism excludes the interest of archaeologists or that the past is used to sustain unwanted nationalism. I am also aware that neo-religious groups can use parts of the book as a source for neo-religious inspiration, similarly to the ways some publications on Norse literature and folkloristics are used (cf. Skott 2000: 39; von Schnurbein 2001: 122-3). Although this is not the intention of the work, the text continues to live after its publication and I cannot control all uses of it, although I might disagree with some. Still, in a plural society there is in principle no difference if the text influences archaeologists, local people or neoreligious societies, given that none use it for sustaining naïve patriotism, dangerous nationalism, sexism or even too strong an archaeological control. Further, the fear that archaeology and the past can be used for patriotism and nationalism should not be used to maintain the discipline’s own interest in the archaeological record, but archaeologists should aim at working for other positive interests in the cultural heritage too.

1990–: Influenced by a meaning-orientated approach in archaeology, some archaeologists now included folklore and local interests in their writings. In 1990, several managerial responsibilities for archaeology were decentralized from the five archaeological museums to the nineteen counties. The museums mainly retained the responsibility for conducting archaeological excavations and caring for antiquities. The local dimension of cultural heritage was highlighted, while from 2005 its potential for local value creation has been stressed. 1.9 Ethical considerations This book is strongly influenced by ethical considerations that have been on the agenda of archaeology in several international contexts from the mid-1990s. Codes of ethics for archaeologists are now being adopted (see overview in Zimmerman et al. 2003: 261-2), ethical issues discussed in independent articles (Skandfer 2001, 2003; Sætersdal 2000; Tarlow 2001), while entire anthologies are devoted to ethical concerns (Edson 1997; Karlsson 2004; Lynott and Wylie 2000; Meskell and Pels 2005; Pluciennik 2001; Scarre and Scarre 2006; Vitelli 1996; Zimmerman et al. 2003). Ethics in archaeology commonly focus on questions such as professional conduct and the obligation of archaeologists to preserve and interpret the archaeological record. In addition, responsibilities to other interest groups are considered, such as indigenous peoples. These issues are related to regard for the dead and their reburial, trade in illicit antiquities, ownership issues, local involvements in archaeology, nationalism, etc.

Third, named people, both professional and non-professional, are mentioned in the book, but this raises the question of what right I have to assess and judge critically any archaeologists who claim their interests over the archaeological record? Measures to protect the privacy of the individual also have to be assessed when several divergent accounts have been included in a searchable database (see chapter 5.9.2). By non-archaeologists, the discussion of local interpretations and interests in burial mounds can even be seen as demeaning as they are placed in the category of folklore and folk-beliefs. Finally, the book – distinguishing between folklore/folk-beliefs and archaeological interpretations – can itself be criticized for boundary work between different knowledge-systems, and as such it builds an academic capital and creates a distinction (cf. Bourdieu 1984). The book even uses instruments that the French sociologist Bruno Latour argues that researchers

This book can be seen as having an ethical commitment to consider other interests in the archaeological record by 11

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record apply to give scientific texts authority (Latour 1987: 21-62). Hence, the quantitatively presentation of “data” – through tables, charts and in particular maps – can be seen as a means of establishing a scientific façade for the research. However, the Norwegian scholar of history of ideas Espen Schaaning argues, not without discomfort, that if a message shall be given weight by the academic community, the sources must be used within the bounds established by the researchers (Schaanning 1997: 88-9). Hence, in a book that discusses interpretations of the archaeological record that is usually not in accordance with the views held by archaeologists, such means of presentation might be important.

12

2 Burial mounds and folklore The terms “burial mounds” and “folklore”, used within the main research subjects discussed in this book, are important to discuss as they are ambiguous: they were constructed in the nineteenth century according to the knowledge scholars then had about them. By using these terms, outdated approaches to the research objects risk being reproduced.

Nicolaysen is frequently discussed in this book as he, by bestowing the correct common names on burial mounds and other archaeological monuments, rejected interpretations held by earlier antiquarians and contemporary farmers. The term gravhaug now replaced several names earlier used that were based, according to Nicolaysen, on false interpretations that consequently gave them wrong names. These were names such as giant graves (people thought giants were interred in them), dancing mounds (suggesting people danced around them), and ship mounds (people thought ships were interred in them). Whereas Nicolaysen held that the mounds were burial places for ordinary people and he argued: “that instead of the quoted names should be used the term ‘burial mound’, because it precisely says what it does and neither more nor less” (Nicolaysen 1860: 38).

A discussion is offered in this chapter of what a burial mound is, together with an outline of their earlier life histories, during their construction period. Other monuments touched upon in the book will also be mentioned shortly. The elusive term “folklore” is then discussed, but also assessed in relation to other terms used when archaeologists consider interpretations by non-archaeologists. 2.1 Burial mounds

Current definitions are based on Nicolaysen’s, and they define these mounds according to the main attribute of being a burial place. The current nomenclature used in Norway defines a burial mound as (after Hyenstrand 1979a: 83; 1979b: 15; Sollund 1996: 32):

2.1.1 Defining the burial mound The Norwegian name used for the structure of the burial mound, gravhaug, is a compilation of the terms “grave” and “mound”. The term is a norwegianization of the Danish term gravhøi that was initiated in 1860 by Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911), a Norwegian archaeologist and antiquarian (Nicolaysen 1860: 38; cf. Myklebust 1994: 110). “Burial mound” now became the standard term used in Norwegian archaeology (e.g. in Nicolaysen 1862–6).

Grave memorial that consists only of loose materials. This can be just soil, or often a mixture of loose soil and stones. The profile of the burial mound above ground is often heaped or vaulted. The shape is round, oval, pointed oval, triangular, oblong, etc. (NIKU 2000, my translation)

Illus. 2.1: Bronze Age burial mound in today’s agricultural landscape The mound was excavated in 1877, but the main chamber was empty. The burial mound, with a diameter of c.28 m and height of 4 m, is one of the largest in Agder. Photo: Atle Omland, 2004 (Sverreshaug, Hauge østre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004161). 13

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 2.2: Burial cairn along the coast Constructed probably in the Iron Age. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Grefstad, Grimstad, AustAgder, ID 015316). Burial mounds are usually distinguished from burial cairns by the different materials used for their construction. Burial cairns are defined as:

Although burial mounds have an important function as burial places, this function and the concept itself have been questioned in Norwegian archaeology since Nicolaysen’s definition. By the early twentieth century, several burial mounds had been excavated without finding burials. These mounds were still interpreted as grave memorials, suggesting that they were cenotaphs: mounds built as memorials for people who died elsewhere, such as shipwrecked seamen, or in honour of a person (e.g. de Lange 1914; Brøgger 1921b; Grieg 1941). The cenotaph hypothesis is currently scrutinized, however, and it is argued that it maintains an uncertain relationship between a mound and a grave (Gansum 2002: 253; 2004: 105-14). The question now raised instead is whether all burial mounds were constructed for the purpose of burying people, or whether perhaps the ritual of constructing a mound was as important as the deposition of the dead (Gansum 2002; Melheim 2001: 43; Wangen 1999: 2, 146; see also Skre 1998: 211-12). Some archaeologists therefore argue that the term “burial mound” should be replaced with the more generic term “mound” (Gansum 2002; 2004: 14, 105-14, 304-6).

Grave that consists entirely of stone without any visible mixture of soil. It has a heaped or vaulted profile, and the base is round, oval, triangular, or oblong, etc. (NIKU 2000, my translation) Our interpretation of the important choice of building material definitely warrants discussion (Sollund 1996: 36-7). Sollund argues that Nicolaysen’s view, that the people who constructed the graves chose the material arbitrarily and used what was most easily available (Nicolaysen 1874: 114), has gained support long after him ( Johansen 1981: 99). However, most archaeologists today agree with the view first proposed by the archaeologist Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955), that the material had a cultural importance because the builders in several cases could choose between stones or soil, but they deliberately chose one material instead of the other (Schetelig 1908b: 11; e.g. Sollund 1996: 71; Johansen 2000: 98; Melheim 2001: 44; Eriksen 2003: 37-8).

The term “mound” could have been appropriate to use in this book since it is found in pre-1860 antiquarian sources, but also in the researched folkloristic and local historical sources. The term was additionally used back in the Middle Ages (haugh), but also the term kuml that denotes a “mark” and then usually refers to a burial (mound or cairn) or a rune stone (Rindal 2004a: 194).

In this book, the term “burial mound” covers both grave types, although different intentions may have been present behind the construction of burial mounds and cairns. This simplification is applied because several of the researched sources do not distinguish between the two grave types and it is often uncertain which type they refer to. Similar types of folklore are attached to the two types too, but if important differences occur, the term “burial cairn” is deliberately used to distinguish cairns from mounds.

The term “burial mound” is still used in this book because it is an archaeologically established term for the discussed structures. The term “mound” would also have been ambiguous 14

Burial mounds and folklore Year (c.)

Period

10000–4000 BC

Mesolithic

4000–1800 BC

Neolithic

1800–500 BC

Bronze Age

500 BC–AD 1050

Iron Age

Prehistoric periods early 1800–1100 BC later 1100–500 BC early

Pre-Roman Age 500–1 BC Roman Age AD 1– 400 Migration Age AD 400–570

later

Merovingian Age AD 570–800 Viking Age AD 800– 1050

AD 1050–1536

Middle Ages

1537–

Modern Period

Historic periods

Table 2.1: Time chart used in Norwegian archaeology (Partly after Østmo and Hedeager 2005) as it can refer to natural features too that are not the research objects of this book. Some natural mounds are nevertheless discussed, since they might have been interpreted locally as burial mounds or because similar kinds of folklore are attached to them. This difficulty of distinguishing natural mounds from burial mounds is therefore discussed in sections 5.9.3 and 8.2.4. The structures generally interpreted as burial mounds are still the main objects scrutinized in this book.

The construction of burial mounds in Agder is believed to have started c.1500 BC, c. three hundred years into the early Bronze Age, and they reflect foreign influence. Nearly 70 per cent of the known large Bronze Age burial mounds in Norway were constructed during the years 1500–1300 BC, and these are often large and visible structures interpreted as high status graves ( Johansen 2000: 94). The construction of burial cairns began around 1500 BC too, but because of the preservation conditions, it is more difficult to find datable objects in them ( Johansen 2000: 99).

2.1.2 The construction period of burial mounds The burial mounds discussed in this book were constructed – with changing frequency – through a period of about 2,500 years, from around 1500 BC in the Early Bronze Age until around AD 1000 in the late Viking Age. Since the construction period is in most cases not important for the type of folklore attached to them, this book does not distinguish between Bronze Age and Iron Age burial mounds. That said, most of the discussed burial mounds from Agder were constructed in the early Iron Age (Roman and Migration Period), while fewer were constructed in the early Bronze Age and the late Iron Age (Viking Age). In the following, an account is given of some characteristics of burial mounds from various periods.

Burial mounds and cairns constructed in the early Bronze Age are typically large structures built over a stone cist with an inhumation, and they can contain grave goods such as bronze weapons or jewels. In Agder, Lista especially is famous for these large Bronze Age graves with accompanying goods that show contacts with the Bronze Age cultures of Continental Europe and Jutland (Marstrander 1950). Finds of metals from the Bronze Age are still relatively few: c.800 only have been found in graves, hoards and chance finds in Norway (Prescott 2000: 214). According to a study from 1986, only 43 Bronze Age bronzes had by then been found in Agder, less than half from graves, and most are chance finds or a few hoards ( Johansen 1986: 96, 99-100). This indicates that both Bronze Age metals and grave finds are rare, although several uninvestigated mounds and cairns in Agder, or those with no datable objects, might have been constructed in the Bronze Age too.

Bronze Age Burial mounds constructed during the early Bronze Age are the oldest ones discussed in this book. Contrary to the situation in several other European countries, the Neolithic in the current territory of Norway is not characterized by monumental constructions. Still, some cairns and mounds may have been constructed in the Neolithic (Solberg 2006: 87-8). Stone cists are also known to have been constructed in the late Neolithic (Østmo 2002b: 6), in addition to small dolmens in East Norway (Østmo 1983, 1985, 2002a). These Neolithic constructions are, however, not the object of this inquiry.

The introduction of cremated burials traditionally marks the division between early and younger Bronze Age around 1100 BC. This division is now seen as less clear, since cremations are also documented to have been introduced in the early Bronze Age at the same time as the construction of the first large burial mounds and cairns (Melheim 2004: 401-6). The oldest known cremation grave in Norway is, according to the archaeologist Øystein Johansen, a female burial in Agder from around 1500

15

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Into the Roman Age, small urn graves continued to be the most common grave type in Norway, but they are richer and the bones were sometimes deposited in bronze vessels. Inhumations were now reintroduced, and the dead could be laid in a stone or wooden cist covered with a large flagstone, accompanied with personal adornments and eating and drinking vessels, but also weapons for men and textile tools for women. The shape of burial mounds and cairns is varied, most being round, but some oblong, while flat-graves could be marked with stones (Solberg 2000: 76-8). Grave finds from the Roman Age are relatively few in Agder compared to other districts in Norway, and more finds have been made since the archaeologist Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) published his overviews of Agder (Gjessing 1921, 1923, 1925). However, Gjessing’s account still holds that a majority of grave finds from Agder date to the end of the Roman Age and the Migration Age, which is seen as an important expansion period in Agder. Recent accounts of known grave finds (including flat-graves) in Agder from the end of the late Roman Age and the Migration Age total around 1,100, or about six per year (Larsen 2000: 35). Hence, these periods represent a “golden age” in the prehistory of Agder, and the rich, chieftains’ graves indicate that Iron Age society established important contacts with Continental Europe. The number of grave finds in Norway then decreased in the Merovingian Age (c.AD 570–800), before they rose again in the Viking Age, which is the richest prehistoric period with about 6,000 grave finds in Norway (Solberg 2000: 186-8, 222-3). The increase in rich heathen graves from the ninth century has been interpreted both in relation to the Viking expansions, but also as a cultural resistance and mobilization of heathendom towards the emerging new Christian medieval society (Solberg 2000: 317-18; Solli 1995a: 45; 1996b: 202-3; 2002: 236-8; Stylegar 2000: 151).

Illus. 2.3: Rich find from a Migration Age burial mound Excavated in 1917 by Helge Gjessing. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo (Skreros, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 020213) BC.1 Though the woman was cremated, her few remains were laid down in a large stone cist (around 2.2 metres long and 0.65 metres wide) covered with a large burial mound. Cremations became the dominant burial practice from around 1000 BC, showing influences from the Central European Urnfield cultures. These younger Bronze Age burials are poorer compared to the early Bronze Age. The bones were either deposited in an urn and inserted in a small chamber added later into an older burial mound, or buried under the ground, or in some cases covered with a smaller burial mound ( Johansen 2000: 144-7). Alternatively, as in a large and unusual burial site in Østfold constructed in the transition period between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, graves could be marked with smaller stones forming shapes such as round, square or triangular, and the bones were deposited in a pit without an urn ( Johansen 2000: 240; Wangen 1999).2

Agder is, however, less rich in grave finds from the Viking Age than several other parts of the country. According to a study from 1951 (Petersen 1951: 72), still considered valid (e.g. Larsen 2000: 29; but see Stylegar 2000), the two counties of Agder are among the five lowest down the scale in Norway for Viking Age finds. A recent estimate of numbers of grave finds (not all from burial mounds) in Agder from both the Merovingian Age and the Viking Age is 370, less than one for each year (Larsen 2000: 35). In Norway, the custom of burying the dead in burial mounds and cairns stopped during the second half of the tenth century. These changes in burial customs are interpreted as influences from Christian burial customs of inhumations and flatgraves without accompanying goods (Solberg 2000: 312-15). Believed to be the latest constructed royal burial mound in Norway, according to the medieval sources, is king Hákon the Good’s (c.AD 920–60/61) burial in West Norway (Brøgger 1937b: 149).3

Iron Age In Agder, most burial mounds and cairns were constructed during the Iron Age, although finds of graves from the earliest phases are few. The scant burial customs of the younger Bronze Age continue into the pre-Roman Iron Age, which is generally considered as a poor archaeological period in Norway (Solberg 2000: 40-42; Larsen 1986: 42-4). 1 2

This general pattern also holds for Agder, but marked differences can be found between the interior and the coastal

Pålshaugen, Lunde, Søgne, Vest-Agder Gunnerstorp, Sarpsborg, Østfold

3

16

Kongshaugen/Håkonshaugen, Seim, Lindås, Hordaland, ID 00717

Burial mounds and folklore regions. The lack of late Viking Age grave finds from VestAgder and the coastal regions of Aust-Agder indicates that heathen burial customs were abandoned in these areas around AD 950 (Larsen 1976: 74; 1984: 174). The main exception is an unusual c.AD 1000 burial of a man and two children at coastal Aust-Agder, described as the “last heathen in Agder”, but it is uncertain if these graves were covered with a burial mound (Rolfsen 1981).4 In the interior, and in particular the traditional conservative valley of Setesdal, finds of accompanied burials indicate that heathen burial customs might have continued into the mid-eleventh century (Larsen 1984; 2000: 47-50; Solberg 2000: 314-15).

endure from the pre-Christian period and into the Middle Ages. Referring to the older Christian law of Eidsivating and the younger Christian law of Borgarting, the historian Magnus Rindal argues that it is uncertain whether these prohibited people were buried in burial mounds. These laws refer to ættarhaugr (family mounds), which Rindal argues could be accepted as Christian burial places too. The law of Eidsivating (chapter 39) forbade people to dig the family mounds of others, while the dead should according to the law of Borgarting (chapter 10) either be buried in the churchyard or where their ancestors from previous times had family mounds (Rindal 2004a: 197, 200).

Middle Ages and the Modern Period

Some kind of continuity might also be supported by studies that indicate that c.50–70 per cent of the churches built in the early Middle Ages were located close to important political and religious burial sites (Brendalsmo 2001: 126-7; cf. Sellevold 2002a). Burial cairns may also have been constructed after conversion to Christianity, but more likely for people who belonged to the lower social strata. For instance, criminals could be buried outside churchyards in the Middle Ages (Brendalsmo 1999). The Swedish archaeologist Klas-Göran Selinge also argues that the medieval landscape law of Borgarting indicates that people could be buried under cairns in the wilderness. Selinge sees this practice of burying people under cairns as a social stratified custom that applied to criminals or slaughtered enemies (Selinge 1980: 295). Folk-beliefs from Agder also ascribe certain burial cairns to the Middle Ages or Modern Period: they might have been constructed for people who died in the Black Death or foreigners who died in shipwrecks;

The Christian part of the Middle Age laws has usually been interpreted from the perspective that the construction of burial mounds was now forbidden (e.g. Gansum 2002: 253). Most importantly, the landscape law of the West-Norwegian court district of Gulatinget, of which Agder was a part of and which was in use until AD 1274 when a national law replaced it, has clauses against burying the dead in mounds and cairns (chapter 23). It also forbids sacrifices to mounds and the act of building mounds (chapter 29) (Gulatingslovi 1981: 36, 44). A similar prohibition is found in another c.AD 1300 law, but it is uncertain whether it refers to a natural or artificially constructed mound (Rindal 2004a: 197). Other sources still indicate that some burial customs did 4

Bringsverd, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017687/ID 017471

Illus. 2.4 Jacob Breda Bull (1853–1930) and wife’s burial mound Photo: Hilde Rigmor Amundsen, 2003 (Rendalen, Hedmark) 17

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record killers were laid under stones, or a cairn could mark the place where a person died a violent death (varp, see chapter 8.6.2). However, if these structures are burials, archaeologists usually consider them as pre-medieval with inaccurate beliefs attached to them.

O'Keefe 1992). The restraint in using this term is amongst other reasons due to its ambiguities and connotations, especially in Britain, to do with commercialization (Hewison 1987). Or as David Lowenthal argues, the term is often connected to a misuse of the past and can be seen as “not an effort to know what actually happened but a profession of faith in a past tailored to present-day purposes” (Lowenthal 1998: x). In some contexts, the English term “heritage” is replaced with “historic environment”, which denotes all traces of human experience (e.g. English Heritage 2000). This term is, however, too broad to be used in this book. This also holds for the term “cultural landscape”, since the monuments and sites discussed only constitute parts of the environment or the landscape.

Although it is uncertain whether people continued after the eleventh century to be buried in burial mounds or cairns, the tradition was reinvented in Norway in the twentieth century. One example is a burial mound in East Norway of the writer Jakob Breda Bull (1853–1930) and his wife, constructed when she died in 1922 (Salvesen 1997). A burial cairn was even constructed in Norway during the research for this book. The famous grampus Keiko died in a fjord in West Norway on 12 December 2003, and he was immediately buried on the shore. The children later built a cairn on 8 January 2004 over the grampus, and a newspaper wrote about the event:

Immovables, such as burial mounds and other categories of monument, are in this book also termed (archaeological) “monuments and sites”. This is equivalent to the Norwegian juridical concept automatisk fredete kulturminner: monuments and sites automatically protected by the Cultural Heritage Act of 1978, defined in the law as immovables with traces of human activities from before AD 1537 (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §§2 and 4). These automatically protected sites are in daily language and publications often called fornminner (ancient monuments), a term discarded in 1992 after an amendment of the Cultural Heritage Act, but which can be found used in the sources and therefore also in this book.

By building a stone cairn over the grave of the grampus Keiko, the children of Halsa have renewed an old burial custom with roots going back several thousands of years.5 (My translation) 2.1.3 Other monuments to be discussed Other categories of archaeological monuments besides burial mounds are brought into discussion in this book in order to give a more coherent picture of the folklore concerning monuments and sites, and also how archaeologists have approached them. These monuments encompass Iron Age standing stones (bautasteiner), which are set up over flat-graves or raised as memorials, but also stone-circles (steinsetninger), which might have had a special ritual or religious purpose, but are interpreted in folk-belief as “thingsteads”. Other monuments are Iron Age hill-forts (bygdeborger), but also traditions about flat-graves (flatmarksgrav), which are graves not visible above ground, and even Iron Age boathouses (båtnaust). Several natural features are also considered, such as natural mounds believed to be burial mounds, but also trees that, whether they grow on burial mounds or not, can be interpreted as the dwelling place for supernatural creatures like those that dwell in burial mounds.

2.2 Folklore The nineteenth-century term “folklore” could have been replaced with other terms too. Folklore is a combination of two concepts – “folk” and “lore” – but the term “folk” is the more ambiguous, as discussed in the following. 2.2.1 The idea of the “folk” and its “folklore” The British antiquarian William John Thomas (1803–85) constructed the term “folklore” when on 22 August 1846 he invited readers of The Athenaeum to record what was in English then called “popular antiquities” and “popular literature”. He suggested “folklore” was a better term, because: (...) it is more a Lore than a Literature, and would be more aptly described by a good Saxon compound, Folk-Lore – the Lore of the People. (quoted after Simpson and Roud 2000: 130)

2.1.4 Archaeological records, monuments and sites The term “archaeological record” as used in this book encompasses both immovables (monuments and sites) and movables (antiquities). The term “archaeological record” often has the connotation of referring to these objects as a scientific source material of concern to the field of archaeology, while the term “archaeological heritage” is often used for the same material when it is of concern to the public (Carman 2002: 17-20).

Thomas’ construction was later adopted in several languages, including Norwegian, to denote expressive forms that are transmitted orally, such as legends. In Scandinavia, however, these forms were often called “folk-memory”, a term first launched in Sweden in 1834 (Holbek 1991: 175), and later used in Norway as the main term for the discipline currently termed “folkloristics”.

The term “archaeological heritage” is, however, only seldom used in this book, and mainly in those contexts when various groups of people view the archaeological record as their inheritance or important for their identity (cf. Prott and 5

Regardless of whether the terms “folk-memory” or “folklore” are used, the term “folk” is seen as a major obstacle since it is uncertain who this people is. When in 1846 Thomas conjoined the term, “folk” referred to the uneducated masses of rural communities who were believed to have preserved archaic relics from the past (Simpson and Roud 2000: 130). In

“Gravrøys for Keiko”, Aftenposten, 9 January 2004

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Burial mounds and folklore Norway, this was particularly peasants who lived in the valleys inland and whose culture was seen as static with minor foreign influence.

what the linking factor is (...) but what is important is that a group formed for whatever reason will have some traditions which it calls its own. In theory a group must consist of at least two persons, but generally most groups consist of many individuals. (Dundes 1965: 2, emphasis in original)

Today, however, the “folk” can be interpreted as a discovered or constructed entity. For instance, the British cultural historian Peter Burke describes what he calls the discovery of the “folk” that began in the late eighteenth century. The argument put forward by Burke is that various social groups in Europe participated until the 1500s in much of the same culture and festivities. What Burke calls a “withdrawal” of the upper classes then began, and the cultures of the upper and lower classes increasingly diverged until around 1800 (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 270-81). The term “people” also changed during this period from including “everyone” to being restricted to “the common people”. The educated culture changed rapidly in the same period, and although the uneducated culture changed too and was not static, it did not change as fast.

Based on the above critique of the term “folk”, “folklore” is also redefined, and one definition uses as a criterion the absence of an official authority: The present authors see folklore as something voluntarily and informally communicated, created or done by members of a group (which can be of any size, age, or social and educational level); it can circulate through whatever media (oral, written or visual) are available to this group; it has roots in the past, but also present relevance; it usually recurs in many places, in similar but not quite identical form; it has both stable and variable features, and evolves through dynamic adaptation to new circumstances. The essential criterion is the presence of a group whose joint sense of what is right and appropriate shapes the story, performance, or custom – not the rules and teachings of any official body (State or civic authority, Church, school, scientific or scholarly orthodoxy). (Simpson and Roud 2000: 130-31)

This process of withdrawal reversed from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, characterized by Burke as the “discovery” of the “folk” (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 281-6). Several scholars became fascinated by the exotic culture of this newly discovered people, i.e. the uneducated peasants, and all over Europe they started to record this culture as important old relics from the past before it disappeared. This discovery can also be explained as a “construction” (Holbek 1991). Based on these notions, the Norwegian folklorist Ole Marius Hylland argues that the term “folk” refers in a Norwegian context to a constructed reality that first gets a life when someone gives it life, and then it has in a way always been there (Hylland 2002: 6). The idea of the “folk” is even more obscure considering that fusions occur between the upper and lower classes. Folklorists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would describe this fusion according to the sinking theory: cultural elements from the elite sank down and were adopted by the “folk” where they survived as relics. However, this theory ignores that a “rising” can also take place and that cultural expressions can go up through the social scale (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 60-61). In Norway, such a rising is present as the middle class not only discovered and admired the folk; they also identified themselves with it. Parts of the elite adopted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries what they regarded as a national folk culture, for instance by wearing Norwegian national costume; while the Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise (born 1971) today reads folk-tales as part of a national culture (cf. Eriksen and Selberg 2006: 12-13).

This definition of folklore is problematic too, as it does not necessarily include an individual’s perception, but ascribes folklore to a group of people. According to the Norwegian folklorist Anne Eriksen, folklorists also study individuals: The individual person is regarded as the creator, user and transmitter of a culturally common asset. Each and every one contributes through their participation in these processes to formulate and transmit the culture, at the same time as the culturally shared offers formulations, conducts, representations and ideas that give solutions and answers to the individual. (Eriksen 1999a: 183, my translation) Despite the term “folklore” being problematic, it is used as the main term in this book because it encompasses a genre defined in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The term “folklore” is also essential to current approaches in archaeology that discuss the relationship between the disciplines of archaeology and folkloristics (e.g. Burström 1993; Burström et al. 1997; Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999a; Aannestad 1999). Folklore is even used as an important term in some contemporary studies on the effect of archaeological projects on local people and contemporary beliefs and stories, such as at Çatalhöyük, Turkey (Shankland 1999b, 2000; see also Shankland 1996, 1999a).

In contemporary Norwegian language, the term “folk” is often used in contrast to other groups, such as the uneducated versus the educated, or by populist political parties that argue they are advocators of the people in contrast to other politicians, researchers and bureaucrats who, they say, do not support the folk (Hylland 2002: 245-8). The American folklorist Alan Dundes applies a broader definition of the term “folk”, and he argues that the folk can be everyone, defining it as a group that shares some common traditions:

Folklore does not, however, always stand in strong contrast to expert knowledge, but emerges through dialogue and contact with official bodies or an elite culture. What is today seen as folklore pertaining to archaeological monuments and sites was even until the mid-nineteenth century the elite’s interpretation of the past (cf. examples in Jensen 2002: 361-8; Solli 1996b: 79; 1996c: 222).

The term “folk” can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor. It does not matter

In this book, then, the term “folklore” is used mainly for interpretations of archaeological monuments and sites held 19

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record by local people (the “folk”) that differ from the knowledge produced by archaeologists from the mid-nineteenth century, although folklore can in some cases concord with views held by scholars, and archaeologists could in some periods also recognize its importance. Hence, folklore is to some extent seen as standing in contrast to academic knowledge, although it can also be influenced by it, and vice versa. This relationship between folklore and archaeological knowledge is comparable to the situation between folk building traditions and architecture as discussed by the Norwegian ethnologist Arne Lie Christensen (Christensen 1995: 26-8). Architecture is created according to changing theories and trends about what characterizes a good building, while traditional buildings are built according to local traditions and knowledge about the craft; but architecture and building traditions still influence and borrow elements from each other.

2004; Nilsen 2003a, 2003b; Pilskog 2003, 2005; Pramli 1999; Solli 1996b, 1996c). Internationally, archaeological projects with a special concern for including local people and interest groups have been described as “archaeology from below” (Faulkner 2000), termed “community archaeology” (e.g. Marshall 2002b), or “public archaeology” (e.g. Merriman 2004). Such communities are not seen as monocultural groups, but “aggregations of people who have come together for all kinds of planned and contingent reasons”, and interest groups can change under a project (Marshall 2002a: 215). According to Marshall, the communities are of two kinds that often overlap: • The local people: those who live on or close to the site • Descendants: people who can “trace descent from the people who once lived at or near the site” (Marshall 2002a: 216)

Folklore should therefore not be seen as a static entity, but dynamic and subject to change. Some of the folklore discussed can still have been transmitted through several generations, but it is probably only in extremely unusual cases – and not possible to document – transmitted from the time of construction of the archaeological monuments or as far back as pre-Christian periods. Most of the folklore discussed has a recent origin and was collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it is still approached in this book as important as it established burial mounds in the consciousness of local people, even if a large part of the community does not necessarily share these ideas.

Other definitions of descendant communities broadens the scope by not restricting it to biological descendants, but includes “diverse groups of people with varying interests in the archaeological project” (Singleton and Orser 2003: 143). These belong to two categories: • Local or resident communities: “those who live in the general vicinity of the archaeological project” • Diasporic communities: “groups that are linked to a site, but who live in another location, potentially hundreds or even thousands of miles away” (Singleton and Orser 2003: 144)

In international literature on the interest in archaeological monuments held by non-archaeologists, terms other than “folklore” are often used. These are discussed in the following.

This book is, however, not the result of a community project. Although contacts have been established with several people who live in the research area, they have not been involved, as it is I, not the local people, who raise the research questions. Furthermore, the term “descendant communities”, as found in the international literature, is not used because of its inherent meaning of establishing biological or cultural linkage to an archaeological site.

2.2.2 Local people and community archaeology The terms “local people” or “interest groups” are used in several studies on the interests of non-archaeologists. In Norway, archaeologists have given these local people different names according to how they valued them. In the nineteenth century, they were with negative connotations called “peasants” or the “common people”, but more positively “folk” by archaeologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, archaeologists often term them “local people”, alternatively “the public”, and this does not signify a counterpart to another class or scholars – as “folk” does – but a counterpart to those who come from the outside, such as archaeologists who carry out fieldwork at a place where they do not live. In this book, current local interpretations not based on old oral traditions are therefore termed “local or personal views”; although they could also have been termed “folklore” in order to highlight that folklore has not disappeared, but just changed (cf. Dundes 1969: 19).

2.2.3 Popular culture The term “popular culture” could have replaced the term “folklore”, but a discussion is needed about the concept and why it is generally not used in this book. The cultural historian Peter Burke discusses the term “popular culture” in his study of early modern Europe (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: xvi-xxii, 23-64). Burke accepts that the term “popular culture” is problematic and could be replaced with terms such as “history from below” or “local” traditions, but Burke argues that these terms pose even more problems, and he retains the term “popular culture” (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: xvi-xxiv). The term “popular culture” depends according to Burke on the notion that several cultures exist, so it is not possible to talk about a popular culture if all share the same culture. Burke discusses the term “popular culture” in relation to the social anthropologist Robert Redfield’s coinage of two cultural traditions: “the great tradition” of the educated few and the “little tradition” of the rest (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]:

In Norway, studies of local interests in the cultural heritage have been carried out in various disciplines. These include for instance human geography (Bjørndal 1993; Rustad 2000), ethnology (Klepp 1998) by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Flaatten et al. 1996), and archaeology (Bertelsen et al. 1986; Bertelsen et al. 1999; Bertelsen et al. 2001; Hansen and Olsen 1997; Krogh 1999; Lillehammer 2004; Mjaaland

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Burial mounds and folklore 23-4; Redfield 1956: 70-76). This model can be applied to early modern Europe, but the problem is that it does not consider participation in both of the two cultures:

archaeological thinking. Surprisingly, it has not been the subject of study until now. (Friðriksson 1994: vii-viii) Considerations have been made during this research as to whether the term “popular” should replace the term “folklore” or not, but I chose not to use “popular culture” as a substitute or additional term. Interpreting the term “popular” for recurring images about burial mounds, for instance the view that kings are buried in them, the term “interest dominant” is used instead (or just “dominant”, in Norwegian interessedominant). This term refers to an element or a phenomenon that attracts the consciousness of people and is often culturally conditioned (Grambo 1984a: 79). Interpreting the term “popular” as denoting people (one or several) who construct their own views, this person or group can be referred to, but usually by the general term “local people”.

There were two cultural traditions in early modern Europe, but they did not correspond symmetrically to the two main social groups, the elite and the common people. The elite participated in the little tradition, but the common people did not participate in the great tradition. (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 28) Burke argues, however, that several popular cultures often exist simultaneously, possibly as several cultures in both the countryside and in the towns. There may then be further interaction between these cultures and the cultures of the elite and the common people. Several archaeologists today use the term “popular culture”, but usually in studies of images of archaeology in contemporary popular culture. These images may be folklore, but are usually images about the past and archaeology in mass media, literature or film (e.g. Day 1997; Holtorf 2005b; Russell 2002; Trümpler 2001; Welinder 1987). These images indicate that archaeology has made an impact on popular culture (Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 19). Although some images are part of a mass culture, popular culture is not characterized by being shared by many. Holtorf applies a definition after Raymond Williams, who argues that popular culture is “the culture actually made by people for themselves” (Williams 1976: 199). Holtorf therefore argues that archaeology as popular culture is:

2.2.4 Oral history and oral traditions Oral transmissions by indigenous peoples are currently often termed “oral history” or “oral traditions”. In Norwegian archaeological literature, these terms are seldom used, although “tradition” is frequently used (discussed in chapters 3.1 and 5.6.1). Oral history is, according to the oral historian Jan Vansina, “accounts about events and situations which are contemporary, that is, which occurred during the lifetime of the informants. This differs from oral traditions in that oral traditions are no longer contemporary” (Vansina 1985: 12-13). Vansina further defines oral traditions as “verbal messages which are reported statements from the past beyond the present generation. (…) The definition also makes clear that all oral sources are not oral traditions. There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation” (Vansina 1985: 27-8).

(...) how people are actually making archaeology for themselves. This does not mean, of course, that anybody could actually make his or her own archaeology in complete isolation from what is already available, for example due to the productivity of archaeologists, writers and producers. It rather means that in creating culture, all of us are constantly making significant choices, by preferring some ideas, sites, artefacts, texts, or images to others. (Holtorf 2005b: 8-9)

Oral history and oral traditions about the archaeological record have been said, in particular in indigenous contexts, to be important sources that archaeologists should increasingly take into consideration (cf. Damm 2005: 76-80). This occurs for instance in African archaeology (Schmidt 1990; Schmidt and Patterson 1995), Australia (Flood 1983; David et al. 2004), and in the US (for protagonists see Echo-Hawk 2000a; EchoHawk 2000b; Whiteley 2002; Watkins 2003b: 282; Crowell 2004; for a critical opponent see Mason 2000). However, the source value of these oral accounts is controversial, and the discussion reminds us of the debates in Western archaeology about the value of folklore.

Furthermore, the Icelandic archaeologist Adolf Friðriksson applies the term “popular antiquarianism” in his study of the role of literature and traditions in archaeological interpretations of Iceland. According to Friðriksson, tales and traditions about monuments and sites are popular antiquarianism, and he argues: Popular antiquarianism is a prevailing aspect of human thinking, it is the reflection of human reaction to ancient monuments and remains from the past. To some extent it is folklore, and to some extent archaeology. It is carried on from one generation to the next, through tales and stories, about known and visible sites. It may also have the characteristics of an archaeological inquiry; local people dig into suspected barrows or temples, searching for valuables, or perhaps curiosities which they relate to their local history. It is spontaneous curiosity and distinguishes itself from learned antiquarianism and archaeology by not having the quality of systematic study. Popular antiquarianism is certainly not limited to Iceland, it is a global cultural phenomenon and a dynamic force in

From one perspective, oral traditions are viewed as alternative accounts about the past compared to the archaeological narratives. These are not necessarily true, but should still be included by archaeologists to obtain better local cooperation (Lertrit 1997: 87-8). From a more critical perspective, other archaeologists argue: “like religion, you believe oral tradition or you don’t” (Mason 2000: 263). Because archaeology is seen as a truth-seeking discipline, a distinction should according to this view be made between understanding oral traditions on their own terms and using them as “a component or extension of Western historiography” (Mason 2000: 263). Other archaeologists are more positive about the traditions, and they

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record claim that archaeologists must not necessarily agree with and include indigenous oral sources in their accounts, but must still accept that a legitimate different knowledge system exists (Smith 2004: 102-3). The view that oral traditions are old and actually represent oral history is also held. For instance, knowledge in India about Neolithic life is believed to have been transmitted through a verbal or literal tradition into the eleventh century (Pandey 1989). From this perspective, oral traditions represent the experience or witness by an individual that have later been transmitted through several thousand years (see also chapter 9.1).

Norwegian kings (Snorri Sturluson 1964), published in a Danish version in 1633. The book was widely read in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Snorri’s stories of battles and kings should influence readers’ general perception of the past. The early historical critique of legends also argued that several originated from and were modified by books (Munch 1999 [1833]: 40). Chapter 9, which discusses historical legends about burial mounds that may also be influenced by Snorri, therefore gives a short account of the role of historical archaeology in Norway.

Currently, several contemporary archaeological projects further collect oral history, i.e. contemporary accounts about the monuments. This approach is taken in the Community Archaeology Project at Quseir al-Qadim, a Ptolemaic and Roman port in Egypt, which began in 1999 as part of the archaeological excavations of the site. Oral history imparts knowledge on recent activities at the site, attitudes towards the archaeological project and the role of archaeology for the future local development (Moser et al. 2002: 237). However, the term folklore is also used and shows, according to the project team, that “the past does indeed play an active role in the construction of local identity in Quseir” (Moser et al. 2002: 238).

(2) The debate on the validity of written sources resembles the discussion concerning folklore sources. Do the sources tell and shed light on events that have actually occurred in the past? How far back in time do the sources stretch? To what extent can the retrogressive method be applied to the sources in order to achieve knowledge about pre-Christian religion, and mentality in general, and how far back in time? Archaeologists have given different answers to these questions in various periods, in some cases corresponding with the field of archaeology and folklore. Some general trends in Norwegian historical archaeology are therefore mentioned in this book, where these trends can shed light on the relationship between archaeology and folklore. 2.2.6 Fringe archaeologies

The oral history approach encompasses several aims of this book: folklore, disturbances of archaeological sites, but also local attitudes towards archaeology. However, the term “oral history” is seldom used in a Norwegian archaeological context and it is not introduced in this book.

The term “fringe archaeologies” is often used by archaeologists as a negative comment on those interpretations that are outside those views generally accepted within the discipline. These interpretations share some similarities with folklore concerning archaeological monuments. One difference, however, is that people with strong personal agendas, often with commercial interests, construct and advocate several of these interpretations, such as Erich von Däniken, or they are supported by strong religious convictions, such as creationism. Even though similarities between fringe archaeologies and folklore can be traced, the term “fringe” is not used in this book as a general term for folklore, mainly due to its negative connotation, but a thorough discussion is given on the term.

2.2.5 Historical archaeology The study in this book of folklore overlaps in several cases with field historical archaeology, but these can still bee seen as two separate fields. Historical archaeology can be defined as (1) archaeology on periods after AD 1500, or (2) archaeology about societies with texts (Andrén 1997: 16). In Norway, historical archaeology is mainly used as the second approach. Much of the debate focuses on the source value of Middle Ages written sources, and questions to what extent the sagas and the Younger and Elder Edda can be used to attain knowledge not only about the Middle Ages, but also the preceding periods of the Viking, Merovingian and Migration Ages (e.g. Hedeager 1999; Solli 2002). The relationship between archaeology and texts is not discussed, however, in this book, but is tangentially touched upon in two ways since historical archaeology is a related field:

The major negative views held by archaeologists towards fringe archaeologies are reflected in the different names given them. These encompass cult archaeology (Cole 1980; Harrold and Eve 1987; Stiebing 1987), pseudoarchaeology (Engler 1987; Fagan 2006a; Feder 1999; Welinder 2004; Wienberg 2001, 2002a), fantastic archaeology (Williams 1987), but also popular archaeology (Stiebing 1987: 1; Feder 1984). In archaeological dictionaries, the term “pseudoarchaeology” is defined as a negation of archaeology and the proper scientific study of the past (e.g. Darvill 2002: 342; Feder 1996: 5812; Kipfer 2000: 459). Fringe interpretations of the past and archaeological monuments are not confined to uneducated people, and surveys among American undergraduate students have established that several hold fringe archaeological beliefs (Feder 1984, 1987; 1999: 2-6; 2006).

(1) Several archaeological monuments (although not in Agder) are mentioned in the written sources from the Middle Ages. Many local people want to trust these accounts, but the validity is much discussed among archaeologists and historians. Several current interpretations based on these accounts have become folklore in the sense that people use them to create a past that differs from current interpretations held by archaeologists or historians. This holds especially for the burial mounds mentioned by the Icelandic Snorri Sturluson’s (1179–1241) sagas about the

Most archaeological literature dealing with fringe archaeologies is generally negative towards them, and one argues that whatever they are called, “it is essentially the same

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Burial mounds and folklore beast” (Williams 1987: 124). Books on pseudoarchaeological topics are therefore written in order to give archaeological perspectives on such “unsubstantiated claims made about the prehistoric past” (Feder 1999: 10). Such damaging pseudoarchaeologies demonstrate for these archaeologists the importance of outreach archaeology (McManamon 2000: 6). A negative attitude to fringe archaeologies can even be found by archaeologists who aim at including other voices – such as local people – in their writings (e.g. Solli 2002: 54; contra Solli 1996b; Solli 1996c). Archaeologists who have written extensively on folklore about archaeological monuments and sites often have a more negative view towards fringe archaeologies (e.g. Grinsell 1989: 96-7 contra 74-8).

in itself as a demarcation that separates them from “proper” archaeology, even philosophers of science argue that scientists cannot use the principle of falsifiability on their own theories either. The Belgian chemist and philosopher Isabelle Stengers highlights two problems of this criterion (Stengers 1999: 1314): (1) New theories must often be protected from the world and be nursed like a newborn child, and if not, we will have no theories that can live long enough to show their importance, only a cemetery of assertions that have never taught us anything. (2) The criterion of falsifiability can hardly be applied in the humanities, such as history, because the situations that confute the theory can never occur again, or else history would have to repeat itself.

Various criteria have been applied in order to identify fringe archaeologies and draw a demarcation line that distinguishes these from “proper” archaeology. For instance, the Swedish archaeologist Stig Welinder constructs four types of archaeological practices. What Welinder calls institutional archaeology and amateur archaeology both relate to the discipline of archaeology and science. Conversely, pseudoarchaeology and subjective archaeology (knowledge constructed by individuals by for instance meditating or dancing on archaeological sites) is related to alternative archaeologies and should be seen as pseudo- or non-science (Welinder 2004). Cole further enumerates nineteen characteristics of what he calls cult archaeology (Cole 1980: 5-9); Fagan discusses eleven characteristics of pseudoarchaeology (Fagan 2006b); while pseudoarchaeology has according to Stiebing three main characteristics:

Demarcation of science versus non-science is further difficult because of what we consider as science changes, and (...) “science” is no single thing: characteristics attributed to science vary widely depending upon the specific intellectual or professional activity designated as “nonscience,” and upon particular goals of the boundarywork. The boundaries of science are ambiguous, flexible, historically changing, contextually variable, internally inconsistent, and sometimes disputed. (Gieryn 1983: 792) Consequently, some archaeologists are humble when they characterize fringe archaeologies, and they argue that both archaeological and fringe interpretations in some cases overlap (Trædal 2004; Wienberg 2001: 3-4; 2004: 23). They do not necessarily accept these fringe interpretations, but argue that archaeologists are obliged to scrutinize, understand and criticize all kinds of interpretations, but also to popularize archaeology for the public in order to make it capable of distinguishing between the interpretations (Wienberg 2001: 18-22; 2004: 49-50).

1. unscientific nature of archaeological evidence and methodologies 2. simple answers to complex issues, and 3. “the presence of a persecution complex and ambivalent attitude towards the scientific Establishment” (Stiebing 1987: 2)

Conversely, other archaeologists term fringe archaeologies “folk archaeology”. By using the prefix “folk”, these archaeologies should be considered positive as they reflect “not ignorance but a recognition of the importance of history” (Michlovic 1990: 106). From this perspective, archaeologists are criticized for maintaining a monopoly of the interpretations of the past, but should instead approach folk archaeology as anthropologists and seek “to understand both the cultural context from which they emerge and the cultural needs to which they respond” (Michlovic 1990: 104; cf. response by Cole et al. 1990).

All these characteristics reflect an enduring need by the academic disciplines to protect professional autonomy that can be termed boundary-work, defined as: (...) their [scientists’] attribution of selected characteristics to the institutions of science (i.e., to its practitioners, methods, stock of knowledge, values and work organization) for purposes of constructing a social boundary that distinguishes some intellectual activities as “non-science”. (Gieryn 1983: 782)

This view is supported by archaeologists who see fringe archaeologies as part of the multiple approaches to the past and archaeological sites that should be engaged with and understood on their own terms (e.g. Holtorf 2000, 2004, 2005a). The anthropologist Jerome A. Voss even points out that several theories proposed in the fringe archaeological field draw upon folk themes that go back centuries in time. Even archaeological interpretations are influenced by these themes that “focus on the monuments as mysterious, magical, and/ or associated with unusual peoples” (Voss 1987: 83). One example is the marvel of great monuments and the belief that ordinary humans cannot have built them, but that giants threw the stones, Merlin built Stonehenge, etc. The ancient folk themes, current archaeological and fringe interpretations share

As part of this boundary-work, the philosopher of science Karl Raimond Popper’s (1902–94) principle of falsifiability and testing of hypotheses has gained a “Renaissance” in archaeology due to its possibility of demarcating fringe archaeologies (e.g. Feder 1999: 24-37; Renfrew 1989; Wienberg 2001: 247; 2004: 43-6). However, using falsification to demarcate pseudoarchaeology from scientific archaeology is questionable. One archaeologist has realized that fringe interpretations usually cannot be examined thoroughly or adhere to the principle of falsifiability, and the attempts do not have much effect on advocators of pseudoarchaeological interpretations (Wienberg 2001: 24-7; 2004: 44-6). While this can be seen 23

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record several characteristics when they approach these extraordinary monuments:

survived, are revived, reinterpreted and reinvented (Bowman 1999: 31; see also Bowman 1993; 2000). Although the cultural expressions of some neo-pagan groups – such as Nazi symbols and racist attitudes by some revivers of Norse religion – are certainly negative, other researchers acknowledge that non-racist groups have the right to choose and practise their beliefs in a late-modern society (e.g. Skott 2000: 59). From this perspective, archaeologists should engage with neo-paganism, a view proposed by two practising heathens and academics who direct the Sacred Sites, Contested Rights/Rites project:7

In a sense, the professional archaeological correlation of monument construction with social complexity is a restrained statement of the same theme: people could not build monuments without an appropriately complex organization. The von Däniken argument represents a synthesis of traditional and modern themes in this respect: a theory concerned with alignments and computation, but attributing the ability to build precise structures to nonhumans. (Voss 1987: 87)

We argue archaeology must not reject Pagan and other folklores and narratives of site and sacredness as “fringe”, but, in an era of community archaeology, transparency and collaboration, respond to them, preferably in dialogue. (Wallis and Blain 2003: 318)

Even though some common characteristics between folklore and fringe archaeologies can be traced, the term “fringe” is not used in this book. If folklore were termed “fringe”, the attempt to discuss folklore as a relevant field for archaeology would have been violated, although folklore has often been placed outside or on the fringe of archaeology. Further, if fringe archaeologies had been termed folk archaeology, this could have violated the discipline of archaeology by supporting some of their protagonists who consciously construct their interpretations in opposition to academia and argue that their archaeology is for people while the “archaeological establishment” does not take them seriously. Further, several themes explored in the international “fringe archaeology” literature are not relevant in a Norwegian context nor to the discussed burial mounds. In Norway, the best examples of fringe archaeological interpretations are some publications by Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) (e.g. Heyerdahl and Lillieström 1999, 2001), an infamous “reinterpretation” of runic inscriptions (Aartun 1994), and on the Christianization of Norway (Boehlke 2000). However, these interpretations are generally not seen as relevant for this research on folklore about burial mounds.6 2.2.7

Current neo-religious revivals of folk-beliefs in Norway are only briefly referred to in chapter 11. The general view held of these revivals is that people should have the opportunity to practise their beliefs so long as they do not support antisocial nationalism, racism, sexism, etc. Some of the positive sides of this current revival might also be stressed, such as that it sustains interest in the past and the preservation of archaeological monuments and sites. 2.3 Conclusions The terms “burial mounds” and “folklore” are used as significant concepts in this book, even though they were first coined in the nineteenth century and are today ambiguous. New terms could have been introduced, but these would inevitably have carried several of the same uncertainties as those already noted. Consequently, the term “burial mound” is used for artificially constructed mounds, most of which had the purpose of being burial places, but they might have had other functions and meanings too, while some natural mounds are also considered in the text.

Neo-religious movements

It is not only indigenous people who have maintained and revived religious interests in archaeological monuments and sites (e.g. Carmichael et al. 1994; Ndoro 2001). Neo-pagan movements in the West also ascribe to archaeological sites sacred values in some cases influenced by ancient folklore (Wallis and Lymer 2001; Wallis and Blain 2003; Wallis 2003). Stonehenge is a famous example (Chippindale 1994 [1983]; Chippindale et al. 1990; Bender 1998). This new religious interest in monuments and sites is related to folklore, but can also – according to the approach taken towards it – be included under the category of fringe archaeologies.

“Folklore” and “folk-beliefs” are used as terms for several interpretations and narratives that archaeologists from the mid-nineteenth century argued against. Nevertheless, folklore and academic knowledge have influenced each other. The term “popular” is not used, but “interest dominant” encompasses recurring interpretations about burial mounds. The terms “oral history”, “oral traditions” and “fringe” are not used in relation to the analyzed material, even though it has been transmitted orally and several interpretations are on the fringe of archaeological interpretations. The terms “local beliefs”, “local interpretations” or “local views” are used for contemporary ideas that are not based on what was in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries construed as “traditional” folklore narratives.

Several scholars approach these new religious movements with a critical warning, fearing that they misrepresent interpretations about the past, and have potential political and racist dangers (e.g. articles in Raudvere et al. 2001; critique by Omland 2003). Folklorists and scholars in religious studies also study this religious interest in archaeological sites with the aim of describing and understanding it in terms of beliefs that have

The folklore discussed is furthermore not a homogenous body of material, but consists of several genres that are considered in chapter 3.

For other examples of fringe archaeologies in Scandinavia see (Andersson and Welinder 2004), but also the debate between the archaeologist Jes Wienberg and the writer Erling Haagensen on the Templars and medieval churches at Bornholm, Denmark (Wienberg 2001, 2002b; Haagensen 2002; Wienberg 2002a; 2004: 44-6). See also Haagensen’s internet page at http:// www.merling.dk (accessed 24 January 2008). 6

7

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See http://www.sacredsites.org.uk/ (accessed 24 January 2008).

3 Folklore genres The material researched in this book can be categorized into several folklore genres that are discussed in this chapter: traditions, beliefs/views, legends, names and disturbances of burial mounds. The latter does not belong to the field of folkloristics, but is still approached as part of the life histories of burial mounds.

6). This definition is wider than the one given by for instance the Norwegian folklorist Otto Blehr, who limits it to religious beliefs held by the common people (Blehr 1974: 7, 11). In folkloristic texts, the term “folk-belief ” usually denotes a positive valuation, as it is recognized that they have been important for peoples’ lives (Bø et al. 1981: 34). Folk-beliefs are still not a coherent system of beliefs, but they rest, as the Norwegian folklorist Ørnulf Hodne points out, on a selective basis, because no one believed in everything. Some beliefs were more common than others, and some people were “specialists” in certain fields (e.g. clairvoyants), while other people rejected the beliefs and argued against them (Hodne 1999b: 11). Folkbeliefs can be expressed in shorter belief-utterances, short statements that do not have a narrative form, or through accounts about encounters between archaeologists and local people. Legends often contain elements, and can be seen as exemplifications of folk-beliefs.

3.1 Traditions Much of the folklore material used can be labelled as traditions, which is one of the most important terms in folkloristics. The term is still ambiguous and it refers to several meanings, of which the Norwegian folklorist Anne Eriksen highlights four (Eriksen 1999a: 178-9): 1. A content or description of content, i.e. certain transmitted cultural units such as folklore. 2. Transmissions (Norwegian tradere), traditions are transmitted orally or through other mediums, a kind of communication that requires several chains. 3. Tradition-processes, a more abstract term that Eriksen defines according to Klepp (1980: 197): “an intrasocial process that transfers culture over time and therefore tends towards creating stability”. The study of tradition-processes aims at understanding the endurance of traditions and questions how traditions continue to exist even after the context of which they have been part has changed. 4. A quality, a contemporary usage that sees traditions as important just because they are traditions, which can cause both revitalization of old and the creation of new traditions.

3.3 Legends (sagn) Legends are the most frequently researched orally transmissions in this book: they are traditions (are transmitted), and they can refer to beliefs held where they are told. The Norwegian name for legend, sagn, is connected to the verb seia, i.e. to say (Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 8). Legends are the most significant oral narratives in Norway as they have survived into the modern period, have a local historical character and are less bound by their performance when compared to tales and songs (Bø et al. 1981: 11). Legends are also the main folklore genre that concern archaeological monuments, and they are often place-bound (e.g. they tell about a specific burial mound), refer to locally known people and can communicate some beliefs or views held in a community.

The term “tradition” as used in this book can refer to all four meanings, but is included in most of the researched sources just because they are seen as old narratives or beliefs (interpretation number 4). However, a fifth meaning of the term tradition is also found in the researched sources:

Compared to other oral transmissions, in particular folk-tales, legends have a special importance because of their stance in relation to the truth of the narrative. Legends are often defined as short place- and time-bound one-episode narratives that pass for being true, often containing belief elements in the community where they are narrated, but they are told to entertain as well. Conversely, a folk-tale does not pass itself off as true, the time is not specified (“once upon a time”), the place is often not identified and the people are either nameless or have common or invented names. Still, this distinction between legends and folk-tales is much discussed, and studies support the fact that people have not necessarily believed in the events told about in legends either (Christiansen 1958: 4; Dégh 2001: 4; Klintberg 1972: 12; Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 7; Simpson and Roud 2000: 12). The Danish folklorist Bengt Holbek also argues that legends express a combination

5. To trace monuments: archaeologists use oral transmissions to trace monuments and sites, which is the most common use of these traditions in archaeological sources (see section 5.6.1.). 3.2 Folk-beliefs Some of the studied traditions are folk-beliefs. In accordance with the definition given by the Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg, the term “folk-belief ” can encompass unofficial beliefs that are widespread alongside both the official religious belief and the official scientific world-view (Klintberg 1978:

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 3.3.2 Memorate

of history, geography and ethics, but in addition fantasy, which makes it difficult to draw the line between legends and folktales (Holbek and Swahn 1995: 14).

The categorization of mythical, historical and origin legends has been criticized especially by the Swedish folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1878–1952) who argued that it was not useful for research, so developed new terms. One term is memorate, which according to von Sydow should be used for “narratives of personal happenings which may pass into the tradition as memorial sagns” (Sydow 1948: 87, emphasis in original). The term is usually used for encounters between humans and the supernatural, and describes “how the speaker personally encountered a supernatural being or experienced a paranormal event, which he/she interpreted in terms of traditional beliefs” (Simpson and Roud 2000: 233). However, the term memorate is seldom used in this book because the experience is usually not collected from the actual eyewitness, but has at the time of recording become a tradition and is composed into a more stereotypical legend (Dégh and Vazsonyi 1974; Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 32-4).

3.3.1 Mythical, historical and origin legends In Scandinavia, legends are usually categorized into three main groups: 1. mythical/nature–mythical legends 2. historical legends 3. origin legends Mythical legends are often about contemporary or recent (for instance nineteenth-century) encounters between people and supernatural creatures, while historical legends deal with what are apparently historical people and events. This distinction between the two types of legends is not clear-cut, and several historical legends contain mythical motives and vice versa. However, ever since the first collection of Norwegian legends in 1833 by the priest Andreas Faye (1802–69) (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]), folklore collections in Norway have been divided into the two main groups, mythical and historical legends (e.g. Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]; Bø et al. 1981). Norwegian folklorists have further either belonged to a mythical or to a historical tradition, depending on the category of legends studied (Swang 1975 331: 56).

3.3.3 Legendary note (sagnnotis) The term “legendary note” (sagnnotis) was also introduced by von Sydow “to denote a short record of something that is not sägen [legend] (…)” (Bødker 1965: 254). A legendary note is a statement that can be traced back to a legend, but without a narrative form, consisting of a short remark about the content in a couple of sentences (Grambo 1984a: 161; other definitions in Hodne 1973: 26).

The Norwegian folklorist Knut Liestøl (1881–1952), born in Agder, divided historical legends into two sub-categories: national and local legends (rikshistoriske and bygdehistoriske). National legends are about people and events known nationally, but seen from a personal or a local perspective, such as legends about the Black Death or people known in the Norse sagas. Local legends are about people and events known mainly within the local community that have not become part of the history of a larger geographical area (Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 18). However, this division is often criticized and is difficult to maintain in both the analysis and categorization of legends (Alver 1962: 92). Legends discussed in this book are also seen mainly as local, even when they concern nationally known people.

Burial mounds are frequently mentioned in legendary notes used as sources for this book, but it is difficult to distinguish whether they refer to a general folk-belief or a specific legend. Examples include statements such as “...there must be a king buried in…” that can refer both to a legend, but can also be interpreted as a general folk-belief that denotes large burial mounds as the burials of kings. 3.3.4 Migratory legends (vandresagn) Legends about burial mounds are often migratory legends (vandresagn), i.e. a “legend which is found repeatedly at different places, having the same plot in every case but with place names and/or topographical details tailored to fit the individual site” (Simpson and Roud 2000: 239). The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thoralf Christiansen (1886–1971) developed an internationally used numbering system, based on Norwegian migratory legends, to facilitate the identification of migratory legends (Christiansen 1958). This system is referred to in this book as ML followed by a number.

Origin legends, or origin stories (Simpson and Roud 2000: 269-70), explain the origin of a certain feature in the landscape or a place-name (folk-etymology). Origin legends are not discussed separately in this book, unlike several collections of legends (e.g. Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]; Bø et al. 1981). To some extent, most legends and beliefs discussed in this book are origin legends. They can be mythical, such as that a standing stone is said to have been thrown by a giant, but also historical, for instance that burial mounds might have been constructed after a battle. Even archaeological interpretations of burial mounds resemble origin legends: they reflect the same human desire to understand what these and other features in the landscape represent. The main difference is that archaeologists usually use the archaeological record, placed within the framework of archaeological reason, as a source to construct their interpretations, while local people have in addition used other sources available to them, such as folk-beliefs, traditions and legends.

The prose style of migratory legends about burial mounds has made it easy to adopt them into various communities. Bengt af Klintberg puts it like this: legends originate in various cultural and social environments, but they are easily adapted into new environments and replaced with people and events that are locally recognized (Klintberg 1972: 10-11). Migratory legends discussed in this book are therefore approached from the perspective that they have gained a local importance, but their reception outside the research area, or from where they originated and spread, is not discussed.

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Folklore genres 3.3.5 Variant, type and motif

(mound), many of which presumably are named after large burial mounds at these farms (Hougen 1933).

To enable comparative research, folklore narratives are often classified into types and motifs, and indexes have been compiled for this purpose (overview in Azzolina 1987). In this book, legends are not classified, but the terms “variant”, “type” and “motif ” are used and will be briefly explained. The terms “type” and “motif ” have been discussed in detail (Azzolina 1987: xii-xiii, xxi-xxxvi), but the short definitions from the Norwegian folklorist Ronald Grambo are used here (Grambo 1984a).

Despite the importance of names, they are given low priority in this book, mainly because I am not a philologist or a toponymist and the scope has to be limited. Names are discussed mainly when there is a correspondence between the meaning expressed through a name and the particular legends or folk-beliefs. Which came first, the legend or the name, is still uncertain. Although legends may have encouraged the creation of a name, a name may also have led to the formation of the legends (Aannestad 1999: 89). The latter is particularly true in the case of folk-etymology, i.e. an origin legend explaining the name of a burial mound usually according to a local interest dominant. Several names are also discussed in this book when there is an issue of whether they are used as common names or proper names on burial mounds.

The term “variant” refers to a single recording of a legend (Grambo 1984a: 185). A legend can have several variants, even when the same events and characters appear in the different recordings. The term “type” is defined as a classification of several variants, at least two or three, that are connected to each other by sharing the same structure, form and content (Grambo 1984a: 182), which means that the plot must differ in different types.

3.4.1 Common names Common names usually express the main attribute of the named object. Developing nomenclatures for monuments and sites thus involves a categorization that ascribes to them a meaning according to the dominant interpretation of them by the name giver (cf. introduction in Foucault 2002 [1966]). For instance, the name “burial mound” is determined according to what archaeologists interpret as their main function: they are burials.

Each type and variant is bound together with several small units, the “motif ”, which is the smallest unit of a narrative (Grambo 1984a: 126). One challenge when interpreting motifs is that the same ones often recur in different periods and geographical areas, but the inner meaning and the content may still change (Raudvere 1993: 22-3; Oja 2000: 47). One example is the motif of a fire burning over burial mounds, found in several written sources from the Middle Ages (index in Boberg 1966: 202), but also in legends and memorates recorded into the twentieth century. This motif refers, however, to different ideas: it can mark a hidden treasure (sources from the Middle Ages and into the twentieth century), or be the light of creatures living in the mound, or it is a warning of death (nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources).

The general tendency is that until around the mid-nineteenth century, burial mounds were termed with different common names that correspond to other interpretations of these structures. Using historical common names as sources to gain knowledge about former interpretations still raises sourcecritical issues, as discussed by the Swedish archaeologist Ola W. Jensen in the context of antiquarian practice in seventeenthcentury Sweden ( Jensen 2002: 196-236). First, it is difficult to know exactly which categories of monuments are referred to if they are not recorded or cannot be identified today ( Jensen 2002: 196-7). Second, several terms continued to be used after the interpretation changed – when for instance did the common name jettegrav (Giant Grave) stop referring to a belief in giants ( Jensen 2002: 197)?

3.4 Place-names Burial mounds, and other monuments and sites, commonly have names. Names can be seen as important structural elements of landscapes that invest places “with meaning and significance” (Tilley 1994: 18), and:

Because of the inconsistency with historical names, current nomenclatures for monuments are supposed to ensure clarity, but this still leaves the question of which terms should be applied. Klas-Göran Selinge, who formulated terminologies used in Sweden (Hyenstrand 1979b: 13ff; 1979a: 82-5), discusses whether they should be the same as those used by the people who constructed the monuments. Selinge argues, however, that knowledge about the original terms is interesting, but our own constructed concepts should be used because it is impractical and theoretically impossible to apply original terms (Selinge 1980: 289).

By the process of naming places and things they become captured in social discourses and act as mnemonics for the historical actions of individuals and groups. Without a name culturally significant sites would not exist, but only as a raw void, a natural environment. In a fundamental way names create landscapes. An unnamed place on a map is quite literally a blank space. (Tilley 1994: 18-19) Names indicate that archaeological monuments have been enduring points of reference in the landscape. Names therefore, just as legends, are an important way of attaining knowledge about their later interpretations and uses (e.g. Burström 1993: 15; 1997b: 107; Grinsell 1953: 62-9; 1976: 70-71; Zachrisson 1997c: 87-92; Aannestad 1999: 81-9; 2003: 33-4). Archaeological monuments may even be so important that they are not only given names, but also give their names to places. For instance in Norway some farms are named Haug

In Norway, a nomenclature has been established for archaeological surveys (NIKU 2000; cf. Sollund and Larsen 1995). However, Nicolay Nicolaysen was the first to develop an overview of “correct” common names (Nicolaysen 1860). Nicolaysen’s overview is unusually interesting because he 27

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record also states which common names are not appropriate to use. Archaeologists have ever since replaced folk names on archaeological monuments when they have attained what is regarded as a more correct interpretation of them, and currently, hardly any folk terms are used on archaeological monuments (but see Lillehammer and Prøsch-Danielsen 2001; Lillehammer 2004).

the 1990s (Bradley and Williams 1998; Holtorf 1998b, 2000– 5, 2002b). In chapter 10, we therefore discuss to what extent disturbances can be seen as part of their life histories. Although preservation restrictions on burial mounds are getting tighter, and archaeologists have often opposed disturbances as being destructive, there is currently an interest in attaining knowledge if this also helps us expose local values.

3.4.2 Proper names

3.6 Conclusions

The tendency can be found in the researched sources that after the historically used common names had been replaced with the archaeologically correct terms, some of them became proper names. For example, a dominant belief that once defined the reason for distinguishing different kinds of mounds (e.g. giant mounds, king’s mounds) is now reduced to an attribute of some burial mounds (the Giant Mound, the King Mound), of which several examples are mentioned throughout the book.

Folklore is seen in this book as part of the later life histories and interpretations of burial mounds, but it consists of different genres. Legends, but also belief-utterances and names, are the main genres used as sources because they often contain elements of local interpretations. Although several legends have a function to entertain, they indicate that burial mounds have had a local importance as they are incorporated in locally told narratives. Because the narratives might have had such a local importance, chapter 4 discusses how archaeologists in Norway have generally approached them.

Proper names are the most commonly found oral sources included in archaeological literature, surveys and excavation reports. Even Nicolaysen, the strongest critique of oral narratives in Norwegian archaeology, could refer to proper names on burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1874: 8-9). This inclusion can be explained according to their function: names identify certain structures in the landscape, and even archaeologists name monuments that do not have a proper name, often with a number. Archaeologists have still only seldom discussed these names. If they are considered, it is mainly pointed out that they are recent (e.g. Nicolaysen 1874: 8-9; Fett 1956: 85; Ringstad 1987b: 14-15), although examples do occur when they are suggested to be original (e.g. Brøgger 1921b; Birkeli 1938: 1012). Overviews and categorizations of proper names on burial mounds have also been confined mainly to archaeologists who have recorded them during archaeological surveys (e.g. Fett 1940; Fett 1956, 1953-7; Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15-16; Skjelsvik 1980: 393; see also Skjelstad 1985). Names that can be used to trace Iron Age hill-forts have been most commonly discussed by Norwegian archaeologists (e.g. Marstrander 1958: 109-10; Rygh 1883: 32-3, 72-4; Rolfsen 1977: 22-3; Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15; Skre 1998: 2789; Aannestad 1999: 81-9; 2003: 33-4). According to a study by Hanne Lovise Aannestad, 319 of 368 surveyed hill-forts in Norway have a proper name. Most names are neutral in the sense that they do not refer to a particular meaning of the hillforts (161), but actually 90 hill-forts have names that connect them to their military function (Aannestad 2003: 34). Most important are names with the prefix of the modern and Norse term borg- (fortification, fortified place), and the more recent (medieval) German loan-word slott- (a castle). 3.5 Disturbances Burial mounds have not only engendered the construction of names and legends, but people have also been involved in them by disturbing and reusing them, discussed as a fourth “genre” in chapter 10. Internationally, the importance of studying disturbances and reuses of archaeological monuments has been stressed during

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4 Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism The work on this book started from the presumption that archaeologists in Norway have generally omitted folklore (Aannestad 1999: 33; cf. Burström et al. 1997; Burström 1997a, 1999). The main result attained by researching archaeological publications is, however, that although one generation of archaeologists argued against folklore, the interest returned with the next. The major argument held in this chapter is therefore that folklore about monuments and sites is actually present in Norwegian archaeology, although situated on the fringe of mainstream archaeological practice. Generally, archaeologists have valued folklore positively if they suppose it gives a “true” account about people and events, or the beliefs are considered as pre-Christian relics; but negatively if the accounts about the past are seen as false and the beliefs are considered to be of a more recent origin. These changing attitudes towards folklore do not rest on detailed analysis of the oral accounts that either prove or reject their great age, but depend mainly on changes in major trends that have influenced archaeology: rationalism and romanticism.

1840 can be identified as the early years of the establishment of the discipline of archaeology, while a formalization of the discipline is argued to have taken place between 1870 and 1900 (Svestad 1995: 182). This corresponds with the argument held by the American philosopher Thomas Kuhn: the nineteenth century is characterized by a specialization of the sciences, which is evidenced through the establishment of specialized collections, journals and societies (Kuhn 1970: 19). Knowledge of how archaeologists have approached folklore is therefore based on researching journals and other publications by institutions devoted to archaeology: universities, museums and societies. Important sources used to gain knowledge about the nineteenth century include the archaeological journal Urda (1834– 47) and from 1845 the yearbook of Foreningen til norske Fortidsminners Bevaring (The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments, established in 1844). Scholars used these publications to discuss and disseminate archaeological knowledge to fellows and the interested public, but they also agitated for the importance of archaeological practice. Some articles, essentially travel descriptions, still share interesting similarities with current reflexive approaches in archaeology as they give short accounts of encounters between the travelling archaeologist and local people.

The Danish archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen, inspired by the anthropologist Jonathan Friedman, discusses how a cycle of rationalism and romanticism has influenced general trends in archaeology (Kristiansen 1998; 2002: 223; cf. Sherratt 1996). This cycle has also affected – as argued in this chapter – how archaeologists have approached folklore. In those periods characterized by rationalism in the second half of the nineteenth century and after World War II, the discipline has been influenced by the natural sciences, macro-history and internationalism – and archaeologists were then critical towards folklore. The periods in between, and the 1980s and ’90s, are characterized by romanticism. Archaeologists were then influenced by the humanistic disciplines that stressed cultural historical distinctiveness, and the archaeological record was seen as a heritage important for the construction of identities.

Important twentieth-century archaeological journals researched are Oldtiden (1910–26), Universitetets Oldsaksamling Årbok (1927–99), Viking (1937–), Norwegian Archaeological Review (1968–) and the popular journals Nicolay (1967–), Arkeo (1971–80, 1988–2002) and Frá haug ok heiðni (1960–). Folklore and encounters between archaeologists and the local people are, however, less common in these twentieth-century journals as they publish mainly syntheses of the archaeological record. Relevant literature has also been identified in the library of Universitetets Oldsaksamling by using its compilation of Norwegian archaeological bibliography, but also by browsing articles by significant archaeologists compiled in a special print collection kept in the library. Unpublished sources, mainly Master’s theses, are only in a few cases used in this research. The priority is rather for published sources that go through a selection process before publication and to some extent represent the accepted views held by the archaeological community at a given time.

In Norwegian archaeology, these changing trends differ from the three phases of the relationship between history and folklore suggested by the British cultural historian Peter Burke. According to Burke, folklore and history were in “the age of harmony” prior to World War I, “the age of suspicion” from the 1920s to the 1970s and “age of rapprochement” since the 1970s (Burke 2004). The overview in this chapter starts from early antiquarians around 1800 and traces the developments until around 2000. A history of archaeology, involving early topographers, civil servants and clergymen, can still be documented prior to the nineteenth century ( Jensen 2002; Schnapp 1996; Svestad 1995; Trigger 1989). This is treated, however, in chapter 5. A special emphasis is given to the second half of the nineteenth century when archaeology was established. The years around

4.1 Early antiquarians (pre-1800 and early 1800s) In Norway, several seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars had interests in antiquarian issues. The most important early antiquarian works are drawings in the 1620s and 1630s of ancient monuments, in particular Iron Age runestones (published in Moltke 1956; Steinnes 1972). Scholars sent their documentation to the Danish antiquarian Ole Worm

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record (1588–1654) who later published them (Worm 1643: 457526 on the Norwegian monuments). However, apart from the topographical literature, discussed in section 5.3., these early sources are generally sparse and they do not contain folklore.

a plate of the runic alphabet that he published (Arendt 1818). Arendt travelled to Norway for the first time in 1798 and pursued botanical studies. His research failed, but from 1799 he travelled instead to study old monuments, and he conducted several journeys in Norway probably until 1817 (Høgsbro 1998: 128; Brøgger 1923: 220). Arendt stayed at the home of a civil servant in Agder in May 1802 (Daae 1861: 83). However, for the first time on his journey in June, July and August 1805, he drew four runic inscriptions, two burial mounds, a tombstone and even a portrait of the Renaissance priest and topographer Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614) after a painting (see section 5.3.1). He submitted the drawings in October 1805, together with other documentation from his travels in Norway (1802–5), to gain support for further travels.2 However, by mainly drawing the monuments, Arendt’s documentation gives only sparse information about local interpretations of archaeological monuments.

The earliest specialized antiquarian work is connected with the foundation in 1760 in Trondheim of the first public antiquity collection and scientific society in Norway.1 The historians Peter Frederik Suhm (1728–98) and Gerhard Schøning (1722–80) were among the founders. Schøning was devoted to antiquarian studies and described several archaeological monuments during his travels through Norway, although he did not visit Agder. Schøning often included local accounts about the monuments, particularly about giants, kings, battles, thingsteads and alleged pre-Christian sacrificial sites. These accounts were however not included in Schøning’s general history of Norway, which took on a different task from the antiquarian’s practice of documenting all kinds of information about the monuments he found (e.g. Schøning 1910: 80, 85, 112, 145, 149, 226, 273, 321; Schøning 1979 [1910]: 5, 44, 63, 70, 92, 105, 117, 152, 185, 201, 221, 234, 235, 244; 1980: 5, 21, 22, 82; cf. Eriksen 2002b).

4.2 Folklore illuminating the grey fog (c.1800–40) From the early nineteenth century, more antiquarians started collecting folklore about archaeological monuments. This interest accorded with the need that antiquarians had at this time, compared to the previous generation, for conducting more investigative archaeological work to illuminate what they described as the grey fog of antiquity. From their perspective, the monuments were seen as belonging to a dim past, a history shrouded in fog, which the Danish antiquarian Rasmus Nyerup (1759–1829) explained like this: Everything which has come down to us from heathendom is wrapped in a thick fog; it belongs to a space of time which we cannot measure. We know it is older than Christendom, but whether by a couple of years or a couple of centuries, or even by more than a millennium, we can do no more than guess (…). (Nyerup 1806: 1; English translation after Daniel 1975: 38) Significantly, the view that the monuments belonged to a dim past should give cause for an investigative discipline of archaeology that would illuminate the monuments by researching them (Svestad 1995: 162ff ). This increasing importance of conducting investigations is evidenced by the establishment of archaeological museums, the most important in this period being Bergen Museum (1825) and Universitetets Oldsaksamling (1811/1829, discussions of foundation year in Brøgger 1929: 7; Marstrander 1979: 7; Mikkelsen 2004a: 39; Shetelig 1944b: 25). Museums in the region of Agder were also established: Kristiansand Museum (1828) and Arendal Museum (1832), but these were less important for archaeological research. These early museums were also founded in the emerging national romantic spirit of independence from Denmark in 1814, and already in 1811

Illus. 4.1: Martin Friederich Arendt (1773–1823) (Reproduced from a drawing in Schiller 1930: 185) Martin Friederich Arendt (1773–1823), born in present-day Germany, was probably the first professional antiquarian who travelled through Agder to pursue antiquarian investigation, i.e. drawing ancient monuments, but he did not excavate or collect antiquities. Arendt executed antiquarian studies in several European countries, but Norway had a special position for him, and he called himself an “antiquarian of Norway” on

The National Museum of Denmark, Museumshistorisk arkiv, box 43, M. F. Arendt, report from Arendt dated October 1805: Botanicus og Antiquarius Arendts Samling af originale Tegninger over Norske Oldsager, Mindesmærker og Inscriptioner; de fleste hidtil ukiendte i Publikum. Opsøgte, tegnede og forklarede i Aarene 1802–1805, og nu her fremlagte til Anbefaling for denne lærde Reises videre bevaagne Forfremmelse.

Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab (abbreviated DKNVS, The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters). 1

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2

Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism an antiquity commission made a collection with the aim of stopping people sending antiquities to Copenhagen (Shetelig 1944b: 24-5).

oral accounts that the early-nineteenth-century antiquarians had thought could illuminate antiquity. Such a disciplining of archaeology and the rejection of folklore can be studied through the yearbook of the preservation society Fortidsminneforeningen, established in 1844. The aim of the society was to trace, investigate and maintain Norwegian ancient monuments, especially those demonstrating the artistic skills of the people, and to make these known for the public (Lidén 1991: 31). This yearbook, which in the second half of the nineteenth century became the main archaeological publication in Norway, contains reports from antiquarian travels, excavations, accessions of the museums, etc. Publications on archaeology diminished, however, after 1899 when a “revolution” in the society took place and architects instead of archaeologists began to dominate there (Lidén 1991: 59-61).

Much of the antiquarian work in the early nineteenth century indicates that they did have an interest in folklore that could have the potential of illuminating the past. For instance, a society that in 1810 invited the foundation of Norwegian antiquarian museums disseminated a circular that requested information not only about monuments and sites but also old “superstitions or legends” connected to these (published in Øverland 1909: 2445; NOU nr. 8 2006: 84). The competing Danish governmental Oldsakskommisjonen had also previously sent a similar request to clergy and officials in the kingdom of Denmark–Norway.3 Question number twelve in their circular requested traditions about remarkable people and events connected with the reported monuments.4 In 1810, several reports were returned from the Norwegian priests, of which some also contained folklore about the monuments, and these were later used as important documentation by antiquarians and archaeologists.5 That folklore could be an important source from which to gain knowledge about the past is also mentioned in the journal Urda (1834–47), published by the trustees of Bergen Museum and the first journal in Norway devoted primarily to archaeology. By being published and written mainly by senior officials and clergymen with an interest in antiquity, the journal is situated in the antiquarian tradition, but points forward to an autonomous discipline of archaeology. The articles in Urda repeatedly describe the past as a grey antiquity, but the aim of the antiquarian is to illuminate the past through archaeological studies by excavating burial mounds (Urda 1837a), or by using medieval sources (e.g. Christie 1842, 1847). From this perspective, folklore could also be significant in illuminating the dim past, and the journal contains several references to accounts told by the local people of, for instance, people said to be buried in burial mounds (e.g. Neumann 1837a, 1837b). The antiquarians still took an uncommitted position to the oral stories if these people were not mentioned in written sources (Neumann 1837a: 30). Beliefs they encountered could also be dangerous and represent a threat to the emerging archaeological discipline, such as superstitions that could be relics of pre-Christian beliefs (e.g. Christie 1837b, 1837a). There could also be misconceptions towards stories about treasures that could encourage destructive excavations of burial mounds by the local people (Urda 1847: 80-83).

Illus. 4.2: Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911) (Reproduced from Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbook 1910) Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911), educated as a lawyer, is the most important practitioner of archaeology in the nineteenth century who discredited folklore about archaeological monuments. Nicolaysen was also one of the most important archaeologists during the nineteenth century (Brøgger 1929: 10). He became a member of Fortidsminneforeningen from its establishment in 1844, a member of the board from 1849, and he was during the period 1860–1904 its chief antiquarian (Lidén 2005: 5, 219). Having this central position in Fortidsminneforeningen, Nicolaysen was important for shaping and consolidating the archaeological discipline in

4.3 Rejecting folklore (c.1840–1900) During the establishment of archaeology from the 1840s, several scholars became increasingly negative towards the Den Kongelige Commission til Oldsagers Opbevaring (The Royal Commission for the Preservation of Northern Antiquities), established 1807. 4 Circular entitled “Oldsager, Kommissionen til Oldsagers Opbevaring ønsker sig underrettet om”, prepared in August 1807; National Museum of Denmark, Museumshistorisk arkiv, kasse 25, Oldsagskommissionens Breve 1807– 20. 5 NBO, Håndskrifsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056. 3

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Norway, together with Oluf Rygh (1833–99), keeper from 1862 of Oldsaksamlingen.

in archaeology and in society, and it corresponded with the general importance of a unified standard time in Europe after the introduction of railways, telegraphs and industry. According to Burström, folklore was disregarded in archaeology as a consequence of the focus upon chronology and time instead of place (Burström 1997a, 1999).

Although it has been argued that Nicolaysen was part of a nineteenth-century tradition that could use archaeological excavations as illustrations of the Norse sagas (Østmo 1997: 46), he would object to interpretations held by the common people and earlier scholars if these could not be proved by archaeological investigations or in written sources. Nicolaysen even already joked about locally-heard divergent interpretations when he published his first excavation (Nicolaysen 1853: 26). His negative view towards the interpretations held by the common people is particularly present in two articles that synthesize the current state of knowledge about burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1860, 1874), but also in his overview of ancient monuments in Norway (Nicolaysen 1862–6). Nicolaysen’s view of divergent interpretations is reminiscent in several ways of the approach that several current archaeologists have taken against fringe archaeologies – or pseudoarchaeologies (section 2.2.6) – since he viewed them as false beliefs that should be argued against. Several examples are referred to throughout this book but only one is mentioned here. Nicolaysen sometimes heard that the local people termed burial mounds Dansarhaug (Dancing Mound). According to the farmers, a fiddler used to sit on top of these mounds while people danced around them, causing the formation of a ditch around the mound. Nicolaysen viewed these stories as imaginary, and he proved the fallacy by excavating one such mound and demonstrated that it was a grave, explaining that the function of the ditch around the mound was to keep the grave dry (Nicolaysen 1860: 39; 1861: 29). Several reasons can be given for why Nicolaysen, but also other archaeologists in the second half the nineteenth century, argued strictly against folklore and folk-beliefs. Five general reasons should be highlighted, while reasons that are more specific are given throughout Part II.

Illus. 4.3: Oluf Rygh (1833–99) (Reproduced from Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbook 1899)

1. Constructing the discipline of archaeology. In the midnineteenth century, archaeology was being constructed as an autonomous discipline that broke with the antiquarian tradition and focused on the newly discovered prehistoric period. Knowledge was attained by a stronger critical examination of the sources, and local interpretations were refuted as false as they did not accord with the material remains. This did not apply to archaeological monuments only, and Nicolaysen also assessed legends about buildings, according to whether they were true or not (Nicolaysen 1881–91: vol. II pp. 21, 23-4, vol. IV pp. 6-7, 9). By focusing on the material remains from the past, the oral sources now belonged to another academic discipline, mainly that of folk-memory.

3. Order and academia. The new archaeological discipline aimed at creating order out of archaeological material, most importantly as mentioned above by placing antiquities and ancient monuments in chronologies. Oldsaksamlingen was therefore developed as an historical archive that documented the prehistory of the nation. Nicolaysen excavated, collected antiquities and presented short and sober discussions of the finds, but gave the antiquities to Oluf Rygh at Oldsaksamlingen for further research and description (e.g. Rygh 1885). Nicolaysen and Rygh made a good couple, and the archaeologist Ingvald Undset (1853–93) characterized Oldsaksamlingen as one of the greatest and best organized European archaeological collections (Undset 1887: 378; cf. Gustafson 1902: 6-7; Gjessing 1920a: 165). The consequence, however, is that Oldsaksamlingen was not considered, as noted by the later keeper A. W. Brøgger (1884–1951), to be an institution for the common people, but its main purpose was archaeological research. In the nineteenth century, Norway was the least academic Scandinavian country, but it did still

2. Importance of time. In Sweden, archaeologists in the 1870s also disregarded folklore, and a comparison with the situation in Norway is relevant since Norwegian archaeology received strong influences from other Scandinavian archaeologists (Welinder 1999). According to the Swedish archaeologist Mats Burström, chronology became more important in Sweden from the 1870s, both

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Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism develop archaeological museums devoted to research, and that partly contrasted with its more academic neighbours: Denmark, where archaeology developed from a broader folk interest, and Sweden, with its stronger connection to the aristocracy (Brøgger 1929: 7).

(38) lived in the countryside (Fortidsminneforeningen 1894: XIX) where the main objects of interest for the society were located, such as burial mounds. This division has some similarities with the situation in the same period between indigenous peoples and the colonizers, although the issue is debated in Norway to what extent the urban middle class held that the peasants represented an alien culture. In a stimulating study on Norwegian culture, the cultural historian Nina Witoszek underlines that several civil servants had been recruited from the class of farmers. The middle class was also acquainted with rural culture as they spent most of their lives in the countryside, although several people in the towns also traced their families to foreign origins such as Denmark (Witoszek 1998: 61-2, 45). Despite this contact, one can argue that parts of the middle class, especially those on the political right, identified themselves as separate from the peasants’ culture which they, from an evolutionary view, could see as exotic and simple (although capable of evolving). For instance, until 1906, even Norwegian folk-objects were collected and displayed by ethnographic museums as ethnography, similar to objects of Sámi and other “primitive” people (Iveland et al. 2004: 62, 66).

Because of this academic “collecting and organizing” approach, Brøgger argued that Rygh did not understand the popular movement in archaeology. While a popular enthusiasm for archaeology was aroused after discoveries of rich finds, such as the Viking ship from Gokstad excavated by Nicolaysen in 1880, for Rygh this was allegedly only “a number in a catalogue similar to a flint arrow or iron axe” (Brøgger 1929: 9). In the tradition of Rygh, archaeological museums and practice in Norway have ever since been strongly affiliated with academia, and the current five designated archaeological museums are still university museums. 4. Archaeological control and nationalism. The new discipline of archaeology aimed at controlling both the archaeological record and people’s knowledge of it. One argument repeated throughout this book is that while the obligation of the archaeologists was to write the history of the nation, this demanded access to the archaeological record. By disregarding local interests in burial mounds, expressed among others through legends and folk-beliefs, archaeologists could attain access to and save the ancient material relicts for the nation. Several local interpretations of burial mounds did not accord with the construction of the past of the nation, in particular legends about kings.

Ethnocentrism and a deep division between the educated and the farmers is in particular present in travel and excavation reports, in which archaeologists argued against the legends and folk-beliefs they encountered. These, and other scholars, also generally came to the culture of the farmers in parts of Norway with an exotic interest. In Agder, this was in particular those people who lived in the valley of Setesdal, then seen as a cut-off area where old customs and material culture had been well preserved and not “diluted” by Danish or urban influence. For instance, a guidebook issued in 1901 explains the exotic nature of Setesdal before the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT) started its activities in the valley:

5. The urban middle class. In the late nineteenth century, Norwegian society was characterized by deep political divisions between the conservative right and radical left. Harry Fett (1875–1962), an art historian and Director of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage (1913–46), argued that this division influenced archaeology too, and the “right-wing archaeology” would oppose the “leftwing archaeology” as being unscientific (Fett 1944: 161). Belonging to an urban, educated middle class influenced by the conservative right, Nicolaysen and Rygh’s negative views towards legends and folk-beliefs can be seen as a way of strengthening this class’s interests in the archaeological record that was located in the countryside and populated by what was seen as both exotic and uneducated peasants.

Until 1886 (…), Setesdal was like a terra incognita, except for the occasional daring tourist or interested painter who, when he returned to “civilization”, gave as best he could a description of the trip that reminds us of contemporary travel descriptions from Africa or the Pacific islands. (Abrahamson 1901: 45, my translation) Travellers did continue, to complain about the simple conditions in Setesdal until the twentieth century, however, as for example an architect who in 1901 reported to Fortidsminneforeningen on his journey to study old houses, but also gave general advice to those who might undertake expeditions in the valley. Travellers were advised to bring their own food, cutlery and soap, and he warned that the people were often greedy and their hygiene bad, although this sometimes improved (Guettler 1902: 143-4).

Through Fortidsminneforeningen, the urban middle class established the agenda for how archaeology should be conducted. Still, even Nicolaysen himself complained that the society had never received large support from the public. For instance, the membership started with only 60 members and rose after some years to 1,000, but later dropped to under 600, increased to 744 in 1894 when the society was fifty years old, but again dropped to 613 in 1895 (Nicolaysen 1894a: 12; Fortidsminneforeningen 1894: XIX; 1895: XIX). More disturbingly, the majority of the members came from the towns. When in 1894 the society was fifty years old, 89 per cent (663) of the members lived in towns, mainly the largest cities of Kristiania (from 1925 renamed Oslo), Bergen and Trondheim, while 6 per cent (43) lived abroad. Only 5 per cent

Although several scholars were acquainted with rural culture, the most important archaeologists in the nineteenth century seem to have identified themselves with the values of the urban middle class. These archaeologists could still consider some local interests in their writings. Even Nicolaysen, who otherwise joked about uneducated farmers in his publications, was interested in “folk-life” when he published contemporary 33

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record seventeenth- and eighteenth-century descriptions of customs in Norway (Nicolaysen 1859). Nicolaysen could even value some superstitious beliefs because these could protect burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1874: 122). While Oluf Rygh argued that legends about archaeological monuments seldom had “value as a testimony of historical events” (Rygh 1883: 78), he recognized that legends could in rare cases make the monuments known to the people (Rygh 1883: 30).

Norway in the early 1870s, although not about archaeological monuments. Although doubting if these had any value, he sent them for consideration to the folklorist Ludvig Ludvigsen Daae (1834–1910).6 Undset still only sparingly referred to folklore in his writings (e.g. Undset 1876: 107-8). Finally, Olaus Martens Nicolaissen (1846–1924), keeper from 1880 of the archaeological collection in Tromsø, collected and published an abundance of folklore from North Norway. According to Nicolaissen, the superstitions still held by the elderly in the area were thousands of years old and they should be collected before they disappeared (Nicolaissen 1889: 2-3; see Nicolaissen 1879; 1887, 1891, 1919). Although he acknowledged a possible great age of the beliefs, Nicolaissen only briefly referred to local interpretations in his published archaeological reports (e.g. Nicolaissen 1884: 13, 17; 1885: 3, 9, 18).

Other archaeologists who could assess divergent interpretations more positively, and who in some cases published them without comment, were in particular the schoolteacher and practising archaeologist B. E. Bendixen (1839–1918), who belonged to the radical left (e.g. Bendixen 1889: 24, 25-6, 34, 43, 61; 1890: 17, 40, 43, 61; 1892: 15, 21, 32-3; 1893: 27; 1897: 19). Folklore could in addition be published as amusing anecdotes, particularly by Anders Lund Lorange (1847–88), conservator at Bergen Museum from 1876, and he wrote lively archaeological reports based on his travels (e.g. Lorange 1869: 53, 65; 1870: 108-11; 1871; 1878: 95-6, 159). Karl Ditlev Rygh (1839–1915), brother of Oluf Rygh and keeper from 1870 of the archaeological collection in Trondheim, even included a historical legend that possibly could have been transmitted from the Viking Age (Rygh 1877: 87; 1879a: 1757, see section 9.2.3).

It has been argued that the German Heinrich Schliemann’s (1822–90) discovery of Homer’s Troy later caused several archaeologists in Europe to consider the possibility of longterm survival of oral sources (Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 11-12). However, Schliemann’s discovery probably did not influence contemporary Norwegian archaeologists. Ingvald Undset, who travelled extensively in Europe in the period 1876–87 and made acquaintance with Schliemann at his home in Athens, even airs in his autobiography a generally critical attitude towards Schliemann as a scientist (Undset 1892: 91-3). The next generation of archaeologists in the early twentieth century would consider, however, the possibility of the long-term survival of folklore and folk-beliefs when they discovered and started to identify themselves with the “folk”. 4.4 Archaeologists discover the people and folk-wisdom (c.1900–1960) The turn in the early twentieth century towards a more positive view of folklore coincides with what the archaeologist Bjørn Hougen (1898–1976) termed a sharp distinction in Norwegian archaeology around 1900 (Hougen 1954: 36-8). The 1890s were characterized by stagnation in archaeological research with the deaths of Lorange (1888) and Undset (1893); Rygh devoted most of his time to toponymy and died in 1899 (Gjessing 1920a: 198, 200), the same year that Nicolaysen was not re-elected to the board of Fortidsminneforeningen. The new generation of archaeologists now getting positions was influenced by the increasing nationalism in the wake of independence from Sweden in 1905 (Myhre 1994c, 2001; Opedal 1996, 1999). The excavation of the Viking ship from Oseberg, in 1904, also gave archaeology a stronger national legitimacy. The first Cultural Heritage Act, adopted in 1905, also changed the practice of archaeology since it gave an automatic protection order to all prehistoric and medieval monuments and sites in Norway (pre-1537).

Illus. 4.4: Ingvald Undset (1853–93) (Reproduced from Hagen 1997: 74)

This new generation of archaeologists now discovered, in the general national spirit of the time, the role of farmers as constituting the Norwegian people (the “folk”) who had also

Furthermore, Ingvald Undset (1853–93), the most international and European-oriented archaeologist in Norway at this time, recorded legends during his travels in mid-

Letter, with attached legends, of 14 April 1875, from Ingvald Undset to Ludvig Ludvigsen Daae; NBO, Håndskrifsamlingen, ms. 8 934:2.

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6

Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism the thunderbolt belief with a curious interest (e.g. Hagen 1953: 91-5; Johansen 1976; Lødøen 1993; Myhre 1988; Ringstad 1988a: 329-30; Samdal 2000: 79-84; Østmo 1988: 95-6; cf. Carelli 1997).

transmitted oral records – survivals – from time immemorial. This new interest in the possible great age of folklore was founded on general trends in the historical disciplines influenced by the survival theory developed by the British ethnologist Edward Burnet Taylor (1832–1917) who inspired European archaeology and folkloristics (cf. Bringéus 1990: 34-6; Dundes 1969: 12; Simpson and Roud 2000: 349, 369). Some legends – termed megalithic legends in 1939 by the Swedish folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1878–1952) – were even believed to predate Indo-European civilization and date back to “Megalithic culture” (Bødker 1965: 193).

The positive view towards folklore in the early twentieth century is also related to the positive re-evaluation now given to the idea of folk-wisdom, contrary to the former generation who approached the ordinary farmers with mistrust. Already Gabriel Gustafson (1853–1915) in his inauguration lecture in 1901, as keeper of Oldsaksamlingen after Rygh, stressed this significance of folk-wisdom. Although Gustafson could argue against folk-interpretations and unskilled disturbances of burial mounds (Gustafson 1902: 135, 144; 1906: 1920), he argued that the people (the “folk”) were important, although this view might also be seen as a justification of his own position since he was a Swede. Nevertheless, Gustafson stated that the interest in the past was innate to the Norwegian people (Gustafson 1902: 3), and he argued:

The possibility of the high age of oral sources stimulated several scholars to assess folklore about archaeological monuments (cf. discussions in Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 1112; Zachrisson 1997c: 92-3). While former generations of archaeologists could support the great age of some beliefs too, but were negative towards them, archaeologists in the early twentieth century considered them as folk-beliefs and possible sources for gaining knowledge about prehistory. This occurred among archaeologists and folklorists in for instance the UK (Fleure 1931, 1948; Grinsell 1953: 70-85; cf. later arguments against own view in Grinsell 1980: 213; 1989: 74; Johnson 1908; Peake 1940), France (Saintyves 1934–6; cf. Grinsell 1937), Sweden (Hansson 1923; Nerman 1921; cf. Bringéus 1990: 36) and Denmark (cf. articles in the 1930s by Boberg, overview in Boberg 1966: 9). Not only oral traditions, but also material culture were seen as survivals that documented the continuity of a people living in its homeland. In a British context, Glyn Daniel explains this approach as such:

And this [archaeological] research is supported by favourable qualities in the Norwegian people. Until our days there is preserved in the more remote parishes much of the old, several old customs, old working methods and tools, old beliefs and imaginations, which can be informative about ancient conditions. And ordinary people have always shown a living interest in their past. Although today, in the larger towns and parishes, it has diminished due to the violent process of change (…), the old interest for the past is present in the parishes, and it will certainly not disappear. (Gustafson 1902, my translation: 3; see also Gjessing 1920a: 161)

Field systems, villages, tribal organisations and primitive law as they exist at present, or existed in the historic past, were also studied as survivals from prehistoric times and as sources of light on man’s prehistoric past. (Daniel 1975: 185)

Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884–1951), keeper of Oldsaksamlingen from 1915 after Gustafsson’s death, continued to highlight the national importance of the Norwegian people and folk-wisdom. This positive valuation was related to Brøgger’s historical turn of archaeology, and he argued that history started in the Stone Age (Brøgger 1937a: 5). From an eco-functionalistic perspective Brøgger saw prehistory to be almost present among the current people who lived in similar ecological and subsistence conditions as the prehistoric people (Brøgger 1925). Archaeologists should therefore also acquire knowledge about current conditions in order to “construct one large bridge from the origin until today” (Brøgger 1929: 13; 1930: 14). Brøgger argued:

The Danish archaeologist Christian Blinkenberg (1863–1948) carried out perhaps the most detailed study in Scandinavia that approached folk-beliefs as old records. The contemporary importance of this study is evidenced as it was translated into English and reissued in 1987 (Blinkenberg 1909, 1911a; cf. Blinkenberg 1911b). Blinkenberg studied the belief in “thunderstones” and argued that: … the thunderstone belief dates back to the stone age, and probably to an early phase of the stone age. If this view be correct, ideas that remain fully alive in Europe to-day contain some of the oldest mythical matter actually known. (Blinkenberg 1911a: 34)

It is (…) simply about rediscovering Norway, in the widest sense. We must get out again, away from our desks, from books and theories, and ask in our own country, see, observe and learn. We must aim at getting to know Norway, from the sea to the field and mountain, from the forests in the east to the ocean in the west (…). (Brøgger 1929: 13; 1930: 15, my translation)

The arguments of evolution and diffusion were used by Blinkenberg to support the great age of the beliefs. The evolutionary argument presupposed that a primitive imagination about thunderbolts had to originate in a primitive stage of human development, and then survived through thousands of years among the ordinary people. The argument of diffusion further presupposed that this geographically widespread phenomenon was old. Blinkenberg’s theory of the high age of belief is today difficult to support, but still, Norwegian archaeologists have up to the present approached

By stressing this lineage between both current and prehistoric people, Brøgger could use old beliefs and traditions to gain knowledge about beliefs surrounding burial mounds in the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages (Brøgger 1945). For instance, finds of Viking Age weapons from Setesdal, according to Brøgger, gave a similar picture of the the inhabitants’ violent

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record conditions as that described in folklore collected in the nineteenth century (Brøgger 1921a: 80-81). Anders Hagen (1921–2005) later held similar views to Brøgger too. Hagen used his experiences from growing up in a rural community in East Norway to shed light on issues such as prehistoric subsistence, technology and social patterns (Hagen 1997: 327-34). However, Hagen did not use folklore as a source, although he did study folk-memory, and he sensed that the oral narratives he heard, as a student in 1943 in the county of Telemark, were relicts from a bygone past (Hagen 2002: 43-4, 78-9). Especially Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955), keeper of Bergen Museum from 1901, stressed the great age of orally transmitted beliefs. Just after the excavation in 1904 of the Viking ship from Oseberg Shetelig, unlike former archaeologists, he positively included local accounts about ship burials: (…) old people of the parish always told, as a tradition from their forefathers, that a ship had once been buried in the said mound, and that traces were still to be seen of the channel through which the ship had been taken up from the sea. (Schetelig 1905: 2) This account is rightly enough not commented on in later literature, and Shetelig might have later doubted the tradition or it was confused with accounts from the excavation in 1880 of the Gokstad ship (cf. Hougen 1959). Still, Shetelig’s positive valuation of the tradition in this early publication of the find contrasts with Rygh and Nicolaysen who excavated Viking ships too, but disregarded traditions they heard (Nicolaysen 1882: 2; Rygh 1867, cf. his letter to Nicolaysen printed in Marstrander 1974: 28). Concerning a mound

Illus. 4.5: Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884–1951) With the Tune ship in 1932 (reproduced from Hagen 1997: 96)

Illus. 4.6: Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955) and Gabriel Gustafson (1853–1915) At the excavation of the Oseberg ship (reproduced from Hagen 1997: 94) 36

Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism that Rygh hadboth excavated and dismissed the oral stories about, Shetelig even wrote to the contrary that the local people had always known that a ship (the Tune ship) was interred in it (Schetelig 1917: 3; cf. Nerman 1921: 216-17).

living; the dead are the most numerous and strongest” (Fett 1918: 2). The archaeologist Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) argued that archaeology had a special importance for ordinary people because it was a particular national science. Gjessing even criticized the previous generation of archaeologists for being too internationally oriented, and he argued in contrast that archaeology should be based on home ground and take root in Norwegian soil (Gjessing 1920a: 203-4).

In the aftermath, Shetelig has been seen as the strongest protagonist for the great age of folk-beliefs about burial mounds. He mentioned in his writings several examples from West Norway mainly, some of which he had encountered himself (Schetelig 1911, 1912b). The interest in folk-beliefs was still on the fringe of the discipline of archaeology, and his accounts were not published in an archaeological journal, but Maal og minne, a philological journal then devoted to everything that expressed Norwegianness. The journal even published afterwards other minor articles and notices on folkbeliefs about burial mounds (Brynildsen and Petersen 1913; Olsen 1919; Petersen 1914, 1922; Sverdrup 1914).

However, it is Brøgger who in the long run is best known for the national application he gave archaeology. Brøgger advocated what he regarded as a “healthy” national archaeology that should replace “unhealthy nationalism” (Brøgger 1929: 16). Brøgger also resisted Nazism and he was imprisoned during World War II, but his national approach was still later criticized because it stressed a one-dimensional interpretation of the archaeological record that had a potential for encouraging nationalism (Myhre 1994c, 2001; Opedal 1999; Østigård 2001). After World War II, the national framework was to a large extent disregarded, and Anders Hagen argued that national attitudes were merely absent in archaeological publications in the post-war years (Hagen 2002: 87). Inclusion of minor folklore accounts in some archaeological writings did still prevail in the 1950s (e.g. Fett 1947, 1953–7, 1956; Hougen 1959; Marstrander 1952: 209-11). The second Cultural Heritage Act of 1951 further rendered it possible to protect places with associated old beliefs, legends and customs (§2, h). Although this new law could protect places connected with oral transmissions, from the 1960s, archaeologists once again disregarded folklore about archaeological monuments. 4.5 Folklore on the fringe of archaeology (c.1960–90) From the 1960s, archaeologists again took a generally critical stance to folklore or chose not to consider it: folklore was now again on the outermost fringe of archaeology. This can partly be understood in relation to the emphasis in this period that archaeology should be a scientific discipline, and it was influenced among others by Anglo-American processual archaeology (Myhre 1985). With the emergence in the social democratic post-war period of a welfare state, a stronger bureaucracy and the education of a larger number of archaeologists, heritage management also became more professionalized and aimed at protecting the archaeological record mainly as a resource for archaeological research (cf. Keller 1990).

Illus. 4.7: Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo After Shetelig, several archaeologists in the 1920s and ’30s continued to include short, and often positive, considerations of folklore and folk-beliefs in their writings (e.g. Gjessing 1921: 42-3; Grieg 1929: 288-307; Lund 1944: 188; 1943: 69; Marstrander 1938: 162-3; Petersen 1923: 61-2; cf. Svendsen 1902). The trust in the great age of traditions is present when they distinguished between what they saw as proper placebound traditions and the more stereotypical migratory legends (Hougen 1933).

These changes affected how archaeologists approached folklore too. For instance, when Bjørn Myhre, who in this period became a leading scholar on the Iron Age, discussed in a short popular article the legends about archaeological monuments in the county of Rogaland, he assessed them according to whether they were true or not (Myhre 1963; reprinted Myhre 2004). Myhre recognized that some legends could have a core of truth, but he saw them generally as an expression of folk-fantasy that explained a phenomenon and mixed ancient monuments with later historically known people and events.

This positive valuation of the local people and their folklore is strongly connected to the national application archaeologists now aimed at giving archaeology. Most strikingly, Harry Fett stressed a direct lineage between the present and former people living in Norway as such: “A nation consists not only of the 37

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Consequently, he placed a low value on this knowledge about archaeological monuments (see also Sørensen 1974: 11-12).

(Grinsell 1980: 213). Leading archaeologists at this time still did not support Grinsell’s approach, and Glyn Daniel argued that such study of folklore had hardly any value “to the modern scientific archaeologist” (Daniel 1978: 90). This negative attitude to folklore is generally representative of the 1970s, although scholars, such as the American folklorist Henry Glassie, could argue that archaeology and folkloristics shared several characteristics because they were humanistic disciplines (Glassie 1977), but he did not show clearly how they could work together.

Archaeologists in this period did still reflect on the role of archaeology in contemporary society. Most importantly, Christian Keller argued already in 1978 that archaeology in Norway was governed by archaeological expertise. This had the consequence that only employees and students at the five archaeological museums could practise archaeology, while the local people had few possibilities for using archaeology to shape their own identity, an issue about which he requested stronger debate (Keller 1978: 94-6). Christian Keller further recognized that “myths” had shaped the perception of archaeological monuments and that they had always been present in the minds of people. According to Keller, the monuments “have partly served as a basis for dreams, partly as unanswered questions, something that had to be explained” (Keller 1978: 15). Although he argued that the explanations of the experts were more right than the myths, Keller recognized that the need for myths had not disappeared, although he generally warned that it should not take an important role in the discipline of archaeology (Keller 1978: 17-18). Reflections around archaeological practice are even present in an entertaining account of anecdotes from fieldwork. Here, it was recognized that archaeologists locally were often seen as “strange individuals out of touch with real life, who do not understand what is going on, and whose greatest joy is to find a little potsherd or a rusty nail” (Ingstad and Martens 1963: 191). The contact with local people was described as the most positive part of fieldwork, but was presented as anecdotes that did not influence archaeological practice. Although few references to folklore occur in archaeological literature from the 1960s, archaeologists did still collect during surveys an abundance of folklore about archaeological monuments (see section 5.6.1). Archaeologists still did not use this material for further studies. One exception is Elizabeth Skjelsvik, in charge of Oldsaksamlingen’s surveys, who presented an overview of selected traditions, folk-beliefs and names attached to archaeological monuments in Norway (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979). Ottar Rønneseth is a second exception, although in the 1960s he was situated on the fringe of Norwegian archaeology as he was in lively disputes with Bjørn Myhre. Rønneseth used folk-memories from Rogaland as sources for knowledge on the development of the farm. Similarly to archaeologists in the early twentieth century, Rønneseth emphasized the unbroken continuity of folkculture and he viewed folk-beliefs about burial mounds as preChristian relicts (Rønneseth 1973: 304).

Illus. 4.8: Caricature of Elizabeth Skjelsvik (1925–) Drawn in 1958 by Jo Bleken-Nilssen. Reproduced with the kind permission of Elizabeth Skjelsvik.

4.6 Neo-folklorism (c.1990–) From the late 1980s, a new interest in folklore arose among several archaeologists who came to the fore during the 1990s. Several explanations can be given for this neo-folklorism that gained influence within archaeology. The more positive assessment of folklore was influenced partly by post-processual archaeology that focused upon religion and mentality, and also stressed the significance of folklore (e.g. Burström 1993; Burström et al. 1997; Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999a). A second factor might be the recognition that various interests in the archaeological heritage existed, a view that gained support partly through indigenous critics (e.g. Layton 1989c, 1989a). Thirdly, the new development can also be explained by general changing trends in society, such as the growing number of archaeologists with more varied backgrounds, coinciding with an increasing focus from both society and academics that research needs contemporary relevance and application (e.g. Nowotny et al. 2001). To some extent, the geographical relocation of archaeologists, as part of a decentralization since

In other countries, in the 1970s, a few archaeologists had some interest in folklore too: in particular Leslie G. Grinsell (1907–95), who wrote a compilation of folklore about archaeological monuments in Britain (Grinsell 1976; overview of publications by him on the topic in Grinsell 1989: 78). This work contrasted with Grinsell’s motivation to start studying folklore in the 1930s. He believed then that folklore could provide information about the people who built the monuments, but he came to realize that it imparted knowledge mainly about the later history of monuments 38

Folklore in Norwegian archaeology: a cycle of rationalism and romanticism 1990, from working in mainly five designated museums to take up positions in the nineteen counties, can also explain some of the more positive assessments some now gave to folklore or the local people.

Larsen et al. 1993). Realizing that a gap between academic and local knowledge existed, some archaeologists now investigated contemporary local interests and not primarily folklore transmitted from the past. These issues were also highlighted as important research topics by the Norwegian Research Council and in governmental reports (NFR 2003: 24). In particular archaeologists educated at the University of Tromsø in North Norway became “anthropologists” who started to investigate current perceptions and attitudes towards archaeology and preservation (e.g. Krogh 1999; Mjaaland 2004; Nilsen 2003a, 2003b; Pilskog 2003, 2005; Pramli 1999). Although the studies were based on a wish both to understand and to take into account local and differing views, these and other studies can be seen to have been governed by the expert’s wish to improve the protection of archaeological monuments (e.g. Bertelsen et al. 2001; Indrelid 1994, 1999).

Together, these trends may have stimulated a stronger focus on local forces, contrary to the dominance of national viewpoints that in the early twentieth century were a driving force when considering folklore. This new importance of local interests now influenced archaeological practice at several levels: (1) Legislation: an amendment in 1992 of the intention of the Cultural Heritage Act broadened the scope of preservation of the archaeological record from research purposes mainly to a stronger stress on the public. The law currently states: It is a national responsibility to safeguard these resources as scientific source material and as an enduring basis for the experience of present and future generations and for their self-awareness, enjoyment and activities. (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §1)

(3) Archaeological writings: several archaeologists included in their writings various pieces of folklore, and they approached folklore generally from one of the following two perspectives:

Another amendment further provided that the archaeological and historical monuments to be preserved included “places associated with historical events, beliefs and traditions” (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §2).

(A) Assessing folklore and folk-beliefs according to their truth, age or plausibility, and arguing that some narratives, but not all, can give credible explanations of various archaeological monuments (e.g. Brendalsmo 2001: 53-4, 60-61; 2002a: 636; 2002b; Brendalsmo and Stylegar 2003; Dahl 2005; Holm 1995, 1999, 2000, 2002; Indrelid 2004: 54, 58; Ingstad 1993; Samdal 2000: 37-8, 79-84). One archaeologist even argued that, from this perspective, folklore should be included in some archaeological research just as analysis of pollen should in other investigations (Carlstrøm 1994: 111; see also Carlstrøm 1995). This approach is reminiscent of views in the late nineteenth century and from the 1960s that gave folklore a positive value if judged to be “true”. However, the approach has more in common with early-twentieth-century views that approached the narratives as old transmissions, and Shetelig’s writings of folk-beliefs about burial mounds now also served as a documentation of long-held important beliefs (Schetelig 1911).

(2) Decentralization of heritage management: in 1990, several management responsibilities for archaeology were decentralized, as an attempt at democratizing the management structure and securing better local participation, away from the five archaeological museums towards the nineteen county administrations. This included in particular surveys, assessment of developments affecting archaeology, and securing the protection of archaeological sites through spatial planning. The museums kept their responsibilities to carry out excavations, take care of and display antiquities and, after a second reorganization in 2001, they could also carry out surveys which from the 1990s had been the obligation of the counties alone (Holme 2001a: 136, 140-43). After this decentralization, Christian Keller pointed out that other groups than archaeologists could state their conditions for the management of the archaeological record, including people with different education, values and language (Keller 1990: 49-50). Keller then pointed out the fallacy that the archaeological monuments had been discovered in the early nineteenth century, but that it was in reality their use as national symbols that had been discovered (Keller 1990: 52-3). According to Keller, these national constraints were still present as archaeologists had difficulties replacing the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ideology with a new direction, apart from highlighting the scientific importance of the archaeological record (Keller 1990: 61).

This positive assessment of folklore is in particular present in the research area of Vest-Agder through the writings of the county archaeologist from 1996, Frans-Arne Stylegar (born 1969). Stylegar frequently refers to folklore in his popular archaeological articles in local historical journals, and he is therefore frequently referred to throughout this book. In an interview given to a newspaper in 2001, Stylegar even states that he “takes old legends and folk-narratives seriously”.7 Stylegar further includes selected folklore in his publications almost as though they reflect Iron Age or medieval conditions (e.g. Stylegar 1997a; Stylegar 1997b, 2001c, 2001b; cf. Stylegar 2001a; Brendalsmo and Stylegar 2003). Most folklore is still quoted in Stylegar’s publications without assessing its age or if it is true, but the fact that legends and folk-beliefs are included indicates that these oral transmissions are now valued positively. This is particularly noticeable in a book on the archaeology of the parish of Spangereid, in which

However, if a new direction was given to heritage management in the 1990s, this would be the new emphasis on the local importance of cultural heritage. Although local interests had to a minor extent directly influenced management decisions, archaeologists now began to consider local interests in archaeological monuments, including reflections on the role of archaeologists being in the field (Bertelsen 1990; Bjerck 1989;

7

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“Stylegar finner det meste”, Fædrelandsvennen, 21 July 2001.

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 4.7 Conclusions

Stylegar includes folklore about archaeological monuments. Even beliefs and legends that do not concern archaeological monuments are quoted in the book simply as something that is old and transmitted in the parish, almost similar to the archaeological record that has been preserved from prehistory until today (Stylegar 1999c). The archaeology student Torbjørn Røberg took a similar approach to Stylegar when in 1993–4 he surveyed archaeological monuments prior to the construction of a new road in West Norway. Røberg decided to collect and later publish legends as part of the cultural heritage of the area, although these were not required by law to be surveyed, and he thus gave them an importance similar to that of the archaeological record (Røberg 2000).

As argued in this chapter, archaeologists in Norway, from the nineteenth century until today, have actually often taken folklore about archaeological monuments into consideration in their writings. However, archaeologists have been negative towards folklore in those periods when they have been governed by strong scientific influences, but the interest has returned in later periods that were influenced by romanticism. This coincided in the 1990s with a stronger focus upon the local importance of cultural heritage. Divergent interpretations of and interests in the archaeological record have still not strongly influenced archaeological practice, and for instance, excavations by the archaeological museums are still researchbased. However, archaeologists working at both the museums and in the counties maintain strong contact with local people and various interest groups.

(B) A meaning-oriented approach towards folklore about archaeological monuments. Influenced by post-processual theory, which pervaded much archaeological research from the late 1980s, the archaeologist Bjørnar Olsen was probably the first in Norway to introduce in 1987 a meaning-oriented approach. Olsen highlighted the importance of the plural meaning of archaeological monuments and artefacts, and he took a generally positive stand to various ascriptions given to monuments, although he did not mention folklore specifically (Olsen 1987:71). A similar meaning-oriented view was stressed by other archaeologists from the 1990s, who included short accounts of folklore as examples of how monuments have changed meaning, been interpreted, and become intelligible for people (e.g. Hernæs 1999; Kristoffersen 1999, 2003; Lillehammer and Prøsch-Danielsen 2001; Lillehammer 2004; Sollund 1996: 15-18; cf. Ringstad 1987b: 14-15, 34-47; Ringstad 1988b, 1990). However, archaeologists also included folklore in their writings as mere curios and entertaining stories (e.g. Olsen 1991: 57; Myhre 2005).

A general overview has been given on how archaeologists have approached folklore, but also those who in the sources can be called ordinary people (the “folk”), the peasants, or the local people. In Part II, archaeological publications will be used as sources on how archaeologists have approached more specific folklore themes about burial mounds.

The most significant study was carried out in the early 1990s by the archaeologist Brit Solli on the West-Norwegian island of Veøy (Solli 1996b, 1996c; cf. Solli 1997b). In addition to conducting an excavation on the island, she investigated the local folkloric narratives about the island and reflected on how she as an academic should approach those accounts that were not in accord with her interpretations. Although Solli collected and published these divergent interpretations, she chose to disagree with their content and emphasized the significant role of the specialist who also has a duty to communicate her knowledge. A slightly different approach was, however, taken by a student of Solli, Hanne Lovise Aannestad, who investigated folklore about Iron Age hill-forts (Aannestad 1999, 2003). Her main argument was that the meaning of an archaeological monument could not be restricted to the meaning given at the time of construction, and it was for her of minor importance to assess the folklore according to a historical truth (Aannestad 1999: 101-2). Although this overview has shown that from the 1990s several archaeologists have included folklore in their writings, it is important to emphasize that only a few archaeologists do so, and the topic is still marginal to most archaeology in practice.

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5 Sources and methods While folklore has been on the fringe of the discipline of archaeology, other sources have included oral narratives as their main material. In this book, six main categories of sources, from the early seventeenth century to around 2000, are used to gain knowledge of folklore and the later life histories of burial mounds in Agder. This chapter discusses the source value and the historical context that influences what kinds of legends, beliefs and interpretations can be found in the sources. The method is then described as to how these sources were worked on and analyzed.

material. Archive sources are still important to gain knowledge about the later life histories of burial mounds. The significance of archives is increasingly emphasized for studying the history of archaeology, e.g. through the network of Archives of European Archaeology launched in 1999 (AREA, see Schlanger 2002).1 The Swedish archaeologist Ola W. Jensen argues that archives are important because they give us knowledge about varieties of interpretations, contrary to published sources which communicate a one-sided picture since they represent the contribution of the “winners” ( Jensen 2002: 11).

The following six source categories (some with sub-categories) are discussed separately in this chapter. However, they are to a lesser extent disconnected from each other in the main part of the book, as this would have caused several repetitions in the text:

Despite the importance of archive sources, mainly published sources are used in this book because: 1. The history of effects is stronger for published than unpublished sources. Local historical literature is, for instance, important because local people often read it and it influences their interpretations and views. In contrast, archive sources are to a far lesser extent consulted and can be seen as “fossils” with a less important history of effects if they are not published, although they give important information about interpretations of archaeological monuments at the time of recording.

• historical-topographical literature (seventeenth– twentieth centuries) • folklore collections (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) • local historical publications (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) • archaeological sources (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) • other published sources (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) • fieldwork (2001–4)

2. A positive or negative value towards folklore is often expressed in the published sources. These valuations are of especial interest since they show both folk interpretations and how scholars have viewed and responded towards the interpretations. Most sources still quote folklore “neutrally” without ascribing to it a specific value, but even the act of quoting folklore shows that the writer gives it some importance, as opposed to those sources not referring to this material.

By researching different categories of sources, a broad picture is sought to gain knowledge about folklore and interpretations of burial mounds, but also how scholars have approached these narratives. What is important to highlight is that several sources from the same period take a similar approach towards folklore, although the local historical literature is a general exception. This rather homogenous view can be explained by the fact that the main genres and content of folklore were defined during the nineteenth century. Ever since, collectors have recorded similar types of material, but also often ignored new legends that can be found in contemporary society (Klintberg 1994: 10). Scholars in various disciplines – such as archaeologists and folklorists – although working on different source material, have also been receptive to similar political movements (e.g. nationalism) and theoretical trends (from e.g. anthropology). Approaches in archaeology towards folklore are therefore comparable to trends in folkloristics (compare Eriksen 2002b with Aannestad 2003). One main difference, however, is that folklore is the study objective of folkloristics, and not a “problem” for the discipline as it has often been with archaeology.

3. Time limits have restricted the use of archival material. An enormous amount of unpublished sources exist that can give us knowledge on the interpretation of burial mounds. These include private farm archives, municipality archives, archives of local museums, material deposited by local historians, historians, folklorists, archaeologists, etc., in the regional state archives (statsarkivene) and the National Archives in Oslo (Riksarkivet). Information about burial mounds is also recorded in nineteenth- and twentieth-century land severance protocols and possibly in court records preserved from the seventeenth century and onwards. Researching all these sources would practicallyspeaking be an impossible and enormously time-consuming task, although much information from these sources has been used because it has already been published, especially in local historical publications.

5.1 Published versus unpublished sources Webpage of the network at http://www.area-archives.org/ (accessed 24 January 2008). 1

Most researched sources are published texts and not archive 41

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Some archives have nevertheless been researched, but mainly those known to contain a quantity of easily accessed material of importance for the research. This was in particular Oldsaksamlingen’s topographical archive, but also the folklore collection Norsk Folkeminnesamling at the University of Oslo and Hannaassamlingen at the University of Bergen. Selected targeted files were also researched in the National Library (Oslo) and the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen).

or anthropologists use when they research other cultures (cf. Solli 2002: 75-6). The narratives were collected because the collectors mainly (1) found them to be exotic, (2) regarded them as old, and (3) even invented the folklore. (1) Until the twentieth century, much folklore in Agder was collected by civil servants, often clergymen, some of whom were from or had been educated in Denmark. These middle-class people were unfamiliar with the culture of farmers, whom they viewed as exotic and approached from an ethnocentric point of view. They would often focus on the exotic and alien aspects of the culture, and they could also misinterpret customs.2 They could also highlight that the people were more superstitious and backward than, for instance, in Denmark or in the towns (cf. Hansen 1803: 351).

5.2 Source criticism: whose beliefs are present in the sources? Local people or others have not necessarily held the interpretations found in the sources. The main source-critical question scrutinized in the following is therefore whether the sources rather represent beliefs held by (1) the collector/ researcher or (2) the narrator/audience.

(2) Until the 1960s, folklore collectors in Norway were guided by a diachronic approach. This meant that the collectors documented what they regarded as old survivals that could give knowledge about ancient conditions, and issues such as continuity and origin were emphasized. This approach can be seen as a search for authentic folklore:

5.2.1 The collector’s beliefs? It is not local people who have recorded most of the sources used, particularly those predating the twentieth century, and their beliefs are known mainly through mediators. This raises the question whether the sources reflect views held by the mediator rather than by the local people. The cultural historian Peter Burke puts the problem like this:

Folklore has long served as a vehicle in the search for [the] authentic, satisfying a longing for an escape [from] modernity. The ideal folk community, envisioned as pure and free from civilization’s evils, was a metaphor for everything that was not modern. (Bendix 1997: 7)

To study the history of the attitudes of the illiterate is necessarily to see that history through two pairs of alien eyes, our own and those of the authors of the documents, who mediate between us and the people we are trying to reach. (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 68)

What the Danish folklorist Bengt Holbek terms a watershed in folkloristics occurred from the 1960s, when folklorists initiated synchronic studies that emphasized the contemporary context of folk-culture and its function (Eriksen and Selberg 2006: 26-7). The early collectors, in contrast, would see, from the diachronic perspective, the culture of the farmers as a reservoir of relicts that had been preserved through the centuries and were now about to disappear. However, local people did not necessarily hold the beliefs at the time of collecting. One possible consequence of the diachronic perspective is that several contemporary beliefs and interpretations were not collected, although these would have been of interest for synchronic studies. A second consequence is that collectors could interpret all kinds of remarkable cultural expressions as survivals of, for instance, pre-Christian religion or fertility cults, while these could have entirely different meanings for the local people. Nevertheless, contemporary reports by scholars who objected to the stories they heard – in particular by archaeologists – support that some beliefs could actually be believed in locally, although in several cases only by a few, who did not necessarily hold beliefs that might earlier have been commonly held.

The mediators are influenced by different scientific views that have determined their collection practice (Hodne 2002: 61). Even if a folklore text, such as a legend, is used as a source, it has gone through several filters; it has been transmitted and changed through several chains, collected at one stage and again altered before publication (Skjelbred 1998: 18-19). Much folklore published in the nineteenth century was further “restored”, similarly to the Gothic cathedrals, and it was edited and rewritten by literate scholars (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 16-22). Burke puts the problem like this: “Poets are too creative to make reliable editors” (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 17). The texts were given an aesthetic form that suited the collector/publisher. The proper form of publishing a legend, for instance, became a debated issue in Norway after Andreas Faye’s first collection of Norwegian legends in 1833 (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]). The critics objected to Faye’s style of referring to the legends, which they argued did not reflect the “voice” of the people as aimed for by later collectors, such as by the famous Norwegian tale collectors Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812–85) and Jørgen Moe (1813–82) (Swang 1975: 55; Amundsen 2002: 37, 39-41).

(3) The collected folklore became part of a constructed national folk culture that again stimulated the invention of traditions (cf. Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Beliefs surrounding only

What the collector held as important also influenced which material was collected, and not necessarily because a legend or belief was actually important in a community. This source-critical question is not confined to folkloric texts, but most records that archaeologists, historians, folklorists

One example is the priest Peder Ludvig Lund’s 1811 account from Setesdal. Lund discusses people called rødskaller who were interred in burial mounds. He interpreted these as an ancient people with red hair who once had lived in Agder, but the term in fact means the pioneer of a farm (Lund 1811 in NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056 X, transcript in Kildeskriftinstituttets manus nr. 197) 2

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Sources and methods a few burial mounds, for instance that a supernatural creature inhabits them, were by several collectors seen as survivals of ancient beliefs held about burial mounds in general, which again could create more traditions. Despite this source-critical problem, discussing the “authenticity” of folklore is not seen as important in this book – is it actual oral tradition, has it been recorded or transmitted accurately, does it represent a later invention? The view held here is that if a certain story has become part of the folklore, tradition or local views, “it is part of that tradition whether or not its origins are in literature or commercial invention” (Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 14).

Despite uncertainty about whose beliefs are represented in the researched sources, these sources are still the ones that are available in order to gain knowledge about how burial mounds, and other archaeological monuments, have been locally interpreted. This situation also makes it important to study in detail the sources, and their historical context, in order to understand how various people have approached and selected which folklore was recorded. 5.3 Historical-topographical literature Historical-topographical literature gives significant knowledge about how archaeological monuments were interpreted prior to the establishment of archaeology as an autonomous discipline. The topographical descriptions include several interpretations then held by scholars, but that from the midnineteenth century should be seen as folk-beliefs. Hence, as the Norwegian archaeologist Asgeir Svestad argues, the silent monuments became part of history as they were related to old legends and historical sources (Svestad 1995: 57-8). Clergymen and civil servants wrote the literature that can be traced back to the sixteenth century, but it increased in the second half of the eighteenth century (Supphellen 1979: 202, 198). The historical-topographical literature increased in the second half of the eighteenth century and it has been characterized as (after Supphellen 1979: 208):

5.2.1 The narrator’s or the audience’s beliefs? A second obstacle is whether the narrator or the audience has held the beliefs or interpretations. The sources seldom include information about the community where the legends are told, who the narrator is, their function, how the narrator and the audience viewed the truth content of the legends or their entertainment value. The American folklorist Alan Dundes therefore required that the collector should document the audience’s critique of the narrative, while Sandra Dolby Stahl argued that the collectors should investigate how the audience connects the narrative to a collective or individual tradition, and how people themselves enhance the story. However, in a Norwegian context, it is recognized that these requirements, which applied in American folkloristics for the study of contemporary narratives, can hardly be fulfilled when working with texts found in earlier publications or archives (Skjelbred 1998: 18-19).

• rational: it should enlighten and knowledge should be collected through scientific observations • Norwegian: the topic was Norway with all its diversities • patriotic: Norway is emphasized as the native country, a rich and independent nation, which stimulated the national feelings occurring in the nineteenth century

The new emphasis on the collector did still, during the 1960s and ’70s, stimulate in Scandinavia a new interest for the study of the old collected folklore in the archives, and it was contextualized by being supplemented with other historical sources (Eriksen 1999a: 181). The importance of studying the context, community and people who carried the traditions was stressed. The studies supported the idea that individuals can actively participate in creating the narratives, such as folk-tales, and these are not made by an anonymous “folk”, while some tales can even reflect the personal destiny of a narrator (Eriksen 1999a: 181; Hodne 1979: 135-6, 194-7; 1999a: 31-6).

Contemporary economic ideas, such as mercantilism and physiocratism, inspired the topographic literature (Supphellen 1979: 206). The writers aimed at describing the country’s resources in order to improve agriculture and the exploitation of raw materials, and even the history of the country, with its old monuments and customs, was described as part of the resources. The writers seldom described those resources that could not be exploited, such as the mountains that were in the pre-Romantic period seen as ugly features that could not be utilized (cf. Christensen 2002: 232; Solli 2002: 28).

A view generally held by nineteenth- and twentieth-century collectors was further that legends and tales belonged to the culture of the poor and underprivileged, and they had sunk down to these people together with superstitions. Research in Norway on narrators of tales modified this picture. The narrators were documented to have belonged to various groups in the local communities, although those with the largest repertoire did belong to the lower classes. Several explanations have been proposed in order to understand this tendency. One reason might be that folk-tales have more appeal among poorer people because they express a dream about gaining material happiness. The problem with this suggestion is that narrators from the higher classes also told folk-tales from the same repertoire. A second explanation suggests that people from the lower classes continued to preserve and tell oral narratives after other classes during the nineteenth century became part of an educated, literate culture (Hodne 1999a: 27).

Inspired by Foucault (2002 [1966]), the Norwegian folklorist Anne Eriksen argues that the historical descriptions in the eighteenth-century topographical literature were guided by the need for describing, systematizing and naming things according to their attributes. History and monuments were therefore described from a similar point of view as the landscape, plants, animals and minerals (Eriksen 2002b: 300, 313). However, history could not be observed, and how could one then say something true about it (Eriksen 2002b: 302)? The writers solved this problem by using the Bible and sagas as fixed points in the past, for instance by calculating the immigration to Norway according to the dispersion from Babel (Svestad 1995: 137). The past was also observable through the study of archaeological monuments, and since human culture

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record was constant, the Bible, sagas and own experiences were used as sources in order to interpret them (Eriksen 2002b: 302-3).

description, together with other manuscripts, contains what we would today call short notes of historical and origin legends – which Peder regarded as accurate, although he termed one as “rumour” – about a few archaeological monuments in Agder.4

Still, the historical-topographical literature is not a uniform source, but varies according to time and writer. One similarity is nevertheless that these sources remind us about travel descriptions of remote places written for people far away, and everything observed is strange, new, and important to tell. Each account of the same place is like a new visit; everything is described afresh and not just the new knowledge since the last description (cf. Lie and Roll-Hansen 2001: 42). This literature is therefore important as it often gives the earliest recording of a narrative that is repeated, expanded and commented upon in later sources, and it is as such given a contemporary relevance through the centuries.

Peder’s accounts are important, not only because they contain the earliest stories ascribed to archaeological monuments, but because they have a long history of influence: they are quoted, edited and expanded in various publications still today, four hundred years after they were published. Until the late eighteenth century, writers even used Peder as their main source and did not publish freshly collected folklore (e.g. Ramus 1735: 116-17; Jonge 1779: 190, 193). The main exception is thought to be an account of a legend collected by the Icelandic historian Tormod Torfæus (1636–1719) when he visited Agder in 1664 (discussed in section 9.4.3).

5.3.1 Peder Claussøn Friis (seventeenth century)

5.3.2 The 1743 questionnaire Publication of topographical literature increased in the mideighteenth century, and more folklore about archaeological monuments was now known. Notable are the questionnaires sent in April 1743 from the Danish chancellery to civil servants in Denmark and Norway to be used for writing new descriptions of the two countries. Two different lists, one with 43 and the other with 36 questions, were sent to Norwegian civil servants (Djupedal 1955–7: 303). Question no. 41 in the longer list requested information about antiquities (Djupedal 1955–7: 308). The answers returned to the chancellery gave interesting information about Norway in the mid-eighteenth century, and the questionnaire led to a growing interest in history and topography. However, the large historical-topographical description of Norway was never finished, and one volume only was published in 1763 with minor use of the answers (Nissen 1943: 269). The answers were seldom used as sources for later works, but they were more often consulted after they were transcribed during the years 1874–7 and stored at the National Archives (Riksarkivet) in Oslo (Djupedal 1955–7: 326). Several answers have since then been published, and a project that aims at publishing the whole material launched the first volume in 2003 (Røgeberg 2003).

Illus. 5.1: Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614) Drawing made in 1805 by Martin Friederich Arendt after a contemporary portrait by an unknown artist in the church of Valle (Lindesnes, Vest-Agder). Reproduced from a drawing kept in the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen).

Unfortunately, not all civil servants responded to the chancellery and only three answers touched on Agder, so these are of little interest for this book. One answer from Vest-Agder, published in 1897, contained sparse knowledge on folklore about archaeological monuments, mainly a few “speculations” by the writer (Finne-Grønn and Tostrup 1897: e.g. 13-15, 23). In a second answer from Aust-Agder, the writer argues that antiquities are not known, apart from a few weapons at some farms (Cornelijsen 1960 [1743]: 56). While a third detailed answer from the county of Rogaland briefly refers to

The Renaissance priest Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614), priest in Vest-Agder for nearly fifty years, was the first to record folklore about archaeological monuments in Agder. All his writings were published posthumously, some for the first time in his collected works (Claussøn Friis and Storm 1881). In 1613, Peder finished a general description of Norway, inspired by the Swedish ecclesiastic Olaus Magnus’s (1490–1557) history of the Northern peoples (Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, 1555), but this was first published in 1632 by the Danish antiquarian Ole Worm (1588–1654) and then reissued in 1881 (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]).3 This

Ole Worm in 1633. 4 Confined mainly to two burial mounds and standing stones at Spangereid (Lindesnes, ID 026943, 026937, 014680, 026948), close to where he lived. He also described an Iron Age hill-fort and burial cairns at Sigersvold (Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003969, 004020?), and interpreted a burial cairn as a fortification (Eide, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 17268) (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 270, 279, 310, 319; 1881 [1606]: 225; 1881 [1608–9]: 449, 450; 1881: 144, 145).

Peder was also the first to translate Snorri Sturluson’s sagas of the Norwegian kings from Norse to Danish, the book-language used in Norway, published by 3

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Sources and methods archaeological monuments in the western parts of Agder too (de Fine and Thorson 1952 [1743]: 104-5). 5.3.3 The topographical journal (1792–1808) The topographical journal (Topographisk Journal for Norge), published in ten volumes between 1792 and 1808 by the Topographiske Selskab for Norge, established in 1791, is the most important source of folklore about archaeological monuments collected in the late eighteenth century. This journal was influenced by the society’s stated patriotism and love of its “patria” (fatherland) Norway, which was seen, more than other countries, to offer a variety of nature, folk-character and customs (Moltke et al. 1792: 9). The society invited its members to submit detailed topographical descriptions in order to improve the economy, and it published articles on four major fields: (1) geographical-historical, (2) physical, (3) economical and (4) political. Archaeological monuments belonged to the geographical-historical field, which encompassed the peculiarities of a place, while the political field also encompassed knowledge about the local people, their customs and superstitions (Moltke et al. 1792: 21-2). The high official Peter Holm (1733–1817) published a detailed description of Vest-Agder (Holm 1794c, 1794b, 1794a, 1795a, 1795b, 1795c). This contains rich descriptions of archaeological monuments and interpretations of them then held by scholars and ordinary people. Holm’s account was based mainly on his own collected material, but he also used the few earlier published sources, such as Peder Claussøn Friis.

Illus. 5.2: Jens Edvard Kraft (1784–1853) (Reproduced from Portræter 1852: 13) Kraft’s work represented an important nation-building enterprise in the period after 1814 when Norway received its own constitution and Parliament (Lie and Roll-Hansen 2001: 28-31). Kraft wrote economic descriptions of each county, but also chapters with historical and antiquarian notes (from Agder Kraft 1826: 364-70, 557-70; 1838: 224-9, 363-77). These are criticized for not being as accurate as his economic descriptions (Holmsen 1936: 609), but are still important because they contain information on how Kraft and his contemporaries interpreted archaeological monuments.

The priest Reier Gjellebøl (1737–1803) also wrote in 1777 a detailed description of Setesdal, published in 1800 and 1801. However, this description contains less about archaeology and folklore than Holm’s (but see Gjelleböl 1800: 24-8; 1801: 37). 5.3.4 Jens Kraft and Amund Helland (nineteenth and early twentieth centuries)

Kraft’s interpretations can be seen as a mixture of explanations made by him and other scholars, but they were also influenced by legends that he would only briefly mention (in later sources, some of these legends can be found as complete narratives). Kraft must himself have seen, according to his descriptions, some monuments he describes. This is likely as he grew up in Agder (Kristiansand), and after he finished his juridical studies and worked for several years in the ministries, he returned to Agder and took the position from 1832 of District Court Judge (sorenskriver) in the area (Mandal) that he held until his death.

Until the early twentieth century, several topographical publications were issued, but most important are the two large topographic-statistical works written by Jens Edvard Kraft (1784–1853) and Amund Theodor Helland (1846– 1918). The term “statistical”, which in this period replaced the term “historical”, shows the influence of German statistical traditions, and the term means the verbal description of a state, its resources and culture. Later in the nineteenth century the term started to refer to the tabular representation of economical and social conditions (Lie and Roll-Hansen 2001: 16).

The geologist Amund Helland’s (1846–1918) work on the Norwegian land and people, described as topographicstatistical, represents the biggest, and latest, “mammoth” topographical description in Norway that was motivated by nation building (Lie and Roll-Hansen 2001: 98). The idea of the work was launched in 1873, and all available statistics, topographical and scientific literature then regarded as important were used in order to describe the country and its people (Lie and Roll-Hansen 2001: 92-4, 97). Helland was commissioned for the project in 1897, and he did not write the first five books, but those he wrote show his ability to produce

Kraft initiated and partly financed himself his topographicstatistical description of Norway in six volumes published 1820–35, issuing in 1838–42 a second edition of the four first volumes (number four not completed). Both of Kraft’s editions are used as sources for this book, but the second edition is especially important and is proudly introduced by Kraft as an expanded and more accurate version than the first (Kraft 1838: introduction). By reading both the 1826 and 1838 volumes on Agder, one can detect some important changes of interpretation of archaeological monuments that took place over ten years. 45

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record a quantitatively enormous literate production said after his death to be unequalled in Norway (Holmsen 1934: 7). The series consists of 20 volumes, encompassing according to the library database Bibsys 42 books, which were published in the period 1885–1921.

exceptions (e.g. Berge 1924), generally not been analyzed in detail by folklorists, although they often refer briefly to this kind of material. Selections of later comments on these folklore texts by professional folklorists are therefore not discussed in this chapter, but throughout Part II.

Helland published four books about Agder (Helland 1903b, 1903a, 1904b, 1904a), on amongst other things folklore. These accounts rest mainly on previous published sources: earlier topographical descriptions, archaeological and folkloristic publications, but also archival sources and information sent to Helland by local informants. Contrary to former topographers, Helland includes mythical legends and he even publishes folklore in dialects. Helland seldom discusses folklore about archaeological monuments in length, although some exceptions occur (Helland 1903b: 481-92), and he usually quotes them only as examples of folklore that exists in various parts of the country.

From Agder, the most important folklore collections were published in the late nineteenth century and until the 1920s at a time when oral narratives were seen as old relics that were believed to represent a national culture. Autodidacts in folklore studies, who either came from Agder or who spent several years living in the area, usually collected the material, and they approached the local people from an opposite standpoint compared to archaeologists. The collectors usually established close contacts with the local people who they believed preserved a reservoir of oral transmissions that were now disappearing. Collecting folklore was even part of their social efforts at improving the living conditions of these people. As such, their work strongly contrasts with archaeologists who came from the outside and spent only short periods in the area, but also were wary of local narratives and who conducted archaeology for the importance of research, although this should also serve the higher interest of honouring the nation.

5.4 Folklore collections The folkloristic sources researched for this book consist mainly of folklore collections. All folklore collections from Agder have been researched, and the major ones are discussed in this chapter. While folklore about burial mounds frequently appears in folklore collections, this folklore has, with some

5.4.1 Andreas Faye and the first collection of legends in Norway (1833/1844)

Illus. 5.3: Amund Theodor Helland (1846–1918) Painted in 1885 by Erik Werenskiold. © The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo (reproduced by Jacques Lathion)

Illus. 5.4: Andreas Faye (1802–1869) Drawing from 1848 by Siegwald Dahl, in Oslo Bymuseum (reproduced from Bjorvatn 2004: 9)

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Sources and methods The priest, folklorist and historian Andreas Faye (1802–69) belonged to the “1814 generation” of Norwegians who had their youth after the separation from Denmark and the adoption of a Norwegian constitution and Parliament. In 1833, Faye published the first collection of legends in Norway titled Norske Sagn (Norwegian Legends), but changed the title in the second 1844 edition to Norske Folke-Sagn (Norwegian Folk-Legends). A reissue of the second edition is used in this book (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]). Faye’s collection comprises legends he collected himself, but also accounts from earlier topographical publications. Several legends deal with archaeological monuments in Norway and in Agder where he lived at the time he published the collection.

Faye’s comments to the legends are today of special value since they show how scholars in the 1830s interpreted both legends and archaeological monuments. Being a priest and educator, Faye argued against several superstitions expressed through legends, although he also recognized that they could be old and predate Christianity. Faye also lived in a period when a more source-critical approach was taken and, contrary to earlier topographers, he doubted whether several legends could be trusted as historical accounts, although he recognized that they had been transmitted through generations. Although Faye argued that legends were important, his contemporaries criticized the collection (e.g. Munch 1999 [1833]). This was mainly due to three reasons of increasing importance:

During the previous decades, legends had been established as a literary genre and historical source, most importantly in Germany by the Grimm brothers’ Deutsche Sagen (1816–18), but also in Scandinavia by the Danish librarian Just Mathias Thiele’s Danske Folkesagn (1818–23). In Norway, legends had been published before Faye, but not in distinctive folklore collections (Amundsen 2002: 33-5). Contemporary European romantic movements triggered a national awakening in Faye and, after travels in Norway and Europe, he realized the importance of the common people’s traditions. Living in Agder between 1829 and 1860 – working as a teacher, priest and becoming a member of the Parliament – he was in 1832 one of the founders of the library, museum and archive in Arendal, and published in 1833 his collection of legends in the town (Amundsen 2002: 29-32).

1. Faye did not possess enough historical and philological knowledge to shed light on the legends. 2. The legends were recent narratives that could not be used as historical sources to attain knowledge about Norway before the Danish period. 3. Faye published the legends in a short and allusive style together with his own comments, and not in the lively and original style that reflected the homely and the national (Swang 1975: 55; Amundsen 2002: 37, 3941). Nevertheless, Faye’s work points towards several of the problems later explored in Norwegian folkloristics (Swang 1975: 55-6). He is now treated with increasing interest (Amundsen 2002), and other unpublished legends collected by Faye are now being published (Bjorvatn 2004).

Faye states in his introduction the importance of the legends through six points: 1. Legends about supernatural creatures reflected the Norse gods and served as a comment to these. However, he hoped that a deathblow would be given to these superstitions when they were published, because they flourished only in secret.

In the decades after Faye, several scholars collected and studied the culture of the people, which they believed had managed to preserve a specifically Norwegian national culture during the Danish reign. In 1886, Moltke Moe (1859–1913) became the first professor in Norway, at what is now the University of Oslo, in the discipline of folk-memory. The most famous collections were, however, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812– 85) and Jørgen Moe’s (1813–82) collection of tales (Norske Folkeeventyr, 1843–4), and Asbjørnsen’s collection of tales and legends (Norske Huldre-Eventyr og Folkesagn, 1845–8). These differ from Faye’s in keeping the narrative style, language and “spirit” of the original narrators. The collectors also saw the narratives as expressions of a national folk-character which survived even after four hundred years of Danish reign (Eriksen and Amundsen 1999: 46-7; Hodne 1994: 6). Asbjørnsen and Moe’s collections gained an enormous popularity, and are still much read, but they are not used as sources for this book because they seldom mention archaeological monuments. However, Asbjørnsen and Moe – and the national climate of that time – inspired other scholars to collect folklore, as a part of their social commitment to the local people.

2. Legends were of interest for natural sciences as they originated from a particular part of nature and encompassed the deepest secrets of nature. 3. Poets could use the legends as an inspiration for poetry, and poems that relied on a legend or fact would have better success than invented ones. 4. The truth and accuracy of the legends was uncertain, but they told about great achievements and contained people’s memory of these events that could confirm, educate and supplement the history and characterize past times. 5. The legends were important not only for the people who lived in the place where the event in the legend had occurred, but also for travellers who were entertained to hear the naive oral stories about the place. 6. A collection of legends could, with guidance from parents, be harmless to read for children and replace more violent tales that were about to disappear (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: III-V; detailed comments on these points by Amundsen 2002: 52-4).

5.4.2 Collecting folklore as social improvement (late nineteenth century) The efforts in the late nineteenth century to collect legends

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record were inspired by the national movement, but as part of this project, were also intended to enhance social conditions. Hence, the collectors aimed at both improving people’s lives and understanding their way of living, as well as crediting them for being important transmitters of culture. In Agder, the most notable collector was Johannes Skar in Setesdal, while several other and less famous collectors were active in Vest-Agder. Setesdal In the nineteenth century, the valley of Setesdal (AustAgder) was discovered, together with the adjacent county of Telemark, as being one of the richest “relict areas” in Norway for old traditions and culture (Bø 1977a: 327). Johannes Skar (1837–1914), one of several scholars who travelled in Setesdal to study its culture, was later described as the greatest collector of folklore in Norway besides Asbjørnsen and Moe (Grambo 1977: 268). Apart from Skar’s works, Aust-Agder is poorly represented in collections of folklore, and his books have become virtually “authorized” collections of folklore from Setesdal. Skar came from East Norway, had a farming background, studied for a short period at the University of Oslo, but in 1861 became psychically ill. Recovering from his illness, he worked from 1864 as a teacher (Bø 1953: 13-16). Skar began to collect folklore in 1873, and he travelled to Setesdal to find out whether a medieval ballad (Draumkvedet) was better preserved in this valley than in other places in Norway. He did not trace the ballad in the valley, but realized that the people in Setesdal had preserved their culture and traditions well. He returned to Setesdal in 1874, visited and lived in the valley for long periods until in 1914 he died and was buried there (Bø 1953: 38-43; 1977a: 327-38; Liestøl 1961 [1925]: 13).

Illus. 5.5: Johannes Skar (1837–1914) Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (bust at Årdal church, Bygland, Aust-Agder) valley: that floors should never be completely clean, because then fortune would also go away. This belief was said to be old as “all the mounds” (Bø 1953: 87), thus using a saying about burial mounds as a reference to old beliefs in the valley.

Skar’s eight-volume work from Setesdal, published 1903–16, describes the people and the culture of the valley in the dialect and the style of the original narrators, and it is reckoned to be the richest collection of folk-memories in Norway (Bø 1953: 180; Liestøl 1961 [1925]: 22). Its importance is proved by its reprinting in 1961 and 1997, and extracts were published in German in 1989. The work has even gained some importance for archaeologists: it is the only folklore collection from Agder used later as a source during the archaeological surveys for the Economic Maps (see section 5.6.1). In addition, it is nearly the only folklore collection later used as sources by archaeologists (e.g. Grieg 1929: 301-2, 307; Hagen and Liestøl 1947; Marstrander 1938: 162; but contradicted by Hougen 1947: 188-9).

Skar’s publications document that the local people were aware of several archaeological monuments that they ascribed to people and events known locally. For instance, several burial mounds that Skar mentions are associated with legends about the Norwegian king Olaf II Haraldsson (c.AD 995–1030). Olaf became the patron saint of Norway, known as Saint Olaf, and a rich and imaginative folklore about him exists (Liestøl 1930; Bø 1955). Legends about Saint Olaf tell about his travel through Setesdal in order to Christianize the people, although Olaf II Haraldsson was never in Setesdal, and burial mounds are connected to battles between the local people and Olaf ’s men (Skar 1961 [1907]: 231-6). Other legends connect mounds with the burials of people who probably lived in the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries, which is much later than the actual construction of the burial mounds, and the buried person is often said to be the founder of a farm. Skar also published a rich selection of shorter mythical legends that tell about people’s encounters with supernatural creatures, although it is often uncertain whether the term “mound” used in these legends refers to burial mounds or natural mounds.

One of Skar’s major aims was, according to the folklorist Knut Liestøl (Liestøl 1961 [1925]: 16), to show the cultural and national importance hidden in the farmers’ culture. This was also a social commitment, and living in the valley for several years, Skar knew all sides of the life of the farmers and had a more positive attitude towards them than several other contemporary travellers, who complained about them and the standards of cleanliness in the valley. Skar would instead explain the dirty conditions according to beliefs held in the

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Sources and methods Vest-Agder

Refsum 1943; cf. Bø 1972: 72, 82). Sundt also came from Vest-Agder, and he described in the 1850s and ’60s the conditions of the lower classes in Norway in order to improve them. Storaker published his first collection of beliefs in the educational journal Folkevennen (People’s Friend) that Sundt edited 1857–66 (Storaker 1862).

Vest-Agder was not seen in the nineteenth century as an important area for survivals of old traditions and customs, but still has more varied collectors and folklore collections than Aust-Agder. The collectors came from the county, they had a farming background and often worked as teachers – an emerging group of culturally conscious educated people. Several collectors were also interested in archaeology, and reported finds to Oldsaksamlingen. These folklore collections have not, however, gained the same authorized status as Skar’s, and later variants of the legends are more commonly found in Vest-Agder. Most of these collections contain legends or beliefs about archaeological monuments.5 These narratives differ strongly from the archaeological interpretations, and archaeologists who in the late nineteenth century worked in Agder seldom commented on them.

Despite their richness and importance, most of Storaker’s collections remained unpublished when he died, and although

Johan Theodor Storaker (1837–72) had a farming background, and he was born and lived most his life in Vest-

Illus. 5.7: Ole Glambek Fuglestvedt (1843–1902) (Reproduced after Bue 1978: 27) the University Library bought them, the study of beliefs was of low interest compared to narratives, and his collections were mainly neglected (Bø 1972: 81). Then between 1921 and 1941 Storaker’s collections were published in eight volumes by the ethnologist Nils Lid (1890–1958), who now took up the study of folk-beliefs. These publications contain an abundance of legends and belief utterances about archaeological monuments, but also about natural features such as trees and stones sacrificed to and believed to be animated by the same creatures as burial mounds. However, at the time of publication, the major interpretation of such folk-beliefs had changed. Storaker – and his contemporaries – interpreted the beliefs as relicts of the old heathen mythology. At Lid’s time, the folk-beliefs were thought to be older, belonging to time immemorial, and it was argued that Norse mythology had grown out of them (Lid’s introduction in Storaker 1921: XIII).

Illus. 5.6: Johan Theodor Storaker (1837–72) (Reproduced from Bue 1978: 51)

Agder where he worked as a teacher. Storaker is the first major collector in Norway who recorded folk-beliefs, contrary to his contemporaries who mainly collected narratives such as legends, tales and songs. Storaker gave attention to the folkbeliefs after advice and inspiration from the theologian and social scientist Eilert Sundt (1817–75; correspondence in

Even though folk-beliefs about various features in the landscape are abundant in Storaker’s collection, it is mainly the legends which had been collected together by Ole Glambek Fuglestvedt (1843–1902) that refer to burial mounds (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881). Fuglestvedt, a teacher, farmer and a Member of Parliament from the radical Left (Venstre), issued in September 1872 with Storaker, just before he died, a

Collections that do not deal with archaeological monuments are devoted mainly to people and events of the post-Medieval period. Most notable are books by the conservative historian and librarian Ludvig Ludvigsen Daae (1834–1910). Daae spent his childhood in Vest-Agder and collected legends from the area (Knudtzon 2003 1116: 48). Although Daae refers to mounds that according to the descriptions could be burial mounds (Daae 1881 [1870]: 90-92; 1872: 27), these are in fact natural hills. 5

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record circular requesting teachers especially to write down what they regarded as old treasures of hidden legends and memories that were orally transmitted from generation to generation, but were now about to die out. This included memories about “(...) kings and giants, battles, legends connected to mounds (...)” (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 4). Fuglestvedt continued to collect the legends after Storaker’s death, and he issued some of them in newspapers before their final publication in 1881, reissued in 1943 (Lid 1943; Bø 1972: 83-4; Bue 1978: 75-8). Unlike Skar’s collection from Setesdal, this material was not published in dialect, and Fuglestvedt regretted that he did not manage to publish them true to their nature and in the own language of the local people. Fuglestvedt did still aim at publishing them as close to the narrator’s version as possible, but admitted himself that they were altered in order to appear with a straightforward simplicity (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 7). 5.4.3 Collections of folk-memory (early twentieth century) From 1923, the major collections from Agder were published by Norsk Folkeminnelag (Norwegian Association of Folkmemory), established in 1921, from material held mainly in the collections of Norsk Folkeminnesamling (The Norwegian Folklore Collection). Norsk Folkeminnesamling was established in 1914 as a national archive for folklore, and it contains material collected during the nineteenth century and previously kept at the University Library (such as Storaker’s collection), but also folklore collected in the twentieth century.

Illus. 5.8: Tore Bergstøl (1884–1970) (Reproduced from Breilid 1970: 65) Agder around 1920. Both collectors came from Vest-Agder, although Bergstøl later moved to East Norway, but kept close contact with the area and published local historical books also used as sources (Bergstøl 1957, 1960, 1964, 1966). Peter Lunde had also spent five years at sea and two years as a docker in New York, returning to Norway to resume his education.

In 1917 and 1925, Norsk Folkeminnesamling by Reidar Thoralf Christiansen (1886–1971) issued guidance on how to collect what was at that time termed folk-memories, and this advice influenced what kind of folklore was now collected. Christiansen argued that folk-memory contained elements that went so far back in time that they expressed common human experiences. Christiansen argued that this basis was “old like the mounds”, conservative, but still changeable according to external influence (Christiansen 1925: 1516). These memories could not be collected like artefacts by museums, but all could participate in saving them by writing them down (Christiansen 1917: 113-18; 1925: 5-11).

Working as a teacher, he settled in 1904 at the farm where he grew up, and participated in cultural work in the district. Being one of the founders of Agder Historielag (Agder Historical Society, established 1914), he became in 1919 its chairperson (Liestøl 1969 [1921]: 9-12). He also participated the same year in organizing a course in Kristiansand about collecting folk-memory (Bø 1984: 15-16). This course stimulated several people to collect folklore, and much material was later published in local historical publications. Lunde and Bergstøl’s collections are good examples of the interest in the early twentieth century in collecting folkbeliefs and legends about supernatural creatures that were seen to contain older elements than the more free narratives of historical legends. Lunde and Bergstøl also used similar language in their books: a standardized form of the local dialects. According to Bergstøl, the narrators remembered the stories in a style ready to be written down, and they told him if he used words not familiar to them (Breilid 1970: 21-2).

Although Christiansen argued that some memories were “old like the mounds”, he only in a few cases specifically requested folk-memories about mounds (the term “burial mound” is not used), and other archaeological monuments and sites. These are legends about sacrifices given to the mound, local legends about mounds, cairns and hill-forts (Christiansen 1917: 133; 1925: 108-9). Much of the folk-beliefs and folklore about archaeological burial mounds were still collected because they related to other phenomena that Christiansen requested information about in his guidance. This material is therefore an important source of folklore about archaeological monuments which the collectors held to be old, or which were seen to represent the narratives or beliefs of local people.

Norsk Folkeminnesamling also contains unpublished folklore sent in from people in Agder. This material has been identified from the card catalogue, and several collections have been browsed, but probably the archive contains even more material that could have been relevant.6

The publications used in this book are, apart from Storaker’s referred above, the collections by Peter Lunde (1868–1923) (Lunde 1924, 1969) and Tore Bergstøl (1884–1970) (Bergstøl 1926, 1930, 1959). These contain folklore collected in Vest-

These include collections from Johan Agerholt, P. Eiesland, Lauritz Fuglevik, Olav Jarl Gahre, Knut Liestøl, Jon Løyland, Moltke Moe, A. S. Schneider, Lars Skjeldsøy, Nils P. Vigeland, Kristen Weierholt and Torleiv Aakre. The archive material of previously published collections has not been researched, although 6

50

Sources and methods An additional folklore source is the collection of the philologist and folklorist Torleiv Hannaas (1874–1929), who came from the southern part of Setesdal. In 1918, Hannaas received a professorship in philology at Bergen Museum to study dialects, but he was also in charge of the folk-memory archive at the museum (Alver 1955: 8), established in 1921. Between 1907 and 1929 Hannaas collected most of the material from his travels in Agder and West Norway, which is not published and is today kept at the University of Bergen. Relevant material has been identified from its catalogue (Alver 1955: 30-70). The material is in content and style similar to the folklore collected by Lunde and Bergstøl, but is taken from the original notebooks in which legends were recorded from the narrator in a brief and allusive style.

cultural heritage even remind one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844–1900) excellent account in 1874 of the antiquarian uses of and sense of possessing the past (although the city should in a Norwegian context be replaced with the parish): By tending with care that which has existed from old, he wants to preserve for those who shall come into existence after him the conditions under which he himself came into existence – and thus he serves life. The possession of ancestral goods changes its meaning in such a soul: they rather possess it. The trivial, circumscribed, decaying and obsolete acquire their own dignity and inviolability though the fact that the preserving and revering soul of the antiquarian man has emigrated into them and there made its home. The history of the city becomes for him the history of himself; he reads its walls, its towered gate, its rules and regulations, its holidays, like an illuminated diary of his youth and in all this he finds again himself, his force, his industry, his joy, his judgments, his folly and vices. Here we lived, he says to himself, for here we are living; and here we shall live, for we are tough and not to be ruined overnight. Thus with the aid of this ‘we’ he looks beyond his own individual transitory existence and feels himself to be the spirit of his house, his race, his city. (Nietzsche 1997 [1874]: 72-3)

After Lunde and Bergstøl’s publications, no more large collections of folklore were published from Vest-Agder, and publications of this material are confined mainly to local historical publications that flourished during the twentieth century. 5.5 Local historical publications Local historical publications are the quantitatively largest category of sources used in this book. The historian Jørgen Sandnes defines local historical literature as a literature that aims at writing the history of local communities bound together by a common organization, economy or social conditions. Such communities range from larger units, such as a county, to the smaller units of municipalities, parishes and farms. The historical account of people, events, institutions, etc. is geographically fixed, and local knowledge is important in order to write their history (Sandnes 1970: 14). The quantity of this literature, published by municipalities, local historical societies and private people, reflects a strong interest in local history in Norway. Folklore about archaeological monuments and finds is frequently referred to in local historical literature, often quoted from older sources, and the literature also contains much previously unpublished material.

Nevertheless, different people have contributed to local historical literature, and it does not give a single view of folklore about archaeological monuments, although it does usually present it as important accounts. Some local historians construct their own interpretations of archaeological monuments according to a mixture of folklore and literature written by scholars. Local historians can even refer to archaeologists as experts, incorporating “expert claims” to support their own arguments, while others argue against the interpretations by archaeologists because these do not conform with local views. Others publish just locally known oral traditions or their own views. However, in most local historical literature, folklore and folk-beliefs are just included without debating their truth, while others argue against the view that this material is old or constitutes reliable sources.

In Norway, local historical publications play an important role in constructing and maintaining local identities, and they commonly stress the bounds between the present people, the location and their roots to the past. Hence, Anne Eriksen critically argues that folklore, and all that is “old”, seems in this literature to constitute the “essence” of the place (Eriksen 2002a: 206-7). References to archaeological monuments and finds are common, and they serve to show that the place has something old that it is found specifically there (Eriksen 2002a: 204).

The local historical literature researched for this book has been identified from local historical biographies from Agder (Andreassen 1983; Kaastrup 1986; Kaastrup and Kaastrup 1997). Local historical collections in various libraries have also been researched.7 The aim has been to search through most local historical literature published until year 2000, in some cases including literature up until 2004. Some literature is still missing, especially older local history journals that were difficult to find complete in the libraries. An overview of three types of local historical sources is given in the following:

In this literature, the local community is situated as the centre of its world, and its popularity is secured by stressing the importance of that place. Therefore, the journalist Arnhild Skre argues they have the making of bestsellers, because they can contain almost any content, but sell because the buyer and reader identify with the place described in the text (Skre 2000). The descriptions of the local place, its history, people and the

1. parish-books (bygdebøker) 2. other local historical books 3. local history journals In particular the University Library (Oslo), Oldsaksamlingen’s library (Oslo), Deichmanske (Oslo), Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt (NLI, The Norwegian Institute of Local History, Oslo), Aust-Agder kulturhistoriske senter (Arendal) and Statsarkivet (Kristiansand). 7

the files can contain relevant unpublished material.

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 5.5.1 Parish-books (bygdebøker)

late 1930s the archaeologist Jan Petersen published a short article with advice on how to write the archaeology chapter in the parish-books (Petersen 1937–41).

The genre of parish-book (bygdebok) is the most important local historical source. Parish-books have their roots in earlier historical-topographical descriptions, but were established as a distinct genre of local historical literature in the early twentieth century when the importance of the home-place was increasingly stressed in Norway and the rest of Europe (Sandnes 1970: 30; Reinton 1970: 40; Eriksen 2002a: 198). Most parish-books resemble each other, although their structure and content have changed during the twentieth century and they often differ according to the writer.

The parish-book is the most important genre of literature to have the function of creating and maintaining local identities by writing the history of a place. Therefore, they have been criticized for connecting the present-day people, the parish and its past by describing the continuity of the place through time (Eriksen 2002a: 213, 215). Their significance for local identities is further present through the geographical units they cover. Most present-day municipalities consist of small and older municipalities that corresponded with a parish, but these were joined from the 1960s into larger municipalities. These older municipalities often constitute the geographical space of the parish-books, and there is a concern that all parishes should have one. The local council is therefore usually in charge of getting them published, in close contact with – and usually with some pressure from – a parish-book committee, a localhistorical society or a writer. Writing a parish-book is, however, an extremely time-consuming task that involves one or several writers and volunteers for several years.

Most researched parish-books were published after 1950. In Agder, writing them was often initiated and assisted by Agder Historielag (Agder Historical Society, est. 1914), the archive in Kristiansand (1935), and from 1941 a central office for writing parish-books (Bjørkvik 1970: 110). The Norwegian Institute of Local History in Oslo was then established in 1955 to encourage and promote local and regional historical research and literature.8 The institute maintains today an internet site on local historical literature and research.9 The writers could also get guidance from archaeologists, and for instance in the 8 9

Local people, often a male schoolteacher with a farming background, wrote the older parish-books, and they used their spare time for this for several decades, with only minor support

http://www.lokalhistorie.no/nli.html (accessed 24 January 2008) http://www.lokalhistorie.no/index.html (accessed 24 January 2008)

Illus. 5.9: A contemporary parish-book committee (Reproduced from Løyland 1999: 8) 52

Sources and methods from the municipality. Professionally trained historians usually wrote the more recent parish-books on commission from the municipality, but these also required voluntary local involvement and took several years to complete.

Nazi party during World War II. Replacing an old parish-book with a new one can also cause local controversy, and is viewed as demeaning to the first writer and his family. Looking at the content of the parish-books, they usually comprise two main parts in several volumes:

The parish-books are often the main source – apart from schoolbooks and media – for many people to attain knowledge about the past, and they are unequalled in information about local history. The parish-books can therefore be seen as the locally “authorized” history of the parish. Growing up in Agder myself, but also conducting fieldwork in the area during the research for this book, I have often noticed how people with almost no books on their shelves still owned the parish-books, especially those who had a connection to a farm.

1. the cultural history 2. the farm and family history Most older books are disorganised about the cultural history of the parish, alluding to various topics with scarce connections between them. However, the historian Andreas Holmsen published in 1936 the cultural history of a parish in East Norway using a strict chronology. The chronological approach has since become the standard procedure in most parish books, although the thematic approach is still found in books published long after him (Fladby 1970: 62-3; Eriksen 2002a: 198-9). Several parish-books introduce the cultural historical volume with a song, poem or an introduction with a tribute to the home place. Depending on the personal interests of the writer, folklore about archaeological monuments is in some cases found in the archaeology chapter, but also in sections about folk-memory or examples of local dialects (parish-books are often written in a style close to the local dialect).

Some parish-books are nevertheless, for various reasons, criticized by other local people. One of the books used contains lively and “fringe” descriptions of archaeological monuments (Tveiten 1965: 36-40 and other), and it has been criticized for mixing historical sources with pure fantasy, and is in addition nationalistic in attacking Danish high officials during the Danish period (Engelschiøn 1968). Some parishbooks can even be seen as gossip books, so they are criticized for containing factual errors, or the writer was a member of the

Illus. 5.10: Magnus Breilid Breilid collected around 1946 folklore from the informant Astrid Rydlende, born 1874 (reproduced from Breilid 1971: 33; see also Breilid 1974: 44). 53

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record The farm and family history of the farm is reckoned to be a particularly Norwegian phenomenon, as allegedly no other countries in the world have such a large amount of this kind of literature (Winge 1995: 78). The farm and family history usually devotes one chapter to each farm, introduced with a short history of the farm and then followed by a genealogical list of people who have lived there. Farm names and archaeological finds are used as sources to indicate when the farm was settled, but also folklore about archaeological monuments can be quoted in the farm and family volume. This part is all about the roots of a farm, and it stresses what can be seen as a myth about the Norwegian free farmers who have “always” lived on the farm, although free ownership of the farms mainly holds first after the seventeenth century (Eriksen 2002a: 210). By using the church registry and other documents, the lineage of people currently living at a farm can still in several cases be traced back to the first named people who lived at the farm in the early seventeenth century. Studying the family-histories in the parish-books is therefore popular for people who today live at a farm, or who trace their family back to the farm they still use as their family name.

The municipality or historical society has published many, or the writer publishes and covers much of the expenses him- or herself.

More than a hundred parish-books from Agder have been researched, so it is impossible to discuss how all the writers approach folklore about archaeological monuments. A short account is given about one writer only: the journalist and local historian Magnus Breilid. Breilid played an important role in publishing local history in Agder, especially through the central office established in 1941 to stimulate the writing of local history in Agder (Bjørkvik 1970: 110). Breilid collected folklore in Vest-Agder from the 1920s, much published in his parish-books in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Breilid’s parishbooks are good examples of how folklore about archaeological monuments is woven into and enlivens the text, although Breilid gives contradictory views on its value.

5.5.3 Local history journals

The earliest of these local history books date from the second half of the nineteenth century, and they are forerunners of the later genre of parish-books (Sandnes 1970: 26-30). Priests often wrote these books, and they devoted them mainly to biographies of their own predecessors, but some also include legends about archaeological monuments (e.g. Aas 1999 [1869]; Blom 1896). Other kinds of authors also wrote some of these early local history books (e.g. Flood 1875, 1877, 1879). A good example of a recent local history book that contains folklore about archaeological monuments was in 1988 published by, more rarely, a woman (Neset 1988). The topic of the book is old memorials (archaeological monuments), but Neset never refers to archaeological sources about these memorials, using mainly legends and oral testimonies. But she has been in frequent contact with archaeologists, and a letter from an archaeologist is printed in the book in support of the work.

Local history journals, published mainly by the local history societies, belong to a third category of local historical literature. Fifty-one local history societies are currently active in Agder, in addition to the Agder Historielag (Agder Historical Society), established in 1914. Nearly half of these societies were established during the 1980s and ’90s, and they range in size from 16 to 818 members (Agder Historielag 2005: 220-4). Several societies publish a journal, and most of these have been researched up to the year 2000. Although professionals can publish in the journals, non-professionals write most of the articles. The quality of the articles differs, and some may be no more than a page long, containing for instance a legend about an alleged burial mound (e.g. Rossevatn 1992).

Breilid argues on the one hand against the historical truth of some folklore and folk-etymologies (e.g. Breilid 1965: 238-9), but he also includes legends as historical accounts about burial mounds (e.g. Breilid 1966: 247; 1974: 42-3). This second choice contradicts to some extent the lesson Breilid learned when he was young and set about collecting folklore about the Viking Age scald Thjotolf from Agder who is known from Medieval sources (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Snorri’s Foreword). Breilid found relics from the past in the parish where Thjotolf should have lived: the people knew the scald from Snorri, he found burial mounds at the place – even one suggested to be Thjotolf ’s – and he heard legends, but he could not find any oral evidence about the scald. Breilid therefore learned the hard lesson himself that historical accounts do not survive for thousands of years, although he was excited if other people could find out more about the scald (Breilid 1973: 12-13).

5.6 Archaeological sources In chapter 4, an overview was given on how archaeologists in Norway have generally approached folklore about archaeological monuments. These sources, with complementary publications covering the archaeology of Ager, will not be repeated here, but they are used in Part II mainly as sources for attaining knowledge on how archaeologists have responded to particular narratives. However, in addition, archaeological sources such as surveys and Oldsaksamlingen’s archive are used to gain knowledge about folklore, and these are discussed below. 5.6.1 Surveys for the Economic Maps and Fornminneregisteret (1964–1989/2002)

5.5.2 Other local history books In addition to parish-books, an abundance of other local history books cover the history of a family, the farm, parish, municipality or the whole of Agder. These can be devoted to a single topic, such as archaeology, folklore, monuments and sites, place-names, etc., but may also give a general description of the place and remind us of earlier topographical descriptions.

The archaeological surveys for the Economic Maps, conducted in Agder between 1964 and 1989, but not in all municipalities, contain an abundance of folklore about archaeological monuments. Archaeological surveys had been conducted before 1964, but they were now systematically carried out over the whole country in order to mark monuments and sites on the 54

Sources and methods Economic Maps and take them into account in the planning process. The five archaeological museums were responsible for the surveys, and Elizabeth Skjelsvik was in charge of Oldsaksamlingen’s work (Skjelsvik 1998a: 12, 39). The archaeological surveys were detached, however, in 1991 from the Economic Maps, and even though not all municipalities in Norway had been covered, archaeologists have since conducted surveys mainly prior to new developments (Holme 2001b: 58).

In an initial suggestion for a nomenclature for the register, “tradition” is used as a category of sites that are connected to legends and other orally transmissions and that have no visible archaeological remains (Sollund and Larsen 1995: 20). The current nomenclature does not, however, define the category “tradition” (NIKU 2000). Because of the difficulty of documenting the age of traditions, sites with traditions have also in most cases not been surveyed (cf. Holme 2001b: 47-8; Skjelsvik 1971: 15, 44, 49-50). When in 2002 the surveys were imported from Fornminneregisteret, only 94 (2 per cent) of the surveyed localities from Agder were categorized as traditions. The practice of surveying these sites is not consistent, and they include for instance oral evidence about destroyed archaeological monuments that in other cases are categorized as lost burial mounds. Only 17 of the sites surveyed as traditions are according to the registry automatically protected. Reasons for protecting these, and not other sites, are not given, and the protection status is probably rather arbitrarily decided by the surveyor. Still, the fact that some natural sites are protected does indicate that the surveyors viewed oral traditions as venerable and they thought that the sites were important to preserve.

The surveys for the Economic Maps, as well as later surveys conducted prior to developments, were until 2003 entered in the database Fornminneregisteret, the Sites and Monuments Registry.10 In February 2004, the Directorate for Cultural Heritage introduced a new database named Askeladden after a famous figure in Norwegian tales.11 This database also contains protected buildings and other cultural heritage sites. However, Fornminneregisteret is used as a source in this book since most research had been completed before the launch of Askeladden, and all identification numbers referred to in the text, ID followed by a number, refer to Fornminneregisteret. On 15 May 2002, Fornminneregisteret was exported and converted to an Access file that has been researched. On the day of export, Fornminneregisteret contained 5,839 records of localities surveyed in Agder (3,191 from Vest-Agder and 2,648 from Aust-Agder), but each locality might have several individual monuments and sites. Of the surveyed localities, 3,590 are automatically protected and marked with a rune R on the Economic Maps (1,916 in Vest-Agder and 1,674 in Aust-Agder). But 1,617 sites are not automatically protected, and these are coded with an X in the registry and not marked on the Economic Maps (956 in Vest-Agder and 661 in AustAgder). These sites are mainly “find-spots”, localities with lost monuments and sites, but also natural features interpreted by the local people as ancient monuments. At the time of export 632 records had no stated preservation status (319 in VestAgder and 313 in Aust-Agder).

Traditions as a property used to trace monuments In Fornminneregisteret, traditions are secondarily used as a property of surveyed monuments and sites. A field in the survey sheet is designated to record “tradition”, and the guidance for the surveyors explains that here, legends associated with a site can be recorded (Skjelsvik 1971: 13). Traditions about monuments are, however, mainly not included in the surveys because they are seen as important for archaeological research. Conversely, archaeologists have suggested that they represent mainly curious and remarkable stories and serve as sources that archaeologists can use to trace archaeological monuments (Holm 1999: 226; Pramli 1999: 24). Prior to the surveys, sites were identified partly from folklore accounts previously recorded in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive and other relevant literature, such as archaeological and local historical parish-books (Skjelsvik 1998a: 13). Owners and local people with an interest in history were further contacted to identify find-spots, monuments and sites (Larsen and Sollund 1993: 38). Only rarely did the surveyors use folklore collections to trace monuments, but in Agder the folklore collection of Johannes Skar from Setesdal is the exception (see section 5.4.2). This is mainly because a local historian participated in the surveys, and he researched the collection in order to identify traditions about monuments and sites in the valley.

Approximately 12 per cent (673) of the records in Fornminneregisteret from Agder contain folklore, or other accounts of the monuments, of relevance for this book. Folklore is usually termed “traditions” in the registry, and the term is used in two different senses as discussed below. Tradition as a category of protected natural sites The term “tradition”, as used in Fornminneregisteret, can refer to natural places automatically protected under the Cultural Heritage Act if these have associated traditions that are older than AD 1537. According to the law, these include: thingsteads, cult sites, cult deposition sites and cairns, wells, springs and other places associated with archaeological finds, traditions, beliefs, legends or customs. (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §4 f ), my emphasis)

That folklore could be used to trace archaeological monuments and sites is a good example of traditions having importance in Norwegian archaeology from the 1960s, a period otherwise characterized by a general scepticism towards this type of material. The local historian Gunbjørg Miland, who in the 1970s surveyed sites for Elizabeth Skjelsvik in Telemark, even discusses one example of how she used a local legend

Available with a password at http://niku.no/fornminne/ (accessed 24 January 2008); a modified version that does not require password available at http://www.uib.no/arkeoland/fastmFS.htm (accessed 24 January 2008) 11 Available with a password at http://159.162.103.56/login/index.jsp (accessed 24 January 2008) 10

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record told about a king and a queen to trace their alleged burial.12 Although Miland found it possible that a core of the story could have been transmitted through a thousand years, she valued the legend mainly because it enabled her to find burial mounds and to prove that the site had been settled in the Iron Age (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 23-33).

nearness and meaning in a way that the interpretations of specialists cannot. (Schanche 1995: 42, my translation) This quality of traditions is not restricted to the Sámi people, but holds in some cases also for ethnic Norwegians. Therefore, it is of particular interest to note that when, in 2004, the new registry named Askeladden was introduced, folklore recorded during the surveys was omitted. This seemed contradictory in a period when archaeologists gained a new interest in folklore. Omitting these traditions, and in addition other collected cultural historical information, might then have encouraged the view that archaeologists and planners should only document and consider the physical appearance of monuments and sites. The extension of these structures can be mapped and protected, but the abstract and cultural historical values of the protected sites looked to be of less importance. Due to several requests, the information was, in 2007, again included in the registry.

Although traditions had some importance for the surveys, traditions are only by chance or according to a personal interest of the surveyor included in the survey sheet. Of the 5,839 localities surveyed in Agder by 2002, only 226 (4 per cent) contain information in the field ascribed for tradition. But folklore is also frequently recorded in the description field and in the locality-name field in the survey sheet. In the survey reports, most folklore is recorded in a brief and allusive style, like a legend note. These are commonly stories about battles, kings, supernatural beings or treasures, but also oral testimonies about archaeological finds or local people who have opened or destroyed burial mounds. The surveys are therefore valuable sources for attaining knowledge about traditions known by local people in Agder between 1964 and 1989, and they indicate that people often knew folklore, often from published sources, but in several cases also as oral transmissions.

5.6.2 Oldsaksamlingen’s topographical archive (1811–1994) Oldsaksamlingen’s topographical archive is a significant archaeological source used to gain knowledge about the life histories of archaeological monuments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The archive can be traced back to the first 1811 collection of antiquities held by the society Det Kongelige Selskap for Norges Vel, established in 1809. The archive contains reports of archaeological surveys and excavations, letters to and from Oldsaksamlingen with information about monuments and sites, finds, preservation conflicts with the owners, etc. Photos and drawings are also kept in the files, and in some cases newspaper articles about excavations, finds, preservation conflicts, etc.

Included in the surveys are often names on monuments, but it is often uncertain whether a recorded name refers to its official name, or the place name from the locality in which the monument is located. On the survey sheet, one of the fields is designated for recording the local name, while the official name of a monument is as a rule written in the general description, for instance “the name of the burial mound is...” (Skjelsvik 1971: 12).13 This system is in most cases not applied, and although the name of the burial mound is in some cases clearly stated in the description, it is usually mixed with the name of the locality.

All the files from Agder were researched in the older section of the archive mainly, until 1994 when a new archive system was introduced, but also fractions of newer material that could be relevant. Some files and documents were not in place during the time of researching the archive, but photocopies of some files were found in the county administrations in Aust- and Vest-Agder.

Although legends and traditions have been documented in the survey reports, the general description of the monuments, such as their size, is of main importance to record. This contrasts with a view held by the archaeologist Audhild Schanche in the context of Sámi archaeology. She argues that surveys often intend to record what can be quantified, such as the size and extension of archaeological monuments, but not what is told about them (Schanche 1990: 90). From this perspective, traditions in Sámi archaeology have a quality that according to Schanche is (or ought to be) important for both local people and archaeologists:

Oldsaksamlingen’s catalogue, available on the internet,14 also contains minor references to folklore and names on archaeological monuments. The catalogue was only in a few cases checked since most relevant information is also kept in the archive. 5.7 Other published sources

Written sources about Sámi history are sparse. Monuments and sites are our most important source of knowledge about the history of the Sámi settlements and subsistence in former periods. For the last few hundred years, oral knowledge and traditions, transmitted from generation to generation in the Sámi local community, are an equally important source. The traditions give depth and life to the cultural heritage and landscape. They create 12 13

Other published sources, in addition to the main categories discussed above, can also be important sources on folklore about archaeological monuments, but research on these had to be limited. Publications by historians for instance have not been extensively researched, since this would have required a major discussion of another academic discipline and its relation to folklore. Checking selected literature written by historians revealed surprisingly little of relevance, since folklore

Miland nordre and Haugene, Tinn, Telemark, ID 038240 and ID 038241 Elizabeth Skjelsvik pers.com. 13 February 2003

http://www.dokpro.uio.no/arkeologi/oslo/hovedkat.html (accessed 24 January 2008) 14

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Sources and methods about archaeological monuments is not a central issue in their writing. Some older (Schøning 1771; Suhm 1787) and newer publications (Steinnes 1963) were nevertheless used, but these are exceptions.

for a biography see Faye 1867: 429-46). Hansen was a rational bishop who started up reading societies in Agder (Byberg 1998). He was a protagonist for enlightening the common people, who he reckoned were much more superstitious than in his home country of Denmark (Hansen 1803: 351). Hansen therefore collected and published superstitious beliefs from Agder and argued fiercely against them – providing an interesting description of a mound interpreted in several sources as a burial mound, discussed in chapter 8 (Hansen 1803: 359-61; reprinted in Eriksen and Amundsen 1999: 11-12).17 Clergymen have also written some of the previously discussed historical-topographical publication and local historical literature.

Folklore about archaeological monuments is found more often in philological literature. These include older dictionaries, and the oldest one used dates to the late seventeenth century (Hannaas 1911). Philologists also collected folklore when in the mid-nineteenth century they travelled through Norway to document dialects (Aasen 1923: 89-90). Philologists in the early twentieth century even used folklore as a source to gain knowledge about pre-Christian conditions, in particular the Agder-born Magnus Olsen (1878–1963). Most famously, Olsen creatively interpreted a c.seventh-century rune stone, found in 1917 in a burial chamber in West Norway, according to a legend from Setesdal that he thought contained information about general pre-Christian cultural conditions (Olsen 1914–24: 115-17; cf. legend in Blom 1896: 129-30; Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 64-5; other uses of folklore in Olsen 1912: 1920; Olsen 1919).15 Contemporary folklorists even argued that Olsen’s interpretation proved the importance of collecting folk-beliefs because they gave knowledge about pre-history (Christiansen 1925: 13-14). Still, Olsen’s use of the legend is disputed and not supported today, and it was criticized already in 1931 for being based on ideas that were not found on the inscription (Spurkland 2001: 65-82). Although agreeing that contemporary folk-beliefs could be used to interpret Iron Age mortuary rituals, Olsen still argued that a legend about a burial mound in Setesdal was a recent constructed narrative based on book-lore (Olsen 1920).16

Travel literature also gives lively descriptions of folklore about archaeological monuments and the local people. These were often written by foreigners, such as the British Frederick Metcalfe (1815–85), who in 1858 travelled through Setesdal (Norwegian edition Metcalfe 1971 [1858]: 180-84). Some of the most important travel books that give information on folklore abut archaeological monuments in Agder are written by the Norwegian ethnographer Yngvar Nielsen (1843– 1916), born in Aust-Agder (Nielsen 1880: 68-104; 1891). Between 1878 and 1882, Nielsen travelled through Norway in order to collect Norwegian objects for the ethnographic museum, partly as a response to, and in competition with, the Swedish museum founder Arthur Hazelius (1833–1901), who from 1872 acquired Norwegian antiquities for his museum in Stockholm (Reinton 1970: 34). In the nineteenth century, writers also gave attention to legends. In Agder, two poets in particular were inspired by legends discussed in this book to which they gave poetic form (Schwach 1837: 3-23; 1856: 3-17; Schwach and Stubhaug 1992 [1848]: 233; Aalholm 1832: 180-99).

Folklore about archaeological monuments has also been recorded by the military. Most important are the 1859 surveys by Lieutenant Emanuel Lund (born 1830) of approximately seventeen archaeological localities in Agder, mainly burial mounds, about which Lund also recorded legends. Lund’s descriptions are short, but because he made illustrations – for archaeologists did not draw until the early twentieth century – his surveys are the most detailed nineteenth-century documentation of archaeological monuments in Agder (Stylegar 1998 [1859]: 3).

Local newspapers sometimes published legends about archaeological monuments in the early twentieth century. After the 1960s, newspapers are also an important source on protection conflicts between archaeologists and local people. Despite their importance, newspapers have not been systematically researched and most articles used are found in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive, while others have been checked on microfilm in the National Library (Oslo). Using newspaper articles as sources can be problematic as several errors might be present and journalists often treat archaeologists from a critical perspective. Still, newspaper articles shape public opinion and are an invaluable source on public debate, while readers’ letters are also sources on local views about archaeology and protection.

Interpretations about archaeological monuments can come from unsuspected sources, such as in the writings of the geologist Baltazar Mathias Keilhau (1797–1858). Keilhau travelled through Norway to study geology, but he also described people, nature and archaeological monuments. Most interesting is his journey along the coastline of Agder, carried out in 1836, to find out if the land had risen after the Ice Age, a theory proposed in Sweden a hundred years earlier. Investigating the coast and the nearby land, Keilhau discussed archaeological monuments and their distance from the sea, and he recorded in addition interpretations of them held in the 1830s (Keilhau 1838).

Finally, scholars in religious studies have used folklore and folk-beliefs as sources to attain knowledge about Norse religion and its survival after the introduction of Christianity; most important of these was the theologian and missionary Emil Birkeli (1877–1952). Birkeli had a strong interest in archaeology, and in 1932 he even excavated a stone-circle in Agder.18 Birkeli is probably the academic who has most

Other sources are the writings of clergymen, such as the bishop of Agder 1798–1804, the Dane Peder Hansen (1746–1810, 15 16

Eggjum, Sogndal, Sogn og Fjordane Hanehaug, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809

17 18

57

Possibly Tussehaugen, Viken, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014357 UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Lindesnes/Nylund, excavation report and

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record extensively discussed folklore about burial mounds (Birkeli 1938; see also Birkeli 1943, 1944). Birkeli’s 1938 publication is of most importance as he systematically interprets folklore and folk-beliefs about burial mounds as survivals of preChristian ancestors worship. Sources he uses from Agder are mainly the folklore collections of Johannes Skar, Storaker and Fuglestvedt (1881), and in addition Nicolaysen (1862–6) on archaeological monuments.

house-god from Setesdal, this is not a survival of pre-Christian religion, but probably a remnant of a stave-church demolished in the sixteenth century and taken care of by the local people as an important Christian and Catholic object (Bø 1959; Berg 1959). These figures are today not seen as survivals of preChristian religion, and the older folkloristic interpretations are seen as curiosities (Eriksen and Amundsen 1999: 139).20

Birkeli worked for sixteen years as a missionary in Madagascar, where he described the religion and customs of “primitive people” (Birkeli 1938: 10). He used his observations about the dead as inspiration when he argued for the importance of ancestor worship in Norway, that was suppressed in the Middle Ages by Christianity (Birkeli 1938: 109-12). Inspired by contemporary psychology, Birkeli argued that this suppression caused a degeneration of the old religion, that now sank down to the culturally unconscious and was only visible through “imaginations and arbitrary acts at certain festivities, when they were mechanically executed” (Birkeli 1938: 112). By applying this psychological perspective, Birkeli used folklore and folk-beliefs about burial mounds to recover – or excavate through the layers of culture – evidence of ancestor worship in Norway.

5.8 Fieldwork Finally, fieldwork was carried out by visiting some of the sites discussed in the text and talking with local people. This part of the project is reminiscent of an oral history approach (e.g. Moser et al. 2002), but is also an aspect of community archaeology, since local people were informed about the project and I received feedback that influenced the project. During the summers of 2001–4, I visited c.100 farms, several twice, some which have several burial mounds and other archaeological sites. As the research progressed, however, the interviews became a less important source than first expected. The initial plan was that the interviews should be used as sources to a broad discussion of current perceptions of burial mounds, but I decided in the end to use mainly the rich previously recorded material. The response I received during talks nevertheless served as important background material for the research; a few interviews are referred to throughout the text, but are used as sources mainly in chapter 11.

Birkeli’s work is unusually informative if one is interested in folklore about burial mounds. He even inspired contemporary archaeologists, such as Brøgger who used Birkeli as the main source on the folk-beliefs he discussed (Brøgger 1945: 20-21, 28-30), but also later archaeologists who have interpreted the burial mound from a religious perspective (Løken 1974: 194-211). However, for several reasons, Birkeli’s work remains problematic:

The first fieldwork was carried out during two weeks in July 2001 on the peninsula of Lista. Lista was chosen because it is the area in Agder with the highest density of archaeological sites, and folklore is known about several burial mounds, and also preservation conflicts between archaeologists and the local people were unusually strong here during the 1970s and ’80s. In addition to informal talks with local people and visits to the sites, thirteen structured interviews were undertaken, in some cases with both the husband and wife, where the interviewee formally accepted to participate in the project. These informants were all anonymous, as this allegedly would make them freer to talk and protect their interests. A total of eight women and eight men, ranging from the age of 29 to 82, were interviewed, mainly farm owners who have burial mounds on their properties, but in two cases also other people who lived close to burial mounds. The interviewees were chosen because folklore was associated with the burial mounds on their properties, or the owners had previously conflicts with archaeologists, while others were arbitrarily chosen and I did not have knowledge about the burial mounds before I approached the owners. The owners were contacted by ringing at their door, telling them about my project, and asking if they would like to be interviewed now or later.

(1) Birkeli discusses only folklore and beliefs that he interprets as relicts of ancestor worship. Other kinds of folklore about burial mounds are not considered. (2) Birkeli is interested in the general phenomenon of ancestor worship, and he approaches ethnographic, folkloristic, Norse and archaeological sources from the same perspective, although these sources differ according to culture, time and place. (3) Birkeli approaches most beliefs about burial mounds as pre-Christian, which was a typical interpretation of folkbeliefs in the first half of the twentieth century. That this approach is problematic is present in Birkeli’s discussion of Norwegian “house-gods”: figures believed to be pre-Christian idols kept by farmers in their houses, but most were destroyed by the nineteenth century in order to erase superstitions. These remarkable exotic objects attracted from the late eighteenth century the interest of several scholars, and early-twentiethcentury folklorists saw them as important survivals of preChristian religion that had survived among the people (e.g. Berge 1920; Lid 1928: 158-69). The house-gods from Setesdal are especially famous, and one came according to the legends from a burial mound (earliest account by Gjelleböl 1800: 26).19 However, analyzing the descriptions of another famous

Fieldwork was also conducted for a couple of days in August 2002, three weeks in July/August 2003, and a couple of days in 2004. Surveys conducted in Vest-Agder during four weeks in July 2005 for the county administration gave yet more Archaeologists have still recently interpreted a figure from Rogaland, described as a house-god in elderly folkloristic sources, from the perspective that it is a pre-Christian survival (Dahl 2005). 20

letter from Emil Birkeli May/June 1932. 19 Fargebakk, Rike, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID ik12885 and ID 014335

58

Sources and methods built on top of or close to burial mounds burned down between 1989 and 2002, and the owners then had trouble rebuilding them or constructing a new access road. Archaeologists argued that these constructions would damage or, according to §3 of the Cultural Heritage Act of 1978, unduly disfigure the burial mounds. However, talking with the owners in a non-conflict situation, where they could talk freely, they were more diplomatic and interested in archaeology than I expected them to be after these fierce fights with archaeologists. They were also careful about not being too negative towards archaeologists, possibly because I am one. (2) I realized the importance of talking about burial mounds to make people conscious and aware about them. Several informants were uninterested when I approached them, but became increasingly aware of the burial mounds as we talked, and then expressed interest and curiosity. This applied in particular to the younger generation, those about 20-40 years old. Although several had as children heard about the burial mounds from parents and grandparents, they did not communicate this knowledge to their own children. This possibly shows that the younger generation is less interested in and not concerned about telling the history of their farm to the next generation. However, it is probably also due to change of land use, with less intensive use of much farmland that is increasingly getting overgrown, and maybe the new generation seldom go to, or use, the outlying fields of their farms where burial mounds can be located.

Map 5.1: Farms visited 2001–4 C.100 farms were visited during the project period.

background knowledge, but was not part of the research for this book. Most burial mounds visited during these years had folklore attached to them or were reused in special ways. Structured interviews were not conducted and most farms were quickly visited to see the sites only. I stayed longer on those farms where I talked informally with people, and I usually asked them about what they knew about the burial mounds. Phone calls were also given to local people and local historians when in doubt about a source discussed in the text.

(3) I learned about communication. I found it surprisingly easy to communicate openly with the owners of burial mounds, and I realized this open communication seldom happens in a conflict situation. Still, communication is important when archaeologists, according to the Cultural Heritage Act, legally have the decision-making “right” on their side. The Norwegian archaeologist Lillehammer points out a second problem that can present an obstacle to communication in a conflict situation: more than one archaeologist comes to the farm, and the owner can feel he is standing alone against the authorities (Lillehammer 2004: 185). However, I always conducted the interviews alone, and I hope was therefore not seen as a threat to the owner. Not representing any authorities, they should have been freer to express their interests. One owner even stated that he would have told me as little as possible if I had represented the authorities, but coming on my own business, he told me what he knew.

The results from the interviews were varied and not that surprising, although they taught me some lessons that served as important background knowledge during the research: (1) I was surprised by the interest the local people showed the project, and everyone gave immediately the information and help I requested. A few also made strong requests that I write positively about the local people. Only one owner refused to show the location of a burial mound, and he – an elderly bachelor – laughed loudly because he did not believe the structure was a burial mound and he found the legend about it ridiculous too. He still invited me in to talk about other issues than the burial mound. When I returned to the farm next year, my interest still amused him, but he decided after a while to give the location of the burial mound.

(4) I reconfirmed that many people view protection and archaeologists with scepticism. Although most informants showed some interest in my project and in archaeology, others had little interest in archaeology and they were frustrated that burial mounds on their properties were protected. Some wanted to utilize their land better, while others disliked the idea of having graves on their property. Scepticism was also expressed through jokes and laughter about archaeologists who

The generally positive attitude surprised me because several of the informants had been in serious conflicts with archaeologists. For instance, the houses of three informants that had been

59

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record have surveyed clearance cairns as burial cairns, and people were able to complain that archaeologists were stubborn when they argued that these features were ancient monuments. However, such scepticism towards the authorities does not apply to archaeologists only, and I often heard stronger complaints over environmentalists and environmental protection.

this legend through four hundred years. Despite the abundance of the narratives, it is likely that Spang has never existed – just as most creatures and people mentioned in legends discussed in this book. Consequently, most narratives in the database Spang do not reflect what can be seen as a reality, but they have in various periods and by different people been given importance just by being talked about.

5.9 Method: constructing the corpus database Spang

5.9. 2 Selecting the sources in Spang

To make a methodological tool to store and analyze folklore about archaeological monuments found in the sources discussed above, a corpus database was constructed. In this chapter, method is seen as a practical task carried out to gain knowledge about the field of enquiry, and it is not approached as a theoretical abstract field. Consequently, this chapter discusses how I constructed the corpus database (in Microsoft Access) as a tool to reach the aim of attaining knowledge about the later life histories of burial mounds and how scholars have responded to these.

The major aim has been to include in Spang all discovered folklore, traditions and beliefs about burial mounds in Agder, while disturbances and reuses had a lower priority and Spang contains only selected accounts. The version of Spang in Appendix 1 of this book contains the following information about archaeological monuments and folklore about them: • Information about the archaeological monument: type of archaeological monument mentioned in the narrative (e.g. burial mound or standing stone), identification number in Fornminneregisteret if it is surveyed, museum catalogue number of any antiquities from the monument. • Geographical information giving the location of the monument: county, municipality, farm name, number in the land register (matrikkel), reference to the Economic Map. • The narrative: common and proper names of the monument, exact quotation from the source of all discovered legends, beliefs and selected accounts of disturbances and reuses, analysis of all narratives by coding them with keywords. • Source: publication or archive in which the narrative is found, categorization of the source (e.g. archaeological or local historical).

The corpus database had two main purposes: (1) It enabled me to store and analyze a large quantity of source material. The database is an almost complete corpus of published folklore and beliefs about burial mounds in Agder, but also other monuments and sites, although a selection had to be made, which is discussed in this chapter. (2) The database is appended to this book in order to make the primary sources available to the reader, and it might have historical interest for local people or other researchers too. The corpus database is named Spang, a name that is meant to encapsulate folklore about archaeological monuments in Agder. The name Spang is hereafter used when referring to the database. The following chapter explains why the name Spang was chosen, before the selection procedure of the information entered in the database is considered.

Although all folklore narratives about archaeological monuments should be included in Spang, the content of the database is the result of a selection process described in the following:

5.9.1 The legendary Spang – a metaphor for narratives about burial mounds in Agder

(1) All narratives found about burial mounds are entered, but in addition, Spang contains selected information about other archaeological monuments and antiquities. Even folklore about some natural features is included (selected natural mounds, stones, trees) because these have similar folklore attached to them as burial mounds. Spang further contains a few general descriptions of folklore that contextualize views and interpretations held by scholars.

Spang is, according to folklore, a man who was interred in a burial mound in the parish Spangereid in Agder.21 This legendary figure is used in this book as a metaphor for narratives about archaeological monuments in Agder, and the corpus database of folklore is named Spang after him. The legend is used as a metaphor because it has an unusual reception history by being referred to in the oldest published sources (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 310), and in several sources until 1999 (Stylegar 1999c: 29, 121-3, 304-8, 312). The narratives are constantly changing, however, over a period of four hundred years, from a couple of sentences only during the first three hundred years to a complete narrative published in 1881.

(2) The complete narratives about archaeological monuments are entered in Spang. Extracts of the narratives are only entered if the larger narrative does not contain information relevant for the research. However, the narratives in Spang are disconnected from the context they were part of in their original publication. Therefore, users of Spang must check the original publication to understand the entire context of the narrative.

The legend about Spang contains several elements about the life histories of burial mounds in Agder, including changing perceptions and interpretations of them by scholars. The changes in narrative even show an enduring local importance of 21

(3) Spang contains, in most cases, all references to the same legend from different sources even if these contain the same information.

Presthus, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026937

60

Sources and methods with Fornminneregisteret to see if they have been surveyed. Some monuments were easily identified from the registry, for instance because the legend is mentioned in the survey report, or the survey report contains a reference to a source I have used, or the description in the survey report matches with the description in source. Fornminnregisteret’s identification number is in these cases included in Spang, alternatively with a question mark if I am uncertain if the monument has been identified.

(4) Several accounts in local historical literature are folk-beliefs, in the sense that people not trained in archaeology discuss, or speculate, about the past and burial mounds free from academic interpretations. Selections of these “speculations”, or fringe interpretations, are entered in Spang, but mainly those influenced by legends or other folk-beliefs found in a parish. (5) Interpretations by scholars are entered in Spang only if these are influenced by oral sources, were seen in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries as folk-beliefs, or they comment on the oral sources.

(11) The texts were either typed or scanned by using a software program (OmniPage Pro) that has converted the scanned image to text. Spang should ideally contain the exact quotation (including original spelling errors) from the original source, but although proofread immediately, several texts probably contain errors. Letters in italics, bold or underlined are not retained in Spang, but are in some cases stated in brackets. Quotations after handwritten texts probably contain more errors than typed sources since these could be difficult to interpret.

(6) All relevant narratives found are entered in Spang, even if the source value is uncertain or factually wrong, while some narratives may even have been invented by a writer. Any user of Spang must therefore approach the information found with alert criticism. (7) All texts entered in Spang are analyzed by keywords. Folklorists have a long history of developing catalogues that categorize legends according to types and motifs (overview of catalogues in Azzolina 1987). However, the coding in Spang differs from a folkloristic catalogue, and the purpose is only to enable simple queries in Spang. Some keywords were identified from catalogues of Norwegian folklore (Skjelbred 1983, 1989), but most were constructed by me when I worked with the sources and selected which information had relevance for the research. The aim was to keep the keywords simple and easy to understand for other people too. The keywords should in addition, when making queries, not match other keywords.22 The list of keywords used, with a short “encyclopaedic” explanation to each, is attached as Appendix 2.

(12) Relevant narratives may have been omitted from Spang because early in the research it was uncertain what kind of folklore was important. Handwritten texts and thousands of pages of local historical literature were rapidly browsed, and relevant information may have been missed. Selected sources were therefore checked more than once. Although this retrieved more material, searching all sources more than once was too time-demanding and some information was probably lost. (13) Selected archival sources from Oldsaksamlingen are omitted from the attached version of Spang due to protection of privacy, mainly documents concerning preservation conflicts. References to these conflicts are retained in Spang, but names of people mentioned in the sources may have been changed to NN, or else more information about the conflict is omitted in the record.

(8) All records are coded with their source category. Much literature belongs to more than one category, such as articles written by archaeologists and published in a local history journal. These are coded with two categories (archaeological and local history source), but discussed in the book as archaeological sources.

5.9.3 The problematic term “mound”

(9) One record in Spang may contain information about several monuments on different farms. Geographical information about all these monuments is as a general rule included according to “order of appearance” in the text. Several sources have been used to find the location of a monument on a farm and in a parish. These are in particular queries in Fornminneregisteret,23 the land register (matrikkelutkastet av 1950),24 maps,25 and Oldsaksamlingen’s catalogue.26 Despite these efforts, Spang probably contains several errors because a wrong farm was identified or the sources contain mistakes.

A major obstacle when entering the texts in Spang was to establish what kinds of monuments are mentioned in the sources, since they often use the term “mound” or other common names that can refer to both natural mounds and burial mounds. Even when studying the context, it is often uncertain whether a text refers to ideas surrounding burial mounds or treats natural mounds only. The problem of the natural mounds could have been solved if the book was limited to researching surveyed burial mounds or those discussed by archaeologists only. This would, however, be too exclusive, as several burial mounds have not been surveyed or are destroyed. Selected natural mounds then had to be included in the analysis, because these are in some sources interpreted as burial mounds.

(10) All monuments mentioned in Spang have been checked E.g. the term kjempe (giant) was first tried, but a query for kjempe also matches kjempehaug (giant mound), so the keyword was changed to kjemper (giants). 23 Available at http://niku.no/fornminne/ (accessed 24 January 2008, password required) 24 Available at http://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/stad/matr50 (accessed 24 January 2008) 25 Mainly Norgesglasset, available at http://ngis2.statkart.no/ng2/ng2.html (accessed 24 January 2008) 26 Available at http://www.dokpro.uio.no/arkeologi/oslo/hovedkat.html (accessed 24 January 2008) 22

The problem of identifying the type of monument is particularly present in folklore collections and local historical literature. For instance, the writer of a local history publication argues that place-names in his parish that contain the word “mound” (haug) either refer to burial mounds or natural mounds with burial mounds on the top, but if no burial mounds are currently known, they have been destroyed (Vere 61

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 5.11: The natural Angar’s mound Narratives about the mound are included in Spang: the sources say it is the burial place of a king, and people have tried to dig up his treasures. The lake in the foreground was, according to an origin legend, created when the soil was taken to build the mound. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Raen, Birkenes, Aust-Agder). 1994: 120). This view is not correct and several natural features, which have never locally been interpreted as burial mounds, may have compound names with “mound”, but still, only those features that might have been burial mounds were included in Spang. (Vere 1993, 1994, 1995).27

All structures interpreted, or possibly interpreted, in the sources as burial mounds are categorized as burial mounds in Spang even if they are natural mounds. If the survey reports give these burial mounds other terms, this is given in brackets in the export of the survey report, e.g. gravhaug (haug) or gravhaug (gravrøys) since a distinction between mounds and cairns is not made in Spang. A distinction is still made in Spang between natural and burial mounds:

Concerning mythical legends, the problem of natural mounds is particularly present, an issue discussed in section 8.2.4. Often it is uncertain whether the local people, collectors or publishers view the mounds mentioned in the legends as burial mounds, natural mounds or as something completely different.

Burial mound in Spang refers to a mound that archaeologists have surveyed as a burial mound; alternatively that archaeologists have not surveyed the mound, but it is stated in other sources, or said locally according to the source, that the mound is a burial mound. Some of these burial mounds can still be natural mounds or constructed for other purposes than burying the dead, even if archaeologists have surveyed them. The term burial mound therefore refers to a belief that a certain mound is a burial mound, not that it actually is a burial mound.

The ambiguity is easier to handle when it concerns legends about treasures interred in mounds, or historical legends that denote a mound as a burial place of a person. While several of these mounds are natural, they are included in the analysis because they are interpreted in the sources as burial mounds. The study of folklore about burial mounds can hence, in Richard Bradley’s terms, be seen as an archaeology of natural places too (Bradley 2000; cf. Bradley 1998; Tilley 1994).

“Burial mound” with quotation marks in Spang refers to mounds probably interpreted in at least one source as a burial mound, but surveyed or stated by archaeologists, and in some cases other sources, to be a natural or another feature (some

See also UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Farsund/Diverse III, report “Navn på fortidsminner på Lista, Vest-Agder” where the same problem occurs (probably written after 1965 by Abraham Vere). 27

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Sources and methods

700 600 500 400 300 200

2000-06

1990-99

1980-89

1970-79

1960-69

1950-59

1940-49

1930-39

1920-29

1910-19

1900-09

1890-99

1880-89

1870-79

1860-69

1850-59

1840-49

1830-39

1820-29

1810-19

1800-09

1750-99

1700-49

1650-99

0

1600-49

100

Fig. 5.1: Records in Spang according to year (1600-2006) According to year published, or alternatively the year surveyed or year recorded in a researched archive. 7%

4%

13 %

63

Åseral

Audnedal

Hægebostad

Songdalen

Søgne

Marnardal

Vennesla

Sirdal

Flekkefjord

Kvinesdal

Mandal

Kristiansand

Lindesnes

Lyngdal

Farsund

Risør

Vest-Agder

Gjerstad

Evje og

Tvedestrand

Iveland

Åmli

Birkenes

Vegårshei

Bykle

Froland

Lillesand

Bygland

Valle

Arendal

Grimstad

Aust-Agder

may still be burial mounds). Hence, a conflict ofArchaeological interpretation where we “choose to capture some and to set aside others” 11 % occurs whether a mound is a burial moundFornminneregisteret or not. These (Chippindale 2000: 608). The information entered in such a mounds are termed in the book both17“burial mounds” andarchive captabase is not fixed, but changes through time (Chippindale % Topographical natural mounds. 2000: 610). Information in Spang that changed during the Local historical research was in particular the keywords used to analyze the Folkloristic Burial mound? with a question mark in Spang refers to features narratives, the geographical information of the monument, where it is uncertain if the sources interpretTopographical it as a natural and which type of monument is mentioned in the text. mound or a burial mound. These 14 are%in the book referred to Consequently, the version of Spang at the end of this book Other sources 34 %burial mounds. These are in particular mounds as uncertain contains data as “captured” at the time of finishing the book, associated with supernatural creatures, and it is uncertain if a and much information in Spang, and the book, would have narrator, local people, recorder or publisher have interpreted changed if I had continued working on it. these as burial mounds, as nature, or something completely different. An uncertain burial mound can further be used for 4.9.5 Quantity of records in Spang a locality that according to a legend is the burial place of a 1000 Several “data” (or capta) stored in Spang are presented in certain person, but it is uncertain if the source refers to a burial 900 the book through tables, charts and in particular maps to mound 800 or a flat-grave. help visualize tendencies in the material, supported through 700 5.9.4 Capturing the “data” 600 a qualitative reading also. Hence, Spang enables both 500 quantitative and qualitative research. The database is still not Entering400 the folklore texts into Spang had an additional side a functional tool to gain knowledge of the percentage of burial effect: the 300narratives are detached from the context they were mounds in Agder having folklore attached to them, partly 200 part of in the original text, and to some extent stripped to “raw” because several burial mounds in the texts are difficult to 100 data that enables new interpretations (cf. Klepp 1998: 45). identify with surveyed burial mounds. Still, 12 per cent of the 0 Although the narratives are stripped from their context when surveys in Fornminneregisteret from Agder contain some kinds included in Spang, the data are still not “raw” as the sources of folklore or accounts relevant for the research. are selected and edited several times (Skjelbred 1998: 19): by the narrator, collector, publisher and when I selected them to Although narratives about burial mounds appear frequently be entered in Spang. According to the British archaeologist in the sources, most have probably never had any narratives Surveyed localities Records in Spang Christopher Chippindale, the sources are perhaps not even attached to them. Instead, selected burial mounds have become data. Data is Latin for given, while the archaeological record for dominant and several legends and beliefs are attached to them instance is not given, but according to Chippindale captured: that are repeated in different sources. These burial mounds are not only large and visible, but can be small and located My contention is that the data are not data at all, for they are in remote areas; some have even been destroyed, but legends practically never given to us by the archaeological record. about them have continued to be told. They are actually capta, things that we have ventured for in the search of and captured – with all that the idea of At the time of finishing this book, Spang contained 4,032 capture implies; hunting is a dangerous and uncertain records from Agder telling about various kinds of folklore, folkbusiness in the rugged country of archaeological material. beliefs, reuses or disturbances. Of these 4,032 records, 73 per (Chippindale 2000: 605, emphasis in original) cent treat burial mounds specifically, while the remaining 27 per cent treat other monuments and sites, or natural features, A database should consequently be treated as a captabase or offer a general comment on folklore.

200

2000-06

1990-99

1980-89

1970-79

1960-69

1950-59

1940-49

1930-39

1920-29

1910-19

1900-09

1890-99

1880-89

1870-79

1860-69

1850-59

1840-49

1830-39

1820-29

1810-19

1800-09

1750-99

1700-49

1650-99

0

1600-49

100

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record surveys in Fornminneregisteret and Oldsaksamlingen’s topographical archive, the archaeological sources are significant and include 44 per cent of the records in Spang.

13 %

Archaeological

The folkloristic sources also contain quantitatively less material (11 per cent), but they publish more often than the other sources complete narratives. The high representation of records from local historical literature in Spang (34 per cent), shows that quantitatively this is an enormous literature, but it might also indicate that there is an interest in folklore about archaeological monuments by writers of local history.

Fornminneregisteret Topographical archive Local historical Folkloristic Topographical Other sources

2000-06

1990-99

1980-89

1880-89

1870-79

1860-69

1850-59

1840-49

1830-39

1820-29

1810-19

1800-09

1750-99

1700-49

1650-99

1600-49

1970-79

400

1000 300 900 Fig. 5.1 shows the number of records in Spang according to 800 200 year published, or alternatively the year a monument was 700 surveyed or recorded in a researched archive. The figure 600 100 500 that from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, shows 0 the400 number of records in Spang is low. More than half of the 300 records date to after World War II, which is partly due to the 200 high number of local historical publications issued from the 100 1950s, 0 but also the archaeological surveys conducted in Agder

1960-69

500 Fig. 5.2: Records in Spang according to source category

1950-59

Fig. 5.3, which according to municipality visualizes both the total number of surveyed localities in Agder and the number of records in Spang, shows there is a geographic variation as to how common folklore is about archaeological monuments. The general tendency is that municipalities with a high number of surveyed sites are represented with a high number of records in Spang. This applies especially for Vest-Agder. Vest-Agder has the most surveyed localities in Agder (55 per cent), but as much as 68 per cent of the records in Spang. Folklore from Vest-Agder is also richer than that from Aust-Agder (except from Setesdal). Farsund (with the peninsula of Lista) is the municipality with the highest number of both surveyed localities and records in Spang. In Aust-Agder, Grimstad is the richest municipality. The municipalities of Hægebostad, Lindesnes, Valle and Bygland have rich traditions about just a few selected archaeological monuments.

600

1940-49

700

1930-39

34 %

1890-99

14 %

1920-29

17 %

1910-19

11 %

1900-09

4%

7%

Åseral

Audnedal

Hægebostad

Songdalen

Søgne

Marnardal

Vennesla

Sirdal

Flekkefjord

Kvinesdal

Mandal

Kristiansand

Lindesnes

Lyngdal

Farsund

Risør

Vest-Agder

Gjerstad

Evje og

Tvedestrand

Iveland

Åmli

Birkenes

Vegårshei

Bykle

Froland

Lillesand

Bygland

Valle

Arendal

Grimstad

Aust-Agder

between 1964 and 1989. The number of records dropped in the 1940s due to World War II. The drop from 2000 might reflect that proportionately fewer recent sources were 4% 13 % % researched7compared to earlier periods. However, since there is also a drop in sources from the 1990s, compared to the peak in Archaeological Surveyed localities Records in Spang 5.10 Conclusions % when several municipalities in Agder were surveyed, the111980s Fornminneregisteret it is plausible that for the future also, less folklore about The extensive discussion of the six main categories of 17 % Topographical archive archaeological monuments will be recorded or published. sources researched shows that folklore about archaeological Local historical monuments can be found in a variety of materials from the Fig. 5.2 shows the number of records in Spang according to Folkloristic seventeenth century until today. source category. Publications by archaeologists (including Topographical earlier antiquarians and archaeologists publishing in local When I began the research for this book, I presupposed that 14 % Other sources historical 34 %sources), which is 13 per cent of the records in folklore about archaeological monuments could be seen as Spang, contains relatively little folklore about burial mounds. “other stories”, just as such material has been approached in However, if one adds other archaeological sources, that is the the context of indigenous archaeologies. The abundance of

Surveyed localities

Records in Spang

Fig. 5.3: Surveyed archaeological localities and records in Spang according to municipality 64

Audnedal

Åseral

Songdalen

Hægebostad

Marnardal

Søgne

Vennesla

Sirdal

Flekkefjord

Kvinesdal

Mandal

Kristiansand

Lindesnes

Lyngdal

Farsund

Vest-Agder

Risør

Evje og

Gjerstad

Tvedestrand

Iveland

Åmli

Birkenes

Bykle

Vegårshei

Froland

Lillesand

Bygland

Valle

Arendal

Grimstad

Aust-Agder

1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

Sources and methods folklore material found in the sources does not necessarily support this view. Although the legends are not seen as true, they may in fact be more durable than archaeological theories if the same legend can be referred to from the seventeenth century up until today, and they outlive the original narrators, collectors and publishers. These narratives did still represent “other stories” for archaeologists in those periods when the discipline received strong scientific influence. Constructing the database Spang as a methodological tool to store and analyze folklore about burial mounds proved to be particular useful for facilitating the treatment of a large quantity of source material. The discussion of the selection procedure of the texts entered in Spang demonstrates that the database must be used with care. That a narrative has been found in the sources is not proof that it has been locally told, and a writer may have invented it, or a text might express an expectation only that a certain folk-belief was held about an archaeological monument. Errors may also have been made when the texts were entered in Spang. However, eventual errors and inventions in the sources have now been “captured” in Spang, and they will easily become “true” for other users of the corpus database. The analysis in Part II that follows is based on both a qualitative and quantitative study of the material recorded in Spang, but these assessments of the sources are not included in Spang.

65

Part II 6 Digging up burial mounds Two young people worked together at night and with the help of torches (...) to open a mound because they hoped to find gold and treasures. During the digging they soon came upon something hard that prevented them from going deeper into the mound, and after they had shuffled away an amount of sand, they could see with their eyes a grand, large stone slab and some smaller ones that were lying over a burial chamber built of flat and large stones. (...) What was found in this spacious, dry and attractive burial chamber when it now for the first time after the lapse of centuries was opened by remorseless, rapacious and for a sacred and venerable burial place insensitive people, is not easy to say. Nearly weeks lapsed from that time until the notifier came to the place. (...) The burial chamber still stands open to be looked at, the ash is blended with the sand that hid the burial place, the deceased person’s bones are dampened by the rain from the sky or faded by its sunshine, the urns lie broken in pieces, the sword-stumps are scattered. What evil has that previous man done to the present generation who dare unpunished to disturb the peace of the grave and take up to the daylight his probably weary and tired bones? Oh! Glorious freedom to ruin, plunder and desecrate the graves! (Dedekam 1849, my translation)

to present the find, but also to argue against local people who attempted to dig up burial mounds to find treasures (Dedekam 1849; see also Dedekam 1860: 103; Gjessing 1923: 35-6). The article is an early example of a controversy between the professional and the unskilled on how to dig burial mounds: both want to retrieve treasures, but different ones, and the means of achieving their aims are divergent. One could agree with the position taken by Dedekam, that the two treasure diggers were incompetent as they dug at night. However, they were not ignorant, but guided by divergent methods in order to retrieve treasures: digging should take place at night. This divergence highlights the clashes of norms that can occur when groups with different methodologies dig burial mounds, although the result is the same: destruction of the structure in order to retrieve objects. In this chapter, digs of burial mounds are seen as a significant motif that is part of the later life histories of burial mounds. The digs are governed by different norms, such as the example above highlights. These norms are explored through a comparative perspective by discussing, defined for the purpose of this chapter, four different methodologies: breaking, treasure digs, openings and excavations. The term digging is used as a general term that can refer to any of these four methods.

Illus. 6.1: Morten Smith Dedekam (1793–1861) After a painting © Aust-Agder kulturhistoriske senter, Arendal

These four methodologies are approached as equally valid, even when I as an archaeologist favour archaeological excavations before the other. The four methods are discussed according to the following variables: sources and occurrences of the digs, reasons for digging, techniques applied, and in addition archaeological interpretations of the burial mounds under the excavation method. Digging burial mounds as a possible norm breaking activity is considered as a fourth variable. In Chapter 7, conflicts when different norms clash are also assessed, and in addition the views held both by archaeologists towards treasure digs and local peoples’ views on excavation.

Morten Smith Dedekam (1793–1861), merchant, mayor and keeper of Arendal Museum (established 1832), complained in 1849 that two local men carried out a treasure dig in a burial mound in Agder.1 Dedekam inspected the site some days afterwards, and he brought to his museum the remains of the grave-goods that had been scattered around. Dedekam wrote several accounts about the find, such as the newspaper article quoted above. The purpose of the article was not only 1

Mjølhus, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 017761

66

Digging up burial mounds

Illus. 6.2: Burial mound targeted for a treasure dig, October night, 1849 The crater is a memory of the treasure dig. The church behind, built 1979–82, distorts some of its visual appearance, but the mound it is still impressive with a diameter of approximately 30 m and about 3 m high. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003.

6.1 Norms and digging

2. Respect for the wishes of the dead concerning disposition shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful, when they are known or can be reasonably inferred. 3. Respect for the wishes of the local community and of relatives or guardians of the dead shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful. (quoted from Tarlow 2001: 248-9)

Rituals, taboos or rules about death, the dead, the dwelling place of the dead, are known in most cultures, but by breaking these norms, one faces the possibility of situating oneself outside the community. Each of the discussed four methods has some norms that define what they see as the proper procedure for digging burial mounds. A cultural meeting thus occurs when various groups come together on a site with different methodologies and norms, possibly seeing each other as “grave plunderers”.

These principles are even to some extent reflected in the current ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums that stresses the importance of respect for the dead and communities if acquisitions are made of human remains and objects of sacred importance (which can include burial-goods):

These issues are especially discussed in relation to archaeology of indigenous peoples. From several non-Western cultures, it is known that archaeologists can break norms of the local communities if they dig burials or other sites that are seen to belong to the ancestors of the local people, although archaeologists can be given permission to dig if they perform some rituals (e.g. Pwiti 1996). During the 1980s, a tremendous debate therefore arose in archaeology on the ethics of excavating burials, displaying human bones in museums and reburying human bones. This debate is especially strong among indigenous peoples (e.g. Fforde et al. 2002; Layton 1989a; Vizenor 1996), particularly in the US after the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (e.g. Watkins 2000: 51-68; Smith 2004: 156-173).

Collections of human remains and material of sacred significance should be acquired only if they can be housed securely and cared for respectfully. This must be accomplished in a manner consistent with professional standards and the interests and beliefs of members of the community, ethnic or religious groups from which the objects originated, where known (…). (ICOM 2004: 2.5) The ethics of excavating burials, and displaying human bones, is discussed in Western archaeology too (e.g. Bergquist 2001; Swain 2002; Theliander 2004; Kaliff 2004; Iregren 2004). Driven by the Norwegian national movement, even the skeletons from the famous Viking ship burials of Gokstad and Oseberg were reburied respectively in 1928 and 1948 (ArwillNordbladh 1998; Hagen 1997: 210-14), but opened again in 2007 for research purposes and to monitor their condition. However, it has been argued that while the controversies in the indigenous context about the dead are strongly connected to political issues, the debate is driven by moral considerations in Europe (Fyllingen 2004: 105-6). In a Norwegian context, the consequence is that the ethics of researching Sámi graves can be controversial since such research can also be seen as a political act (cf. Schanche 2000, 2002).

The issue of respect is often stressed in the context of mortal remains that belong to indigenous peoples. For instance, respect towards both the dead and the current wishes held by a community is stressed through six principles for archaeologists working on human mortal remains, The Vermillion Accord on Human Remains, adopted at the South Dakota WAC intercongress in 1989, quoting the three first principles: 1. Respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all, irrespective of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition. 67

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record The ethics of excavating burial mounds that might be connected with ethnic Norwegians is, however, to a minor degree discussed as it does not have any current political consequences, although general ethical concerns on how to treat mortal remains might be voiced. The dead and the accompanied goods are seen instead as material culture that can give knowledge about the past and be displayed in a museum. Earlier, the current director of Oldsaksamlingen has written ironically about such exhibitions:

In Norway, Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884–1951) was the first archaeologist to discuss in detail the mound breaking motif according to medieval sources (Brøgger 1945). Brøgger argued that apart from recent treasure digs, most burial mounds were not plundered after their construction. According to Brøgger, digs in burial mounds were restricted to a few large ones from the Viking Age, while large mounds that did not contain graves were not plundered. Based on this observation, Brøgger concluded that the people who broke a mound knew what was in it (Brøgger 1945: 3). Brendalsmo and Røthe’s later analysis of the mound breaking motif supports several of the tendencies pointed out by Brøgger, such as that the broken mounds are from the Viking Age, apart from one dated to the Merovingian Age (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 89).

Graves of the dead, surrounded by artefacts as they were found by the archaeologists during excavation: this is the museums’ counterpart to the ghost train in the amusement park; with the right lighing, the effect can be convincing. (Mikkelsen 1988: 18, my translation)

6.2.2 Reasons for breaking burial mounds

The four methods of digging, as discussed in this chapter, still indicate that, after the burial mounds were constructed, digs have been governed by different norms that all communicate an ethic on when and why a dig is appropriate. These reflect to some extent that respect is given to a burial mound or the deceased, but they also show that in a Norwegian context controversies can occur between those who hold different norms.

Several theories have been proposed in order to explain and understand the mound breaking motif. In 1917, Brøgger argued that damage to the famous Oseberg ship were due to a treasure dig in the early Christian period when people had lost the respect for old burial mounds and dug after treasures (Brøgger et al. 1917: 152-64). Later he reconsidered this interpretation by assessing beliefs and attitudes to death and burial mounds in various sources (Brøgger 1945). Brøgger assumed that the main reasons for breaking burial mounds were (1) a wish to kill off the dead to prevent haunting, and (2) to take objects from the grave that contain the power of the dead, by Brøgger termed a dyregrip (a valuable property).

6.2 Breaking burial mounds (Viking and early Middle Ages) A discussion of earlier periods’ attitudes towards digging burial mounds is given in this chapter, even though the book is mainly concerned with nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklore. The purpose is to highlight that in the Viking and early Middle Ages, the act of digging burial mounds could be shrouded in several beliefs and probably rarely performed.

Later studies of the mound breaking motif have supported, but also widened the scope, of Brøgger’s theory. The archaeologist Per Fett, who does not refer to Brøgger’s article but probably has read it, argued that the heroic mound breaker could also gain mysterious knowledge through the act (Fett 1947). However, in 1992, Brendalsmo and Røthe proposed that the mound breaking motif was governed by three different motives and was more complex than hitherto suggested. First, mound breaking is interpreted as a political act of defamation, a theory also discussed by Myhre (1994a), and the aim is to desecrate the family of the dead in order to highlight one’s own family. Such defamation may have occurred in periods when a new group came to political power and it prevented the besieged group from communicating with their most important ancestors (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 107-8). Necromancy is a second motive, and the mound breaking gives access to objects with magic properties having belonged to a special person, similar to Brøgger’s dyregrip motive (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 108-109).2 Defamation and necromancy both require some kind of communication between the living and the dead that the third discussed motive lacks: plundering of graves in order to gain profit. Laws in the Middle Age regulate ownership of buried goods (see section 7.2.1), and these provisions indicate that digs in order to make profit were also known because otherwise they would not have been regulated (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 109-10).

In this chapter, the term breaking (bryte) burial mounds is used for the act of digging up burial mounds in the Viking and early Middle Ages. This term is used in Norse sources about the act of destroying graves and cult places (Røthe 1994: 145), often associated with dangers to graves ( Jacobsen 1935: 66). The term also has a wider connotation referring to the breaking of norms and rules (Zachrisson 1998: 52-3), such as a curse against disturbing the dead. From Agder, written sources about breaking burial mounds are not known, although the act might have taken place. The discussion on this method of digging is therefore mainly derived from secondary sources that comment on Norwegian and Icelandic medieval sources on the topic. 6.2.1 Sources and occurrences of mound breakings In the 1990s, the mound breaking motif was discussed in several studies (e.g. Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992; Røthe 1994: 139-53; Myhre 1994a). These use various sources to gain knowledge about mound-breakings: archaeological evidence that documents past plundering of graves, Iron Age runic inscriptions that reproduce curses against desecration, accounts of mound breakings in the medieval sagas, and attitudes to the dead in medieval laws. Although several mound breakings are referred to in these sources, the act was probably seldom performed in the Viking and Early Middle Ages.

For a variant of this motive in the medieval sagas about St Olaf, see Røthe (1997; 2004). 2

68

Digging up burial mounds A historical development of the various motives for breaking burial mounds has been suggested. From around AD 400 and into the Middle Ages, a constructive communication between the living and the dead took place (such as offerings or sitting on burial mounds in order to establish contact with the dead), while a destructive communication in the form of necromancy began towards the end of the seventh century and into the Middle Ages. Defamation was well developed in the Viking Age, but originated probably in the eighth century, while plundering of graves in order to profit is argued to have first appeared in the Middle Ages (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 111).

example is from Grette’s saga where the Icelandic scald Grette Åsmundsson (who lived in the first half of the eleventh century) comes to Haramsøy in West Norway. Grette receives help from Audun – interpreted as Othin (Fett 1947: 6) – to break into a mound, cut the head off the dead person and escape with gold and the sword from the mound (Grette's saga 1989: 43-6). A second example where Othin may be the helper is mentioned in the saga about King Olaf 1 Tryggvason (c.AD 968–1000) who participates in a feast at Avaldsnes in West Norway. An old and one-eyed man (Othin) tells King Olaf about the former king the place is named after who, together with the cow he worshipped, is buried at the farm (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of Óláf Tryggvason, chapter 64). In one version of the saga, King Olaf digs up the two mounds and finds human bones in one and bones of a cow in the other (Odd munk Snorreson 1977: 45-6). This story indicates the important presence of Othin in digging up a burial mound, but it differs from other examples of mound breakings as valuable objects are not sought. The dig might contain some elements of defamation of a heathen king by the Christian King Olaf. However, it reminds us as much about an early opening or excavation, actually the first in Norway referred to in the sources, as it was conducted for the purpose of finding out who and what was in the grave. Nevertheless, the presence of Othin, who knew what was in the burial mound, indicates that the act was restricted to the few and gifted.

A fourth motive, the translatio-motive, is considered by the archaeologist Bjørn Myhre according to a Danish discussion on this motive (Myhre 1994a). According to the translatiomotive, burial mounds were broken into the early Christian period to give the dead a Christian burial. This view gained support after the excavations of 1976–9 under the church of Jelling, Denmark, that recovered a skeleton possibly of King Gorm (dead c.AD 940), moved by his Christian son from the burial mound to the church (Krogh 1983). However, the theory of translatio is uncertain, and while it is questionable whether the discovered bones are King Gorm’s, it has been argued that the church would not accept such a Christianization of the heathens (Andersen 1988, 1995; Staecker 2005; Sindbæk et al. 2005). Myhre is also concerned about using the translatiomotive in order to explain known mound breakings in Norway, partly because the skeletons have not been removed, but thrown around, although excavations of churches might reveal that heathen graves could have been reburied (Myhre 1994a: 76-8). Myhre also suggests that when the church objected to digs of burial mounds, this was to prevent people from communicating with the dead (Myhre 1994a: 75).

The act of breaking into the burial mounds was also a difficult and a hazardous act, even in those cases when Othin is a helper and the right techniques are used. Grette, who receives help from Othin, must enter the burial mound when it is still dark early in the morning, it smells terrible in the mound and he fights with the dead (Grette's saga 1989: 43-6). Several dangers are also mentioned in the accounts of breaking into the mound of Olaf Geirstatha-Alf, which is known in several variants, the most extensive published in Norwegian in 1997 (Spurkland 1997). According to this legendary saga, the mound-dweller himself orders in a dream a man called Hrane to break into the mound: Hrane must break into it at night, cut off his head, bring out a belt, a ring and a sword (Spurkland 1997: 20). Through these three objects and a naming, a relationship is bound between the two kings Olaf Geirstatha-Alf and Olaf 2 Haraldsson (AD 995–1030), later Saint Olaf (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 100; Røthe 1997; 2004: 139). Although the mound-dweller ordered the break-in, the burial mound smells and noises scare most of the other marauders away, although Hrane escapes unhurt from the mound (Spurkland 1997: 22).

Although several theories exist as to why mound breaking took place in the Viking and Middle Ages, digging up burial mounds was still a complex activity and probably rarely performed. This view is also confirmed by the “techniques” applied as they are referred to in the medieval sources. 6.2.3 Techniques applied Techniques applied in order to break burial mounds indicate that the activity was shrouded in several beliefs, and the performance restricted probably to a few. Snorri Sturluson refers to the god Othin who had special knowledge about digging up burial mounds:

6.2.4 Mound breaking as a norm-breaking activity

Óthin knew about all hidden treasures, and he knew such magic spells as would open for him the earth and mountains and rocks and burial mounds; and with mere words he bound those who dwelled in them, and went in and took what he wanted. Exercising these arts he became very famous. His enemies feared him, and his friends had faith in him and in his power. Most of these skills he taught to the sacrificial priests. (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of the Ynglings, chapter 7)

The examples mentioned indicate that mound breaking was dangerous and that, in the Viking and Middle Ages, it seldom occurred although it was a permitted act when driven by accepted motives (executing defamation or necromancy). However, mound breaking can also be seen as a norm-breaking act as it could cause accusations that were more dangerous than the physical dangers that could occur: the digger could be called ergi.

In several sagas, Othin is presented as a helper who with other names reveals knowledge about burial mounds. One

According to the Norwegian archaeologist Brit Solli, it is an accepted fact among researchers that the strongest term 69

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record of abuse in Norse is that a man is ergi. Solli argues this term could be used of men who were the passive part in what one today would call a homosexual encounter (Solli 2002: 140). Accusations that a man was ergi could be given to the most manful, including the great god Othin. These unmanly sides of Othin have over the last years, after the application of queer theory in archaeology (e.g. Dowson 2000), been discussed in detail especially by Solli (Solli 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004a). Othin did not only possess knowledge to open burial mounds, he was also the greatest practitioner of seid, a form of sorcery that resemble shamanism and that gave the practitioner insight. Although the mighty Othin could practise seid, this was according to Snorri connected to the unmanly activity of ergi, and men did not perform it without feeling shame (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of the Ynglings, chapter 7; Solli 2002: 128-30). The accusation of being ergi could further be directed against men who broke into burial mounds, and it is worth highlighting that Othin mastered both the art of breaking into burial mounds and practising seid.

the mound breaker shared some similarities with the treasure hunters referred to in much later sources from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 6.3 Treasure digs (nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources) In Agder, legends about hidden treasures and accounts about treasure digs are recorded in sources mainly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, treasure digs did probably take place already in the Middle Ages, but are not documented. In this section, accounts are discussed as treasure digs if they either: 1. explicitly refer to a dig being accomplished with the aim of finding valuables (usually gold), or 2. the dig was guided by certain rules or supernatural beliefs on how to find the treasures The overview of folklore that connects burial mounds with treasure shows that, similarly to mound breakings, treasure digs could be a dangerous activity. Even when guided by its own methodology on how to retrieve treasures, the digs challenged several norms held in a community.

A relationship between breaking into burial mounds and being ergi is even present in a verse by the Icelandic scald Kormak (c.AD 930–970). To damage the public opinion of a mound breaker, Kormak argues he will not be married: “never tell hereafter about a feast, burial mound breaker, even if you do seven in a day” ( Jonsson 1908: 74, my translation). Already in 1937 Brøgger discussed this verse, pointing out that mound breaking marginalizes the performer and makes him represent all that is inhuman (Brøgger 1937b: 148).3

6.3.1 Sources and occurrences of treasure digs Accounts about treasure digs and hidden treasures belong to a common type of migratory legend found all over Norway. The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Th. Christiansen (1886– 1971) points out that they often have an individual and local character, but certain motifs recur (Christiansen 1958: 215). The local character is expressed by referring to locally known landscape features, particular burial mounds, and named people who are the treasure diggers.

Even Scandinavian runic inscriptions have formulae against disturbing the grave and accuse such a man of being ergi. All the abuses against this desecrator are described in words by the Danish philologist Lis Jacobsen: [He is] expelled from the society of decent people, is at home among corrupted beings, men performing seid, witches, ghosts from the underworld and packs of trolls. But there was a special way it was manifested, a property repeatedly termed as being ergi, i.e. sexual unmanliness, pederasty. ( Jacobsen 1935: 56, my translation)

Many treasure legends are found in the sources, but mainly in local historical literature, Fornminneregisteret and Oldsaksamlingen’s archive. Less common are references to treasures by archaeologists and in folklore collections. The legends are recorded mainly from the mid nineteenth century and onwards, but the events are often said to have taken place further back in time. From Agder, a case from 1662 is the oldest recorded treasure dig: two people were then fined for digging at night for buried goods without the consent of the high official (Aanby 1998: 11-12).4

6.2.5 Conclusions In the Viking and Middle Ages, breaking into burial mounds was shrouded in beliefs and mysteries and could be seen as an act that crossed the borders of what society accepted as normal. Although burial mounds were broken into after their construction, several breakings-in were probably driven by ideological and ritual motives. Still, that breaking-in could have been for some people a regular activity might be indicated by the poem that refers to a man who doing this to seven burial mounds a day. Breaking into burial mounds still crossed the limits of the normal. In addition to the physical dangers, the mound breaker could be stigmatized by being accused of being ergi and placed outside society. Hence, the stigma of

Treasure legends can be seen as important because they often mark certain burial mounds in the consciousness of people (Burström 1993: 21; 1997b: 112). In Agder, their importance is evidenced as burial mounds at 110 sites are connected to beliefs about treasures or treasure digs (see Map 6.1). Craters commonly found in burial mounds indicate, however, that more burial mounds have been dug to find valuables, but these are not included in the overview if oral accounts about treasures are lacking, or if they are not interpreted in the researched sources according to treasure digs.5

In the Viking Age the accusation of being ergi was serious, but even Brøgger avoided explaining in detail the meaning of the term. Brøgger explained partly in Latin that ergi was connected with the unmanly and passive, while the magic seid was connected with “inertissimae artis ignominia” (Brøgger 1945: 23), or the shame of the passive activity. 3

Hausland, Grimstad, Aust-Agder The overview includes for instance survey reports from the late 1920s and early ’30s by the archaeologist Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973), because he 4 5

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Digging up burial mounds

Motif

Number

Treasure name

18

Treasure legend

41

Treasure dig

85

Total of burial mounds associated

110

with treasures

Other motifs

Map 6.1: Burial mounds associated with interred treasures and treasure digs 110 burial mounds are shown on the map, including uncertain burial mounds and natural mounds interpreted in the sources as burial mounds. Evidence for treasure digs and beliefs in hidden treasures are expressed mainly in three ways:

Mound-fire marks a treasure

5

Dig at Thursday

3

Dig at night

11

Dig in silence

6

Farm burns when dig

18

Treasure fastened by a formula

2

Treasure protected by a serpent

4

Table 6.1: Number of burial mounds associated with interred treasures and treasure digs Several motifs can be told about one burial mound.

regarding 53 of the accounts about treasure digs, there are no recorded names or legends that refer to a hidden treasure, although the digs were probably guided by general beliefs that burial mounds contain valuables.

• Names. Proper names given to burial mounds can refer to beliefs in treasures, such as Gullhaugen (the Gold Mound), Pengehaugen (the Money Mound) or Kobberhaugen (the Copper Mound). Such names are given to 18 burial mounds. • Treasure legends. Legends, beliefs in or accounts about hidden treasures are told about burial mounds at 41 sites. • Treasure digs. Legends, contemporary accounts or short notices that state a treasure dig has taken place, or must have taken place, are told about burial mounds at 85 sites.

A fourth source of evidence for beliefs in treasures are the stories saying that treasures have been found (not included in Map 6.1). These are of two kinds mainly, although not always clearly separable: Sober accounts telling that valuables have been found in a burial mound. Some of these accounts, that otherwise lack documentation of the finds, might be correct as it is an established fact that valuables in rare cases can be found in Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds (overviews from Agder in Bøe 1920–21: 24-8; Bøe 1926: 24-33; Grieg 1929; Johansen 1986: 71-2; cf. Hofseth 1993).

That treasures are associated with a burial mound does not necessarily target it for a treasure dig. For instance, concerning 15 sites associated with legends about hidden treasures, no narratives are known that people dug for these. Furthermore,

More fantastic accounts telling about finds of treasures. These accounts may have been evoked by actual finds of treasures, but are probably more an expression of a folk interest in treasures. Most accounts about treasures are short with minor information, and treasure digs may be presented almost as an ordinary activity, such as:

explained craters due to treasure digs, although it is uncertain whether he heard local accounts about treasure digs or inferred them from the craters. See e.g. UO top.ark. Aust-Agder/Grimstad/Østerhus ytre, report of 16 July 1929; UO top.ark. Aust-Agder/Arendal/Bie, report of 5 October 1931; UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Mandal/Harkmark, report from 1931; UO top.ark. VestAgder/Lyngdal/Foss, report of 2 August 1932.

At Spikkeland lies a mound called the Gould Mound. The owner of the farm tells that they dug the mound in 71

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record the 1890s. They hoped to find gold. That is indicated by clear marks after the digging. (Stomnås 1974: 440, my translation) 6

and where it still most likely lies. (Flood 1879: 76-7, my translation) The importance of this legend, that has marked the burial mound in the consciousness of the local people, is evidenced as different variants are recorded in several sources. Of special interest, in 1935 essays were published by schoolchildren on folklore they knew in their parish. Of the 15 essays published, four refer to the legend about the treasure dig in this burial mound (Fjermedal 1935: 23-4, 49, 57, 80; see also Lunde 1924: 140-41). The legend further incorporates several motifs associated with treasures in burial mounds that are discussed in the following.

Other legends are lively and entertaining, and they encompass several general beliefs and stereotypic motifs connected to treasure digs. One example is the following legend about a large burial mound in Agder:7 In the middle [of the burial mound] there is a pit which was dug, or rather started to be dug, many years ago, because of a legend about a rich treasure that the mound might hide and that was guarded by the mound-people. The Bryggesåk-people carried out the dig after year after year they had considered going about it. In a drinking bout, their courage had at last risen high enough that they decided they could have a hold on the mound-people, so armed with iron-spits and hoes the Bryggesåk-men went to the mound and started to clear away between its stones. (...) [They] cleared until the night came, getting braver and braver. In the middle of the mound, they finally came upon a stone or iron-chest, where the treasure had to be, and the Bryggesåk-people thought they had become the masters over it, but that did not happen. Suddenly it was light in the mound as at daybreak, and all of Bryggesåk was in flames. The mound-people had set fire to the farm while the foolhardy treasure-diggers cleared the mound, so they now had other things to do.

6.3.2 Reasons for treasure digging That treasure digs are carried out in order to find a treasure, i.e. driven by a profit motivation, is usually undisputable. Still, one can question why the narratives about hidden treasures are of such profound interest in folkloristic narratives. Burial mounds seldom contain large quantities of gold or treasures, but such finds can evoke – when they occur – such a fantasy. For instance, when in 1968 the British archaeologist Leslie V. Grinsell wrote on British traditions about barrow treasures, he referred to the fact that in some cases objects of gold were interred (Grinsell 1967: 1-6). That valuables in rare cases can be found in Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds in Agder is an established archaeological fact (Bøe 1920–21: 24-28; 1926: 24-33; Grieg 1929; Johansen 1986: 71-2; cf. Hofseth 1993). Such finds might have evoked a fantasy, and the author of a popular publication on hidden treasures in Norway argues that because some legends originate from real events, more of them should be taken seriously. The author still refers to only one example when the legend about a hidden treasure happened to be true: a find from 1878 of more than 2,000 coins in a cairn (not a burial), probably hidden in the

To further protect themselves against repetition of this attack on their peace and their treasures, the moundpeople in silence transported their treasure over to the other side of the river, where they hid it in Mosaropsene under Vågsfjellet, where no one has dared to disturb it, 6 7

Spikkeland, Songdalen, Vest-Agder, ID 016141 n Bo ingshaugen, Bryggesåk, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034728

Illus. 6.3: Boningshaugen One of the largest burial mounds in Agder, with a diameter of c.30 m and height of 4 m. The treasure legend explains the crater. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Bryggesåk, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034728) 72

Digging up burial mounds late eleventh century.8 Prior to the discovery of these coins a legend about a silver treasure hidden in the area was known, and the writer argues that the legend may have been related for 800 years (Werner 1987: 11, 70).

from a belief that gold and silver shine in the dark and treasure can be found by searching for the light (Norlind 1918: 35-6). Consequently, people knew where the treasures were because they were visible in the landscape, although hidden in the ground (Zachrisson 1998: 41). In Agder, narratives about a mound-fire that marks the place of a treasure are identified in only about 5 sites. More accounts about the sight of a fire or light near burial mounds are found, but these refer to other beliefs: the light of the creature that lives in the mound (see section 8.3), or that it is as a warning of death (see section 8.6.1). Although people knew that burial mounds contained hidden treasures, these legends did not always induce them to carry out a dig, and concerning 41 burial mounds with treasure legends attached, 15 are not recorded to have been targeted for a treasure dig.

Folklorists too have argued that legends about hidden treasures originate from a practice of hiding valuables in the ground in periods of unrest or as a protection against thieves (Bø et al. 1981: 298-9). Following this argument, the idea that treasures are hidden in a bronze kettle may have originated from the practice that kettles were used on all farms and were easy to hide objects in, although no treasures in Norway have actually been found in a kettle (Werner 1987: 12; see also Hofseth 1993: 59). However, legends about bronze kettles may also have originated from actual finds during treasure digs of bronze cauldrons used in Norway in the Iron Age as cremation urns and inserted into burial mounds, the most famous example being a treasure dig in East Norway in 1894 ( Johansen 1951: 135, 136; Klavestad 2000).9 Regarding the origin of some treasure legends in Britain, Grinsell has argued that the Beowulf poem – on a treasure guarded by a dragon – has influenced later traditions and given the name Dragon’s Hoard to burial mounds (Grinsell 1967: 10; 1976: 69).

(2) Choosing the right time to dig may have been important in order to retrieve the treasure. This is based on a belief that the period when a task is carried out influences this task, termed in old folklorist literature as “choosing the day” (dagvelgeriet) (Christiansen 1911: 183). Supernormal periods could be special times to dig for treasure, suggested by folklorists generally to be at Christmas, Easter, or one of three Thursdays in a row (Bø et al. 1981: 299).

However, the most likely explanation for the origin of treasure legends, and their strong position in folklore, is the former widespread poverty and the dream of being rich, hoping a treasure find will improve peoples’ lives (e.g. Norlind 1918: 2, 91-2; Klintberg 1972: 44-5; Bø et al. 1981: 298-9; Burström 1993: 17; 1997b: 109; Zachrisson 1998: 53; Aannestad 1999: 78). According to this theory, burial mounds may be seen as marks in the landscape that represent the hope of improving ordinary peoples’ lives, but as is seen below, the search for treasure is dangerous and the alleged treasures in burial mounds cannot fulfil such a dream for the common people.

However, in the sources from Agder about treasure digs, references to supernormal periods occur only rarely. If a supernormal period is referred to, this is mainly on a night that belonged to uncanny forces (11 sites), but only three of these digs took place on a Thursday night (Galteland 1920: 11; Fiane 1989: 139, 519-20). Furthermore, digging at night is not necessarily due to supernatural beliefs, but because the digger is not allowed by the owner to search for treasure in the burial mound.

6.3.3 Techniques applied

Although only a few of the digs may have taken place at supernormal periods, Thursday is marked in some of the sources as a special day. Old folkloristic literature points out that Thursday generally was the day for the performance of magic, and Thursday improved the human ability to master supernatural forces such as finding treasure (Christiansen 1911: 186). This belief has generally been connected to the notion that Thursday was in pre-Christian times connected to the Norse god Thor, and the importance of the day survived as a relict after the introduction of Christianity (Christiansen 1911: 187-91). Later folklorists have argued, however, against this connection between the god Thor and a day particularly devoted to magic. Thursday is argued to be a special day in other parts of the world too, and it might instead be traced back to older oriental views and astrological observations (Grambo 1984b: 27-8). The rare sources from Agder stating that treasure digs took place on Thursday further indicate that choosing this day was not essential in order to find treasure, and it may even be questioned whether the narrator or publisher of these legends has added Thursday as a stereotypic motif in their variants.

Treasure digging is shrouded with several beliefs that are usually connected with the challenge of retrieving these valuables that belong to the dead or a creature living in the mound. These are stereotypic motifs found in other countries too, such as in Sweden (Zachrisson 1998: 37-54; using in particular Norlind 1918; Klintberg 1972), but they find local application and meaning. The “methodology” of digging for treasure can be summarized in four points (cf. Table 6.1). (1) The searcher must identify the right burial mound to dig up. This identification may be guided by a general belief that burial mounds contain treasures, or a legend that marks a special burial mound, such as “the mound should be richer than all of Røynestad” (ID 003660).10 Treasures may also be identified from the sight of a mound-fire, an often blue fire that burns above the burial mound and marks hidden treasures, a motif known from Norse sources too (overview in Boberg 1966: 202). According to the Swedish folklorist Tobias Norlind, this belief originates

(3) Special conduct had often to be observed if people wanted to find treasures interred in burial mounds. Most importantly, the digger had to dig in silence, although

Gresli, Tydal, Sør-Trøndelag, ID 6483 Hunn, Fredrikstad, Østfold, ID 011308, ID 011309, ID 011298 10 Røynestad midtre, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 003660 8 9

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record in Agder this rule is told only about treasures in 6 burial mounds.11 In these accounts, unusual sights distract the diggers, which make them talk and then lose the treasure, in particular the impossibility that an old woman could ride a baking trough. The Norwegian folklorist Ronald Grambo traces this notion of silence to beliefs found both in Sanskrit sources and in Europe during the Renaissance. Treasures such as precious stones and metals were said to be born in Mother Earth, but removing these fruits of the earth obliged respect, expressed through silence. As time went by, people forgot Mother Earth and the religious importance of silence disappeared. The act of being silent changed meaning and became a means only to acquire what one wished, such as a treasure in a burial mound (Grambo 1964). This theory rests on the assumption that traditions are survivals and degenerations of ancient held beliefs. However, Grambo’s theory still shed light on these legends as they referred to beliefs that people had to show some respect, such as digging for treasure in silence, when they aimed to fulfil their dream of becoming rich.

These stories about the impossible search for treasure in burial mounds also highlight an important argument stressed in this chapter: digging for treasure was a norm-breaking activity and the act could stigmatize the digger. 6.3.4 Treasure digging as a norm-breaking activity Legends about treasures often communicate a fear that the treasure digger can be stigmatized: he may be excluded from the local community by being struck by disasters, he may become poor or ill, or his farm burns down. Hence, the treasure legends express two different scenarios for the digger: burial mounds are visible and known objects in the landscape with the potential of making you rich, but also of delivering retribution (Burström 1993: 21; 1997b: 112). Reasons for retribution are still in several cases ambiguous, and they do not necessarily relate to the act of disturbing burial mounds, the dead or any creatures, but are connected with treasure digging in general. In this section, the legends are therefore seen as communicating a moral value that digging for treasure is a norm-breaking activity, not only related to taboos against disturbing burial mounds, but also to searching for treasure in general.

(4) The person digging for treasure had to go through several tests, i.e. encountering obstacles. One obstacle is the fantasy that a treasure was secured by the owner, through a spell, or guarded by an animal. However, not all people were chosen to retrieve the secured treasure, and Zachrisson explores the idea of binding and loosening a treasure (Zachrisson 1998: 45-53). She argues that this motif follows a similar format over several hundred years, and she traces the evidence back to Iron Age runic stones. However, the sources from Agder give only sparse indications that the treasures were secured with a spell, and it applies only to treasures in two burial mounds, both in Setesdal, that were guarded by a serpent too (Skar 1961 [1908]: 516, 518-19). The treasures in two other burial mounds were also guarded by a serpent, but the sources do not refer to any spell (Skar 1961 [1908]: 515; Eikeland 1959: 56). Neither the spell nor the serpent prevented digs in three of these burial mounds, but the digger still did not manage to retrieve the treasure. Any digs in the fourth burial mound are not recorded, but the serpent could according to the legend be swept away (Skar 1961 [1908]: 516).

Several of the sources mention retribution for digging for treasure, although it is uncertain in the first two examples mentioned below whether people dug for treasure or for other purposes, but a profit motive probably led them to the act. According to one source, a man dug up a burial mound, but this made his back hurt so much that he had to go to bed (Vere 1994: 159-61).12 In a second case, Tarkjell dug a burial mound, but Gunnar Nordgarden warned him saying this act would harm his farm, and it did become hard for Tarkjell to keep his farm, but not more than that (Skar 1961 [1909]: 102).13 A priest died suddenly when he dug for a treasure in a mound in his parish (Faye 1833: 32).14 Three men dug for the treasure in a burial mound, but two of them started to shiver, and no one dared to dig for it afterwards (Seland 1932: 17).15 Nils Sira dug for treasure in a burial mound, but hurt his leg and had to live with the injury for the rest of his life (Eikeland 1959: 56).16 Gulaug Langbuksa psyched himself up and decided to dig for treasure in a burial mound on a Thursday night, but witnessed such gruesome experiences that he was glad he survived at all, and never again returned to the place (Fiane 1989: 139).17

Although the sources rarely tell that the treasure was secured by a spell or guarded by a serpent, the creatures that are said to guard or dwell in the mounds could prevent people from finding the treasure. The main obstacle encountered was the sight of the farm starting to burn, told in several sources about burial mounds at 18 sites. Most of these legends follow the stereotypic plot that the diggers run home in order to extinguish the fire, but when they get home they realize the fire was just a vision. In some legends the diggers return to the burial mound to continue their search, but the burial mound has closed itself up or the guardians have moved the treasure away.

However, retribution is not always referred to in the sources. According to several accounts, commonly found in Fornminneregisteret (e.g. ID 015251, ID 034618, ID 017324, ID ik12685), gold was found in burial mounds without any punishment against the finder. These accounts can be seen as historical accounts about finds of valuables more than lively legends; they are not surrounded with any supernatural beliefs, and it is not stated in the sources that anyone became rich from the find. Still, accounts about four other burial mounds state Knivsland, Farsund, Vest-Agder Frøysnes, Bygland, Aust-Agder 14 Klosterhaugen, Lunde, Grimstad, Aust-Agder 15 Kåda, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, ID 003741 16 Syrshaugen/Kongshaugen, Sira, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder 17 Hurvenes, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 017757 12 13

Moshaug, Moi, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 018520 (probably a natural mound); Skreland, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016813?; Sordal nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635; Jortveit, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder; Boningshaugen, Bryggesåk ytre, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034728. 11

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Digging up burial mounds 6.3.5 Conclusions

that the local people became wealthy after they found treasures, and any retribution is not mentioned in the sources.18

Treasures are commonly associated with burial mounds and they can represent both a dream of becoming rich and a fear of losing everything one owns, since the quest can lead to a disaster. Various means are used to retrieve the treasure, but the treasure is still seldom found, while a verdict can be passed against people who find a treasure and as such break norms in the society by acquiring for themselves the limited happiness. This norm-breaking activity is further explored in section 7.5.3, that discusses attitudes towards strangers who take with them objects found in burial mounds.

Although some accounts state that gold was found, the question is why most legends – which in many cases are vivid and one could suppose are told in order to open up the possibility of fulfilling a dream of getting rich – yet negate the dream by ending with a disaster for the searcher? This seeming contradiction can be understood if one interprets the treasure legends from the perspective that they communicate a verdict against those who dig for treasure, rather than what actually happened to them. This ethic communicated in the legends is discussed in most detail by Torun Zachrisson, basing her discussion particularly on the Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg (Zachrisson 1998: 53-4).

In the context of this section, these legends are important because although narratives about treasure legends and digs frequently occur in the sources, treasures were also associated with danger as people could fear losing everything they owned. Nevertheless, as discussed in the following section, digs could also be seen as uncomplicated activities that were not governed by and did not break any norms.

Zachrisson argues that those who searched for treasure in the legends belonged to the lower classes, and they contrast with the searcher in sources from the Iron and early Middle Ages who belonged to the upper classes or could climb socially if they found a treasure (although they could also, as discussed in section 6.2.4, be accused for being ergi). Zachrisson explains this by referring to the different ideas about happiness in the Iron and Middle Ages compared to later. In the nineteenth century, in agricultural societies, happiness was a limited commodity, and those who gained too much took away from the happiness of others. Finding a treasure in a burial mound is one example of how a person could get too much of the limited happiness. Robert Layton develops similar thoughts about treasure legends found in agricultural societies all over Europe. The legends explain social differentiation in egalitarian communities, and “if all deserve equal slices of a limited resource, only luck or dishonesty could explain how one household becomes wealthier than other” (Layton 1999: 30).

6.4 Opening burial mounds (eighteenth to twentieth centuries) The act of opening burial mounds, discussed in this section, encompasses perhaps the majority of digs referred to in the analysed sources. The term refers to both local people and civil servants, such as priests, who open burial mounds due to cultivation of new land or because they want to find out what is in them. Openings are characterized by not being surrounded with any beliefs or stated methodologies on how to dig up burial mounds. The activity discussed for the purpose of this section as “openings” is in the sources given different terms, such as investigate, excavate, dig up or throw up a burial mound.

From this perspective, treasure legends can be seen as explaining not only social differentiation, but they also communicate a verdict against those who aim at enriching themselves. The legends never let the searchers find the treasure, and disasters often strike them. Even choosing a certain methodology to achieve the wealth – such as digging in silence or at night – does not prevent the digger from receiving the verdict, and he breaks the norms in the society when treasures are actually retrieved. In Agder, this verdict is in particular present in a famous family legend that concerns people who lived in the seventeenth century.19 The motif of a treasure binds the legend together and serves as a symbol for the destiny of the family (Liestøl 1922: 108-11). The family became the wealthiest in the parish, but at the expense of the lives of four people, and they lost their wealth after the head of the family hid the treasure and died before he could tell where it was. The family had now to build itself up again, but this time on a proper basis.20

Openings can resemble excavations, but these are defined more narrowly (see section 6.5). Openings are also difficult to distinguish from treasure digs since valuables can be sought, but they differ mainly in two ways: 1. The source does not necessarily state that valuables (in most cases gold) are sought. 2. The opening is presented as a harmless activity not guided by rules or associated with dangers, and although these might have been present, they are not referred to in the account. Openings are discussed in order to highlight that digging up burial mounds does not have to be shrouded in belief systems or be a norm-breaking activity, in contrast to breakings-in and treasure digs previously discussed, but it can also be a harmless and uncomplicated activity. 6.4.1 Sources and occurrences of openings

Presthus, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder; Hurvenes, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 017757; Vinneim, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003855; Ribe, Grimstad, AustAgder, ID 017700 19 Knut Skræddar in Åseral, Vest-Agder 20 The legend does not refer to archaeological monuments or sites, but later sources record that the treasure was hidden in an Iron Age hill-fort (Horgja at Senum, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder, ID 016727). People who searched the treasure experienced the same difficulties as people who sought treasures in 18

Accounts about openings are found in all types of the researched sources, but examples of openings from c.140 sites only are included in the database Spang. These are only burial mounds (Uleberg 1969: 10; Bø et al. 1981: 40-41).

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record a limited selection of the openings referred to in the sources, included mainly because they contain other information or tell a specially interesting story about the opening.

1867: 473-4). Munch organized the openings of several burial mounds at his bishop’s visitations, such as in 1824 (Knutzen 1922: 42; Krag 1968: 95).21 Other examples are priests who came to a site after the local farmers had opened burial mounds and described the finds. Priests could also open burial mounds themselves and in Setesdal, Reier Gjellbøl (1737–1803) described in 1771 finds of antiquities in the valley and included a burial mound he himself had opened (Gjelleböl 1800: 25).

The earliest accounts about openings are found in late eighteenth-century topographical literature, when scholars developed a stronger interest for the past and antiquities, but also local people started to open burial mounds. Openings may have occurred in the seventeenth century and before too, but these are not documented and have probably been few. For instance, when the historian Peter Friderich Suhm (1728–98) described in 1787 the heathen practice of burying people in burial mounds, he gave in a footnote an overview of opened heathen burial mounds in Denmark and Norway. Suhm mentions only three examples from Norway, from 1695, 1776 and 1775/1780 (Suhm 1787: 29; cf. Suhm 1784: Fortale). Although other sources contain information about other openings in the mid eighteenth century, Suhm’s limited knowledge indicates that they rarely took place.

The interested “townspeople” could also open burial mounds with help from the local people, such as an opening around the 1880s: The mounds were “discovered” about 30–40 years ago by doctor Kraft from Flekkefjord and partly excavated under his supervision. However, it was in those days common that “townspeople” when they passed the farm went up and dug the mounds. Staale’s old father, who is now confined to bed and is blind, often participated in the excavations. (My translation)22

Accounts about the burial mound of Spang support the rarity of openings before the mid eighteenth century. This burial mound is described already in sources from the early seventeenth century (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1608–9]: 449; 1881 [1632]: 310), while also topographical works from the eighteenth century refer to Spang’s burial place (e.g. Ramus 1735: 117; Finne-Grønn and Tostrup 1897: 23; Jonge 1779: 190). However, not until 1795 does one source report that Spang’s burial mound had been opened (Holm 1795b: 32). The source also indicates that now the act of opening burial mounds was more common as it states: “nothing had been found, apart from the common clay pots” (Holm 1795b: 32). The frequency of openings escalated during the nineteenth century, especially due to cultivation of the land. Although unskilled openings of burial mounds were forbidden with the adoption of the first Cultural Heritage Act in 1905, local people continued to open burial mounds into the beginning of the twentieth century.

Local people opened burial mounds too, although it is not always clear if this was due to curiosity, to learn about the past, or to find valuables or other objects to sell. A typical story goes like this: Around 1903 did Tobias Tobiassen (born 1859) take with him a crowd of children to dig the mound (…). They then found a horse tooth, the shard of a clay pot and some pieces of flint. Tobias had moreover told the children that a man who died in 1863 had said that grave plunderers earlier had dug the mound, but he did not know if they had found something (Lian 1981: 76, my translation)23 2. Openings by local people who cultivate the land or reuse material from the burial mounds Local people could also open burial mounds when they cultivated the land or reused soil, sand or stones in them. Such openings are often referred to in later local historical literature, Fornminneregisteret, but also in a few contemporary written sources. They resemble regular destructions of burial mounds (see Chapter 10), but differ in the sense that they reveal an awareness about the burial mounds as finds of antiquities can be mentioned. Still, knowledge about the openings was usually sparse and poorly documented. The antiquities were in most cases thrown away because they were not seen as having any value, or they could be sent with documentation to the museums in Copenhagen, Bergen or Oslo.

6.4.2 Reasons for opening burial mounds Reasons for opening burial mounds can be categorized into two main categories discussed in the following. 1. Openings carried out to find out what is in the burial mound, i.e. gaining knowledge about the past Clergymen or other officials could direct openings of burial mounds in order to find out what is in them, resembling skilled excavations (discussed in section 6.5). Scholars further often described finds recovered by local people who, for various reasons, had opened a burial mound. Local people could also open burial mounds due to curiosity to find out what was in them or because they intended to sell antiquities and valuables. These openings can resemble treasure digs as they were profit driven, but supernatural beliefs or norms surrounding these openings are not found in the sources.

One example where rich finds were lost is when in 1776 the local people opened a burial mound, described afterwards in historical (Suhm 1787: 29), topographical (Holm 1795c: 7071) and antiquarian literature (Nyerup 1806: 15).24 Although the antiquities were lost, legends about a discovered treasure Ulltveit, Gjerstad, Aust-Agder. Munch opened at the same visitation a burial mound in Telemark that several legends later were told about (Landstad 1926: 108-9), discussed in chapter 7.4.2. 22 UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Flekkefjord/Hamar, letter of 1 August 1918 from Chr. D. Sunde to Oldsaksamlingen. 23 Bruseland, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004495 24 Bjærum, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034721 21

Examples of such openings are represented by the bishop in Agder in 1823–32, Johan Storm Munch (1778–1832), who was also a writer, translated and published medieval sagas (Faye

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Digging up burial mounds were published a hundred years later, indicating that openings can stimulate the formation of treasure legends (see section 7.5.3). Two other examples with unusual detailed information are the openings by local people in 1820 and 1821 carried out in order to dig out a cellar under a house and to take sand from the burial mound.25 These openings are known about because the local priest afterwards described the finds and sent them to his superior who had a strong interest in archaeology and later brought them to the museum in Copenhagen (published in Undset 1878: 7-13).

The day afterwards the young girls from the farm went and dug up the burial mound and damaged the few found objects. On the Monday Elias [the finder] went back to the place, collected the remnants and carried them home to his house where the children occasionally have had them in their hands as toys. (My translation)27 Despite these instances, openings are characterized by the absence of norms governing the conduct, and they are presented in the sources as a harmless activity.

6.4.3 Techniques applied

6.4.5 Conclusions

The accounts about opening burial mounds are characterized by the absence of stated applied techniques, by contrast with the three other discussed methodologies. The applied techniques are presumably not more sophisticated than “dig up the burial mound” to find the antiquities.

Opening burial mounds can be seen as a significant act of digging that is, contrary to the other discussed methods, not guided by specific norms and presented in the sources as a harmless activity. Consequently, it has been important to investigate this method because the sources most frequently refer to openings, which might indicate that norms have been in most cases absent when burial mounds were dug up. Norms surrounding the former discussed treasure digs should therefore not be seen as expressions of dominant beliefs held or communicated about digging up burial mounds. Conversely, another dominant attitude is that opening burial mounds may be presented as an uncomplicated activity, although digs could in some cases be complex, such as those surrounding treasures as discussed in section 6.3.

6.4.4 Openings as a norm-breaking activity Openings are presented in the sources as an uncomplicated task characterized by the absence of norms that govern the conduct. Some norms preventing openings may still have been present. The fact that clergy and civil servants, and not the local people, conducted several openings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries indicates that the local people then often abstained from this act, even if it would not take much effort to open burial mounds.

6.5 Excavating burial mounds (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)

Moreover, accounts told about 21 sites communicate that the local people stopped opening burial mounds when they came to a chamber. Regarding 5 of these sites, people did actually experience some kind of fear when they came to a grave, but 16 of them do not give any reason. These sources are mainly from the twentieth century, documented in Fornminneregisteret and Oldsaksamlingen’s archive, and they usually go like this:

The term “excavating burial mounds” is, in this section, defined as a dig with the aim of gaining knowledge about the past, carried out by a professional or semi-professional within the discipline of archaeology from the nineteenth century onwards. Excavations are usually documented with a report and accomplished by people employed or hired by a museum. In Scandinavia, excavations are predated by investigations that go back to the sixteenth century. Some of these early excavations are discussed here, although they resemble the previously discussed openings.

The owner (...) found here in the 1930s a flagstone. (...) [He] said he stopped digging when he came upon the flagstone. (ID 015135, my translation)26 The reasons why people stopped could be either due to the legal protection of burial mounds after 1905, or because people did not understand they were digging up a burial mound before they found the chamber, or because it would take too much effort to open the chamber. A general concern about not disturbing graves may also have been present, such as in this contemporary report about an opening conducted in 1872:

Discussed in this chapter are mainly excavations in Agder from 1871 until the year 2000. By then, approximately 632 burial mounds at 167 sites had been excavated completely or partly. Although what can be termed the first excavation in Agder (and Norway) was accomplished already in 1743, major excavations in Agder first began in 1871 by Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911) as part of his 1860s programme to investigate burial mounds. The number of burial mounds excavated under Nicolaysen’s programme in the 1870s is unequalled compared to later periods, as illustrated in Fig. 6.1.

The find was made on a Saturday afternoon three years ago. First some of the objects were thrown up without noticing their condition, but when more objects were seen together with something black that looked like burnt bones, he threw all the objects into the field next to the flat, stonepaved, burial mound. He probably did not want to disturb the remnants of his forefathers. He walked home and told the people at the farm about the find.

Different norms have influenced the practice of excavating burial mounds in the discussed periods. These norms include among others the various excavation techniques. These are briefly discussed for each period, but a more detailed discussion can be found in Terje Gansum’s overview (Gansum

Øydne, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID ik8741 and Trygsland, Marnardal, VestAgder, ID 015297 26 Ågedal ytre, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID 015135 25

UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Flekkefjord/Midtbø, letter of May 22, 1875 from B. L. Søyland to Oldsaksamlingen 27

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 300

excavated a burial mound, probably to confirm the burial of a legendary king. The father of Schleswig-Holstein archaeology, Paulus Cypræus, further witnessed excavations of several burial mounds in Schleswig between 1554 and 1588, and he incorporated the antiquities in his collection and described the digs in a book (Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 9-10). Other burial mounds were also investigated in sixteenth-century Denmark (Klindt-Jensen 1975: 14; Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 9-10; Schnapp 1996: 157), but the number of excavations increased in the seventeenth century (Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 12, 16-18). Ole Worm (1588–1654) is the most famous antiquarian of the seventeenth century, particularly for his work on runes (Worm 1643), and in addition his cabinet of curiosities described in Museum Wormianum (1655). However, it is known that Worm participated in the excavation of one burial mound only (Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 14). Although excavations were carried out during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was not until 1704 that the priest Christian Broder Bircherod wrote the first preserved excavation report in Denmark. This report is the most accurate excavation documentation in Denmark until the excavations carried out by J. J. A. Worsaae in the mid nineteenth century (Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 7-8).

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Fig. 6.1: Number of burial mounds excavated each decennium 1870–2000 A total of 632 burial mounds excavated at 167 sites, according to excavation reports in Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbooks and UO top.ark. The overview might not be complete.

2004: 21-71). Reasons for excavating burial mounds are also important norms that govern when or if the digs can be carried out. Although they change over time, knowledge potential is the reason for archaeologists to carry out excavations, and this differs from what archaeologists have seen as an egocentric and individual profit reason that is gained through treasure digging. This section therefore also discusses general tendencies on how burial mounds have been used as sources to attain knowledge. A selection of studies on burial mounds in Agder is discussed, but also general trends in Norwegian archaeology. The majority of these studies discuss the Iron Age, and in particular the Roman and Migration Age, which has the richest finds from Agder.

According to the Swedish archaeologist Ola W. Jensen, excavations are not known from the sixteenth century in Sweden, but the first systematic antiquarian excavations of burial mounds took place in the period 1660–70 ( Jensen 2002: 267, 273). This coincided with the appointment in 1662 of Olof Verelius (1618–82) to a chair in archaeology at the University of Uppsala, the establishment in 1666 of an Antiquaries College to pursue antiquarian research, and a law that was adopted the same year to protect ancient monuments (Trigger 1989: 49; Schnapp 1996: 199; Jensen 2002: 325-8). Verelius is the first known in Sweden, in 1663, to accompany the excavation of a burial mound with documentation ( Jensen 2002: 271-2). Most famous from this period are Oluf Rudbeck’s (1630–1702) excavations in the area around Old Uppsala, particularly due to stratigraphic observations, and that he approached the excavations as an anatomical dissection (Trigger 1989: 49; Schnapp 1996: 198-202; Jensen 2002: 269-71). Verelius and Rudbeck’s excavations even aimed at generalizing which information a burial mound could give, and they differed from other contemporary excavations that paid interest mainly to the singular burial mound and who was buried in it ( Jensen 2002: 272).

6.5.1 Early excavations in Scandinavia (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) In Scandinavia, ever since antiquarians gained an interest for the past during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they have excavated burial mounds (e.g. Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979; Trigger 1989: 48-9; Svestad 1995; Schnapp 1996: 156-65, 198-202; Jensen 2002; King 2005; Klindt-Jensen 1975: 14-31). These early excavations could, according to the definitions applied in this book, be categorized as openings. However, in the second half of the seventeenth century the antiquarians carried out excavations with increasing scientific sophistication, put by Alain Schnapp like this: “[they] encouraged excavations, to construct chronologies, and to attempt reconstructions based on the detailed observation of the earth and its monuments” (Schnapp 1996: 198). In Norway, scholars started excavating burial mounds later than in other Scandinavian countries, such as Denmark (of which Norway was a part until 1814) and Sweden (of which Norway was a part from 1814 until 1905).

Jensen argues that at least six factors were present to explain why skilled excavations developed in the late seventeenthcentury Sweden ( Jensen 2002: 274-7): 1. increased specialization of research into the past with the development of new methods 2. empiricism and diminishing belief in authorities that caused written sources to be put on test 3. the emergence of a mechanical cosmology instead of the organic, i.e. during the seventeenth century the belief declined that the earth was an organism and that digging to retrieve valuables should be performed with care, which was now replaced with a mechanical

In sixteenth-century Denmark, the earliest known digs in Scandinavia took place that are referred to in the literature as excavations. In the 1530s, the last Catholic bishop at Zealand

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Digging up burial mounds cosmology that viewed the earth as a dead substance 4. Christian ethics that prevented the desecration of graves lost its impact, and although this ethic was present in the Swedish 1666 prohibition against disturbing burial mounds, exceptions could be given for skilled investigations 5. decline of fear for the revenge of the dead when digging burial mounds 6. less distrust of excavations because they were not connected to treasure digs that were viewed as miserly and diabolic acts by the church If these were the guiding factors for stimulating excavations in Sweden, they were to a lesser extent important in Norway since excavations of burial mounds were not conducted until the eighteenth century and they were even then rare. 6.5.2 The first excavations in Norway (eighteenth century) According to Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955), the first scientific excavation of a burial mound in Norway took place in 1775 (Shetelig 1944b: 74; 1945: 7-8; cf. Lidén 1991: 16). The historian Gerhard Schøning (1722–80) then requested the military to excavate the alleged second largest burial mound in Norway.28 A report was afterwards written (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 671), but the excavation is known mainly through the writings of the Danish–Norwegian historian Peter Frederik Suhm (1728–98) who published the results with a drawing of the burial mound from a second investigation in 1780 (Suhm 1784: Fortale).29 Shetelig probably held this to be the first scientific excavation in Norway because the scholar Schøning requested the excavation, it was documented, and an account of it was later published. However, a documented excavation was carried out even earlier: in 1743 in Agder. At Lista, in 1743, the priest Michael Tyrholm (1691–1767) accomplished probably the first documented investigation of a burial mound in Norway.30 This dig is discussed here as a skilled excavation because of its detailed report finished in 1752,31 but it would without this have been categorized as an opening. With its detailed information and drawings, Tyrholm’s report is unequalled by most excavation reports until the twentieth century. This can partly be explained because, as explored by Svestad (Svestad 1995: 127-8), in the eighteenth century, drawings represented knowledge, although Tyrholm’s drawings must have been modified to give a more symmetric representation of the burial mound. Despite the high quality of the report, it has not been published, but the excavation was mentioned briefly in the 1743 questionnaire to the Danish chancellery (Finne-Grønn and Tostrup 1897: 14-15), and in several archaeological works since the first reference to it in 1836 (Appel and Stylegar 1999: 134, 1423). Still, archaeologists who in 1877 and 1906 excavated the

Illus. 6.4: Tyrholm’s drawing of a burial mound excavated in 1743 (Reproduced by NBO after Tyrholm’s report, Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173) same mound did not refer to Tyrholm (Grimsrud 1998: 15-17; Appel and Stylegar 1999: 134), and a discussion of the report and the excavation was first published in 1999 (Appel and Stylegar 1999). The burial mound was, according to Tyrholm’s report, opened on 7 May 1743 by some servants searching for stones to build fences. When they came to a burial chamber and broke a pot, they took this back to their employer who contacted the priest. Tyrholm came to the spot the day after and carried out an excavation of the chamber. He described both the interior and the exterior of the burial mound, and the situation of the finds, followed by three drawings. Tyrholm must have investigated several burial mounds because he writes that experience had taught him it was not only their size that told if it was built for a distinguished person or not, and that some large ones could contain poor grave-goods only. Tyrholm’s report further indicates that he was up to date on contemporary antiquarian

Herlaugshaugen, Skei, Leka, Nord-Trøndelag For later discussions about this burial mound, see (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 6715; Petersen 1917; Alsaker 1996; Grepstad and Thorheim 2003: 64). 30 Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173 31 NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 1056 X: “Omstændig Relation om een Glas- eller Chrystal-Urne opfunden A 1743 i een gammel opgraven Høy paa Lister-Land i Norrig”, Michael Tyrholm 1752, pp.1-4. Transcribed for the use in this book by Martina Gaux Lorenz at Håndskriftsamlingen. 28 29

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record literature as he refers to other finds from Scandinavia, but also Norse literature such as Snorri and the Edda poems. These pre-nineteenth-century excavations aimed mainly at gaining knowledge about what a given burial mound represented. Some scholars have argued that these excavations were interpreted not only according to the finds, but what was already known according to the Bible, written sources, the presence of archaeological monuments and oral accounts (Svestad 1995: 112-45; Eriksen 2002b). The Norwegian folklorist Anne Eriksen argues that these sources confirmed each other by what she terms a “generalizing reason”: one concluded from the general to the specific and concrete, without assessing the connection between these two. One example is the focus in the medieval sagas and legends on war and unrest, which caused the specific conclusion that a given site was constructed after a battle (Eriksen 2002b: 303-4). Although such a “generalizing reason” can be traced in much of the eighteenth-century literature, the archaeological record could still be used to adjust the interpretations. For instance, Tyrholm relates the finds from his 1743 excavation to medieval accounts, such as Snorri’s Age of Cremation and Age of Sepulchral (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Snorri’s foreword). He interpreted that the finds belonged to the Age of Cremation and they could be between 800 and 1800 years old.32 Although Tyrholm agreed with the dates proposed by Snorri, he did still freely discuss interpretations of the find by referring to other finds in Scandinavia.

Illus. 6.5: Illustration from the 1836 instructions on how to excavate burial mounds The burial mound is marked with concentric circles. The digger works from the outer circle (a) to the centre of the burial mound (reproduced from Urda 1837a: 370). By publishing the instructions in Urda, and disseminating them in a thousand copies for free, people were also encouraged to send unearthed antiquities and descriptions of excavations to the museum (Urda 1837a).

Also Suhm’s interpretation of the burial mounds excavated in 1775 and 1780 adjusted Snorri’s account. Suhm did not doubt Snorri’s account about this mound, but since only two skeletons were found, and not twelve that according to Snorri should have been buried in it, he adjusted the number (Suhm 1784: Fortale).

The instructions reflect the concern at this time by the antiquarians for a careful documentation of the excavations. The practice of digging a shaft to the centre (i.e. the keyhole or shaft technique), in order to find the main burial, was argued against. Instead, the burial mounds should be excavated completely, working towards the centre in concentric rings in order to find secondary burials too. The situation of the antiquities should be documented, none of them broken or bent, and the museum be offered the chance to receive or buy them (Urda 1837a). The instruction was still guided by the doctrine that method, documentation and attention were given to the buried goods and not the monument itself (Dommasnes 2002: 13).

Although skilled documented excavations were directed under Tyrholm and Schøning, these did not trigger the development of more skilled methods. First in the 1830s and ’40s, antiquarians developed a methodology for excavating burial mounds. 6.5.3 The development of skilled excavations (c.1830–70) Methodologically skilled excavations were first developed in the mid nineteenth century. Burial mounds were now excavated with care and by using certain methods. However, some scholars still hesitated to excavate burial mounds, and they conducted this task with caution. In Norway, the journal Urda (1834–47) gives best knowledge about the early excavations.

Reasons for excavating burial mounds Antiquities now became important to collect and categorize in order to get knowledge about the past. This is apparent through the Dane Christian Jürgensen Thomsen’s Three Age System, published in 1836, although already in 1819 the collection in Copenhagen had been organized according to it and opened to the public (Trigger 1989: 78).

Techniques applied Inspired by German methods, Bergen Museum issued, in 1836, instructions on how to investigate burial mounds, later called the Bergen-school’s Norwegian technique (Næss 1982: 125).

The system soon influenced Norwegian collections, and the first keeper of Oldsaksamlingen (1828–62), the historian Rudolf Keyser (1803–64), started in 1837 to organize the collection according to the Three Age System (Shetelig 1944b: 37), a work that he accomplished in 1842 (Andersen 1960: 121-2). Keyser further used archaeological finds to discuss

NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 1056 X: “Omstændig Relation om een Glas- eller Chrystal-Urne opfunden A 1743 i een gammel opgraven Høy paa Lister-Land i Norrig”, Michael Tyrholm 1752, pp. 7-8. 32

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Digging up burial mounds the question he found most important: the immigration of the Norwegians to the country (Andersen 1960: 127-32; Hagen 1997: 25-6). This question about immigration was also significant among scholars in other disciplines in this period, for instance for Eilert Lund Sundt (1817–75). In his educative journal Folkevennen (People’s Friend, edited by Sundt 1857–66), he requested that farmers take care of the antiquities. Sundt had been prior to this article in contact with the keepers of Bergen Museum and Oldsaksamlingen, and they both complained of the local ignorance of antiquities. Sundt therefore aimed to persuade the farmers that the study of burial mounds was important in order to find out where the Norwegians came from and the character of the Norwegian people in the past. If the Norwegians and their neighbours the Swedes emigrated from different places then…

antiquities came into his possession, such as the find referred to at the beginning of this section.

(…) it seems reliable that when the Norwegians and the Swedes at long last met at the border between the countries, there had to be many differences in their customs (...). (...) But this difference one should again think would be present in the remnants of antiquities from the oldest period. Conversely, if our country’s pioneers moved in from the Swedish countryside, then we have to believe that they brought their customs with them (...), [and] there will be predominant similarities in the human works that are found from those times: burial mounds must be built at the same way (...). (Sundt 1864: 352-3, my translation)

First after the establishment of Fortidsminneforeningen in 1844, the task of excavating burial mounds was given priority. The purpose of the society was, according to its objects clause, to “trace, investigate and maintain” Norwegian ancient monuments and to make them known to the public (Lidén 1991: 31). Several scholars would still oppose what they perceived as the destructive nature of excavations, a view most notably held by the initiator of Fortidsminneforeningen, the Norwegian national-romantic painter J.C. Dahl (1788– 1857), who supported the study of monuments, but opposed excavations (Lidén 1991: 28-9). For instance, when in 1834 Bishop Neumann organized the excavation of a burial mound in West Norway, Dahl described this as vandalism (Lidén 2005: 98).34 Hans-Emil Lidén has discussed the rationale that guided Dahl’s views on preservation, which were unusually advanced for his time. Guided by emotional and aesthetic reasons of seeing the landscape as a painter, and not by research motives, Dahl aimed at preserving the landscape with its cultural relicts (Lidén 1991: 28-9).

However, reports about excavations of burial mounds in West Norway are published in Urda, and these reflect the personal interests and desires of the excavators that are often entertainingly communicated. One example is the bishop of Bergen from 1822, Jacob Neumann (1772–1848) – antiquarian, co-founder of Bergen Museum and involved in Urda – who in 1838 visited a vicar who knew that the bishop had a strong interest in burial mounds. The vicar disposed of two burial mounds, and Neumann chose to excavate the one most easily accessible. According to Neumann, the vicar gave and prepared the mound to him as a friendly “morning gift” (Neumann 1847: 53).

After the appointment in 1862 of Oluf Rygh as keeper of Oldsaksamlingen, the question of immigration came in the shadow of the importance of collecting and organizing the antiquities (Hagen 1997: 25-7). Rygh’s sober research-approach is present in his major work on Norwegian antiquities: a book with plates of the antiquities in chronological order and explained in Norwegian and French. Rygh referred briefly to burial customs only in the general introduction to each period, and he stressed similarities between other European countries more than differences (Rygh 1885).

The first years of Fortidsminneforeningen are characterized by caution towards actively excavating burial mounds, probably inspired by Dahl’s view about protection. A good example, discussed by Lidén (1991: 41-2; 2005: 101), is when in 1852 Nicolay Nicolaysen conducted in East Norway, after damage due to a road construction, his first excavation of a burial mound.35 Nicolaysen defended the excavation in his publication, and he argued that he would have left the burial mound untouched if it were not for the previous disturbance. Nicolaysen then proceeded to argue generally against excavations, stating that although knowledge about the past was acquired by studying antiquities, no one knew where to find antiquities and several skilled excavations had been carried out without any results. Most antiquities were found due to “the irony of the destiny”, because of cultivation or construction of roads. According to Nicolaysen, actively carrying out excavation was therefore “a double folly”: one wasted money and disturbed a monument without gaining any results (Nicolaysen 1853: 27).

Reluctance and resistance towards excavations Although, in 1836, an instruction on how to excavate burial mounds was issued, and collecting antiquities was now seen as important, scholars at this time seldom excavated burial mounds. Even Rudolf Keyser did not commission or carry out excavations, but catalogued finds sent to the museum and organized the collection (Shetelig 1944b: 35-8). In Agder, antiquarians in the mid nineteenth century are only rarely reported to have excavated burial mounds. The exception was Lieutenant Emanuel Lund, who in 1859 surveyed burial mounds in Agder, and also wrote about how he dug up one (Stylegar 1998 [1859]: 17). Morten Smith Dedekam collected antiquities too, and he described locally opened burial mounds during the years 1849–51.33 Dedekam seems, however, not to have actively commissioned excavations, and he complained about local disturbances of burial mounds, even when the

Despite the mixed attitude towards excavation, the 1836 excavation instruction indicates that investigating a burial mound was now seen as a professional task that required

Dedekam wrote short reports about these finds in his notebook stored in Aust-Agder kulturhistoriske senter (Arendal), “Historiske notitser ved MS Dedekam” AA 150, and he published them in his catalogue (Dedekam 1860: 103, 104, 106, 107). 33

34 35

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Flaghaugen, Avaldsnes, Karmøy, ID 4879 Borre, Borre, Vestfold, ID 001934

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record knowledge. Such knowledge could be acquired by the many, and although the instruction was mainly intended for civil servants and clergymen, the museum did not forbid ordinary people from digging up burial mounds, although antiquarians could frown upon local peoples’ destructive interferences. However, in contrast to this view, interestingly a farmer who came from Agder, Svend Gundersen Røyseland (1808–85), formulated already in 1851 the first proposal in Norway for a preservation act. Røyseland argued that burial mounds should be excavated only by competent people (Bugge 1933: 122-3; Trøim 1999: 32-3; Lidén 2005: 208-9; Omland et al. 2005). Fortidsminneforeningen rejected this proposal and developed instead, ten years later, a new strategy to protect the antiquities in the burial mounds for posterity: massive archaeological excavations under the guidance of Nicolay Nicolaysen.

mounds in order to create a “national archive” of antiquities. From 1871, this programme caused intense digs in Agder. These excavations can be seen as a result of the formalization of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the period 1870– 1900 (Svestad 1995: 182): the new discipline demanded an abundance of antiquities to gain knowledge about the prehistory of the nation. Fig. 6.1 shows that the number of excavations accomplished in the 1870s and ’80s are unequalled compared to later decades. Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbooks are the most important sources on the excavations during the period 1870–1900. They contain reports of most excavations conducted by people who were attached to one of the archaeological museums or the society, but also the accession protocols of the museums. These publications fulfilled the objectives clause of Fortidsminneforeningen of making the results known to the public, although the reports must have been incomprehensible for most people since they comprise mainly lists of finds with less emphasis on interpretation and discussion.

6.5.4 Creating a “national archive” of antiquities (1870–1900) Nicolay Nicolaysen’s critical objection towards excavations, as discussed above, changed radically during the 1860s when he initiated a research programme for investigating burial

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1 Shetelig

Fig. 6.2: Number of burial mounds Map 6.2: Number of burial mounds excavated by archaeologists 1871–98 A total of 365 burial mounds were excavated at 35 sites. According to excavation excavated by archaeologists 1871–98 reports in Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbooks and UO top.ark., the map might not be complete. 82

Digging up burial mounds The excavations carried out during the period 1870–1900 share several characteristics. First, a few men only conducted excavations (see Figure 6.2 and Map 6.2). This was mainly Nicolaysen who in Agder excavated burial mounds between 1871 and 1893 (Nicolaysen 1872: 129-50; 1876b, 1877b, 1878, 1879, 1883b, 1890, 1891b, 1894b). In Agder, other active archaeologists were Oldsaksamlingen’s keeper Oluf Rygh (Rygh 1879b, 1880) and Bergen Museum’s keeper Anders Lorange (Lorange 1878, 1880b). In addition, the teacher Th. Winther carried out excavations for Arendals Museum (Winther 1881b). Haakon Shetelig, later keeper at Bergen Museum, also conducted a minor excavation of one burial mound when as a student at the age of 21 he worked as a teacher in Agder.36 Second, the investigations were driven by the excavator’s own interest, and they could freely select the burial mounds, so long as the owner gave permission. One exception is the excavation in 1882 of several burial mounds in Setesdal on an industrial site that the manager invited Nicolaysen to carry out, even tempting him with a plan of the site (Nicolaysen 1883b).37 Nicolaysen did still generally recommend excavating those burial mounds that otherwise would have been removed due to cultivation or road construction (Nicolaysen 1874: 123). That Nicolaysen chose burial mounds that could throw light on research problems proposed by Oluf Rygh has also been suggested (Trøim 1999: 32).

Illus. 6.6: Haakon Shetelig’s 1898 plan documenting the applied shaft technique Reproduced from the original in UO top.ark. (Nes jernverk, Tvedestrand, Aust-Agder)

Third, entire sites with several burial mounds were often excavated, and Nicolaysen argued it was preferable to concentrate the excavations in a parish and not spread them (Nicolaysen 1874: 124). However, in Agder, Anders Lorange excavated individual burial mounds too (see Map 6.2). These were often of great size, and Lorange probably chose mounds he thought would contain best antiquities, but he received poor results from these. Conversely, Nicolaysen warned against excavating the largest burial mounds because he had already learned that these seldom contained rich grave-goods (Nicolaysen 1874: 124).

not usually accompany their reports with documentations such as plans. A later assessment shows that Nicolaysen’s report of an excavation in 1867 in East Norway is reliable, and his sober descriptions should be understood according to his juridical background (Blindheim 1977: 26).38 However, assessments of Nicolaysen’s excavations in Agder, Østfold and Hedmark show that, contrary to his own stated method, he did not always excavate the entire burial mounds. Several of his excavations are even said to be more reminiscent of organized grave robbery than scientific excavations (Larsen 1979: 44). Nicolaysen used for instance the shaft method without documenting this in his report, and it has been argued that his reports can be used mainly to gain knowledge about the size, form and date of the burial mounds (Pilø 2005: 203-11).

Techniques applied Nicolaysen advocated skilful excavations and held that the 1836 instruction, with some modifications, was the best method to excavate burial mounds. He argued that the shaft technique was both improper for archaeology and unpractical, and instead he recommended that the workers should be placed around the burial mound and work their way into its middle. A mark should be fastened on the top of the mound, which together with the outer edge of the mound should not be removed before the end of the excavation, and this enabled that correct measurements of the burial mound could be taken (Nicolaysen 1874: 123-6).

Other excavations in Agder also indicate that the 1836 instruction and Nicolaysen’s method were used with pragmatism, and the shaft technique was practised. For instance, Th. Winther refers to Nicolaysen’s method, but writes that he modified the technique and could not excavate the entire burial mounds because he did not have enough labour and the mounds were covered with trees (Winther 1881b: 96-7). A plan of a burial mound in Agder, excavated by Shetelig in April 1898, shows that he used the shaft technique (Illus. 6.6).39 Shetelig was then a young student who possibly did not know Nicolaysen’s technique, but his later publication

To what extent Nicolaysen, and his contemporaries, practised this method is still uncertain, partly because the excavators did This excavation is only known from a plan of a burial mound at Nes Jernverk (Tvedestrand, Aust-Agder) excavated in April 1898. The plan was kept by Shetelig for several years, but he sent it to Oldsaksamlingen in 1915, see UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Tvedestrand/Nes, drawing of April 1898. 37 Evje Nikkelverk, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder 36

Kaupang, Larvik, Vestfold, ID 000365 The drawing is kept in UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Tvedestrand/Nes; nothing more is known about this excavation than what is written on the plan. 38 39

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Illus. 6.7: Plan of burial site before excavation (Reproduced from Lorange 1878, Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173)

on Iron Age burials shows that he continued to apply the shaft technique and that he taught it to the next generation of archaeologists (Schetelig 1912c; Næss 1982: 125-6).

1. A defined research programme 2. Rescuing antiquities from local destruction 3. Competition between the museums 1. A defined research programme

Haakon Shetelig’s 1898 plan is unusual because archaeologists in this period rarely documented which parts of the burial mounds they investigated. Neither the 1836 instructions nor Nicolaysen suggested that excavations should be documented with drawings. Still, three maps of excavated sites in Agder document them before excavation.40 Sketches of burial mounds are also preserved in Anders Lorange’s diary from his 1877 excavations in Agder,41 including simplified profiles (published in Appel 2003).

In 1862, Nicolaysen suggested a research programme for excavating burial mounds as he complained about the accidental recovery of archaeological finds in Norway and lack of information concerning the antiquities that came to a museum. The purpose of the excavations would be to fill the archaeological collections with antiquities that would shed light on the oldest period of the history of the people, a knowledge that could only be achieved by skilled research (Nicolaysen 1863a: 3-4). Hence, Nicolaysen now took, at the age of 45, a radical move away from the view he had stated in 1852 that excavation represented “a double folly” (Nicolaysen 1853: 27).

Reasons for excavating burial mounds At least three reasons were important for triggering the massive excavations in Agder during the period 1870–1900:

Lidén discusses this change in Nicolaysen’s view of preservation, and he argues it was influenced by developments

Evje Nikkelverk, Evje og Horrnes, Aust-Agder; Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173; Stoveland, Mandal, Vest-Agder, ID 015210 41 Kept in UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Farsund/Diverse II. 40

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Digging up burial mounds in Danish archaeology under Jens J. A. Worsaae (1821–85), but also through his cooperation with Oluf Rygh (Lidén 1991: 42; 2005: 102-7). Through a stay in Copenhagen 1855–6, Nicolaysen received first-hand experience of the methodological advancements in Danish archaeology, but also when Worsaae, in 1856, visited Norway. Worsaae then gave a paper where he argued against the preservation view advocated by J. C. Dahl, and he supported excavations in order to acquire knowledge about Scandinavia’s past and to create a national identity (Worsaae 1857). Worsaae further wrote in 1862 a letter to the Norwegian ministry in which he requested more excavations, although he mentioned Stone Age sites in particular (Nicolaysen 1863b: 40-42; Lidén 2005: 102-3).

Nicolaysen’s interest in gaining knowledge about the general conditions of the past might explain why he executed massive excavations; it has even been suggested that Nicolaysen was guided by a doctrine that he wanted to have all burial mounds in Norway investigated (Shetelig 1944a: 12). In a synthesis of the results achieved by 1873, Nicolaysen argued that the massive excavations were important because the current knowledge was limited and often wrong, and the museums needed larger collections. In order to reach these aims, Nicolaysen proudly stated that, in the last years, he had excavated around 400 burials (Nicolaysen 1874: 122-3). Later, during the fifty-year anniversary of the society, Nicolaysen stated that since 1866 it had excavated more than 1,000 burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1894a: 7), most of them by himself (Brøgger 1915: 42; Fett 1935: 13). Nicolaysen continued to excavate burial mounds until he was 85 (Lidén 2005: 187). Allegedly, he says that he excavated a total of 1,400 burial mounds (Hougen 1954: 35; Lidén 2005: 106), but the suggestion that he excavated more than 2,000 burial mounds (Hagen 1997: 17) is perhaps an overstatement.

Nicolaysen was also influenced through his cooperation with Oluf Rygh (1839–1915), member of Fortidsminneforeningen’s board since 1859 and keeper of Oldsaksamlingen since 1862 (Trøim 1999: 29-32; Lidén 2005: 105-7). According to Sverre Marstrander (1910–86), a later keeper of Oldsaksamlingen (1968–80), Rygh aimed to establish a collection of antiquities that would be like an “archaeological national archive” (Marstrander 1974: 26). Nicolaysen also suggested in 1863 that Oldsaksamlingen should be a national museum (Lidén 2005: 105-7), but this idea was never realized even when archaeologists in the late nineteenth century supported it (e.g. Undset 1885).

2. Rescuing antiquities from local destruction Nicolaysen’s research programme and intense excavations can also be seen as a response against the local people who, during the nineteenth century, intensified the cultivation of land and destroyed burial mounds (see Chapter 10). Nicolaysen writes that he sometimes heard objections against disturbing burial mounds through excavations, but he defended his practice by referring to the accelerating destructions of the countryside:

The Norwegian parliament granted finally, from the summer of 1866, an annual sum to cover travel expenses related to Nicolaysen’s position as antiquarian at Fortidsminneforeningen (Nicolaysen 1894a: 7). Fortidsminneforeningen now became the central office in charge of excavations and publication of finds, and Nicolaysen started his annual excavations of burial mounds and gave the finds to Rygh for further studies (Trøim 1999: 30; Lidén 2005: 105-7).

(...) one can be sure that most of these graves anyway would be disturbed or destroyed because of cultivation, or in other ways, and one would not get any information about their content; so it is better what happens with skilled investigation, as the gained advantage benefits science. (Nicolaysen 1874: 122, my translation)

Nicolaysen’s excavations were, however, more ambitious than merely retrieving antiquities and giving them to Rygh. When, in 1874, he argued for extensive excavations of burial mounds, he aimed to obtain “a clear picture on how the condition of each period was, about the standard of the human work and about the changes that occurred” (Nicolaysen 1874: 123). The next aim of the archaeological research was to get knowledge on how the country had been populated, and “from where and to what extent our folk has been influenced” (Nicolaysen 1874: 123).

Nicolaysen’s excavations in Agder during the years 1875–7 are examples of him investigating burial mounds before the local people probably would have destroyed them.42 Hundreds of burial mounds were still mainly untouched, but he used three arguments to legitimate their excavation: 1. he had noticed that the local people started to destroy the burial mounds and use them for rubble 2. there were only a few finds of antiquities from the county 3. planned excavations had still not been conducted in the county (Nicolaysen 1876a: 203-4)

These ambitious aims are still seldom reflected in Nicolaysen’s excavation reports, as they contain sober interpretations that focus mainly on three issues that highlight the importance of even the modest grave finds that represent the nation’s past:

However, Nicolaysen did not just compete with the destructions of the local people, but also with other archaeological collections.

1. Chronological: deciding from which period a burial mound belongs. 2. The buried person: deciding the gender of the deceased based on the accompanying objects. 3. Representation: establishing that burial mounds were built for ordinary people and therefore are representative sources for gaining knowledge about the nation’s past and the daily life of the people

3. Competition between the archaeological museums More acquisitions were one of the most important assets for the archaeological collections in the period 1870–1900. However, 42

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Several farms in the parish of Fjære, Grimstad, Aust-Agder.

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record they competed with each other and collections abroad, and Anders Lorange states in 1875 this obstacle to getting more acquisitions for his Bergen Museum:

(…) [Antiques] are getting fewer day by day. The activities of our antiquity dealers have in this regard been of great importance. They have cleared up wherever they have travelled, and if someone in Setesdal searches for objects that can inform about the folk life in the valley in the recent past, they will usually not receive great results (…). The common people here have been so used to selling what they call “antiquities” that people come down to the road to offer what they have of this kind. (…). Large purchases have also been made for Hazelius’ museum in Stockholm [i.e. Nordiska Museet]. (…) But there is now a real danger that if nothing happens soon, the country will be cleared out of everything that can serve to show the next generation any record of our Norwegian folk life. (Nielsen 1880: 88-9, my translation)

(...) antiquities are at present for both compatriots and foreigners a much-demanded commodity, and the public collections have private buyers to compete with too. Therefore, the supply in the future is expected to be even less (...). (Lorange 1875: 6, my translation) Competition with foreign museums. Lorange was not the only archaeologist who complained about foreign purchases. Karl Rygh (1813–1915), archaeologist in Trondheim and brother of Oluf Rygh, wrote a newspaper article in 1876 in which he complained that antiquity dealers encouraged local people to dig burial mounds, contrary to the respect advocated by archaeologists. According to a government circular of 1868, dealers could sell the objects to whom they wanted if they had first offered them to a public museum; but the prices were often too high, and the Norwegian collections could not compete with the foreign buyers (Trøim 1999: 57). Rygh wrote much later on this problem that foreigners in the nineteenth century purchased antiquities, which had the effect that Norwegian archaeologists lost access to the material:

Although Nielsen, in this statement, is critical of the purchases by Nordiska Museet, the conservative and Swedish-friendly Nielsen would rather support the objects coming to this museum than that they be sold to the first foreigner who entered an antique shop (Nielsen 1880: 89). Other scholars approached the problem differently, such as the archaeologist Ingvald Undset (1853–93), who catalogued and published the Norwegian antiquities held in foreign collections (Undset 1878, 1888). This would secure the needs of archaeological science to gain an overview of the archaeological record of Norway (Undset 1878: V). Lorange’s solution was similar to Nielsen’s: he requested more funding for his museum, to enable him to travel and excavate (Lorange 1875: 6).

Buyers have travelled through all the parishes and bought everything they came across of antiquities, which they have later sold. Only some have come to Norwegian museums, and these are then preserved for historical research. But even more is sold through the antiquity dealers in the towns to foreigners, who have taken them back home like other memories from their travels, and they are then lost to Norwegian historical research as if they were thrown into the sea. (Rygh 1915: 20, my translation)

Competition between Norwegian museums. Lorange knew that the decrease in accessions by Bergen Museum was also due to stronger competition from other Norwegian museums that travelled and excavated in districts from which they had earlier received antiquities. With support from Fortidsminneforeningen and rich contacts, Lorange started to excavate in more remote areas for his museum, such as in Agder (Gjessing 1920a: 169-70).

The increase in foreign purchases was due both to the growth of foreign tourism, but also to the acquisitions by the Nordiska Museet, established in 1873 in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, which aimed at representing all the people of the Nordic countries. From 1874 it built up a Norwegian collection with c.16,000 accessions, mainly post-medieval folk objects, but also medieval church art and Viking Age antiquities, but it stopped in 1905 after the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway. In Norway, the contemporary reactions towards the Nordiska Museet were mixed, and the purchases encouraged several scholars to secure objects for Norwegian collections. Most objects were even returned to Norway between 1972 and 2005 (Omland 2005b).

The archaeological museums could collect, in the nineteenth century, objects from all over the country, but received them mainly from their respective districts. In the 1870s, Agder became a contested area between the museums: Nicolaysen and Rygh acquired antiquities for Oldsaksamlingen, while the schoolteacher Th. Winther – who otherwise excavated in North Norway – carried out in 1880 a large excavation for the local Arendal Museum. After the establishment in 1877 of Stavanger Museum, this institution also bought antiquities from Agder, such as a rich grave-find discovered in 1878.43 The rivalry was especially strong when, in 1877 and 1879, Lorange extended “his” area and started to travel and excavate in Agder (Appel 2003; Stylegar 1999c: 125-6).

Archaeologists in Norway conducted several travels and excavations to retrieve antiquities before dealers offered them to the museums for an unattainable price. An important effort was also made by the keeper of Etnografisk Museum (the Ethnographic Museum), Yngvar Nielsen (1843–1916), who travelled through much of Norway during the years 1878–80 in order to create a collection in his museum of Norwegian folk objects (Shetelig 1944b: 192-3). Nielsen criticized Norwegians who worked for foreign collections, and he advised them to work for Norwegian museums instead (Nielsen 1880: 89). Nielsen’s frustrations over foreigners were evident when he, in 1879, travelled through Agder and Setesdal:

On the first page of the diary that Lorange used on his travels to Lista in September 1877, he drew an axe and wrote: “If I

Snartemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, more on the finds from Snartemo in (Hougen 1935; Rolfsen and Stylegar 2003). 43

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Digging up burial mounds cannot find a way – I must clear my way.”44 It has been suggested that these words refer to the competition between him and Oldsaksamlingen (Appel 2003: 242). Lorange really had to clear his way. When he came to Lista, Nicolaysen had visited the parish fourteen days before him and excavated a Stone Age site that Lorange had intended to investigate (Lorange 1878: 92). It has been suggested that after this incident Lorange made reprisals and responded with excavations in East Norway that were closer to Oldsaksamlingen (Shetelig 1938: 439; Bøe 1961: 9; Appel 2003: 242). Lorange was still satisfied with the outcome of his 1877 travels: he excavated several burial mounds and established contacts with important people who would secure that prospective finds were sent to his museum (Lorange 1878: 104), thus preventing other museums from receiving antiquities.

lecture that a law was one of the most important needs for archaeology. As such, he opposed Oluf Rygh and Nicolay Nicolaysen who disagreed with the law, due to restrictions it would impose on private property (Lidén 1991: 62; 2005: 208-15; Trøim 1999: 33, 40). Gustafson argued that even the educated and honest Norwegian farmers would find such a legal protection reasonable and desirable (Gustafson 1902: 21). Although the critics objected that the law would impose restrictions on private ownership, Gustafson argued: One must have in this question the right to presume that the ancient monuments of the country are a common national property, because these are the only ways to gain knowledge about the country’s past. The law must emphasize that it is only science that has the right to touch these memorials, and that they should lie untouched if it is not necessary to get knowledge from their investigation. (Gustafson 1902: 20, my translation, emphasis in original)

Lorange returned to Agder in 1879, but several excavations were disappointing. For instance, a large burial mound was found empty at a farm where a rich grave had been discovered the year before and the objects acquired by Stavanger Museum and Oldsaksamlingen (Lorange 1880b: 157-8).45 When Lorange came to the parish of Spangereid, which had a rich assemblage of burial mounds, Rygh had already arrived and freely chosen which to excavate, while Lorange had to be satisfied with a few poor mounds (Stylegar 1999c: 126).

This “nationalization” of burial mounds, as requested by Gustafson, was fulfilled by the 1905 law that gave automatic protection to all monuments and sites from the medieval period and earlier, i.e. pre-1537 (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §1). Most importantly: archaeologists now became the stewards of the burial mounds. The law gave archaeologists the right to excavate a monument or site, and they were not obliged to gain permission from the owner, but had only to notify him (§5). The museums could no longer compete for antiquities, as the provisions of the law gave five archaeological district museums the right to manage, excavate and collect antiquities from their parts of the country, and Agder came under the district of Oldsaksamlingen (Trøim 1999: 47-8). Although the 1905 law automatically protected all burial mounds, a developer could get an exemption from the protection after fulfilling certain conditions, which usually required an excavation with the costs covered by the museum (§§3-4). However, the new act of 1951 obliged the developer to cover the costs for larger public and private enterprises (Cultural Heritage Act 1951: §6).

Because of Nicolaysen’s programme, the local destructions and the competition between the museums, during the period 1870–1900, at least 365 burial mounds at 35 sites were excavated. Never again would such a high number of burial mounds be excavated, and the adoption in 1905 of a Cultural Heritage Act significantly changed the conditions for excavations. 6.5.5 Excavations under the Cultural Heritage Act (1900–60) The adoption in 1905 of the Cultural Heritage Act was the most important event for archaeology at the beginning of the twentieth century. The law legally protected ancient monuments, and ensured state ownership of antiquities, while the right to excavate was given to archaeologists. Map 6.3 illustrates that excavations were conducted all over Agder, and not just in areas with the highest density of burial mounds, as in the nineteenth century. This is mainly due to rescue excavations that began after 1905, which caused burial mounds to be investigated prior to developments.

The Cultural Heritage Act changed dramatically the situation for the archaeological museums and the practice of excavating burial mounds. More people were also now involved in the excavations. According to the excavation reports, at least 20 different people directed excavations of burial mounds in Agder between 1900 and 1960. Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) was the most active, and he excavated burial mounds in Agder between 1911 and 1922. Gjessing is most famous for his yearly research excavations at Lista 1917–21 (later published by Grieg 1934, 1938). After World War II, in particular Elizabeth Skjelsvik conducted, between 1948 and 1957, excavations of burial mounds in Agder, and the excavations now also became more technically advanced.

Most excavation reports from Agder are kept in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive, and these are the best sources to gain knowledge about the excavations conducted 1900–60. Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbook did not now generally publish the excavation reports, but new journals published syntheses of archaeological results, mainly Oldtiden (1910– 26), Oldsaksamlingen’s yearbook (1927–99) and Viking (1937–).

Techniques applied

Adoption of the law

The generation of archaeologists who now became active passed their verdict against the excavation techniques of their predecessors and, due to their roughness and poor documentation, they even viewed them as plunderers. Nicolaysen’s achievements now gave him the infamous reputation as the greatest treasure hunter in Scandinavia (Fett

Gabriel Gustafson (1853–1915) – who in 1901 became keeper of Oldsaksamlingen after Rygh – argued in his inauguration 44 45

UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Farsund/Diverse II Snartemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder

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Illus. 6.8: Young, strong local labour Until World War II, archaeologists used local labour to excavate burial mounds. Similar to native workers in colonized countries (cf. Shepherd 2003), their names are not mentioned in the reports. Helge Gjessing still often photographed the workers he used during his excavations. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Photo: Helge Gjessing, 1922 (Stallemo, Vennesla, Vest-Agder, ID 016272). 1935: 13). He was also termed with “disrespectful esteem” as the “man with a world record in mound excavations” (Gjessing 1954: 24). If one categorizes archaeologists into “heroes and villains”, Nicolaysen has due to his massive investigations been categorized as one of the “villains” (Svestad 1995: 30-31).

Reasons for excavating burial mounds Because all burial mounds were according to the 1905 law in principle protected, the reasons that triggered excavations differed from earlier periods. Archaeologists now argued against the view that nearly all burial mounds should be excavated. Gabriel Gustafson opposed the view sometimes heard, that it was an act of negligence by science that not all were excavated, and he argued instead that science had to be mindful (Gustafson 1906: 147).

Some of the methods for excavating burial mounds still did not technically advance much compared to previous periods. Anders Hagen (1921–2005) describes that the shaft technique continued to be commonly used: a shaft was excavated into the centre of the mound, then enlarged, while objects, the chamber and remnants of the dead were documented with a drawing (Hagen 1997: 157-8).

An abundance of burial mounds were still excavated, although more cautiously than earlier. Unfortunately, the excavation reports do not always state explicitly why a certain burial mound was excavated, but the factors that initiated most excavations can be generally reduced to

The excavations were still less rough than previously, and usually documentation in the form of drawings and pictures did accompany the reports (Gansum 2004: 48-60). Helge Gjessing’s excavation, in 1917, of five burial mounds is one example from Agder of the improvements in documentation.46 Gjessing used levelling instruments; he documented the site by drawing a plan, but he also took photos before the excavation of the men who did the labour, and during the stages of the excavation as well. Gjessing even drew the profile of one burial mound, and he published this together with the results from the dig (Gjessing 1920b).

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1. Research excavations 2. Rescue excavations Research excavations Of the 174 burial mounds excavated in the period 1900–60, 55 per cent of the excavations at a site (that can include several burial mounds) seem according to the reports to have started mainly because of research interests of the excavator or due to the interests of the local people. In this period, Helge Gjessing conducted the largest research excavations at Lista during the years 1917–21. However, burial mounds were excavated for research purposes also at other places in Agder. Several burial

Skreros, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 020213

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Digging up burial mounds (Engelstad 1928; cf. Hagen 1997: 132-42; Opedal 1999). In particular the archaeologist Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973) pursued excavations of Iron Age house sites at Lista (Grieg 1934). Excavations of burial mounds were still carried out since they were part of the Iron Age farm, such as during Anders Hagen’s famous excavations in Agder during the years 1947–9 of a complete Iron Age farm (Hagen 1953: 46-71).47 One tendency in the early twentieth century, which differed from both previous and later periods, is that archaeologists established stronger local contacts during the excavations. For instance, the local bank gave financial support to Gjessing’s research excavations at Lista (Grieg 1938). The director of the bank was even Oldsaksamlingen’s local contact and an advocator for archaeology.48

Map 6.3: Reasons for excavating burial mounds 1900-60 A total of 174 burial mounds were excavated at 66 sites. Burial mounds partly excavated by archaeologists in former periods are not included. According to excavation reports in UO top.ark., the map might not be complete. mounds were restored after their excavation, but some were also removed since they were already threatened by development prior to these excavations.

Most importantly, the writing of parish-books encouraged the excavation of burial mounds in order to attain knowledge of the prehistory of the parish that could be included in the books (see Map 6.3). These were in particular Helge Gjessing’s excavations in 1922, requested by the parish-book writer and paid for by Oldsaksamlingen,49 but also Jens Storm Munch’s excavations in 1954 partly paid for by the local municipality and Oldsaksamlingen.50

Individuals could also request the excavation of burial mounds on their own properties, partly because of curiosity or to know what was in them, such as a police sergeant at whose farm Gjessing in 1922 excavated five burial mounds.51

Although research excavations were important, any research programme for excavating burial mounds is absent. The exception is Brøgger’s programme, initiated soon after he in 1915 became the keeper of Oldsaksamlingen, for investigating large burial mounds, defined as mounds with a diameter of 3050 m that were clearly visible in the landscape (Brøgger 1937b: 150). Brøgger presented some theoretical considerations about the large burial mounds in 1917 (Brøgger 1917), and he excavated one 1917–18 (Brøgger 1921b). However, Brøgger’s programme did not include Agder, and he argued that no burial mounds in this part of the country fulfilled his definition of a large mound (Brøgger 1937b: 150, 161).

Rescue excavations After the adoption in 1905 of the Cultural Heritage Act, 45 per cent of the excavations can be characterized as rescue excavations of archaeological material from the destruction of development. According to §3 of the law, a developer now had (1) to ask permission if a work would cause any disturbance of a protected monument, but also (2) to report a protected Sostelid, Åseral, Vest-Agder, ID 004978 Evidenced in correspondence from the bank director Slevdal to Oldsaksamlingen kept in UO top.ark. 49 Several farms in Vennesla, Vest-Agder, see UO top.ark. 50 Several farms in Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, see UO top.ark. 51 UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Diverse II, report of September, 1922 by Helge Gjessing on excavations at Svenes in Froland 47

Brøgger further initiated in 1927, with Haakon Shetelig, a new programme for Norwegian archaeology that changed the focus away from mainly excavating burial mounds and collecting antiquities. Eight research objectives were now formulated, amongst which was the study of settlements and house sites

48

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Illus. 6.9: German soldiers excavating a burial mound During World War II, burial mounds were seldom excavated for research purposes. However, the German archaeologist Ernst Sprockhoff had a strong interest in the Norwegian Iron Age and conducted, in July 1942, the excavation of a burial mound at Lista. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Photo: Ernst Sprockhoff (Østhassel, Farsund, Vest-Agder). site found during developments. One consequence of these rescue excavations is that burial mounds were investigated all over Agder.

One example is Haakon Shetelig’s work on West Norwegian graves from the Iron Age. Shetelig focused on the development of burial customs, and he underlined that burials were the most important source that could give knowledge about the Iron Age, and he included also the more modest graves. Shetelig even explained some large and rich graves with inhumations placed in large stone cists due to the immigration of Germanic tribes, a theory often applied at this time for explaining change (Schetelig 1912c: 58, 160; cf. Hagen 1997: 106-17; Næss 1982: 126). Other studies of large and empty burial mounds were interpreted according to the cenotaph theory: mounds raised as a memorial to a person who could have died elsewhere (e.g. de Lange 1914; Brøgger 1921b; Grieg 1941).

Cultivation is the main reason for rescue excavations of burial mounds in this period, but also an industrial development triggered one excavation, in 1936, of a large part of a site.52 Local people still often opened burial mounds or found antiquities during developments (see Map 6.3), but archaeologists usually treated the trespassers of the law cautiously. They would then salvage the finds, but could also choose to excavate other undisturbed burial mounds at the farm due to research interests. This would secure that people reported the finds to the museum, and it seems, according to documents in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive, that conflicts were mainly avoided, especially until around 1930, as preservation and the importance of the preservation law were then advocated more strongly by the archaeologists.

Most importantly, influenced by nationalist views that stressed a relationship between people/burial mounds and the land (Opedal 1999), burial mounds were during the 1920s and ’30s used as sources for gaining knowledge about the development of settlements. From this approach, even the modest burial mound with datable finds was an important source to attain knowledge of settlements and the age of the Norwegian farm. One example is Helge Gjessing’s overviews of the prehistory of Agder. Gjessing correlated the graves dated to the Iron Age with farm-names, and he argued that the increase in gravefinds corresponded to the expansion of settlements in the Late Roman and the Migration Age (c.AD 300–600) (Gjessing 1921: 43-4; 1923: 52-6; 1925: 61-5). Such expansions, just

Interpretation: burial customs and settlement studies In contrast to the excavations in the second half of the nineteenth century, which focused on antiquities, archaeologists now gave the burial mounds themselves and customs more attention when they interpreted them. UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Evje og Hornnes/Rosseland, report of January 1937 by Sverre Marstrander (published in Marstrander 1938). 52

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Digging up burial mounds developed these theories further, and he argued that Bronze Age finds showed that Lista was an important trade-centre for bronze between South-West Norway and north Jutland (Marstrander 1950), a theory applied in later general histories of Norway ( Johansen 1986: 11). From a similar perspective, Bjørn Hougen (1898–1976) made a typological and chronological study of a rich grave-find from Agder, and he interpreted it as belonging to a Migration Age chieftain who maintained foreign contacts (Hougen 1935: 107).53 6.5.6 Rescue excavations and protection (1960–2000)

Map 6.4: Reasons for excavating burial mounds 1960–2000 A total of 93 burial mounds were excavated at 65 sites. Burial mounds partly excavated by archaeologists in former periods are not included. According to excavation reports in UO top.ark., the map might not be complete.

While burial mounds had, until c.1960, been excavated mainly for research reasons, rescue excavations are almost without exception the reason for excavations during the period 1960–2000. The excavation reports in Oldsaksamlingen indicate that all, except for one,54 were accomplished in order to rescue archaeological data after local disturbances or before developments such as new roads, buildings, but also cultivation. A high number of graduate students and newly educated archaeologists directed the excavations, but from the 1970s it was mostly three archaeologists at Oldsaksamlingen: Perry Rolfsen, Jan Henning Larsen and Per Oscar Nybruget.

These rescue excavations reflect the emergence of a stronger heritage management that strengthened archaeological stewardship. Focus was now increasingly upon preservation, and burial mounds should be excavated and removed mainly because of development.

as changes in burial customs, were at this time also explained as possible migrations of people (e.g. Hougen 1935: 102-4; Marstrander 1938: 187-8; Schetelig 1912c: 160). Brøgger also stressed a relationship between ancestors and burial mounds. He argued that since people could into the fourteenth century legitimate ownership of land by tracing lineage to ancestors buried in burial mounds, these could have been built to function as visible deeds to land (Brøgger 1937b: 171-2). Although being influenced by the nationalist movement, this interpretation has also later been given support. Based on a study from East Norway, the archaeologist Dagfinn Skre argues that burial mounds were built at the occasion of important inheritance with the succession of a new head of the family on the farm (Skre 1997a; 1998: 198-213; cf. Birkeli 1938: 166; Iversen 1999: 339-40; Pedersen 2002; Ringstad 1987b: 40-41; 1991: 143-4; Røthe 2004: 64; Sognnes 2000: 97-8; Taranger 1979 [1915]: 107; Tsigaridas 1998: 16).

During the 1990s, burial mounds were decreasingly released from protection, and developments had to a larger extent to consider cultural heritage. Due to this stronger emphasis on rescue archaeology and preservation, conflicts between archaeologists and local people escalated especially in the 1970s and ’80s (see Chapter 10). Techniques applied The excavation techniques applied in this period can be seen as an expression of the expert control over burial mounds: they are characterized by a stronger trust in details and documentation (Gansum 2004: 60-70). Several of these advancements had started in the 1950s, and archaeologists then held that the techniques applied by the pre-World War II archaeologists

Burial mounds could also be interpreted from the perspective of maintaining foreign contacts. The concentration at Lista of finds and burial mounds from the Bronze Age were seen as an indication of an important centre (Gjessing 1925: 40), and that chiefs had lived there (Petersen 1926: 184). Sverre Marstrander

Snartemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004850 UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Åmli/Jørundland, undated report about excavations in 1969 by Karl Vibe-Müller. 53 54

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Illus. 6.10: Excavation according to the quadrangle principle 1977 © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Photo: Inger Liv G. Lund (Vik, Grimstad, Aust-Agder).

Illus. 6.11: Excavation using mechanical digger 1973 Left: Excavation of mound number 5. Right: Neat documentation of mound number 4 as it was presented in the local newspaper. From left: Perry Rolfsen, Jan Henning Larsen, Per Oscar Nybruget and two students. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, and facsimile of newspaper article in Sørlandet, 29 May 1973 (Evje nikkelverk, Evje, Aust-Agder).

were destructive. In his autobiography, Anders Hagen vividly recalls when he in 1943, as a student at Oldsaksamlingen, excavated a burial mound:

mounds and cairns been excavated for several years. (Hagen 2002: 139-40, my translation) However, Hagen argued that when he, in 1950–53, conducted his large international excavation project of a site in East Norway, such a plundering of burial mounds should not continue.55 This project was, according to Hagen, characterized

When it came to investigating burial mounds, I received my first instruction verbally –in the autumn of 1943 when I was sent to Brunkeberg in Telemark. Then, I received the message to dig into the centre of the mound, collect the antiquities and travel home. This was how the Norwegian

55

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Hunn, Fredrikstad, Østfold, ID 011308, ID 011309, ID 011298

Digging up burial mounds by more sophisticated techniques as it applied the quadrangle, or “cake”, method: the burial mound was cut into four equal parts, and two sections simultaneously excavated to the ground, leaving four profiles to be documented with the finds (Hagen 2002: 140).

had to pay until 1665, possibly to maintain roads. The tax could be traced back, according to Steinnes, to an early ninthcentury road system that passed these same farms and that had to accommodate the ruling king on his travels. One study concluded, based on a discussion of the archaeology according to the American anthropologist Elman Service’s criteria for a chiefdom, that a chief might have been living on one of the important farms paying the tax (Bagøien 1976). Conversely, the second study argued that the archaeological record, mainly of finds from burial mounds, did not support the theory about such a kingdom. However, traces of such an alleged kingdom might possibly not have been reflected in the archaeological record, while the utskyld-system might also have been younger than proposed by Steinnes (Larsen 1978: 158-61).

Variants of this technique have since been regarded as the standard method for excavating burial mounds. Excavation reports from Agder still indicate that the method was practised with pragmatism. Mechanical diggers could also, for instance, increase the efficiency (e.g. Rolfsen 1974b: 9). Although the documentation did improve in this period, compared to earlier, not all excavations were accompanied with detailed reports and documentation, so information about the excavations is missing in the archives. Still, from the 1990s, detailed documentation became more significant and increasingly aided by new computer technology such as GIS.

A third study used finds from burial mounds to trace Late Roman and Migration Age chiefdoms in South-West Norway. By studying the geographical distribution of rich burial finds with imported goods (gold, bronze vessels, glass), Bjørn Myhre suggested that several chiefdoms correlated with the current counties. In Agder, Lista and Fjære were the most important centres for a chief (Myhre 1987; 1992: 165-7; see also Ringstad 1987b). Myhre’s study has later been central in the discussion of the political and economical organization of Agder’s Iron Age (e.g. Grimsrud 1998; Kristoffersen 2000: 33-45, 149; Larsen 2003; Magnus 2003; Stylegar 1999a). However, archaeologists have also criticized this model as several rich graves are not included in Myhre’s study because they do not contain imported goods, a situation that possibly reflects different burial customs more than lack of wealth (Larsen 2003: 41). While the quantitatively high number of finds from Lista indicates a settlement centre, the quality of the archaeological finds indicates seats of power also at other places (Stylegar 1999a: 199).

Interpretation: adaptation, economy, social and political organization (1960–90), gender and landscape (1990–) In the post-war period, more people were educated as archaeologists, and research on both the recent and earlier excavated material increased. With the influence from the 1960s of processual archaeology, the material was now used to get knowledge about adaptation, economy and social and political organization, while also landscape and gender approaches were applied from the 1990s. Several of the new approaches had, however, their roots in the 1940s and ’50s. For instance, after 1955, explaining change generally according to immigration was partly abandoned and replaced with the theory of internal development (Hagen 1983: 310-13). Anders Hagen’s excavation in Agder during the years 1947–9 of, for the first time in Norway, a complete Iron Age farm dated to c.AD 200–500, was also influenced by functionalism, and he aimed at giving a detailed picture of the physical conditions of a farm in a marginal area as he discussed subsistence, population and livestock size.56 Although the farm had been populated for more than 200 years, the presence of only 9 burial mounds indicated that these were restricted to the few, distorting the earlier applied method of using burial mounds as sources to gain knowledge of settlement patterns (Hagen 1953; cf. Hagen 1997: 220-25; 2002: 123-5, 136, 153-6; Opedal 1999: 52-5). Burial mounds were still used to indicate settlements at a site, but the finds were interpreted also according to ecological adaptation, and archaeologists discussed how people in marginal areas gained surplus in order to acquire luxury goods from external contacts (e.g. Mikkelsen 1972).

Studies from the 1990s, influenced partly by post-processual trends, also examined the statues of the dead interred in burial mounds according to gender. One example is Zanette Tsigaridas’ study of oblong Iron Age burial mounds in Agder. By studying the correlation between the shapes and finds she argued, as proposed already in 1974, that if gender can be identified, oblong burial mounds were built for women who probably had a special status (Tsigaridas 1998). A landscape approach is perhaps the most important new research direction applied to burial mounds during the 1990s. This did not require excavations of burial mounds or detailed studies of the objects, but studied relationships between monuments and the landscape. The new direction was partly influenced by British publications (e.g. Tilley 1994), but Norwegian archaeologists had already earlier sketched a method for studying burial mounds in the landscape (Keller 1993; Gansum et al. 1997). Still, the landscape perspective has influenced only one study of burial mounds from Agder that sees burial cairns along the coast as part of a maritime cultural landscape, stressing their importance for navigating along the coast (Knudsen 2003: 65-84).

Studies in the 1970s and ’80s further used burial mounds as a source for political and social organization, such as tracing Iron Age chiefdoms. Two studies from Agder (Bagøien 1976; Larsen 1978) were based on a controversial theory, proposed in 1953 by the historian Asgaut Steinnes, that an early ninthcentury kingdom could have existed in South-West Norway that was named the utskyld-kingdom (Steinnes 1953). Utskyld is the name of a special kind of tax that certain farms in Agder 56

Sostelid, Åseral, Vest-Agder, ID 004978

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 6.5.7 Conclusions

not apply what is now seen as appropriate documentation or excavation techniques.

Archaeological excavation is an important part of the later life histories of burial mounds. Just like mound breakings and some treasure digs, excavations have been guided by certain sets of norms that govern when and how these digs are appropriate. These norms are under constant change, but are ultimately driven by the aim of attaining more knowledge.

Although digging up burial mounds can be seen as exceptional, and was in some cases a hazardous and a norm-breaking activity, one should not forget that digs have often taken place and people have consciously decided to break these norms. For instance, although the craving to retrieve antiquities could break norms, it stimulated mound breakings, treasure digs, openings and from 1871 immense archaeological excavations of burial mounds in Agder to build up rich archaeological collections in the museums.

The methods used for gaining knowledge have varied, however, from each generation of archaeologists: the norms that govern the proper conduct in one period break with the norms applied in the succeeding period. For instance, the nineteenth-century massive excavations and competition for collecting antiquities were not in accordance with the norms applied after 1905, when the museums were assigned responsibility for each of their districts and all burial mounds were protected. From the 1920s, local interests in attaining knowledge about the past of the parish could trigger skilled excavations of burial mounds, but this broke with the norms held from the 1970s that they should be protected if it was not for development. From the 1990s, the dominant governing factor has been that burial mounds should be protected and only exceptionally excavated. From these perspectives, even some of the former generation of archaeologists can be seen as grave plunderers because they applied what is today seen as rough methods and they also intended to excavate a high number of burial mounds.

One important similarity between the four ways of digging is that they are all governed by a profit motive, but the kind of profit differs. The profit could be to retrieve an important object belonging to the dead, to discover a treasure in order to be rich, to find objects from burial mounds that could be sold, or to recover antiquities that could be researched in order to gain knowledge about the past. From 1905, however, the profit secured by archaeologists gained priority: excavations should be carried out in order to gain knowledge about the past. However, this was legitimized by the argument that it was in the service of the entire people as it meant that the past of the nation could now be studied. The archaeological interests, which now gained priority, also came into conflict with other locally held norms, questioning who should be the owner and who should profit from the found objects. These issues are discussed further in Chapter 7, which considers how archaeologists have approached the divergent norms of treasure digs, and in addition how local people have responded to excavations and state ownership of antiquities.

6.6 Conclusions Defining four different methods of digging up burial mounds has been useful in this chapter as a way to explore various rationales and norms that govern digs at different times and by different groups of people. The argument held is that digging up burial mounds has been seen as a special task ever since burial mounds were constructed. From this perspective, it can be seen as controversial, or at least exceptional, to dig up burials in a Western setting. This view has been given support through a detailed exploration of the notion that digs are an important aspect of the later life histories of burial mounds, discussed through the four methods of breakings, treasure digs, openings and excavations. The four methods can also be seen as a way of giving respect to burial mounds as significant structures in the landscape, possibly also respect to the dead, who are now being disturbed. As such, these methods even express an ethic about burial mounds. According to the methods of breaking and treasure digs, these acts can be interpreted as activities that brake norms and stigmatize the digger in society. Conversely, the method termed as opening is characterized by the absence of methodologies and norms as the sources usually present it as a harmful activity. Excavations are characterized as an important academic task that is carried out in order to gain knowledge about the past. Within the discipline, excavations can still be seen as a normbreaking activity since the norms that govern them change over time. From this perspective, the succeeding generation of archaeologists may even accuse their predecessors of being plunderers because their reasons to excavate differ, or they do

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7 Owning the buried goods Generally, the people (…) have only minimal understanding about the importance and meaning of preserving found antiquities. However, there is without doubt still rich archaeological material to be gathered, and I would wish that circumstances will soon allow me to continue these explorations again. (Lorange 1878: 104, my translation)

In 1877, the archaeologist Anders Lund Lorange (1847–88) conducted his first excavation of burial mounds in Agder. In his report, Lorange argued that most people in the parish he excavated, Lista, did not understand the importance of preserving antiquities. This alleged lack of local interest, held by other archaeologists at this time too (e.g. Undset 1879: 36), served as an argument that archaeologists had to intensify excavations and the collection of antiquities in the countryside.

have an interest in retrieving objects from burial mounds. In the nineteenth century, this interest presented a problem for archaeologists since, inevitably, it led to the destruction of their research material. These ownership controversies are discussed in this chapter, first by considering the response taken by archaeologists towards treasure legends and treasure digs. Then, local resistance towards excavations and the collecting practice of archaeologists are treated. 7.1 Ownership controversies The Norwegian State is, according to the current Cultural Heritage Act of 1978, the owner of all found movable objects in Norway dating from before AD 1537 (§12). Today, five designated archaeological district museums are the caretakers of the objects, which for Agder is Oldsaksamlingen in Oslo. However, archaeological objects held in these museums are occasionally claimed and returned to the local communities, but the museums defend their legal title to own, care for and research them (Mikkelsen 1999; Solberg 1999). Local resistance towards the archaeological museums’ ownership is discussed only seldom in archaeological publications (Korslund 1996: 129-31; Pramli 1999: 109-10). While archaeologists may informally discuss requests for returns, ownership by the museums is usually not seen as problematic. Internationally, ownership and restitution of cultural property is a hot and controversial issue (e.g. Greenfield 1989). The issue is often seen as a conflict dividing the North and the South. Already in 1978, journalists in Sweden argued that discussions of ownership within a Western country also resembled the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized countries (in Bandaranayake 1978: 21-3).

Illus. 7.1: Anders Lund Lorange (1847–88) (Reproduced from Hagen 1997: 73) How the local people in Agder have responded to excavations and the collecting efforts by the major museums is explored in this chapter. Also today, archaeologists often experience, for instance during fieldwork, that local people complain that the archaeologists take the found antiquities with them to the museum. However, local resistance towards giving away archaeological movable objects can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. The view stated by archaeologists, that the local people lacked interest, could perhaps even be seen as a reaction towards the divergent interests held by the local people that represented an obstacle towards collecting antiquities. For instance, legends about treasures and treasure digs, discussed in section 6.3, indicate that local people might

The controversy is also often seen as a conflict between indigenous peoples and archaeologists. For instance, the British archaeologist Peter J. Ucko discusses the repatriation of Sámi cultural objects from museums in Norway and other places. Ucko acknowledges that repatriation is a controversy between national and local bodies too, but his main concern is that when the Sámi heritage is in the hands of “others”, then “proper respect for Sámi peoples is still missing” (Ucko 2001: 231). Still, in this case, Ucko reduces the question about ownership of archaeological objects to a question of indigenous peoples’ rights over their heritage, while other interest groups, such as local people, often feel their interests are not acknowledged either. 95

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record The problem of looting is another central issue in the international cultural property debate. The view held in this book is the “traditional” archaeological one: treasure digs and most local openings are destructive to the archaeological record (although excavations are destructive too, but they are documented). Despite taking this position, looting can also be studied from the “looters’” perspective, an approach currently taken in some international research. For instance, restrictions against “looting” might be seen as a scientific control over the archaeological record that can ignore certain values of other interest groups. In the context of North America, where archaeologists work at preventing looting, the American Indians even make the point that archaeologists are the looters (Smith 2004: 89, 140). Similar views are expressed in other contexts too: archaeologists take the artefacts with them and do not bring revenue back to the local communities. The local people even see themselves as the owners who have the right to exploit archaeological sites for their own interests. Some archaeologists have responded to these local objections by aiming to understand looting and the local importance of the archaeological record (e.g. Hollowell-Zimmer 2003; Hollowell 2006; Matsuda 1998; Staley 1993; Thoden van Velzen 1996, 1999). Archaeologists have even replaced the negative term “looter” with “subsistence digger”, defined as “a person who uses the proceeds from artifact sales to support his or her traditional subsistence lifestyle” (Staley 1993: 348).

and Frostatingsloven, both contain similar clauses that regulate the ownership of buried goods. Gulatingsloven applied to Agder and is the oldest law, written in the eleventh century, but it incorporates older customs. A provision of Gulatingsloven, granted in 1040 or 1041 by Magnus the Good (1024–47), king of Norway from 1035, assigned ownership of buried goods to the owner of the land even if another person had unearthed it (Gulatingslovi 1981: 161). According to the legal historian Knut Robberstad, the king had earlier demanded ownership of these objects because they were seen to belong to the dead (Robberstad in Gulatingslovi 1981: 366). However, it is uncertain on which sources Robberstad bases this argument, and it might be possible that the provision also incorporates older customs that the content of the burial mounds belonged to the people living on the farm, possibly because these people still maintained kinship with the buried person. In 1274, the first national law, Magnus Lagabøters landslov, replaced the four landscape laws. The ownership of buried goods was now regulated in five provisions. These new regulations have been interpreted from the view that buried goods were now an economic asset in which several parties had a vested interest (Trøim 1999: 23-4). This national law gave rights not only to the descendant of the buried person and the owner of the land, but also to the king and the finder. The concept of a haugodelsmann is significant in the law, and this refers to the man who is the rightful descendant and heir of the burial mound. According to the law, this heir has property rights in the buried goods even if another person owns the land. Hence, the concept of haugodelsmann indicates that in the mid-thirteenth century people could still trace kinship to a person buried in a burial mound, even when ownership of the land had changed. The complexity of ownership of buried goods is regulated through the following four (of five) clauses:

In this book, advocating the view that looters are “subsistence diggers” is seen as supporting a rather romantic picture of indigenous peoples, in which looting might be acceptable if people have a “traditional subsistence lifestyle”, but possibly not if such a lifestyle is abolished. Although I find the acceptance of “subsistence digging” indeed problematic, the studies do show that archaeologists often have an obligation to work together with the local communities and to reflect on their own interests. On the contrary, the following discussion indicates that while archaeologists in Norway too have claimed ownership over antiquities, several local interests have not always been present in the debate.

1. Buried goods are divided in three parts and given to the king, finder and the haugodelsmann or the landowner if there is no haugodelsmann. However, the digger must report the find; the find is otherwise split in two parts and given to the king and the haugodelsmann. The goods are divided between the landowner and king if the owner digs on his own land with no haugodelsmann. 2. If a man finds the goods on his allodium, he shall have two-thirds and the king one-third. 3. If someone finds goods on common ground, the finder shall have one-third and the king two-thirds. 4. If someone breaks into a mound or digs for goods in the ground without consent from the owner, he must give the goods back and pay for the damage (Taranger 1979 [1915]: VI. 16).

7.2 Means to regulate ownership Since the eleventh century, in Norway, the ownership of artefacts found in the ground has been regulated, although until 1905 this was mainly if these were “treasures”, i.e. precious metals. In this chapter, legal provisions that regulate ownership are discussed, preceded by a discussion on how archaeologists have responded to prevent the search for treasures. 7.2.1 Legal provisions (Middle Ages–1978)

Ownership of land could also be legitimized by proving lineage to the person interred in a burial mound, and/or that the farm had been in the ownership of the family since heathendom. This is known from the expression of tracing lineage to “haug og heiðni” (mound and heathendom) from a legal provision given in 1316 (Keyser and Munch 1849: 120-21). Scholars in various disciplines have often referred to this provision as an indication that burial mounds could serve, even into the fourteenth century, as visible “deeds” that documented

The Medieval and Renaissance laws aimed mainly at regulating the economic interests in what is called “buried goods” (jordgravet gods). Conversely, laws in the twentieth century aimed at securing the scientific rather than the economic values. In Norway, four different landscape laws applied from the Viking/early Middle Ages, until these were superseded in 1274 by a national law. The two best-preserved laws, Gulatingsloven 96

Owning the buried goods ownership to land (Brøgger 1937b: 171-2; Birkeli 1938: 166; Iversen 1999: 340; Pedersen 2002; Ringstad 1987b: 40-41; 1991: 143-4; Røthe 2004: 64; Skre 1997a: 43; 1998: 201; Sognnes 2000: 97-8; Taranger 1979 [1915]: 107; Tsigaridas 1998: 16).

pay at least as much as what was offered by other collectors (Fortidsminneforeningen 1874: 146-7). In most cases the law was still not enforced, and people in Agder were usually not fined for digging up burial mounds even when valuables were found. For instance, a finder in 1833 of a rich find refrained from giving away a gold ring, although he presented other objects to Bergen museum (Urda 1837b: 300).3 Until 1905, the regulations were also ambiguous and applied to selected objects only. The nineteenth-century legal literature defined buried goods as valuables found in the ground (Brandt 1892: 464). This meant that objects of metals such as gold or silver, and most archaeological objects, were not covered by the Renaissance law. Archaeologists who in the nineteenth century excavated burial mounds therefore had to negotiate with the owner of the ground and pay him an estimated value of the artefacts. In some cases, this presented difficulties. The most famous example is the find in 1903 of the Viking ship from Oseberg that the owner could have sold abroad, but it was in the end bought by the Norwegian State (Trøim 1999: 62). Further, the provision of 1752 did not command, but rather encouraged, the finder to send coins and remarkable ancient objects to the Crown for reimbursement. However, the Crown was not obliged to give full payment. A ministry circular of 6 November 1868 further stated that the State would always give up its part in buried goods if it chose not to buy it when offered (Brandt 1892: 466). Consequently, if a person in for instance 1880 did not report a find of valuables, the State can probably even today claim property rights over these objects, but this has never been tested in any court-cases (Holme 2001b: 106).

The Danish–Norwegian king Christian V’s Norwegian law of 1687 incorporated the thirteenth-century law that regulated ownership of buried goods (Kong Christian den femtes Norske Lov av 1687 1991 [1687]: clauses 5-9-3 to 7, pp. 8257). The main difference is that the Renaissance law omitted the concept of haugodelsmann. This amendment might indicate that kinship between landowners and a person buried in a burial mound was no longer maintained. The allodialist of the land, and not of the burial mound, now received the rights of the haugodelsmann. While the Medieval and Renaissance laws regulated mainly the monetary value of the goods, the idea emerged in the eighteenth century that they had an antiquarian value too. This new antiquarian value is expressed in a provision from 1752 that encouraged the finder to send old coins, but also old remarkable objects, to the Danish–Norwegian crown, for which he would be fully reimbursed (Brandt 1892: 465). Through the updated Renaissance clauses and the 1752 provision, the Medieval law that regulated ownership of buried goods was in force in Norway until 1905. However, it is uncertain how strongly the law was enforced, although one does know that it could be practised. For instance, the latenineteenth-century legal literature did treat the regulations of ownership of buried goods (Brandt 1892: 464-8). Studies of court protocols could possibly bring to light some cases when people were fined for trespassing the law, but such studies have not been carried out. From Agder, one case only is referred to in the researched sources: two people were fined in 1662 for digging up a burial mound in the night without the consent of the high official (Aanby 1998: 12). A case from 1792 is further known from East Norway: a man was imprisoned because he kept an object of gold (possibly from a burial mound), argued by the authorities to be the property of the crown (Hernæs 1978).

The first Cultural Heritage Act of 1905 abolished the Renaissance laws on ownership of buried goods and gave the State ownership of all found objects dating to before AD 1537. The purpose of this law was to secure the scientific importance of antiquities, more than securing the State’s interest in valuables. Gabriel Gustafson (1853–1915), keeper at Oldsaksamlingen, expressed in February 1904 this view when he called for a protection act: (…) the antiquities that are concealed [in burial mounds] cannot be regarded as the property of one man who now (in most cases by chance) owns the place. They must be seen as a common property of the nation, and their greatest importance lies in their attributes as national memorials, upon which the science about antiquity is constructed and shall continue to be constructed. (…) Remnants from antiquity should therefore be kept in inviolate condition, and the antiquities should be collected and kept in their rightful place. (Gustafson quoted after Trøim 1999: 43, my translation)

According to the 1752 provision, the State also redeemed a famous find in 1834 of a large Viking Age treasure in East Norway (Simonsen 2005: 5).1 Valuables found in Agder could also be redeemed, such as in 1811, when a shepherd found an object of gold after a fox had dug into a burial mound.2 In 1873, Fortidsminneforeningen sent a circular to all schoolteachers in South Norway to inform them about the importance of antiquities coming into the possession of public collections, and the society objected that they were sold abroad or purchased by private people. Oldsaksamlingen also informed them that the collection would pay the metal value of all objects of gold and silver with an addition of at least 10 per cent, and if they were asked for other antiquities, they would

To Gustafson, the “rightful place” was the archaeological museums: five archaeological district museums were, according to the provisions of the 1905 law, dedicated to taking care of the artefacts. Local museums were, in principle, not allowed to acquire antiquities, although after an agreement they could have them deposited. The landowners still retained some

Hon øvre, Øvre Eiker, Buskerud, ID 003195 Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen, B. M. Ms. 187a. No 90, report of December 14, 1824 from Stiftsprost Hans Engelhart to Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie, pp. 6-7. Found at Eg, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder, ID 016455 (cf. Møllerop 1957: 216) 1 2

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Øie øvre, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Mixed attitudes (1840–1900)

property rights in their value: the finder and owner could share the entire value for finds of gold or silver, with the addition of at least 10 per cent, abolishing this right if the find was not reported to the authorities. The finder and owner kept the ownership if the State did not demand its property rights six months after the find was reported. The owner could also get a reward for objects not of gold or silver. These compensation rules also applied to objects recovered under research excavations (according to §5), but the expenses for excavation could be deducted, although not for gold or silver (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §7). The compensation rule did not apply for rescue excavations (according to §4), and the state owned these objects (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §9).

The journal Urda and the yearbooks of Fortidsminneforeningen provide some information about the attitude of archaeologists in the nineteenth century towards legends about treasures, although few references are from Agder. Although archaeologists did agitate against treasure hunting, some sources, and especially Urda, express a mixed attitude towards legends about hidden treasures. Four reasons why a mixed attitude is present are given in the following. First, antiquities found during treasure digs could be acquired by an archaeological collection. This situation is documented in an article, printed in 1847 in Urda, that complained that treasure hunters searched for gold and silver, but usually found objects they were not interested in so discarded them for destruction. Still, because treasure hunters usually tried to secure a small wage for their work, they could offer the objects as commodities to buyers, and the antiquities could come into the possession of the museum. Although Bergen Museum acknowledged such purchases, the journal complained that the burial mounds were not investigated by skilled people who “could have taken care of the found objects stored in undamaged conditions and reported more on those circumstances that probably avoided the attention of the finder” (Urda 1847: 83).

The second act of 1951 kept most regulations of the former law (Cultural Heritage Act 1951: §§7-9; cf. discussion of regulations in Robberstad 1964). The regulations were simplified in the third law of 1978, which strengthened the property rights of the State. According to this current 1978 law, the State is the owner of all movables found by chance, as a find or during an excavation if these are older than 1537 and it “seems clear that there is no longer any reasonable possibility of establishing ownership or tracing the owner” (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §12). Although a reward can be given for a find, shared between the finder and landowner, a reward is only mandatory for finds of gold and silver, and it can be reduced for special reasons, such as if there is a long time lapse before the find is reported (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §13; Holme 2001: 116-18).

Second, the antiquarians doubted that the treasure legends were true, and they were therefore uncertain of how to approach them. One example is Bishop Neumann’s report on his travels in West Norway in the 1820s. Neumann heard several stories about treasures found in burial cairns, but he doubted the stories since he never saw any treasures. People who according to rumour in the parish became rich after they found treasures also denied these circumstances (Neumann 1842a: 131, 133).

The overview indicates that until 1905 the legal control over archaeological objects was in general at a low level. In the nineteenth century, archaeologists therefore aimed at securing the scientific value of the material through excavations, and they requested that local people presented them to the archaeological collections. In the nineteenth century, collecting efforts were still a difficult task. Archaeologists challenged the local people if they destroyed archaeological monuments and sites, or resisted relinquishing the objects due to the values they ascribed them, or if they hunted for treasures and were not interested in antiquities they found of iron, wood or clay, but destroyed or sold them to buyers. Archaeologists could still express, as seen in the next section, mixed views towards stories about treasures.

Third, archaeologists could even use treasure legends as a source to decide which burial mounds should be excavated, although the results were in these cases poor. This situation is present in several of Anders Lorange’s lively reports, published in the yearbooks of Fortidsminneforeningen, although one case only is known from Agder. The local people had seen a fire burning above a mound and therefore considered it as good to dig, and Lorange gained permission from the owner to excavate it (Lorange 1878: 95).4 Examples from other parts of the country are also known. People on a farm in East Norway had seen a fire burning above a burial mound that Lorange decided to excavate, and the owner kept a strict watch over the excavation because he was sure there was a treasure in the burial mound and he wanted his share. When Lorange did not find the treasure, the owner thought the treasure was waiting for the right person that was not Lorange (Lorange 1869: 67; cf. comment by Hodne 2000: 226).5 On a farm in West Norway, Lorange was asked to dig a burial mound because the owner according to the old stories had “good faith in it” (Lorange 1882: 48). Stories about hidden treasures on a second farm in West Norway caught the attention of Lorange, but also a crowd that assembled to witness the excavation:6

7.2.2 Responses towards legends about treasures (1840–2000) References to legends about treasures and treasure digs are frequent in nineteenth-century archaeological literature (see section 6.3). However, considering how common these stories are in the researched sources, archaeologists refer only occasionally to them. When archaeologists did refer to stories about treasure, they usually argued that treasures were seldom concealed in burial mounds. By so doing, they aimed to deter the belief that was causing the destruction of burial mounds by people choosing to search for treasures. This concern to stop people plundering burial mounds is reminiscent of current writings in archaeology that aim at preventing the global looting of monuments and sites for the international antiquity market (e.g. Messenger 1989; O’Keefe 1997; Brodie et al. 2000; Brodie et al. 2001; Renfrew 2001).

Svarthaug, Dyngvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 03927 Finstad, Rakkestad, Østfold 6 Haugland, Kvinnherad, Hordaland 4 5

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Owning the buried goods In a remarkably short time a crowd of spectators came together, “thus now was the treasure-kettle found”, and the owner had to get a new witnessed declaration from me that the value should be paid him before he would give me the permission to open the grave. (Lorange 1882: 64, my translation)

mounds did not contain treasures of gold and silver. In 1904, Gabriel Gustafson submitted a proposal for a preservation law in which he acknowledged that most people due to “respect towards their ancestors” would not disturb their memorials. Experience had nevertheless shown that an increasing number of burial mounds were being dug to find valuables, but Gustafson argued that any profit would not even cover the cost of digging (Gustafson referred in Trøim 1999: 43-4). Gustafson later argued that these searches for treasures were not legitimate, but only skilled excavations to learn about the past justified the destruction of burial mounds:

However, the grave was empty, causing much disappointment to the onlookers, and Lorange writes: After the investigation both the grave and the mound were restored, but so that the eastern end of the gable stands open, so that one can look into the attractive chamber, that caused its owner and many others such a big disappointment. (Lorange 1882: 65, my translation)

Those memorials that in antiquity with much effort and cost have been raised over the dead should be protected for the distant future. Against this unwritten rule, people have sinned long and often. Worst has been the desire for money. One imagined that in antiquity, valuables were always interred in the graves, and therefore many beautiful mounds or cairns have been shamelessly torn up, because somebody wanted to enrich themselves with the accompanying goods of the ancestors. As a rule such a person was disappointed, and seldom gained any monetary profit from the not always easy job of opening a mound. But the memorial is then destroyed forever, with irreparable damage and without further use for anyone.

Fourth, archaeologists recognized that legends about treasures could protect burial mounds. In West Norway, Bishop Neumann excavated a burial mound that had been plundered 150 years ago, but he knew that locally this act was viewed as hazardous since the man who plundered the grave allegedly became “both paralyzed and insane” (Neumann 1842b: 214). In Agder, the burial mound that Lorange excavated in 1877, because local people had seen a fire burning over it, had unlike other burial mounds in the vicinity not been disturbed, because of the superstition attached to it (Lorange 1878: 95). Even Nicolay Nicolaysen, who is the archaeologist of the nineteenth century most strongly opposed to folk-beliefs, referred to the trouble that local people allegedly experienced when they searched for treasures. Nicolaysen referred to several beliefs he heard, such as that a fire burns over a mound containing treasures; one should dig in silence on a Thursday; the digger could get ill, or the farm burn down and evil forces would scare the digger (e.g. Nicolaysen 1870: 159; 1871b: 139; 1874: 1212). Although Nicolaysen held such legends and beliefs to be fables, he acknowledged that they in several cases protected burial mounds because people often stopped digging “either due to lack of endurance or because they were scared of those sights the superstition fooled them with” (Nicolaysen 1874: 122).

Another issue is those excavations accomplished by scientific endeavour. They are justified, because we have the right to acquire knowledge about our antiquity, and this knowledge can only be achieved through the investigation of the remains from antiquity. But it is with mercy and love that the researcher pursues this goal. He knows the responsibility and the seriousness of that kind of work. He does not search for gold, but rather knowledge, and he is not disappointed. He finds what he searches for, even if it does not result in tangible objects. (Gustafson 1906: 145, my translation) Since treasure digs should, after the adoption in 1905 of the Cultural Heritage Act, not in theory be a problem, archaeologists in the years afterwards argued mainly against the false belief that treasures were interred in burial mounds. For instance, Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955), keeper of Bergen Museum, trusted in the great age of several folk-beliefs about burial mounds, but argued strictly against legends about found treasures. Shetelig never met people who could witness the stories themselves: treasures were always found in their father’s or grandfather’s time while the fire burning above a burial mound had only been seen by certain deceased people. Shetelig further argued that the treasure legends were stereotypical, and as such, they differed from other types of folk-beliefs about burial mounds that he recognized as survivors of old beliefs (Schetelig 1911: 208). At this time, this distinguished between what was seen as real place-bound traditions and the stereotypical stories about treasures that were held by other archaeologists too (e.g. Hougen 1933: 59).

Nicolaysen did still regret that treasure legends could stimulate people to dig, he objected to the belief that treasures were found in burial mounds, and he argued that these were based on rumours in the parishes (Nicolaysen 1874: 121-2). From Agder, Nicolaysen refers to one example of such a rumour, a legend later published by Skar (Skar 1961 [1911]: 316).7 Two horns of gold were found in a burial cairn and were sent to the national museum in Copenhagen, where they were later seen by a local guardsman on duty at the royal castle. For Nicolaysen, this was a good example of misunderstandings by the common people, and he argued they mixed everything up with the famous Danish gold horns from Gallehus (Nicolaysen 1883a: 204). False belief but old superstitions (1900–1960) In the early twentieth century, archaeologists continued claiming, in order to prevent unskilled digs, that burial 7

Other archaeologists were more positive towards treasure legends and approached them as beliefs that could be used to obtain knowledge about archaeological finds of valuables. In his survey reports from Agder, from the late 1920s and

Flåt, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record early ’30s, Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973) would refer negatively to treasure digs that had destroyed burial mounds. However, contrary to former archaeologists who argued against the view that treasures were interred in burial mounds, Grieg claimed in his overview of Norwegian Viking Age treasure finds that valuables in several cases were actually hidden in the ground in times of unrest, or interred for the afterlife of the dead (Grieg 1929: 288-307). Grieg based this interpretation on the Norse sagas, but also Johannes Skar’s legends about hidden treasures in Setesdal (Grieg 1929: 301-2, 307), including two legends of treasures in burial mounds (Skar 1961 [1909]: 101; 1961 [1908]: 518-19).8 Grieg further acknowledged that buried treasures were associated with superstitious incidents, and that serious dangers could occur if people retrieved treasures and stole them from the dead (Grieg 1929: 306-7). Grieg even used these as an indication that beliefs about treasures had been present in the Viking Age too, and he argued: “there is no reason to believe that the Viking Age Norwegians were not just as superstitious as the Norwegian farmers and citizens in modern times” (Grieg 1929: 307). A. W. Brøgger (1884– 1951) communicated similar thoughts. He argued that the mound breaking motive in the Norse sagas, which intended to obtain important objects, should be extended to nineteenthcenturies stories about treasure digs and beliefs surrounding the act (Brøgger 1945: 44). Rejection of treasure legends (1960–90) In the 1960s and ’70s, when archaeologists strongly focused upon scientifically correct interpretations, archaeologists again argued against the belief that burial mounds hide treasures. In 1974, Perry Rolfsen, an archaeologist active in Agder from the 1970s, published in a local history journal: “It is widely held among some people that large mounds contain gold, silver and Viking ships, but as we shall see, this is seldom correct” (Rolfsen 1974b: 15). Elizabeth Skjelsvik recognized, however, that these legends were frequent, and she wrote that “most common all over the country are without doubt legends about treasures buried in mounds, both grave memorials and natural mounds” (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 10). She did not treat the legends as positive or negative, and she gave an account only of some of the rich traditions about treasures in Agder and East Norway (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 10-13). Important older interpretations and dreams (1990–) By the 1990s, legends about hidden treasures and treasure digs had in most cases lost their destructive potential. Archaeologists did still not believe in them, but they were now seen as older interpretations and beliefs about burial mounds that were worthy of communicating. The narratives even inspired Oldsaksamlingen’s permanent current exhibition of treasure finds, opened in 1992, that devoted a glass-case to legends about treasures. Valuables were displayed in a cauldron, and the catalogue explains: Lòkhaug, Dale, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016759 and Moshaug, Moi, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 018520. The second mound was destroyed in 1977. Most sources refer to this as a burial mound, but it was according to the survey report probably a natural mound. 8

We have filled our kettle with fabulous treasure. No treasure like this ever really existed. It is only in fairy tales we find copper kettles brimming with gold, but in this presentation of the fabulous objects people before us once owned, we felt it fitting and proper also to present the “perfect”, if imaginary, treasure trove from the past as it lives on in tales that are still read to Norwegian children at bedtime. (Hofseth 1993: 59, emphasis in original) Archaeologists now also assessed treasure legends positively and acknowledged that they previously had a function and importance for people. According to this approach, treasure legends were seen as an expression of the dream of becoming rich, and they resembled as such current lotteries (Aannestad 1999: 78). 7.2.3 Conclusions Both legal preventions and education against treasure legends have been used to secure the ownership by archaeologists of antiquities. While archaeologist have justified the destruction of burial mounds according to their “profit motive” – gaining knowledge about the past – in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, legends about treasures were seen as denoting a greed for valuables that had a negative destructive potential. However, archaeologists acknowledged also that those beliefs surrounding treasures could protect burial mounds. From the 1990s, the fallacy of treasures was less important to dissuade, as their potential was less destructive for both the archaeological record and knowledge, and the narratives were now seen as an expression of the dream of people to escape poverty. 7.3 Local objections and criticism of sources Even though the treasure legends have lost most of their potential destructive power, after the 1990s, ownership controversies surrounding antiquities became stronger. However, local objections against both excavations and State ownership of antiquities can also be traced back to the nineteenth century, and these are discussed in sections 7.4 and 7.5. Some source critical aspects are first considered in this section, since the sources of these objections are sparse and ambiguous. 7.3.1 Lack of accounts In the nineteenth century, opposition towards the practice of archaeology was poorly documented in the written sources, and archaeologists would only occasionally include local resistance towards their practice. Mainly newspaper articles and local historical sources from the twentieth century contain some resistance towards excavations and the practice of collecting. The sparse sources might indicate that the resistance against archaeological practice has in general been low. Local permissions, after 1871, to conduct massive excavations of burial mounds in Agder might also indicate that the local people were often supportive towards excavations. That antiquities were given or sold to the museums in the nineteenth century also supports the argument that people saw these as potential commodities from which they could gain revenue (see section 6.5.4). 100

Owning the buried goods Still, some objections can be found in the sources, discussed in the following. Although various instances of resistance towards archaeologists are discussed in length in this section, it is not certain – as with several folk-beliefs – that all the local community share the objections. The resistance may instead reflect the views of an individual only, such as a local person interested in history who, although in favour of archaeology, disagrees with certain aspects of archaeological practice. 7.3.2 Ambiguous motives for objections Some sources that express resistance towards excavating burial mounds or collecting antiquities are questionable because it is uncertain what they oppose. Consider the following extract from a letter written some time after 1936 by a local amateur historian living on an island in Agder.9 He refers to the protection of burials by the local people in the nineteenth century: (...) there may be a grave that our ancestors covered up, because many greedy people from East Norway and foreigners in the middle of the last century searched here for antiquities, and at those times Danish or French alcoholic spirits were in their golden age and left traces. Grandfather said that the dead should rest in their grave. (My translation)10 The statement clearly expresses resistance towards people who collected antiquities, but it is ambiguous why. Was it because of a generally suspicious attitude to strangers, here termed “greedy people”? Respect for the dead? Alternatively, simply because the sale enabled the men to buy damaging spirits? The statement is certainly ambiguous, but also indicates that the resistance could be complex and guided by several motivations. 7.3.3 Lack of “archaeologist-lore” Another characteristic of the sources is that they seldom mention archaeologists. Local resistance towards archaeological practice can be seen as “archaeologist-lore”: narratives in the local communities about archaeologists. These narratives are still rare, and it is doubtful that archaeological practice has been so significant in local communities that it was talked about for a long time afterwards. The oral historian Jan Vansina argues for instance that “traditions about events are only kept because the events were thought to be important or significant”, and the selection process continues over time as the criteria for importance also change (Vansina 1985: 118). The reason why “archaeologist-lore” is seldom recorded might be explained by the fact that collectors of folklore have mainly been interested in certain types of folklore that were in the nineteenth century established as folk-narratives, but not stories about archaeologists. Still, interviewing people in Agder on fieldwork conducted for this book, I noticed that most people did not know the names of archaeologists who had excavated burial mounds on their property, only the more Hidra, Flekkefjord, Aust-Agder 10 UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Flekkefjord/Diverse I, letter from Laurids Eriksson to Norsk arkeologisk selskap, undated but written after the establishment of Norsk arkeologisk selskap in 1936 and before Eriksson’s death in 1957 (born 1876) 9

vague “a man”, or “someone”, and usually they did not know what was found either. People who have been in conflict with archaeologists may still talk negatively about named archaeologists, but usually with caution to me. Local historical literature also seldom mentions archaeologists who excavate burial mounds in the parish, but gives stronger attention to named local people who have dug. Hence, this literature shows an interest primarily in locally known people and not archaeologists who are strangers. Based on the apparent lack of “archaeologist-lore”, it is tempting to conclude that archaeologists are seen mainly as strangers who visited the area for a short period, and there is less cause to talk about them for long afterwards. Objections towards excavations or collectors are therefore seldom found. Stories about local people digging up burial mounds are instead more important, and these are regularly transmitted orally or in written sources. These points are supported in a lengthy discussion in the following on the first antiquarian active in Agder, the travelling antiquarian Arendt, and later accounts about Anders Lorange’s excavations in Agder in 1877 and 1879. Martin Friederich Arendt (1773–1823), introduced in section 4.1, is probably the best example of an antiquarian who is later remembered in Scandinavia for the “archaeologist-lore” attached to his name. Arendt is remembered mainly because of his peculiar personality, combined with his profession as an antiquarian, since it was unusual in the early nineteenth century to travel through Europe to gain knowledge about archaeological monuments. Several contemporaries referred to Arendt’s oddities (e.g. Daae 1861: 57-8, 62, 82-5; Oehlenschläger and Bobé 1915: 172-3), and his peculiarities are the main topics of entertaining biographical sketches (Thaarup 1835–44; Boye 1873; Brøgger 1923; Moltke 1957; Olesen 1985; Høgsbro 1998; Hansen 2004). The peculiarities of Arendt are reflected in the nickname given him – “the travelling antiquarian”: he went on foot, looking like a poor craftsman, not a learned man; he invited himself to stay wherever he went, but was often rude, and came into conflict with people he met. Accounts about Arendt are known mainly from contemporary scholars, rather than farmers. Still, both his personal peculiarities and the interest Arendt showed in ancient monuments must have struck the farmers he met: Arendt was probably the first professional antiquarian who travelled through Agder to pursue antiquarian investigations, i.e. drawing ancient monuments, but he did not excavate or collect antiquities. Arendt’s travels through Agder are known from two contemporary letters referring to his oddities, written by a civil servant Arendt stayed with in 1802 and 1805 (printed in Daae 1861: 82-5). Arendt then stayed with the famous politician, historian and ironwork owner Jacob Aall (1773–1844) when in 1816 he again travelled through Agder (Høgsbro 1998: 133). Fifty years after his death, scholars in Scandinavia still talked about Arendt’s oddities. The Norwegian archaeologist Ingvald Undset (1853–93) collected information about Arendt for a biography (never completed), little known material not used

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record in later works.11 Anders Lorange is one of several scholars who in 1878 sent to Undset peculiar stories about Arendt that he had heard. These indicate that people considered both Arendt’s character and his antiquarian interests as weird, such as when in 1811 he came to a stately home in East Norway to document a rune-stone:12 One morning, just before Christmas 1811, the farmers at Torsø reported to their landlord that a strange unknown man had come to the farm: “He is lying out by the gate and has been crawling on his stomach around a stone on the side of the road.”

In 1917, the archaeologist Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) started his extensive excavations of burial mounds at Lista. Gjessing then chose first to excavate what he thought was an untouched burial mound, but he did not know that Lorange had already excavated it in 1877 and even recorded traditions about it (Lorange 1878: 95).14 Gjessing wrote in his excavation report: The mound generally looked untouched. But it was told me that a man at Dyngvold [the farm] many years ago had dug it up and put into the mound a bottle with some coins, which thereafter he threw away again. So the local people did not know any results of this excavation or any traditions about the mound, and I therefore did not consider this information, since the mound was clearly untouched when I started to excavate. It was only at a later stage, when the excavation had progressed, that I got to know that the name of the mound was Svarthaug and that it was “a man who was a non-local who had dug there”.

It was Mr. Arendt who had then come to Torsø to study the two broken rune-stones standing by the gate. He invited himself in as a guest, stayed there for some days, and was remembered by the residents for his weird, really weird pretentious being (...). (...) The notes he sometimes left those he visited seem to show that he felt the importance of his research, and that he predicted posterity rather than his contemporaries would appreciate the significance of his notes. (My translation)13 Fredrik Thaarup, a bailiff who lived close to Oslo, met Arendt during the winter of 1803–4, and later wrote how difficult this self-invited guest could be: He was a cynic to the highest degree, was rude towards the opposite sex, talked with disparagement about honest people, and in general in all his behavior was, wherever he went, a burdensome guest whom one could hardly bear. (...) He travelled on such minimal expenses because he lodged with priests and farmers. If one noticed that his stay was difficult, he did not worry about this, but stayed as long as he felt like himself. Once, in order to get rid of him, a priest had to force him onto a boat and took him over the fjord. Another proceeded more gently: in the middle of winter he bricked up the opening of his chimney, and so the smoke managed to get him tired of his stay. (Thaarup 1835–44: 168, my translation) Arendt is an unusual example of an antiquarian being talked about negatively among clergymen and officials. However, although he was a peculiar person, with the remarkable task of investigating ancient monuments in Agder in 1805, no accounts exist about how the farmers perceived him. Being a stranger who walked through the area, his occupation was possibly not so significant that oral accounts about him were later recorded in folkloristic or local historical literature. Examples still exist of archaeologists being talked about locally after they have pursued excavations, but it is seldom remembered who the person was, as exemplified by Anders Lorange’s excavations in Agder, 1877 and 1879, for Bergen Museum. NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 562. Arendtiana. Samlingen til Oldforsker M. F. Arendts biografi. 12 Torsø, Fredrikstad, Østfold, ID 007731 13 NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 562. Arendtiana. Samlingen til Oldforsker M. F. Arendts biografi, letter of 6 December 1878, from Anders Lorange to Ingvald Undset

(...) Finally, it is briefly noted that here is an example of how quickly a tradition can die out in our time. (My translation)15 For Gjessing, the fact that people could not remember who had excavated the burial mound confirmed a view, commonly held in the early twentieth century, that traditions disappeared fast, and one had to collect them before they disappeared. However, the tradition had in this case not died, but – such as often happens with oral accounts – it had just changed. Forty years after Lorange’s excavation, the local people knew three important facts. (1) They knew someone had dug up the burial mound, in one case a person from the farm, in the second a non-local. (2) They did not know the results of the excavation (Lorange did not find any grave). (3) The person who dug left a bottle with coins in the mound. This is a remarkable point since it is also known that Lorange had, in 1870, left two bottles in another burial mound, and these were found during a second excavation in 1940 (Grieg 1941: 9-10; Hagen 1997: 9-11).16 This was not known when Gjessing carried out his excavations, and it is reasonable to believe that a bottle interred by Lorange is still lying in the burial mound (Appel 2003: 251). Gjessing’s account thus shows that excavations can be remembered and talked about locally, although it is not always known who the excavator was. Later accounts even indicate that the excavator can be demeaned by omitting that he is a skilled archaeologist. One example is a parish-book that refers to a burial mound that Lorange, in 1879, had excavated in Agder (Lorange 1880b: 159; 1880a: 232-3):17 The old people held Ringhaugen as a sanctuary at the farm (...). Many years ago somebody came from Bergen and dug the mounds, and he found there many things (...), but

11

Svarthaug, Dyngvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 03927 UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Farsund/Dyngvold, report of December, 1917, by Helge Gjessing, pp. 1-2 16 Raknehaugen, Hovin øvre, Ullensaker, Akershus, ID 010284 17 Ringhaug, Strisland, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID 015124 14 15

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Owning the buried goods

Illus. 7.2: Svarthaug in 1877 and 1917 The burial mound was excavated both by Lorange in 1877 (drawing) and Gjessing in 1917 (photo). Drawing reproduced from Lorange’s diary in UO top. ark. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Photo Helge Gjessing (Dyngvold, Farsund, Lista, ID 03927)

not silver or gold. He dug all the mounds apart from one, but he was no expert, and there is probably more to find. (Breilid 1965: 84, my translation) 7.3.4 Conclusions These critical reflections on sources indicate that the sources used to gain knowledge about objections against archaeological practice can be elusive. Reasons to object can be ambiguous, while it is seldom documented how antiquarians or archaeologists were locally talked about. Names of archaeologists are not always remembered, but they could be referred to as strangers, as in Lorange’s case, and these sourcecritical notions are important to have in mind throughout sections 7.4 and 7.5 as ambiguous protests might be present. 7.4 Objections against excavations In this section, the sparse sources are used to trace possible objections against excavation. This possible resistance is seldom documented in the archaeological sources, which can partly be explained by the function of these publications: they are there to inform about the importance of the discipline. Archaeologists in the nineteenth century still knew that differing views existed as to whether burial mounds should be excavated or not (see section 6.5.3). Nicolaysen even wrote that one sometimes heard the question why graves should be disturbed and had not the museums got enough antiquities already. Nicolaysen disapproved of these objections, and he claimed that they showed insufficient knowledge about archaeological matters because collecting antiquities was undoubtedly important (Nicolaysen 1874: 122). Though supporting excavations, in the nineteenth century, archaeologists could still refer to selected reasons why they did not manage to excavate as many burial mounds as they wanted, but these reasons belonged mainly to the practical or economic sphere.

7.4.1 Current uses and trees Current uses of burial mounds, and trees that grew on them, seem in the late nineteenth century to have been reasons that archaeologists accepted for not conducting excavations. If not all burial mounds at a site were excavated, the archaeologist in charge would often regret and explain these circumstances due to these reasons. When in 1879 Oluf Rygh (1833–99) excavated burial mounds in Agder, he counted more than 90, but regretted that he could only excavate 44 because the others were so damaged and would hardly give any results (Rygh 1880: 23).18 When in 1882 Nicolaysen excavated a large site, he counted 44 burial mounds, but he regretted that he could only excavate 24.19 This, he explained, was because the burial mounds had a current use as “a mound for pleasure [lysthaug] with a flagstaff on”, they lay under buildings or in a garden, but also because the mounds were covered by trees “that the owner reasonably wanted to save” (Nicolaysen 1883b: 15-16). During other excavations in Agder too, Nicolaysen explained that rejections he encountered against excavating burial mounds were due to their current uses, such as a potato cellar (Nicolaysen 1877b: 134), or the trees that grew on them (Nicolaysen 1877b: 125-6; 1872: 136). Still, in two other cases, Nicolaysen gave no reason for why he could not excavate burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1876a: 206; 1872: 132). While current uses of burial mounds can be an understandable reason for not excavating them, the sources do not state why the trees are important. This might be due to superstitious beliefs about trees, considered in chapter 8, but is probably in most cases due to their monetary, but also aesthetic, value; and that trees cannot be replaced. For instance, when in 1880, Th. Winther conducted a large excavation in Agder, he did 18 19

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Spangereid, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026937 Evje Nikkelerk, Evje og Hornnes, Vest-Agder

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record not apply the proper techniques and excavated the entire burial mounds because the owner did not want to cut the trees (Winther 1881b: 96). Even in much later archaeological sources, trees are used as arguments for not excavating burial mounds. E.g. in 1957, the archaeologist Wencke Slomann (1918–90) conducted archaeological surveys after a request by the committee in charge of writing the parish-book. However, a large burial mound with much folklore attached was not excavated because the protected pines had to be cut down, and the protection of the mound was supported by the owner too (see also section 7.4.2).20

From Agder, one source only, a travel book published in 1901, clearly states that an archaeologist, Nicolaysen in 1893, was not allowed to excavate a burial mound due to the local esteem given it (Abrahamson 1901: 84).22 This esteem was possibly due to superstitions attached to the mound (Nielsen 1891: 40), but aesthetic values, the trees at the burial mound, and even a legend about an interred king might also have protected it. Nevertheless, one must have in mind that although local esteem was given to this one burial mound, this did not prevent Nicolaysen from excavating 35 others at the same farm (Nicolaysen 1894b).

While trees could not be replaced, a mound could be restored after excavation to retain some of its local functions. Lorange’s 1879 excavations in Agder are an unusual example, and he described that he restored a burial mound after its excavation because it was used locally as a meeting place:

In other archaeological sources, the tendency is also present that archaeologists ascribed encounters with superstitious beliefs to the former generation, and if they themselves encountered them, they were not seen as a hindrance to excavation. For instance, after a 1881 excavation in West Norway, Lorange wrote that his predecessor, the antiquarian Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (1778–1849), was at one farm prevented from excavating burial mounds because the people were afraid of disturbing them (Lorange 1882: 62).23 According to Lorange’s report, the local people did not refuse to let him excavate the burial mounds, and he did not reflect upon the circumstance that the excavated burial mounds had been protected until he arrived. In 1877, Lorange also excavated in Agder three large Bronze Age burial mounds, of which two were still untouched. One of these, the largest in the parish, had according to Lorange much engaged some “folk-fantasy” (Lorange 1878: 95), but he did not write what these fantasies consisted of.24 The second was untouched because of superstitions, which made it especially vulnerable for Lorange who then conducted an excavation, and he did not reflect on the fact that he possibly broke with local beliefs:

The mound lies on a slope and was surrounded by an artificial plain that in front of the mound was 8 m wide and on the other sides was reminiscent of a wide passage. The custom was that the youth danced on holidays on this plain, while the fiddler sat on the mound. The mound was therefore well known, but untouched and was carefully restored. (Lorange 1880a: 233, my translation) 21 Whether before this excavation Lorange had heard objections from the local people about excavating the burial mound is uncertain. However, considering that later sources described this mound as a sanctuary of the farm (see end of section 7.3.3), its restoration might have been part of a negotiation to allow excavation. 7.4.2 Superstitious beliefs Indications that superstitious beliefs could be factors that prevented excavations of burial mounds are, in rare cases, found in both archaeological and other sources (see chapter 8 for other accounts about superstitions). In Agder, sources about these matters are sparse, and cases from other areas in Norway are therefore discussed in order to gain some general awareness of the issue and to what extent superstitions could be a hindrance.

(...)[there] lies a whole row of burial mounds, of which all are much damaged apart from one, called “Svarthaugen” (...), to which different superstitions are attached. Only because of this has it been kept untouched, “but many had seen there burn a light on it, and if there was a mound at Lista that it would be worth digging in, it had to be Svarthaug.” The owner (...) kindly gave his permission to the investigation (...). (Lorange 1878: 95, my translation)25

A combination of several reasons might explain why resistance due to superstitious beliefs is seldom given in the nineteenthcentury sources:

While Lorange wrote that the previous generation had been prevented from excavating burial mounds, and superstitions were not a hindrance for him, the generation after Lorange said the same about their predecessors. Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955), conservator from 1901 at Bergen Museum, interpreted several beliefs about burial mounds as relicts of preChristian religion that were now becoming extinct. According to Shetelig, fears about disturbing them should therefore earlier have been common, and “a generation ago probably all archaeologists had such experiences” (Schetelig 1911: 210). From West Norway, Shetelig referred to one example of these objections that he heard from the local people:26

1. the local people did not dare to tell the educated about their beliefs 2. archaeologists and other scholars did not publish the beliefs they heard because these were unwanted and could also be seen as hindrance to excavations 3. the beliefs diminished in the second half of the nineteenth century, i.e. at the same time as the major excavations started, and archaeologists did generally not encounter them 4. superstitious beliefs have actually not, or only exceptionally, protected burial mounds or prevented excavations

22 23

UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Bygland/Diverse I, report of August, 1957 on Hanehaugen, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809 21 Ringhaug, Strisland, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID 015124 20

24 25 26

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Hanehaugen, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809 Haugland, Kvinnherad, Hordaland Sverreshaug, Hauge østre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004161 Svarthaug, Dyngvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003927 Grindheim, Etne, Hordaland

Owning the buried goods As late as in 1895, Professor O. Rygh could not get gain the owner’s permission to investigate the mounds at Grindheim in Etne “because then we were still afraid of our mounds”, as one of the farmers told me 9 years later. (Schetelig 1911: 210; see also Schetelig 1904: 3)

worth, and he was ill the rest of his life. (…) Later he got a man to help him reconstruct the mound that the bishop had excavated, and smarten it up again as best they could, and then his leg recovered. (Landstad 1926: 108-9, my translation)

However, only nine years later Shetelig was given permission to excavate this site, partly because a traveller had dug up burial mounds in the area against the owner’s will (Schetelig 1904: 3-4). By 1911, Shetelig had himself experienced only once, in 1903, objections against excavating a burial mound.27 The owner of the farm was young and approved the excavation, but an older woman voiced her protest:

Later collections of Norwegian folklore reprint this story as an example that folk-beliefs can protect burial mounds (Bø et al. 1981: 165-6, 282). However, the account can also be interpreted from the perspective that it gives a special explanation for misfortunes, and it is an unusual example of the local people passing a verdict against the authorities. Although the owner, according to the source, actually had a problem with alcohol, the misfortunes were ascribed to the bishop’s opening of the burial mound, and the folk-beliefs can be seen as operating to rationalize his misfortunes. That the man recovered after he repaired the damage can further be interpreted as an expression of the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own misfortunes and acting in order to improve conditions, in this case by restoring the burial mound. Nevertheless, the story also supports, together with the other mentioned examples, the fact that superstitious beliefs present in the nineteenth century may have caused local resistance, also in Agder, towards excavating burial mounds, although these objections are seldom found in the sources.

But during the work came the old granny and she predicted misfortune for the farm after this work. She was obviously the last of those now living who had kept this feeling of respect. (Schetelig 1911: 210-211, my translation) These examples show that Shetelig, unlike the former generation, included objections against excavations in his reports, possibly because in his time the beliefs were seen as curious old relicts held mainly by the old, and they were not seen as valid arguments that could prevent excavations. Still, Shetelig also encountered obstacles that he did not publish (see section 7.5.2), and he even omitted from his reports superstitions that could explain circumstances in his own life (see section 8.8.3). Among other examples of superstitions that could prevent digs is a famous case from the county of Telemark, where local people attributed misfortunes to openings of burial mounds. This account was recorded by the famous hymn writer Magnus Brostrup Landstad (1802–80), who during the period 1834– 49 was a priest in the county of Telemark, but also collected folklore that was mainly published posthumously (Baklid 2003: 21-3). Legends collected by Landstad indicate that in the first half of the nineteenth century several burial mounds in Telemark were protected by folk-beliefs (Landstad 1926: 105-15). The situation was that Bishop Johan Storm Munch (1778– 1832) organized in 1824 openings of burial mounds in Agder and Telemark (Knutzen 1922: 42; Krag 1968: 95; Landstad 1926: 108-9). Landstad recorded some years later what happened with the owner of the farm after the bishop had left an opened mound in Telemark:28 Yes, he [the owner] did allow Bishop Munch in the year 1824 to excavate the mound. The bishop himself stood there and watched while they dug, but it was heavy work, and they had not finished before the bishop had to leave, so then they stopped digging. The workers said that the pole indicated there was a big flagstone below, and under that stood a cauldron of money, they thought, but then they did not dare to dig any longer. That bishop was never allowed to come here again, and then it turned out for Guttorm [the owner] that his farm was pawned for more than it was

7.4.3 Keeping imaginative views about the past While in the nineteenth century superstitious beliefs may be a possible reason that prevented archaeologists from excavating burial mounds, in the twentieth century it was more the local wishes to preserve imaginative views about the past that may have caused hesitation. Imaginative views are especially connected to burial mounds associated with kings, mentioned in written sources from the Middle Ages (see section 9.4.2.), but legends can in rare cases attain a similar importance. That people in some cases want to keep their fantasies was the case when in 1981 Oldsaksamlingen excavated a burial mound in Agder.29 A newspaper, presenting the excavation, was mainly interested in the possibility that the mound contained valuables. However, to the disappointment of the journalist, neither Nicolaysen who excavated most of the site in 1871 nor the archaeologists in 1981 found any valuables, and the article sarcastically concluded with an objection against excavations: So why not let the fantasies flourish and imagine that it survives, the gold and silver our ancestors interred when they set out for the hereafter? But please – let us avoid those specialists coming with their digging tools and depriving us of our illusions. (My translation)30 In this case the local fantasy certainly flourished, and one week later the newspaper reported that a local man had demonstrated, with a clothes hanger used as a twig, that gold was interred only half a metre from where the excavation had stopped.31 Lyngdal prestegård, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004663 “Mange graver fra folkevandringstiden på høyden øst for Lyngdal kirke. Men bare en av gravene er uåpnet i vår tid”, Farsunds Avis, June 30, 1981 31 “Johannes Lølands kleshenger-teori: Gull i gravhaugen ved Lyngdal kirke”, Farsunds Avis, 7 July 1981 29 30

27 28

Tussehaugen, Fitje, Gloppen, Sogn og Fjordane, ID 01770 Nes, Seljord, Telemark

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record However, arguing against excavations in order to preserve fantasies can hide other motives too. This is present in a newspaper article of 1934, when a man argued against the potential excavation of a burial site in Agder. His main concern was, however, not to preserve the burial mounds, but to avoid the antiquities being deposited at Oldsaksamlingen in Oslo: It is both good and bad to excavate these old burial mounds. If they are excavated, they lose their mysticism and hence they become valueless. No, let us rather keep some of these old memorials, and if they are excavated, let us take care of the finds in the parish. Currently, everything has to go to Oslo, and this is actually robbery from the parishes. In the future, we will probably manage to get our own parish-museum here in Mandalen. Then we instead can open the mounds and ourselves take care of the finds. (My translation)32

experiences in West Norway (Christie 1837), the antiquarian Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (1778–1849), founder of Bergen Museum (1825), raised in 1834 his concern that local people did not want to give antiquities away because they were believed to contain magical properties. The title of the article clearly states Christie’s message: “About one prevailing superstition of common people in the countryside that causes them not to part with buried antiquities, and about a rare antiquity that, because of such superstition, is kept secret”. Christie stated his message in the text at the top of each page: “Superstition by the common people: a hindrance for collecting antiquities”. Christie introduced his article by formulating the problem for the newly established Bergen Museum: I have often experienced that one of the reasons that induces the common people to hide those antiquities they have found in burial mounds or other places in the ground, or to refuse to sell or give them away, is the superstition that they could use such found objects to heal ill people and creatures when they confront them with these. They also entrust antiquities of this kind with the power to ease and convey pregnant women’s birth when they hold them over the abdomen. I therefore once had much difficulty acquiring a sword found in the ground, because it was nearly always carried around in the parish to help women giving birth. Another time it was very difficult for me to acquire a ploughshare, found in a burial mound, because, as the finder said, it was so good to have it when their creatures were ill. (Christie 1837a: 19, my translation)

The resistance expressed by this man, an objection against State ownership of antiquities, is found more commonly in the sources than objections against excavation, and this reason is discussed further in section 7.5. 7.4.4 Conclusions Archaeologists who have excavated burial mounds in Agder could possibly encounter local objections, but these are only rarely documented. If archaeologists report that they could not excavate all burial mounds at a site, they usually explained this as being due to current uses of the mounds or that trees grew on them. If superstitious beliefs are recorded in the archaeological sources, they are not seen as a hindrance against excavations, but as older beliefs that have lost their contemporary importance. How local people viewed the massive excavations that took in Agder after 1871 is in most cases not known, but they may have contributed to dealing a death-stroke to some beliefs that were attached to some burial mounds (see section 10.7). That people want to keep imaginative views about the past can be found, in rare cases, in twentieth-century sources. However, this potential resistance, as well as other objections against excavations, is more often related to objections against State ownership of antiquities than the digging up of burial mounds. 7.5 Objections against State ownership of antiquities The archaeological museums have, since their establishment in the nineteenth century, probably experienced more local constraints towards their collection practice than against excavating burial mounds. These objections can be traced back to the late eighteenth century, but they increased in the twentieth century. In the following, five major recurring reasons for the objections are discussed. 7.5.1 Magical importance of the antiquities

Despite their magical importance, Christie always managed to persuade the owners to give the artefacts to the museum. Christie still used the main part of the article to regret that he did not manage to get hold of one rare object: a wooden hammer apparently used to beat decrepit people to death in antiquity. In 1825, an old farmer told Christie about the club and, based on ethnographic and historical sources, Christie saw no reason to doubt the murderous use of it, and he believed it to be a thousand or more years old. The alleged owner of the club refused to give any information, but other people told him it was a sacred object secretly turned around in the parish to heal people and animals. Christie strongly regretted that the superstition made it impossible to acquire this rare object, but as was common with antiquarians in the early nineteenth century, he hid his negative view about the farmers. Christie thought similar beliefs existed all over the country, and they had survived since antiquity, since the old sagas told that burial mounds had been broken into and the retrieved objects used during childbirths (cf. section 6.2). If the superstition had such deep roots in the common people, Christie advised other antiquarians to be wise and careful in order to both discourage superstitions and to help collect antiquities:

In the early nineteenth century, antiquarians were well aware of conflicts of interest concerning antiquities. Based on his own

He [the antiquarian] should take care not to meet this superstition with mockery and reproach. These will just distance him from his antiquarian goal, and he will not make progress towards eradicating the superstition. (Christie 1837a: 26, my translation)

“Gamalt fraa Mandalen”, Fædrelandsvennen, 16 January 1934, written by M. Heddeland. 32

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Owning the buried goods Although Christie saw superstitions as a serious danger for the newly established museums, only a few examples about their magical importance are known. Christie experienced the problem several times and he knew in addition, from published sources, examples from East Norway of people hanging rings or keys found in the ground on themselves or animals when they were ill (Christie 1837a: 25-6). Other examples are known from other sources too. In East Norway, two Bronze Age axes, currently in Oldsaksamlingen, had been used to heal animals and people ( Johansen 1976: 12-13). In West Norway, a Bronze Age sword was found after a man dug up a burial cairn between 1785 and 1795.33 Before Bergen Museum received the sword in 1866, the finder had given it to his daughter, a midwife who used it against diseases and at childbirths (Østerdal 1999: 456; 2002: 14). A sword with the name Flusi contained magical powers to heal animals and people because it had been used to kill a troll (cf. section 8.5 on trolls). A museum in West Norway acquired the sword, but according to the founder of the museum, Gert Heiberg (1871–1944), local people later asked to borrow it (Sivertsen 2000: 50). From Agder, one case only about the magical importance of antiquities is known, probably a stone axe believed to be a thunderbolt that around 1750 fell through a house during a thunderstorm. According to the legend, the axe was believed to contain magical properties and was used until around 1860 to heal ill cows. The owners refused to sell the axe to buyers. One argued he would not “get rid of such a visible sign of ‘God’s omnipotence’”, but the daughter allegedly sold it in 1910 to Oldsaksamlingen (Lunde 1969: 61-2; cf. Storaker 1923: 1078; Andreassen 1996: 303). Although several examples are known in Norway, but only one in Agder, of the local people thinking antiquities contained magical properties, it is uncertain to what extent this hindered the museums in the nineteenth century from collecting antiquities. However, considering that Christie’s article is the first article in the first archaeological journal in Norway (!), antiquarians in the early nineteenth century must have felt that such beliefs represented important threats against their newly established museums. 7.5.2 Antiquities belong to the dead or the creature in the burial mound Accounts are known that people, mainly in the nineteenth century, thought antiquities belonged to the dead or the creature in the burial mound (Hodne 2000: 226). This did not prevent people at the farms from retrieving these objects, but they could lose their fortune, especially if the artefacts afterwards were taken away from the farm. However, legends also communicate the belief that keeping the accompanying goods could attract the dead, and people had in some cases to get rid of the objects by reburying them or giving them to a museum. From Agder, a find described in 1771 is the most vivid example of antiquities belonging to the creature in the burial mound.34 33 34

Rimsvarden, Fitjar, Fitjar, Hordaland Fargebakk, Rike, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID ik12885, ID 014335

According to the first account of this find, the bishop had received these objects that had been kept at a farm (Gjelleböl 1800: 25-6). However, legends later published tell that the man at the farm actually stole the objects from the creature in the burial mound and, since he did not want to give them back, made the agreement that as long as the objects stayed at the farm, he would be wealthy. The man nevertheless broke the agreement as he sold one object, which caused the farm-people to be poor, and things got even worse after the bishop removed a second artefact by force (Blom 1896: 135-6). According to a second legend from Agder concerning an artefact stolen from a supernatural creature that dwelt in an unknown burial mound, this magically disappeared when it was taken away from the farm (Helland 1903b: 399).35 Lorange mentions a similar story from West Norway about a find in 1877 from a burial mound.36 A man who dug the mound did allegedly leave the found objects next to the road, but they disappeared, although no living humans had come close to them (Lorange 1882: 49). In later folkloristic collections, this story is interpreted as an example of a belief that the dead took their objects back again (Bugge 1934: 69). However, one could also question whether this belief served as an excuse for not giving certain objects away to collectors. Objects from burial mounds could also attract their dead owners, and keeping the objects was believed to be dangerous. In at least two cases from Agder, grave goods or human bones are therefore recorded to have been reburied (ID ik8741; ID 026933).37 According to a parish-book published in the 1970s, people should abstain from having burial goods in the house, and they regarded it as a sin to open burial mounds that should be protected (Sveinall 1976: 431). From West Norway, local people even asked for the return of human bones after an excavation. In 1913, Haakon Shetelig excavated a burial mound that until the last few years had been protected by folkbelief (Schetelig 1911: 209-10).38 Shetelig does not write what happened after his excavation, but the story is known from later sources (Hovland 1995: 105).39 Several disasters struck the farm after Shetelig’s excavation: “One of the cows milked blood, another fell down in the pen. The potatoes rotted, the wife broke an arm, and the man himself was now miserable” (Hovland 1995: 105). The solution to this case was to rebury the bones, which allegedly Shetelig permitted. In other cases, the solution was to send the finds to a museum, such as a grave-find from Agder, presented to a local museum in 1890: One day a priest came to Refsnes and stayed there overnight. In the morning, the priest asked what had been making a noise all night. The farmer had also heard the uproar and decided to send the grave-goods to a museum. Randesund, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder Hovland, Tysnes, Hordaland, B.3224 37 Øydne ytre, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID ik8741; Vetehaugen, Augland, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026933 38 Bergen Museum top.ark., report by Haakon Shetelig from the excavations at Kjøsnes, 6 and 7 August 1917, document number 019149 39 The story is also known from an interview of Knut Andreas Bergsvik with Eva Nissen Fett and Per Fett, 14 September 1988. Tape in property of Bergsvik, but parts of the interview have been published (Bergsvik 1988). 35 36

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record They believed at the farm that it was a sin to dig up burial mounds and to disturb the dead. (Breilid 1966: 223-4, my translation)40 Although the local people could choose to get rid of objects by presenting them to a museum, people could also blame those who benefited from receiving these antiquities. A legend about two “idols” of gold, said to be found in a burial mound in Agder, is particularly interesting because it passes a verdict to the authority that benefited from buying the object, a point discussed in the next section: Gjertru at Øygarden, who was born in the 1850s, told that her great-grandfather, Hoje Hegbostad, once found when he dug up a large mound two idols of gold. (...) He had wanted to level the mound because he did not think there were such things there. He came down to a grave built up of stones. The largest idol was as big as a newborn child and it reached up to the third window glass when it stood in the frame. The other one was a bit smaller. They stood at each end of the grave. They were black, but when one scratched them, it was pure gold. The wife of Hoje was afraid of them and did not dare to have them in the house. She thought it was something from the underworld. Then came the District Court Judge (sorenskriver) Balle from Lyngdal, and he bought the idols (…). He became so rich that he bought several boats, and the whole land upon which Mandal lies. But it ran out for him in the end. “Such cheating can never last.” (Bergstøl 1959: 26, my translation)41 7.5.3 Strangers who take what is not theirs In section 6.3.4, the argument was held that digging for treasures could be seen as a norm-breaking activity since people then took a bigger share of the limited happiness at the expense of others. This argument is developed further in this section by discussing legends, collected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that tell about strangers – who may be unnamed, anyone from outside the local community, but in particular a locally known authority – who took with them treasures that were not theirs. People then passed a verdict against these strangers and, as the legend says, they usually lost the treasure or other properties. Archaeologists are rightly enough in the sources not referred to as these strangers, but they did become active in Agder at the same time as these legends were told. For the local people, archaeologists were also strangers and authorities who collected antiquities, although it is not known whether they passed similar verdicts against them because they took antiquities. References to strangers are a recurrent motif in legends about treasures, all over Norway and in Agder. Even archaeologists heard such accounts when they travelled through the county. For instance, northerners dug up burial mounds at Sunnmøre (Neumann 1842a: 131); fishermen from other places found 40 41

Refsnes, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, C.35751a-d Hægebostad, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026926

treasures in burial mounds in Nordland (Nicolaissen 1885: 3); easterners dug up mounds in Hordaland (Ross 1886: 48); several people from Hallingdal dug for treasure in Eidsfjord (Bendixen 1892: 21); travelling tramps dug up graves (Bendixen 1897: 19); treasure diggers in West Norway were easterners and in East Norway Swedes (Schetelig 1911: 208; Hougen 1933: 59; Brøgger 1945: 44; Skjølsvold 1984: 7). These accounts can be interpreted, on the one hand, as local people intending to avoid criticism from officials for destroying burial mounds by blaming others instead. The counterargument is that, until 1905, owners could dig up burial mounds, and although the law regulated ownership of valuables, this was usually evaded. A second interpretation is that the legends say that one should avoid digging up burial mounds because people held them to be protected. A third more likely interpretation, which is explored in the following, is that the purpose of the legends about strangers is to give verdicts against those people who find treasures and take them away, but also against those people who cheat the local people by paying for the found objects rather less than their value. Hence, these legends communicate a message against strangers who acquire objects that are not theirs, and they are accused of greed that causes the poverty of others. The legend from Agder referred to at the end of the last section is illustrative: a known authority in the parish – the District Court Judge (sorenskriveren) – received his fortune by buying an object from a burial mound, but was later punished by losing everything he owned. Similar legends about strangers are told about other burial mounds in Agder too. Especially interesting are the variants of a legend told after the local people opened up, in 1776, a burial mound that contained lavish gravegoods.42 Into the twentieth century, the official who allegedly took the antiquities was spoken of negatively in the parish, and the case is discussed in the following. In 1795, the high official Peter Holm (1733–1817) described a rich find discovered after the local people had opened a burial mound to build a stone-fence (Holm 1795a: 70). Although Holm wrote that the farmers did not keep any objects, the find was told about in several legends mentioning a found treasure: a sword of gold. These legends tell that a stranger took the sword by cheating the people, and the legends communicate a negative attitude towards the authority that took advantage of the people who did not know the value of the sword, but acquired the treasure that was not theirs. In the following, the legend is studied in detail, starting with the latest published variant, and then tracing the variants back in time to see what might have happened and how the authorities who collected antiquities of gold locally were talked about. In 1995, a local historian wrote that Holm’s description of the find two hundred years earlier was wrong, and that the local people around 1900 had knowledge of several of the antiquities from the burial mound (Gysland 1995: 175). He reprinted a newspaper article, published in 1968, with a version that differed from Holm’s account that the local people did not take care of the antiquities. Among other things, around 1900, 42

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Rishaug, Bjærum, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034721

Owning the buried goods

Illus. 7.3: The chamber of the burial mound Rishaug opened in 1776 Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Bjærum, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034721) a necklace-ring from the chamber was sold to the telegraph operator, but the ring later disappeared and was never seen again. However, the sword of gold gets most attention in the description:

the credulous finder had handed it over, came back to the parish. A small piece of the hilt, which remained in the hands of the owner, was however seen by a travelling jeweller, who declared the piece to be “pure gold” (…). (Flood 1879: 70-71, my translation)

Anders Tingvatne tells: “In the old days the authorities came to Tingvatn and held court, the District Court Judge and other people. When they left, they took with them the gold hilt. When they came to Kvavik they had to row to Farsund, but when they sat in the boat, they looked at the hilt and they passed it from man to man, and then it fell into the sea. So it lies in Kvavikfjorden. (...) This is how it ended for the properties of the Bjærum king.” (Gysland 1995: 176, my translation) Other variants collected and published in the twentieth century communicate the same message: the hilt of gold was taken or bought for less than what it was worth by a senior civil servant who then lost it (e.g. Bergstøl 1930: 50; 1959: 778; Lauen 1957: 334; 1975: 385; Neset 1988: 21). However, a variant of the legend published in 1879 – and before 1900, which according to one variant was the year when the hilt had fallen into the fjord – writes that it was a Danish “court-man” (hoffmann) who took the sword when he visited the local court (ting): According to the legend, this [the sword] was given by the finder to a Danish “court-man” [hoffmann], who belonged to the authorities at the court [ting], who inspected it to find out its value and get the hilt sold; but neither the hilt nor money for it from the “Court-man”, to whom

The question is whether this legend is merely a fantasy about a treasure that never existed, or whether it gives further information about the find not given in Holm’s 1795 account. What happened with the find is not known for certain, but contemporary accounts give some information. In the aftermath, Holm’s account has become the standard reference to the find (e.g. Nicolaysen 1862–6: 277). However, the historian Peter Frederik Suhm (1728–98) has also given a contemporary description of the find, but this account is only seldom referred to (e.g. Nyerup 1806: 15). Suhm lived for a period in Norway, in Trondheim, 1751–65, and in 1760 he was one of the founders of the first scientific society in Norway.43 In his history of Denmark, Suhm refers to three openings of burial mounds in Norway, among others the one discussed in this chapter (Suhm 1787: 29). Suhm gives 1776 as the year of the opening, which is missing in Holm’s account. He also gives a more detailed list of the finds than Holm, including what happened with some artefacts: In the so-called Rishaug (...) was found in 1776 2 pots, 2 iron spears, a ring of brass, 1 cauldron of copper, 1 plate of copper and 1 sword of copper, of which still the point is kept by me, and the bow, but the sword was broken into 3 pieces, gilded with silver with some decorations on both Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab (The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters) 43

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record sides, and finally a piece of very pure, thin and dull gold that the whole hilt was covered with. (Suhm 1787: 29, my translation and emphasis) Most interestingly, Suhm confirms that parts of the sword had been gilded with silver and covered with gold, and he also writes that he had parts of the find. He does not say, however, how he got hold of the objects and if he had visited the farm himself. In the earliest version of the legend, published in 1879, a Danish court-man took the sword, but in later sources the local people gave their verdict of it being a local known authority: the District Court Judge. Nevertheless, the person who took the sword was in the eyes of the local people a stranger, a person from the outside, who took something that was not his. According to the legends, one can therefore interpret that wealth had been acquired unjustly. The local people passed their verdict against a known authority, the judge, who must then lose the treasure. Rightly enough, archaeologists are not referred to in these sources as strangers, but one should bear in mind that archaeologists did become active in Agder at the same time as these legends were told and recorded. Archaeologists – as discussed in section 7.3.3 on the lack of “archaeologist-lore” – could also confirm the tradition of strangers whereby their names were not remembered, but simply referred to as being strangers. Finds held in Oldsaksamlingen have also been dug up by strangers, such as by a tramp who dug without local consent (Vere 1993: 355).44 Possibly, local people could therefore have talked with suspicion about some excavations in the nineteenth century and objected that archaeologists enriched themselves. Hence, archaeology as a collecting enterprise emerged in a period when local emotions, dreams and verdicts were present concerning owning archaeological objects. While these could fulfil the hopes of local people of getting rich, people also passed a verdict against those who for themselves grabbed too much of the limited happiness. 7.5.4 Antiquities belong to the place of interment In the twentieth century, archaeologists often encounter the view that local people want to keep antiquities at the place of interment, and rather than giving them away to archaeological museums (see also section 7.5.5). From this perspective, antiquities should be displayed where they are found, or taken care of by the person who owns the ground. For instance, during fieldwork in 2001, I asked a woman in her early sixties what she most wanted for the burial mounds she lived next to, excavated by archaeologists in the 1870s, and she answered: A museum! Where one could get back those things that are stored in the basement in Bergen and Oslo, where they lie in boxes in the basement of the museums. After all, they do not belong there. So, an underground museum here, in a couple of the burial mounds, that would be something. (My translation)45 44 45

Hauge vestre, Farsund, Vest-Agder Interview, 19 July 2001

This view can be seen as stressing a nearly organic view about antiquities: burying them in the ground makes them take root and they belong to this place, even if they have been produced and used in another place. The view that antiquities should be kept, preserved and presented in their rightful geographical context, i.e. the area or place where they were found, might even be present in the idea of site museums, but also in current international regulations about the export of movable objects (e.g. UNESCO 1970). The British archaeologist Siân Jones encountered related organic views about buried objects when she researched attitudes in a Scottish village towards the removal of the lower section of a famous ninth-century Pictish sculpture recovered during excavations in February 2001. According to the villagers, the monument was seen as a “living thing” that should not be removed from the place where it was born and grown, and some even supported preserving it in the ground where it could “breathe” ( Jones 2006). That the antiquities belong to the place of interment can even be traced back, in Norway, to both nineteenth-century antiquarians and local people in Agder. In the nineteenth century, some antiquarians opposed the act of removing antiquities from the place interred to a museum. One peculiarity of the travelling antiquarian Arendt (see section 4.1), which is described in contemporary sources (Oehlenschläger and Bobé 1915: 173), was his practice of burying his drawings of archaeological monuments in stonefences or ruins. According to an 1844 letter that contains memories about Arendt, his view was that “everything should be laid down approximately where it belonged” (Moltke 1957: 88-9).46 This act was to some extent due to his mistrust towards other people, with whom he did not want to leave his work when he travelled, but it was also an expression of the view that even the documentation of a monument belonged to the place. Few of Arendt’s documents are preserved, perhaps due to this practice.47 It is even said that he deposited a four-volume work about the oldest history of Scandinavia in a stone-fence (Moltke 1957: 88-9). The painter J. C. Dahl (1788–1857), who in the first half of the nineteenth century opposed the excavation of burial mounds (see section 6.5.3), also stressed that antiquities belonged to the monument. Dahl argued among other places in the newspaper Den Constitutionelle (28 December 1843): “the burial mounds are themselves the natural and true museums for their own content” (quoted after Wexelsen 1975: 53). This view caused disagreements with other people involved with antiquities especially in Bergen Museum (Wexelsen 1975: 49, 52-4; Lidén 1991: 27-9; 2005: 98). Dahl still recognized the scientific importance of collecting antiquities from burial mounds and churches, but he stressed the significance of teaching people to appreciate and maintain the monuments: antiquities should be acquired by the museums only if they would otherwise be destroyed (Wexelsen 1975: 49, 52-4). The letter, and a transcript of it, are stored in the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen), Museumshistorisk arkiv, box 43, M. F. Arendt, but is later published (Moltke 1957). The letter has been used as a source for several of the biographies about Arendt. 47 Most of them stored in one box in Nationalmuseet København, Museumshistorisk arkiv, box 43, M. F. Arendt. 46

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Owning the buried goods The view that antiquities belong to the place interred could even, in the early nineteenth century, be held by local people. Antiquities were then frequently destroyed or sold to travelling antiquarians and dealers, but some received a local importance and may have been used to demonstrate a relationship between the current family at the farm and the people who lived there earlier. One unusual early example is when, in 1821, a farmer in Agder opened a burial mound and found valuable gravegoods.48 The find was described and bought by the priest, and the artefacts came to the national museum in Copenhagen. The finder still did not want to part with some relief brooches, and the priest wrote in 1822: After several repeated requests, I succeeded in acquiring these unimportant objects by giving the man 4 speciedaler, which seems to be too much for these trifles that have absolutely no monetary value. (quoted after Undset 1878: 13, my translation) The priest does not state why the owner refused to sell the brooches. They could possibly be believed to contain magical properties or belong to the creature in the mound (see sections 7.5.1 and 7.5.2). Another theory is that the brooches had an importance for the finder who argued they belonged to him and the farm, a possibility explored by the archaeologist Siv Kristoffersen. According to later sources, the finder had even kept a ring of gold that, although it was a currency ring, was not melted or sold, but worn for special occasions, such as weddings and churchgoing. By wearing the ring, the family at the farm aimed perhaps at strengthening the relationship between them and the buried person since, according to the legend, it was a royal burial place (Kristoffersen 2003: 143; cf. Kraft 1826: 564-5; Kraft 1838: 371; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 97). The case might therefore document that in the nineteenth century possession of archaeological objects could be important for local people to stress their bonds to the past. Such local interests were probably rare, but after the local people in the twentieth century increasingly grew interested in archaeology and the past, reactions in Agder against a centralized ownership of archaeological artefacts increased. 7.5.5 Protest against centralized archaeological museums The current twentieth- and twenty-first-century resistance towards State ownership of archaeological material can be interpreted as a protest against the formalizing of a centralized archaeology after the Cultural Heritage Act of 1905, when five archaeological museums received responsibility for each of their districts. The resistance is expressed through opposition against taking objects from local communities for the benefit of a museum far away in Oslo, but also through requests for the return of objects acquired before 1905. In Agder, the conflict is further related to the need from the early twentieth century to build up the identity of Agder: the southern part of Norway that after 1902 became a distinct part of the country termed Sørlandet (Southern Norway) and which, unlike other parts of the country, did not have its own archaeological collection. In this regard, archaeologists coming 48

Trygsland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015297

from Oslo to excavate in Agder can be seen as an extension of the tradition about the strangers who took away with them antiquities that belonged to others. During the 1990s, the resistance has escalated, and this might be interpreted in relation to locally growing interest in using the archaeological record as a source for development, creating economic values and strengthening local identities. This economic potential again, just as with treasures in the nineteenth century, represented from the 1990s a challenge for the archaeological museums that continue to stress knowledge potential and the importance of scholarly access to the archaeological record. Consequently, local interests in archaeology have continued to propose a threat into the twenty-first century. For archaeologists, this increasing local interest could be problematic as it might prevent people from presenting discovered antiquities to the designated museums. For instance, in 1997, professor Bergljot Solberg argued, in a newspaper article, for the scholarly importance of archaeological museums receiving found antiquities (Solberg 1997; later published in Solberg 1999). According to Solberg, antiquities represent the inheritance of three hundred generations, and they constitute a common national cultural heritage that people should feel obliged to give to the museums. Still, Solberg noticed that people currently have a low awareness of the importance of handing over antiquities: The attitudes that finds from antiquity are our common cultural heritage and necessary to provide better knowledge about our history are much weaker than earlier, and are often lacking completely. Many who find antiquities wish to keep the objects themselves, and they therefore avoid handing them in. In addition, many avoid reporting finds because they fear the area will be “protected” and therefore cannot be used e.g. for development or cultivation. (Solberg 1999: 13, my translation) The dilemma of local interests in archaeology is present even in an interview from 1988 with the archaeologist couple Eva Nissen Fett (1910–2003) and Per Fett (1909–96).49 They conducted archaeological fieldwork in Agder in the 1930s, but spent most of their professional life surveying burial mounds in West Norway. According to the Fett couple, they only seldom met local people with an interest in archaeology, but if they met someone who was interested, often a schoolteacher, the problem was that these people often wanted to keep the objects and did not want to hand them in to the archaeological museum. Anders Hagen (1921–2005) also recently reflected on present concerns among archaeologists towards the museums’ ownership of antiquities. Hagen argued that he did not find this ownership problematic during a large excavation project of burial mounds he conducted 1950–3 at Hunn in East Norway: It has recently been claimed that many archaeologists today have an ethical problem with their relationship to 49

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Interviewed by Knut Andreas Bergsvik, 14 September 1988

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record the local people where they come to dig. A group of young academics “invades” a place, digs and lives in isolation. When the task is done, they take with them what they find and go back without having been in contact with people at the place, it has been claimed. Such an almost arrogance from the academics might not be intentional, and it applies probably not to all modern archaeological works in Norway. It was at least not a problem when we excavated at Hunn. (Hagen 2002: 142, my translation) Although Hagen did not himself see the practice of collecting as a dilemma with his own fieldwork during the 1950s, some resistance was still present in Agder during the whole twentieth century.

people to help with the excavations. But if this cannot be promised, the valuable objects should instead rest under the protection mark at the mounds until we receive our own museum here in the south. (My translation)51 The critique was followed up some days later by the newspaper when it described a site with burial mounds on the property of a school. A potential excavation was objected to and Oldsaksamlingen – the townspeople – criticized for claiming ownership to antiquities, thus adding a comment that reflected the tension in the 1920s between the major towns and districts: The headmaster (…) wants the burial mounds to be protected. And we agree with him, but it will probably not take long before the museum people come with the law in their hands, open up the mounds and take what can be taken – in order to take it to the towns.

From the 1920s, these local objections increasingly appear in the sources, a period when local people interested in the past themselves started to write. A local historian in 1929 published legends of a large burial mound in Agder which, in 1879, the owner allegedly did not allow Oluf Rygh to excavate. This incident, that Rygh did not mention in his excavation report (Rygh 1880), is an example of how local objections to excavations may have been present in the nineteenth century, but archaeologists did not document them (see sections 7.3 and 7.4). Here is the local historian’s account: But that disdain with which our ancient monuments were treated, especially in the last half of last century, also touched Spangereid. People saw them sent out from the university in the 1870s to open up most of the old burial mounds, and those valuables the mounds contained were taken away from the parish.

In the old days, the Danish king left with the inheritance and valuable ancient memorials, and now it is the towns. In addition, it is sometimes so mismanaged in the towns that any day one can risk that the whole collection burns down. Moreover it is not the responsibility or the duty of the towns, even when they have received legal rule over the historical richness of the parishes. (My translation)52 The newspaper stood firm on its critique and, in 1935, it repeated the arguments against excavations conducted by Oldsaksamlingen. This time, the newspaper chose to criticize the local contacts who reported and sent finds to Oslo: Oldsaksamlingen is currently engaged in an intense investigation of the burial mounds in Agder. They grab what there is of antiquities. Oldsaksamlingen have “agents” in some parishes that snap up antiquities and send them in, and thus they are lost to Southern Norway forever. The capital is robbing Southern Norway.

Of the large burial mounds only Klobnehaugen was saved because the owner made obstacles to prevent its destruction. The vandalism that was committed against the old sanctuaries then led to indifference by people towards the ancient monuments in the parish. (Fuglevik 1929: 53, my translation)50 The newspaper Agder Tidend especially, in the 1920s and ’30s, supported the importance of keeping and displaying antiquities locally. The political affiliation of this newspaper to the conservative Bondepartiet (the Agrarian Party) demonstrates how the resistance was communicated to landowners who also owned the burial mounds which interested the archaeologists. Although the newspaper expressed in 1923 its support for Oldsaksamlingen’s excavations, it advised the local people not to help the museum excavate if the found antiquities were not later returned: But if the people goes along with the dig without taking on board the reservation “that we shall have the finds back” when we get our own museum, they do their parish and the town a disservice. Rightly, there is no museum here in the south to store such finds, but we will probably get one. If the museum in Oslo promises that Southern Norway (the parish) will get the things back, we will advise 50

Klovnehaugen, Njerve, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026943

(…) We ask the people to wake up before it is too late, and we will ask the “agents” to remember that some time Southern Norway must also (…) get an antiquity collection. (My translation) 53 Oldsaksamlingen disagreed with the critique, and the museum applied the usual arguments that it was important for the museum to receive the objects due to their scientific importance and for conservation.54 The local reaction towards the critique of the newspaper was mixed too. While some favoured one large national museum of antiquities instead of five district museums, one of Oldsaksamlingen’s contacts in Agder aired a generally positive view towards establish new local collections, but emphasized the importance of currently sending everything to Oslo.55 To what extent these views are representative of local opinion is uncertain. However, the fact “Bør ikkje gravhaugane fredast?”, Agder Tidend, c.1 May 1923 “Endaa eit gravfund i Fjære”, Agder Tidend, 14 May 1923 53 “Kor lenge skal Sørlandet senda oldsakene til Oslo?”, Agder Tidend, 20 June 1935 54 E.g., “Bør ikke gravhaugene fredes? Av professor Helge Gjessing”, Agder Tidend, 12 May 1923; ”Skal Sørlandet faa si eigi oldsaksamling?”, Agder Tidend, 29 June 1935 55 E.g., “Bør Sørlandet få sin egen oldsaksamling?”, Vest-Agder, 22 June 1935 51 52

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Owning the buried goods

Illus. 7.4: Sketch of a proposed archaeological museum for Agder The design is inspired by the Viking ships (reproduced after Randesund Historielag 2002).

that Oldsaksamlingen had established local contacts in the parishes, who reported and sent finds to the museum, indicates that the museum did also have local support for its work. Although local support was given to Oldsaksamlingen, critical voices may have been present locally that have not been referred to in contemporary archaeological reports. For instance, when, in 1917, Helge Gjessing started his research excavations of burial mounds at Lista, he was asked in a newspaper interview if there was interest in antiquities in the parish. Gjessing answered that the people were positive: Yes, it [the interest] wakens now. When I am out investigating or conducting excavations, people often come to me and ask as an introduction if it is I “who dig up the mounds”. Then they often have some information about mounds here and mounds there, yes, sometimes they even bring with them something they have found. (My translation)56 However, when a conflict arose in the early 1970s between the local people and archaeologists who surveyed archaeological monuments and sites in the same parish, the local opposition then expressed views against Gjessing’s excavations: Those who researched at Lista in the 1920s just dug and dug (…). They destroyed inconceivably much. (My translation)57 The example shows that, when conflicts arise between archaeologists and local people, a verdict can be passed against the former archaeological practice too. However, this opposition cannot be understood entirely in relation to resistance towards a centralized museum in Oslo. It can also be seen as an opposition towards authorities in general, in this case represented by the archaeologists who manage the “Fra Lister. Gravhauge og oldfund. En samtale med konservator Gjessing”, Stavangeren, 4 August 1917. 57 “Fornminneregistreringer i fokus på Lista: Kraftig språk under manigmannsmøte med arkeologene”, Fædrelandsvennen, 29 June 1972

archaeological record with the law in their hands and do not have to initiate dialogue with other interest groups. Such an opposition towards archaeologists as authorities is in some cases expressed in rather contradictory views. Interviewing people in Agder, I noticed that several people disagreed that all burial mounds should be protected, especially those on their own property. These informants could still object that antiquities be stored in Oslo, arguing that they should be displayed locally. Interestingly, these informants did not want what they had, but received what they did not have – how can such a contradictory view be understood? Possibly, it can be interpreted as an opposition towards archaeologists who are the authorities and stewards of both burial mounds and antiquities. The view also communicates a protest against restrictions on their own property that benefits mainly archaeologists who take the antiquities into their possession and use them for own research interests that do not always benefit the local people. Objections against handing in antiquities to a designated archaeology museum in Oslo have not diminished in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Frequent calls in Agder, and other places in Norway too, request that antiquities should be returned to the local communities. For instance, in 1963, the author of the history of the local Kristiansand Museum followed up a proposal suggested as early as 1900 that the museum should be a new centre for archaeology in Agder (Kjellevold 1963: 39-40, 43, 78-9). In 2002, a local history society in Agder sent a proposal for an archaeological museum, Sørlandets Arkeologiske museum, to be established in its own parish (Randesund Historielag 2002). The council in a second municipality in Agder discussed, in 2005, if an archaeological museum could be located in their parish.58 A political party in Vest-Agder, Senterpartiet that works especially for securing the interests of farmers and the districts, even stated in its political

56

“Vil ha vikingmuseum”, Fædrelandsvennen, 12 February 2005; “Vil ha museum”, Fædrelandsvennen, 15 June 2005 58

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Illus. 7.5: A giant replica of the Migration Age Snartemo sword unveiled in 1997 Antiquities are generally not returned to Agder. In this case, the local municipality instead made a giant sword replica and displayed it close to the find-spot. When the sword was unveiled, a local historian gave a talk and argued that it would help the local people to find their roots and that “some optimism had come to the community” (Gysland 1997: 32). The sword is also used in the arms of the municipality. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 programme covering the period 2003–7 that it should work for “the return of archaeological finds to the local communities” (Vest-Agder Senterparti 2003). Being interviewed about this political aim, one of the county politicians was photographed at the farm where the owner in 1821 did not want to sell his antiquities to the priest who afterwards brought them to Copenhagen (see above). The politician argued: Today we have the possibility of taking care of our own cultural treasures. They do not have to be locked up in the collections of other towns. It is important for our generation to see those treasures our ancestors made (…). (My translation)59 The statement contains several arguments that will probably continue to be used in the twenty-first century as reasons for returning objects to the local communities. Local institutions can preserve the objects, they can be displayed locally, and they constitute the heritage of the people who currently live in a parish. Despite this increasing local interest in archaeology, expressed through claims for returns and a wish for one or more archaeological museums, archaeologists have seldom started a dialogue on these matters. One exception is an archaeologist active in Agder who has supported the importance of storing and displaying archaeological material locally because facilities 59

“Vil ha kulturskattene tilbake”, Fædrelandsvennen, 30 May 2003

can now be catered for that did not exist in 1905 (Stylegar 2001d).60 A second example is an archaeologist who pointed out the current dichotomy that post-Medieval cultural heritage is largely preserved locally, while the collection of archaeological objects follows the older practice of being housed in centralized museums (Korslund 1996: 129-31). The issue of ownership is seldom considered in depth in important political and academic circles. The issue is not even mentioned in a report, submitted in 2006, by a governmentappointed committee on the challenges and future status of the Norwegian university museums (covering mainly archaeology, ethnography and natural history). The committee generally emphasized strengthening educational efforts through exhibitions, and it mentioned in particular the internet as an important medium for giving information about ongoing archaeological excavations (NOU nr. 8 2006: 51). However, the committee did not question the issue and challenge of ownership of archaeological objects. This might indicate that current local debates are hardly considered when the future policies of the university museums, that store and display nearly all archaeological objects found in Norway, are made. 7.5.6 Conclusions Selected antiquities have had, for various reasons, local importance in the nineteenth century, which indicates 60

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Also printed in Fædrelandsvennen, 1 February 2001 (cf. Stylegar 1998).

Owning the buried goods that local resistance towards the ownership and collection by the archaeological museums has been more common than objections against excavations. The artefacts could be connected to magic; people objected to strangers who appropriated too much of their limited happiness; or the artefacts belonged to the creature or the dead in the burial mound, but also to the place of internment. Into the twentieth century, the centralized ownership by museums continued to be a contested issue between archaeologists and local people. Current local interests in using the archaeological record for value creation even share similarities with the dreams expressed in legends – treasures believed to be interred in burial mounds could improve peoples’ lives – and this value might for the future be an increasingly important threat against ownership by the archaeological museums. However, the establishment of a museum in Agder would probably also trigger a local debate on localization, and even cause opposition, because its nearness to the area could mean stronger control over monuments and sites. The view held here is furthermore that breaking up earlier collections should as a general rule be avoided, hence I have earlier not given support to local ownership of antiquities (Omland et al. 2005). However, the significance of resistance towards State ownership of five designated museums is that it obliges archaeologists and the museums to reflect further on their role as stewards of the archaeological record. Even if dialogues between divergent interests are not initiated, it might strengthen the responsibilities of archaeologists and museums if they were to preserve and make the material accessible to a diverse public and their values.

century local objections, the museums have appropriated “their” heritage and archaeologists are seen as authorities who take with them cultural property that does not belong to them. To some extent, this view even concords with those legends about treasures that accuse strangers of taking valuables from burial mounds and enriching themselves with the limited resources. The ownership controversies discussed might indicate that, in the nineteenth century, archaeologists even had to weaken local interests in order to appropriate the archaeological record. However, in addition to the appropriation of the artefacts, archaeologists also claimed the “true” interpretation of burial mounds. This appropriation is the topic of chapters 8 and 9, which discuss superstitious beliefs and historical legends associated with burial mounds.

7.6 Conclusions Ownership and restitution of antiquities is a hot issue, not only in colonized countries, but as this discussion from Agder has shown, in the Western world too. Hence, such controversies are even present within an ethnically homogenous population, and they are not restricted to conflicts between ethnic groups (in Norway between the Sámi minority and the Norwegian majority). In this chapter, the main argument has been that the local people did have in some cases an interest in antiquities, contrary to the statements by archaeologists in the second half of the nineteenth century that a local appreciation was lacking. Even back to the eleventh century, different interests in “buried goods” were legally regulated, and it was acknowledged that various parties had monetary interests in the material. However, with the development in the nineteenth century of the discipline of archaeology, archaeologists claimed their interests over the material by arguing against the fallacy and danger of the treasure legends and, from 1905, archaeologists attained the legal title over the archaeological record in order to secure its scientific significance. In Agder, the conflict between local and archaeological interests is currently present through a local craving to keep the antiquities locally and not solely in the designated archaeological museums. According to some twentieth115

8 The rational and the magical Some places are regarded as more sacred than others, because superstition has assigned to them some invisible inhabitants, to which it has given different names. Thus, one believes that certain small hills are inhabited by a kind of a creature called tusser. To these mounds (…), those who especially want knowledge about marriages and proposals appear. They go to sleep here, and then in dreams get an answer about what they want to know. (…) (…) If such dreams in these places really occur, what is more natural? One has already filled one’s imagination with these thoughts and pictures and the wished object. (…) It is this credulity, the wish to indulge in the supernatural, the reliance of ignorant peoples’ fond fables, which lead them from their imaginations’ deception to see the vette-king and his wife the hulder (…). (…) Why does the reasonable person not see this? The wise person despises such infatuation about other invented creatures. He keeps himself to those creatures, of which the Creator has given him use and acquaintance, to humans as his own species. Among these he fulfils his vocation, is quiet and blessed with his work, and when the superstitious person is worried, suffers losses of health and fortune, he is indulging his lazy beliefs and ignorance which are discredited by all rational people. (Hansen 1803: 359-61, my translation)

In 1798, Peder Hansen (1746–1810) was appointed as bishop of Agder and lived there until 1803 when he moved to his home country of Denmark (Faye 1867: 429-46; Eriksen and Amundsen 1999: 9-10). Hansen is a representative scholar of his time, a rationalist who aimed at spreading enlightenment in his bishopric and started reading circles in Agder (Byberg 1998). Hansen found superstitions flourishing in Agder more strongly than in his native country of Denmark. In order to combat these beliefs, he published reports from priests of superstitions held by the common people, and he added his own rational explanations, such as his comment on a mound in Setesdal quoted above (Hansen 1800, 1803).1 Hansen’s reports are early examples of the emerging interest in the eighteenth century from scholars collecting folkculture, but at the same time enlightening people and arguing against superstitions (Eriksen and Amundsen 1999: 9-10; cf. Amundsen 1999: 30). Rightly enough, Hansen was not an antiquarian or archaeologist, and while the bishop had a religious foundation for his mistrust, superstitions for the nineteenth-century archaeologist were mainly fabulous interpretations of burial mounds that did not impart knowledge about the time when they were constructed. Still, Hansen’s critical view of superstitions reflects a similar divergence between a rational and a magical world-view to that held by archaeologists. This chapter discusses beliefs that connect burial mounds with the magical world, and also how archaeologists have approached these beliefs. Only a few of the beliefs are discussed, and several have previously been discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 on treasures. Which supernatural creatures are associated with burial mounds are mainly discussed in this chapter. Such Possibly, Hansen refers to Tussehaugen, Viken, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014357. Several sources refer to it as a burial mound, but it is a natural feature although several late Iron Age graves have been found in it. 1

Illus. 8.1: Peder Hansen (1746–1810) Portrait in the cathedral of Kristiansand. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 an overview is still problematic as the beliefs are not coherent, and in several cases the association between creatures and burial mounds is ambiguous. The chapter further discusses something that, I believe, does not exist. Legends and beliefs about supernatural beings are still abundant and people have in several cases believed in them; hence, to describe and understand a world that is different from one’s own is also important (cf. Dégh 1977; Skjelbred 1998: 36-44). Still, struggling with the sources, it was often tempting to omit 116

The rational and the magical the supernatural world of burial mounds by using the same argument found in some researched sources from Agder: it is too long-winded to discuss (Hannaas 1911: 58; Gjelleböl 1801: 37; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 55). The association with magic marked out several burial mounds as special structures in the landscape. In the nineteenth century, this significance of the burial mounds was, however, problematic for archaeologists who aimed at owning and educating the “true” knowledge about them according to a rational perspective. Although contradictory, twentiethcentury archaeologists could appreciate the beliefs that were now dying out, and they saw them as possible sources to get knowledge about old beliefs that could be related to the time when the burial mounds were constructed. Although the magical world of burial mounds is highlighted throughout this chapter, one recurring question is whether the magic is actually connected to burial mounds in particular. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some folklorists, scholars in religious studies and archaeologists argued that the supernatural creatures had a special affiliation to burial mounds. Conversely, current research indicates that several of these structures are natural, and the burial mound is only one of several structures in the landscape that is connected to magic. 8.1 Contested perceptions: ruins, monuments and sacred sites Bishop Hansen’s introductory statement on superstitions about a mound reveals a cultural clash between two different

approaches to burial mounds: a rational and a magical approach. The anthropologist Jorun Solheim discusses these two contradictory perceptions of the world (in Douglas 1997: 13-14), which is helpful to understanding the two conflicting approaches. The rational approach is prevalent with Bishop Hansen and most archaeologists: it is analytic and categorizes burial mounds as visible structures in the landscape that are important for gaining knowledge about the past. From this perspective, burial mounds are valued because they are ruins or monuments that commemorate what has gone by, and they represent potential knowledge about the past. The magical approach differs from the rational: it focuses on associations and symbols as it connects burial mounds with supernatural creatures that interact and interfere with the living. The value of the burial mounds is not related to their great age or potential knowledge about the past, but they are given a contemporary significance through their association to the magic. According to this approach, burial mounds are important features in the landscape as they can explain and prevent both luck and misfortune, of which some examples have been previously discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. The coming together of people approaching burial mounds from different norms can, as also discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, cause a clash of norms. Such clashes are currently often emphasized when educated and rational archaeologists aim to investigate monuments that “belong” to indigenous peoples who give them a magical importance. Great Zimbabwe is a good example, because the conflicting values that are given to the site are connected both to the rational and to the magical

Illus. 8.2: Tussehaugen The mound possibly described by Hansen. The mound is surveyed as a natural feature, although late Iron Age flat-graves have been found in and near the mound. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Viken, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014357). 117

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record approach. This has even influenced how the site is termed: a ruin, monument or a sacred site. The rational approach is expressed through the following statement that describes Great Zimbabwe and similar sites as “ruins”: (...) a ruin is something irrevocably destroyed. However, it is the building that has been destroyed, and it is no longer a home or a palace or a place for worship, nor can it ever be so used again. It is the artefact that has been destroyed and very often all that it stood for as well. Nevertheless the ruin remains as a memorial, a reminder of what has passed away and cannot return. That is why ruins have an air of ineffable sadness about them. (Summers 1971: 224) The categorization in this account of sites as “ruins” gave legitimacy to archaeologists who wanted to preserve and study them as a relict of a bygone civilization. This perspective ignored the religious value of the site held by the local people, and the writer proceeds by arguing: One thing must be guarded against: [Great] Zimbabwe has an almost irresistible attraction for cranks of all sorts, and it is hoped that those to whose care this great monument has been committed will see that it is never the scene of the stupidities which sometimes are permitted at the premier ancient ruin in Britain – Stonehenge. (Summers 1971: 225) The perception of Great Zimbabwe as a ruin changed after the liberation of Zimbabwe, in 1980, as the site was now termed a “monument” to be used to construct the national identity of Zimbabwe. This new approach can be seen as an “indigenization” as it recognized the affiliation of the black population to the sites. Still, during the 1990s, various groups objected to the view that Great Zimbabwe was a monument, arguing that it had contemporary importance as a sacred place and these values should be recognized (e.g. Ndoro 2001; Omland 1998, 1999). From the 1990s, archaeologists have increasingly reflected upon their own interests and in some cases even accepted the magical importance of sites as perceived by indigenous peoples. However, local people in the West have held that archaeological sites are magical too, and this notion cannot be reduced to a conflict between Western archaeology and indigenous values, but depends on whether one approaches the sites from a magical or rational position. 8.2 Source criticism and the magical Mythical legends and belief utterances can be used to gain knowledge about the connection between magic and burial mounds. Working on this material raises, though, several source critical issues. For instance, since the seventeenth century, changing concepts have been used about magic, which also reflect the various attitudes towards it from scholars, and the documentation of such beliefs depends on the stand taken towards them (Amundsen 1999; Oja 2000). Several beliefs were also difficult to collect because they were thought to

have a heathen affiliation. It is also uncertain to what extent the beliefs that are documented in the sources have been held by people, and even whether the “mounds” referred to in the sources actually refer to burial mounds or natural mounds. 8.2.1 Development of terms: magic, superstitions, folk-beliefs, supernatural The Swedish historian Linda Oja makes an important contribution to how, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, scholars in Sweden perceived magic. Oja’s starting point is a human need to categorize the world, but this differs between groups of people and through time. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, those explanations and beliefs that could not be ascribed to the accepted categories of nature or God, that is magic, were categorized in the realm of the supernatural, idolatry and superstition (Oja 2000: 11). The term witchcraft had earlier been used, but the terms now used reflected a changing attitude towards magic from being seen as something real and dangerous, to something ineffective and amusing that nevertheless was argued and educated against (Oja 2000: 35). Because of this negative valuation, magic is only seldom included in the pre-nineteenth-century sources researched for this book. For instance, in Norway, the eighteenth-century topographical literature is distinguished by the writer’s own empirical observations and critical discussions and refutation of fabulous stories (Djupedal 1955–7: 297). Scholars therefore approached magic from mainly two positions: either to avoid including it, which is most common, or to include it in order to refute it. Some examples still exist in Norway that early historians included magic in their writings. Most important is the Icelandic historian and theologian Tormod Torfæus (1636–1719), who in 1711 published in Latin his history of Norway (Historia rerum Norvegicarum) and included colourful legends about sorcery. Torfæus was, however, criticized both by his contemporary fellows, such as the famous collector of Icelandic manuscripts Árni Magnússon (1663–1730), but also by early twentieth-century historians who claimed that Torfæus’ writings were influenced by his own superstition (Titlestad 2001a: 13-14, 17, 22). Scholars in the late eighteenth century then gained an interest in the superstitions of the common people (Amundsen 1999: 14-30). Significant efforts were made by the topographical society Topographiske Selskab for Norge, founded in 1791. The society published descriptions of the country, including the life of the people, such as their superstitions (Moltke et al. 1792: 22). Despite this increasing interest, superstitions are still almost absent in topographical reports from Agder (discussed in section 8.8.1.). In the nineteenth century, scholars used the term “mythical legends” to communicate a new and more positive attitude towards magic. This term can be traced back to the first collection of folklore in Norway, published in 1833 by the priest Andreas Faye (Swang 1975: 56). Faye devoted the first section of his collection to mythical legends and supernatural creatures (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: IX-XXXIV, 1-80). Today, the term “mythical legend” is often used as a general category

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The rational and the magical of legends about supernatural creatures, also termed “natural mythical legends” as they deal with the relationship between people and the supernatural in the world (Bø et al. 1981: 247). However, as used by Faye, the term has a different connotation: superstitions were then regarded as relics, or survivals, of pre-Christian heathen mythology that comprised the oldest history of the people: In the description of gods and other creatures, their struggles and other respects, lies also people’s oldest history in the form of myths. It must be dim and fabulous as well as crudely simple, as characterizes most people’s first childhood (...). (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XIII, my translation) Following this perspective, in the sources from Agder, mythical legends and beliefs were seen in the nineteenth century as survivals of heathendom, but also of more recent papistry (e.g. Birkeli 1938; Blom 1896: 11; Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XVII-XIX; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 55; Weierholt 1933: 5-6; Aas 1999 [1869]: 20-21). Even in recent local historical literature, this view about the great age of beliefs is present (e.g. Jansen and Ryningen 1994: 68-9; Låg 1999: 425; Åkre et al. 1983: 132). Despite the potential great age of the beliefs, several collectors found such superstitions ambivalent since they represented not only a historical culture, but also contemporary religion. However, Faye’s solution to this problem was both to collect the beliefs and hope that dissemination would give them a deathblow (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: III; see also Christie 1837a; Hansen 1800, 1803; Aas 1999 [1869]: 20-21).2 In the nineteenth century, several scholars emphasized the historical value of superstitious beliefs and mythical legends, although an ambivalent attitude is present in the sources. One example is when, in 1859, Eilert Sundt (1817–75) published articles about superstitions in the educational journal Folkevennnen that he edited. Sundt then stressed the importance of documenting old superstitions, contrary to other people who had asked him to write both about and against the superstitions, while others wanted to ignore them. Sundt is even an early example of a scholar who recognized the dynamics of superstitions and he did not approach them as static entities: they not only disappeared, but also changed, and Sundt argued that they were replaced by new superstitions (Sundt 1859). Magic was again, in the nineteenth century, redefined and even given a historical importance: the term folk-belief replaced the term superstition and these beliefs were seen as important survivals from the past (Oja 2000: 276). Folk-beliefs were not seen as belonging to the present or representing contemporary religion. This explains, as the folklorist Arne Bugge Amundsen points out, why several priests could collect folk-beliefs, although they were still a problem for education (Amundsen 1999: 44). The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Th. Christiansen (1886–1971) gave an account of this re-valuation of magic However, it has been argued this is a wrong interpretation of Faye and that he actually meant that education threatened to exterminate the “wonderful tone from the past” (Braadland 2004: 10). 2

when he, in 1925, issued an instruction to collect folk-memory, which was to become an official and national introduction to the folkloristic method (Amundsen 1999: 39): (…) the time before us applied the term “superstition” to all such things; a term that is characteristic enough, it is a belief “super” to the normal, but it has an undertone of disdain that especially today, when the old has ceased to be dangerous or at least a reality, is both unnecessary and groundless. (Christiansen 1925: 13, my translation) In the early twentieth century, the view that mythical legends and folk-beliefs were relics of heathen mythology was virtually reversed: researchers now stressed that the folk-beliefs were older and that the heathen mythology had actually grown out of them. For instance, the Norwegian folklorist Nils Lid (1890–1958) argued that the “folk-beliefs had lived their own life since time immemorial and belonged to the base of the old mythology” (Lid’s introduction in Storaker 1921: XIII ; see also Lid 1931: 12, 18). Accordingly, folk-memory was seen as: (…) a base, old like all mounds, tough and conservative, and with a trickle from outside, from the changing layers of culture and knowledge built upon a common base, a trickle that takes up, colours and changes by the base elements of the traditions and those conditions whereupon an oral tradition lives. (Christiansen 1925: 15-16, my translation) According to this perspective, the oldest folk-memories were seen as the most authentic and important: When one now call this material folk-tradition, one has here already named it as something that has survived from olden times (…), and the longer back in time one goes, the stronger and more vigorous is everything belonging to folk-memory. (Christiansen 1925: 13, my translation) From the 1950s, the view that magic represented relics of mainly older beliefs was criticized as a “devolutionary approach”. The American folklorist Alan Dundes rejected that beliefs should be seen as survivals sunken in level and transmitted by the folk, or that they had to be collected before they died out, which caused the search for an original “ur” belief (Dundes 1969). The general term “beliefs” should replace in some works terms such as mythical, superstition or supernatural, encompassing Christian faith too, and they were studied as beliefs held in nineteenth-century agricultural societies. The Norwegian folklorist Svale Solheim (1903–71) emphasized that beliefs had a function in the local community and were used to explain unusual events, but also that social inequalities were paralleled in legends about supernatural creatures (Solheim 1952). In a study from 1962, the Finish folklorist Lauri Honko (1932–2002) approached creatures from similar perspectives, arguing that the supernatural was an integral part of everyday life. According to Honko, beliefs functioned as references to help interpret peoples’ experiences, but they also had the function of regulating norms (Eriksen and Selberg 2006: 58). In other studies, the argument is held that narratives about supernatural creatures may have a contemporary relevance and function as metaphors for general human experiences (e.g.

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Skjelbred 1998). Furthermore, at a time when beliefs generally are no longer held, mythical legends and supernatural beliefs are even valued and recognized in local historical publications as long-gone beliefs held in the parish. The terms “mythical legends” and “supernatural beliefs”, as well as “magic”, are used in this chapter although they are ancient concepts. This does not denote an agreement with the view that legends are survivals of pre-Christian beliefs. Still, the possibility might exist that some beliefs can be “old” and traced back to the Middle Ages and even before this. One example is the belief that the inhabitant in a burial mound is transformed to a malevolent creature, found both in Norse and in nineteenth-century sources. Nevertheless, beliefs are valued in this chapter because they have been treated as important in society by being transmitted orally and in texts, even though some may have been invented in the sources.

In the nineteenth century, the imbalanced relationship between the urban middle-class collector and the local informant could prevent local people admitting to supernatural beliefs. As the cultural historian Peter Burke generally points out: the common people must have been surprised at why the educated suddenly started to show interest in their traditions (Burke 2001 [1978/1994]: 3). In Agder, this imbalanced relationship is in particular present between the collectors who travelled through Setesdal and the local people who might have been afraid of being joked about or looked upon as superstitious. One entertaining example is the journey of lawyer and poet Conrad Nicolai Schwach (1793–1860), which he made in 1826 for legal purposes. Schwach brought with him a wondrous musical box, and he joked with the local people that the music came from supernatural creatures: I had brought with me on the tour a musical box (…). We came in the evening to Tvedten. When at supper we had emptied the host’s large silver can of the most splendid beer, while the host had gone out for an errand, (…) I put the playing box in the empty can. When the host came in again, we pretended to be most surprised at the music and asked the host if he had earlier heard the music of those under the ground. He denied it, but became very serious, went out and summoned his wife and his people. (Schwach and Stubhaug 1992 [1848]: 241, my translation)

8.2.2 Beliefs held by local people? Although the beliefs discussed are found in abundance in the researched sources, the extent to which narrators or listeners have believed in the communicated stories and beliefs is uncertain. Accounts by scholars who argued against the beliefs and wanted them exterminated indicate that some people probably believed in magic. Bishop Hansen’s statement about superstitions in Agder, quoted in the beginning of this chapter, is one such example, but also Andreas Faye who objected to the contemporary beliefs he encountered in Norway about supernatural creatures (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XXI-XXIII). In the nineteenth century, collectors in Setesdal noticed that especially older people were superstitious, but according to the progress of evolution and the role of education, they trusted that these beliefs would soon die out and be replaced with reason (e.g. Blom 1896: 16; Nielsen 1880: 86-8; 1891: 7-8).

Due to local mistrust, it is not surprising that the philologist Ivar Aasen (1813–96) experienced problems collecting when he, in June 1844, travelled through Setesdal: Because unknown people here are a rarity, one presents a very curious figure in these cases; everything the stranger has is gazed upon and admired; every word he says receives attention. My errand here in this area caused endless surprise, mixed with mistrust; it is hardly surprising, because I had come to describe the ridiculous things that I could see and hear, so that the people who had sent me would have some fun.

Peter Munch Søegaard (1815–81), a jurist who also wrote newspaper articles on archaeology and as a young man lived in Setesdal for a year around 1830, noticed that several customs were dying out, although some that connected to the supernatural were still practised (Søegaard 1868: 48). Søegaard thought it was strange that Christian people believed in supernatural creatures. When several years later he returned to the valley and asked people about these issues, he was told that they “did not give it any proper meaning, but followed the old customs only because of habit and respect for its age” (Søegaard 1868: 64). Although the local people possibly did follow old habits, it is feasible that they did not dare to tell a more educated person about their beliefs, thus raising a third source critical problem to the collecting of supernatural beliefs. 8.2.3 Difficulties in collecting beliefs The lack of references to the supernatural in some researched sources is not necessarily due to a negative attitude towards them by the collector, but may also be a local resistance towards telling them. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, several collectors encountered this problem.

(…) I very much wanted to collect some verses [stev] and ballads, that were plentiful in this area, but I could not get hold of any such; partly because they had fallen out of use and been forgotten, and partly because no one wanted to offer them because they seemed too ugly or boorish to be written down. One of them also uttered much displeasure towards a traveller who some time ago had written down and published some accounts about the customs in this area (…). (Aasen 1990 [1917]: 80-81, my translation) Religious conviction is a second factor that hindered collecting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When, in 1847, the student Jørgen Moe (1813–82) travelled through Setesdal, his collecting efforts were not well received by those people he met who belonged to a lay Christian movement (haugianerne, the Haugeans). Moe described this problem in a letter to his father, written in the valley on 5 August 1847: Many regard ballads and tales as the deeds of Satan and me as a most suspicious person. (…) But all think my 120

The rational and the magical craft is utmost strange, and it is of course impossible for me to make it understandable for what uses I write up their “patchwork”, as they call it. (Moe 1915: 266, my translation) In the late nineteenth century, Johannes Skar (1837–1914) encountered religious resistance towards telling him about olden beliefs in Setesdal, although he also several times experienced that even the most religious did give information (Bø 1953: 81-3, 90). Still, religious convictions prevailed into the twentieth century as a hindrance towards collecting. In 1919, a course was held in Agder about collecting folklore, and although the participants came from the area, collecting the material could be difficult: When 50 years ago one started to ask people about such old [beliefs], they looked strangely at one. Many did not want to admit that they knew anything about this, for they were afraid of being accused of believing in it. (Vigeland 1970: 232, my translation) Another collector later said: One of the worst experiences I knew on these collecting travels was to stand on the doorstep before going in to people (…). I had such a strange errand. I had to ask people about nisser, those under the ground and sorceres. Often, I just wanted to turn around again. (Bergstøl in Breilid 1970: 21, my translation) In the twentieth century, archaeologists who gained an interest in folk-beliefs had trouble too, such as Sigurd Grieg (1894– 1973) who in 1929 surveyed burial mounds in Setesdal: The “sacrificial mounds” (…) still exist, and according to information from various people in Setesdal, there were as recently as in the present owner’s father’s time (18-20 years ago) sacrifices of beer and milk on the mounds each time they had brewed or churned. Neither must windfallen branches be removed from the mounds, nor those trees growing on them be cut down. In reply to my question about this, the woman at the farm answered that this must have been in really olden times. (My translation)3 Even as late as in the 1950s, a local historian refers to problems he encountered in Vest-Agder: I have also during my travels met some few, otherwise clever and sober people, who due to religious conviction did not want to speak about old times “heathendom” in the valley. (Eikeland 1962: 38, my translation) Some people might also today be reluctant to talk about olden beliefs, although not always due to religious reasons. In some cases, when during fieldwork I asked people about supernatural beliefs, these were considered as old nonsense, or the issue did not interest the informants. Although religious convictions may have prevented, in some cases, the collecting efforts, a pragmatic approach is usually UO top.ark., file Aust-Agder, top.ark.reg., Sigurd Grieg’s survey report of 22 July 1929 from Sordal, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635

present in the sources, even by many priests who collected beliefs. The writers of several local historical publications are also Christian, and they value beliefs as a cultural heritage important to have knowledge about. One writer argues as such in a publication of superstitions from Aust-Agder: Many would probably say that much of what is here cited is rubbish (…), and therefore it is difficult to make people to talk about it. But from a cultural historical point of view it is different. It is both great and necessary that the past and its people are known in everything concerning customs and habits, beliefs and dogmas, so that they can be preserved and inherited by the generation to come. (Weierholt 1933: 3, my translation) 8.2.4 The ambiguous term mound A third pertinent source critical problem is whether the sources that contain the mythical legends and belief utterances refer to natural mounds or burial mounds, as just the term “mound” is usually used. This problem has earlier been reflected upon in section 5.9.3, but is here given special attention. According to legends and beliefs, the landscape is cultivated and imbued with supernatural creatures that live in natural formations, such as mounds and mountains (haug and berg), but also trees and stones. Old folklore collections are even structured according to the various natural formations inhabited by the creatures (Storaker 1928). Some of these structures are archaeological sites: mounds can be burial mounds, stones can be standing stones (bauta), while a sacred tree can stand on a burial mound. Although the creatures may be related to a wide range of features in the landscape, this book is concerned with burial mounds mainly. Some natural mounds are still considered because they may have been interpreted as burial mounds, although it is not always clear by whom (the local people or collectors). The problem is illustrated with a legend collected in 1868 (Storaker 1941: 69).4 The legend tells about some creatures that live in a mound that according to the description is likely to be a burial mound. However, after checking the Economic Map and talking with the local people, it is certain that the mound is a large hill that locally cannot have been interpreted as a burial mound. The legend could still be included in the discussion because the collector or publisher of the legend – who might never have seen the hill – might have thought the mound was a burial mound and not a hill. It could also have been included because a burial mound is located close to the hill, and beliefs once associated with this could later have been associated with the hill. From this point of view, supernatural creatures associated with natural formations should be seen as the reflection of beliefs held about burial mounds, and they should therefore be included in the overview. However, this raises the problem of approaching the beliefs from the position of essentialism or constructivism: According to (1) the essentialist position, that focuses on

3

4

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Grimekaalen, Grimenes, Lillesand, Aust-Agder

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 8.3: Vettehaugen The mound has locally been interpreted as a burial mound (Hardeberg 1999: 172 ). In 1974, archaeologists surveyed it as a burial mound because a grave had earlier been found in it, but they still found it more likely that is was a natural mound. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Hardeberg store, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017321). continuity and the possibility of long-term survivals of beliefs, the creatures are seen as transformations of the dead interred in the burial mound where they continue to live. This view is especially present in sources from the early twentieth century, such as by the religious historian Emil Birkeli. He described the transformations of the creatures as a degeneration process and, in the more recent legends, burial mounds are replaced with natural formations such as a mountain or a rock (Birkeli 1938: 114). From this point of view, the beliefs surrounding natural features too can be traced back to cults surrounding burial mounds. According to this degeneration process, it is also forgotten that burial mounds are burials, and they are now named after the creature living in them. Still, other folklorists at this time were also critical of this view, and although Reidar Th. Christiansen kept it open that some creatures could be traced back to the dead, he found it too simple to be a general explanation for their origin (Christiansen 1946: 93; 1975: 104-5).

dynamic view of cultural expression and cultural change that is not enabled by the essentialist position. It also values all beliefs connected to burial mounds as equal regardless of their age. Still, one valid point by the essentialist position is that it opens the possibility that some beliefs surrounding burial mounds actually may be old. This does not necessarily imply that mythical legends contain beliefs that are transmitted from preChristian times, but that the magic might have been associated with burial mounds ever since they were constructed and that some creatures can be seen as a transformation of the dead.

According to (2) a constructivist position, the creatures are not necessarily connected to the dead interred in the burial mound. Burial mounds are instead arbitrarily chosen as the dwelling place for these creatures together with trees, stones, hills, natural mounds, etc. From this position, the connection between supernatural creatures and burial mounds is more recent, and the creatures should not be seen as relicts of earlier generally held beliefs.

Other natural mounds referred to in the sources are still included because they have been interpreted as burials, either by the local people or in the sources. These include two mounds associated with supernatural creatures that probably are natural mounds of sand, but both still have late Iron Age graves interred in them.5 These include the one probably described by Bishop Hansen in the introduction to this chapter.

The legend mentioned above is only one of several that illustrate the difficulty of natural mounds and burial mounds. This mound is still not included in the overview because it is highly uncertain if it had ever been interpreted as a burial mound, and I do not support the essentialist position that superstitious beliefs about natural features should be traced back to burial mounds.

Tussehaugen, Viken, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014357; Vettehaugen, Hardeberg store, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017321, Vettehaugen is surveyed in Fornminneregisteret as a burial mound, but the surveyor is inclined to believe it is a natural mound with an interred grave. 5

The second position can be favoured because it enables the study of archaeological monuments and sites that highlight a

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The rational and the magical particular associated with burial mounds is still discussed in several places in the text. 8.2.5 Conclusions When one investigates the magical world of burial mounds, several important source critical aspects are present. The beliefs are collected according to different valuations about the magic, and it is even uncertain whether the legends and beliefs have been believed in or by whom. Local people may have resisted giving information about the beliefs. Even the term “mound” as used in the sources is highly ambiguous as it does not necessarily refer to burial mounds. Although several burial mounds are connected with magic, such beliefs were probably onlyheld by a few, and not the entire community; some traditions may have be invented (thus also showing their enduring importance), and they are not necessarily survivals of older commonly held Map 8.1: Burial mounds associated with supernatural creatures beliefs. Despite these difficulties, narratives and beliefs about magic are still approached in this chapter from the perspective that they indicate local awareness and From an essentialist position, that emphasizes the survival and interests in the burial mounds. continuity of traditions, the creatures associated with these mounds might indicate that the memory of the graves have been transmitted through nearly a thousand years. However, from a more constructivist position, there should be no 8.3. Supernatural creatures and burial mounds correlation between these graves and the beliefs, and it is only by A general overview is given in this chapter of those supernatural chance that the natural mounds both have graves interred and creatures that are associated with burial mounds. The overview are associated with supernatural creatures. A third possibility is complicated as the creatures are given different names in is that the mounds were associated with the supernatural different parts of Norway, and within the geographical area creatures after the burials were found. Furthermore, even the of Agder the names are used interchangeably. Therefore, the Iron Age people might have thought that they buried the dead names used for the creatures are, as the folklorist Reidar Th. in old burial mounds (secondary burials are often found in Christiansen has pointed out, not a certain indication of the burial mounds), or because natural mounds might also have content of the imaginations (Christiansen 1945: 141). The had significance for them. categorization can even be criticized from the point of view that the creatures do not exist, and that it is a “typology” of Despite these ambiguities, the focus is on those mounds that mentally constructed phenomena, pointless to classify. The in one or several sources probably are interpreted as burial beings are still classified for the purpose of this chapter because mounds. To what extent the supernatural creatures are in

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record they encompass ideas on how people interpret their world, including burial mounds, from a magical perspective. Map 8.1 and Table 8.1 give an overview of the number of burial mounds with which supernatural creatures are associated. The

Creature Category

table is referred to throughout the chapter, but since it is at first not intuitive to read, an explanation is given in the following. For the purpose of this chapter, the creatures are categorized into three main groups, as shown in the first column of Table 8.1:

Motif

Number

Buried

Surveyed burial mounds

Name

Dwelling or observed close to

Throw

Total burial mounds in the sources

Total

Burial mound

Uncertain burial mound

Nature

Burial mound

Uncertain burial mound

Nature

1

3

28

17

6

4

12

7

4

3

16

11

6

2

4

2

The invisible Those under the ground

51

4

50

17

13

Tusser

23

12

17

13

9

Vetter

33

27

13

13

9

Other

8

1

7

1

1

109

44

83

42

30

2

10

56

39

14

8

1

5

31

8

8

Total burial mounds associated with the invisible

1

Trolls Troll

48

8

36

1

21

15

Thrall

7

1

4

3

3

3

7

Shieldmay

3

3

3

3

3

3

Total burial mounds associated with trolls

56

7

27

21

1

5

40

8

8

1

3

20

3

3

3

3

9

42

8

Ghosts Ghost

26

26

14

10

Varp

5

5

5

5

Total burial mounds associated with ghosts

31

31

20

16

5 1

3

Table 8.1: Burial mounds associated with supernatural creatures A total of 180 burial mounds are listed, but several of these appear more than once in the table. 124

25

The rational and the magical 1. The invisible people: who can be both good and bad (reminiscent of fairies) 2. Trolls: large and malevolent creatures 3. Ghosts: haunting or fear of something connected to the dead near burial mounds The creatures that, under each group, are listed in the table are discussed later in the chapter, while Table 8.2 gives a short explanation of them in alphabetical order. Several creatures could have been named with the English term “fairies”, but this would hide several differences, so Norwegian names are therefore used, or else the English translation as given in Table 8.2. Supernatural creatures have been identified as associated with a total of about 180 burial mounds, including uncertain burial mounds and natural mounds (or other features) interpreted in some sources as burial mounds (see also Map 8.1). This number refers to the total quantity of identified burial mounds, but the same mound may be referred to several times in the table because various sources use different terms for the creature associated with the same burial mound, or because different motifs are told about the same burial mound. For instance, the creature that lives in a mound, in this case actually a natural mound that is probably referred to as a burial mound in some sources, is referred to as those under the ground (Lunde 1924: 126; Rossevatn 1992: 38), vetter (Lunde 1924: 65, 129), a troll (Fjermedal 1935: 25-6, 72), or just a “man” (e.g. Daae 1872: 27; Liestøl 1922: 132; 1925: 129-30; Hannaas 1925: 27; Fjermedal 1935: 76).6 This mound, as well as others, is therefore referred to several times in the table, but the total in the table refers to the number of burial mounds with which each creature can be associated. Although the terms for the creatures are used interchangeably, the distribution maps of the creatures printed in this chapter show relatively clear geographical tendencies. The beliefs are not entirely in a state of flux, and most parishes have as a dominant tradition one or several creatures that are relatively stable in the sources, regardless of whether they were collected in the nineteenth or twentieth century. Column 1 in Table 8.1 further indicates that the category “the invisible” is associated with most burial mounds (109). The special affiliation between the invisible and burial mounds has been stressed in several sources, in particular by the religious historian Emil Birkeli who interpreted them as relicts of a preChristian ancestor cult (e.g. Birkeli 1938). However, as seen in the table, trolls and ghosts are associated with burial mounds too, and Birkeli’s attempt to trace any link with the invisible to a pre-Christian ancestor cult conceals the variety of beings associated with burial mounds. Column 2 of Table 8.1 gives an overview of the main motifs that connect burial mounds with supernatural creatures. Four recurring motifs have been used as criteria: 1. Buried. Supernatural creatures can be buried in burial mounds, a motif that applies to trolls only and is relatively rare. 6

Melhaugen, Homstøldalen, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder

2. Name. Supernatural creatures can give their name to burial mounds, which is the second most common association between a burial mound and supernatural creatures. The general tendency is that in the pre- and early twentiethcentury sources, names that refer to supernatural creatures form the common name, and these mounds are distinguished from other structures in the landscape because their main attribute is their association to the magical world. However, in the twentieth-century sources, they form the proper names of structures known to be burial mounds, but that are also associated with magic. 3. By dwelling or observing close to. Supernatural creatures may live in or are observed close to burial mounds, which is the most common association. This belief may be expressed through legends, memoirs, belief utterances, but also merely suggestions in the sources that supernatural creatures may be related to a burial mound. That supernatural creatures dwell in burial mounds is apparent in several ways. People may see the creature coming out from the mound, hear music and dance coming from it, be taken into the mound, or see the light of the creature that burns over the mound (that can also refer to a treasure buried in the mound, as in section 6.3.3). People may give a sacrifice to the inhabitant of the mound (usually beer), but the burial mounds said to be sacrificed to are only included in this chapter if a supernatural creature is also mentioned in the source. Trees growing at burial mounds can also be said to be the dwelling place of supernatural creatures. Some of these burial mounds are named after the creature believed to dwell in it, but they may also have other names. 4. Thrown. Burial cairns may be explained as originating from being thrown together by supernatural creatures, a motif that applies to trolls only and is relatively rare. The major source critical problem when choosing mounds to be included in the overview has been whether the sources refer to a burial mound or not (see sections 5.9.3. and 8.2.4). Table 8.1 and Map 8.1 therefore distinguish between the three categories of “burial mound”, “uncertain burial mound” and “nature” (including some other formations too). Column 3 includes only those burial mounds identified as having been surveyed in Fornminneregisteret (some of these are uncertainly identified according to the survey reports). Column 4 lists all burial mounds, including those that have not been identified. Column 3 in Table 8.1, most importantly, shows that while 77 of the mounds treated in this chapter have been surveyed, of these only two-thirds (59) are surveyed as burial mounds. This indicates that tracing any special relationship between the supernatural creatures and burial mounds must be done with care. If one include those mounds not surveyed, more than half (113) are referred to as burial mounds in the sources, while 48 are uncertain and 19 are natural. It should also be emphasized that in Agder more than the 19 natural mounds referred to in the table are associated with supernatural creatures. The table includes only those natural mounds that at least one source refers to as a probable burial mound. Having now outlined some general tendencies in Table 8.1, the next sections give an account of the three main categories of creatures associated with burial mounds. 125

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Norwegian

English

alv

elf

draug

Category

Description

1

Seldom mentioned in the sources from Agder, but can be used interchangeably with those under the ground or the vette. The alv is not definitely associated with known burial mounds in Agder.

3

A Norse term for a ghost or a living dead person. Used in Agder rarely for the creature in the burial mound, and mainly in folklore collections from the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

oskorei

the wild hunt

1

A company of spirits that ride through the air from farm to farm, especially at Christmas, and that people must protect themselves against. In Agder, its vague association with burial mounds is probably by chance.

haugebonde

the moundfarmer

1

The dead in the burial mound, sometimes believed to be the first settler at the farm. The haugebonde can both be buried and continue to live in the mound. In Agder, it is seldom used for the creature in the burial mound, but the song Haugebonden is known.

haugfolk

the moundpeople

1

A general term used for the people living in a mound. In Vest-Agder, used almost as a synonym for those under the ground, and in AustAgder with the tusser.

hulder

1

A group of supernatural creatures, meaning the hidden, invisible or concealed people. Often used as a general term for vetter and haugfolk. The female huldra is especially known for her beauty and erotic attraction. In Agder, the term hulder is seldom used for the creature in burial mounds.

nisse

1

A household guardian, a small man with a red hat that in Agder in a few cases lives in mounds or trees, but is not associated with certain burial mounds.

skjoldmøy

shieldmay

2

A female warrior with the extraordinary power to throw large stones.

skrømt

ghost

3

Something that haunts a place, often believed to be a dead person, but in other cases not specified what it is.

troll

troll

2

A ghostlike large monster that can both be buried and live in burial mounds.

1

Supernatural beings that are usually friendly. They live in mounds and mountains, but also in trees, but the mounds are often natural mounds. In Agder, the term is used mainly in Aust-Agder and particular in Setesdal.

1

A people that lives underground, such as in mounds. Often used as a general term covering creatures called tusser, hulder, haugfolk. The most commonly used term in Vest-Agder, together with the vetter, on the creature that lives in burial mounds, but is to a lesser extent used in Aust-Agder.

1

Creatures that often live in mounds, but also associated with trees and stones. Used in several sources as a general term that covers various creatures that live in natural formations, such as the vette of the air, the stone and the water. Also used as a variant of the terms hulder, tusse, haugfolk, etc. In Vest-Agder, the most commonly used term, together with those under the ground, for the creature that is associated with burial mounds, but is also used in Aust-Agder.

tusser

underjordiske

vetter

those under the ground

Table 8.2: Terms used for supernatural creatures English terms mainly from Christiansen’s glossary (1964: 259-62; but also Christiansen 1958; Hodne 1984), and in addition other English literature and dictionaries. Several explanations from Bø et al. (1981).

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The rational and the magical 8.4 The invisible people The invisible people, also referred to as the hidden people in English translations (e.g. Bø 1993), parallel the life of living people, but in a reverse world, and they can be both good and bad. These creatures remind us of fairies, a term commonly used when Norwegian folklorists write about them in English (e.g. Christiansen 1958, 1975). In Norway, terms used for the creatures in this category vary. In Agder, they are usually termed underjordiske (those under the ground) and tusser, while vetter are often described as slightly scarier, but other terms can also be used. Legends about the invisible usually treat encounters between them and the invisible worlds, showing both similarities and differences between them.

therefore aim to establish a good relationship with them; for instance by giving a sacrifice to the mound, tree or stone where they dwell. Humans could also, according to a few legends, let a cow graze close to a burial mound where the invisible people lived, hoping it would mate with their ox because this would produce a strong breed (e.g. Skar 1961 [1908]: 433, 434; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 19, 62-3). Precious objects kept on farms can also be explained as coming from the invisible people in the mound, in particular drinking horns (ML 6045, “the stolen drinking-cup”), a legend type discussed in section 8.7. The difficult task of building a large church could also be explained according to a migratory legend ascribing the church-builder as a supernatural creature who in some cases came from a mound (ML 7065).7

Similarities between the invisible people and humans are communicated in some legends from Agder. One example is that the daughter of the creature that lives in the mound marries a human, ensuring him wealth, although the marriage is not always happy (e.g. Breilid 1923: 118-19; Fjermedal 1936: 5051). According to an internationally known migratory legend (ML 5070), found in one variant in Agder, a woman married the invisible creature and lived in a burial mound, but needed a midwife from the visible world when she gave birth (Rudjord 1992: 590-91). According to another migratory legend (ML 5085, changelings), the children of the visible and the invisible people could be interchanged (Skjelbred 1998: 61-77; e.g. Jerstad 1949: 263). Encounters between the living and the creatures dwelling in mounds are also mentioned in accounts about humans who are taken into the mound or as a captive by the invisible (Skjelbred 1998:127-32; e.g. Bergstøl 1930: 94; Bergstøl 1959: 21).

A second difference is that the invisible people often resist all that is Christian. The consequence is still, as the folklorist Skjelbred argues (Skjelbred 1998: 55-6), that they in some legends long for salvation (cf. ML 5050 and section 10.5.2). Emil Birkeli argues that these legends reflect a sympathy towards them as the folk-thought aims at giving them a mild verdict (Birkeli 1938: 121). The belief in the invisible could also gain Biblical support. In most parts of Norway, a legend is told about the creation of invisible people, internationally classified as a tale-type, but in Norway considered as a legend (Skjelbred 1998: 43; cf. Bø et al. 1981: 268). The invisible people are explained as the children of the first woman Eve, but in some variants also as the children of a second wife of Adam (e.g. Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XXIII-XIV). When Eve showed her children to God, she kept some hidden who then became the invisible people. In Agder, the legend is told mainly about those under the ground (e.g. Breilid 1923: 74; Bergstøl 1930:

The differences between the invisible and humans are also communicated in the sources. First, the invisible are often more prosperous than ordinary people: their farms and cattle are better. Humans long for the qualities of the invisible and

Told in several variants about four churches in Agder (Spangereid, Vanse, Finsland, Bykle), although the church-builder appears only in one variant about Spangereid church from a known burial mound (Fuglevik 1929: 55-6). 7

Illus. 8.4: Tuptehaug A midwife went into this burial mound to help give birth to a child. Today, pigs live on the mound, and perhaps not those under the ground. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Midthassel, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003788). 127

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 8.4.1 Those under the ground (underjordiske) In Agder, “those under the ground” (de underjordiske) is the most commonly used name for the invisible people, although used mainly, as shown in Map 8.2, in Vest-Agder. Those under the ground are those creatures that most resemble humans, but the term can be used interchangeably with other creatures too, such as vetter. The term “mound-people” (haugfolket), alternatively the mound-man (haugmann), are also used as a synonym with those under the ground in VestAgder and with tusser in AustAgder. Other terms are used for those under the ground too, as explained in the following. In various parts of Norway, the term “mound-farmer” (haugebonde) is used for the supernatural creature living in the mound, usually meaning those under the ground. In Agder, the term “mound-farmer” can be used in a few cases as a general term for the inhabitant of burial mounds (e.g. Fjermedal 1962: 450; Skjevrak 1954: 88).8 The term has an additional meaning as it, in some cases, Map 8.2: Burial mounds associated with those under the ground refers to a belief that the first Including the mound-farmer and the hulder. settler of the farm is buried in the mound where he continues to live. This mound-farmer is especially known in one of the geographically most widespread folk songs in Norway called 109; Vere 1994: 117-21), but also about tusser in Setesdal (e.g. Haugebonden (Bø 1977b: 253-4; cf. Aasen 1923: 115-16, 192Blom 1896: 12). 3), also known in Agder (e.g. Skar 1961 [1916]: 265; Hannaas Andreas Faye mentions a second Biblical support, which he 1928: 119-20).9 argued against, for the belief in the invisible. Faye had heard Emil Birkeli suggests a divergent interpretation of the about farmers in North Norway who argued that evidence for mound-farmer, arguing that he is the most important type of the existence of those under the ground was found in the sixth inhabitant of a burial mound that can be traced back to prePentateuch, not in the Bible, but the priests knew it and did Christian beliefs (Birkeli 1938: 117-27). Birkeli disagrees not want to tell about it (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XXI). In with the theory that the mound-peasant is the ancestor of 1824, Faye also met a farmer in Telemark who – despite being the people living on the farm: they would in that case have unusually enlightened – argued for the existence of those remembered and used the name of the dead. Instead, Birkeli under the ground. He too supported the belief by referring to suggests that the term is used as the venerated name for a the Bible, because it said that all knees, those in Heaven, on the person who was worshipped by people on several farms or in Earth and under the Earth, should bend for the Lord. To this the parish (Birkeli 1938: 126). However, Birkeli does not base “evidence” Faye remarked critically that “this is how even Bible this theory on any evidence, and he uses it mainly to confirm passages could be misunderstood and serve as the confirmation of superstition” (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XXIII). In the following, the association between the invisible and burial mounds is discussed according to the main sub-groups of creatures: those under the ground, tusser and vetter.

Mjølhus, Froland, Aust-Agder; Heddeland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015258; Kimestad, Marnardal, Vest-Agder; Birkenes, Songdalen, Vest-Agder; Tronstad, Songdalen, Vest-Agder. 9 Hannaassamlingen (University of Bergen) 400.9 and 425.73 8

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The rational and the magical his own preconception of long-time survival of traditions, and that people in the nineteenth century remembered the name of people interred in burial mounds. Birkeli thus escapes the anonymity of the mound-farmer by arguing he was important for an entire parish. The creature hulder, after the Norse word huld that means hidden (Skjelbred 1998: 30), is used in several places in Norway for the most important invisible supernatural creature. Still, the hulder often differs from other creatures because it is presented as a female having dangerous erotic attraction for human men. This hulder even gained a contemporary importance in the 1990s as a feminist symbol of the strong woman (Skjelbred 1998: 142-5). In Agder, the hulder, and the male huldrekall or hullemann, are associated with burial mounds in a few cases only, but several are probably natural and not burial mounds.10 According to a local historical source, there should be as many people under the ground as above. Although not all people had the gift to see them, they could have been observed at most farms in Agder (Bergstøl 1960: 313-14). An abundance of stories about those under the ground are found in local historical and folkloristic literature from the mid nineteenth century, witnessing that telling stories about them – and probably believing in them – has been common. Although they could inhabit natural mounds, several sources specifically relate them to burial mounds. A writer of the parish-book of Lista even suggests that the number of those under the ground is proportionally high in relation to the number of archaeological monuments in the parish (Rudjord 1992: 591). Map 8.2 also shows that Lista has a high number of burial mounds that are associated with those under the ground. For instance: Bie, Arendal, Aust-Agder; Kvarenes, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder; Augland, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder; Hompland, Sirdal, Vest-Agder. 10

However, compared to the numberless accounts of those under the ground in Agder, only a minor part of these are associated with certain burial mounds. As shown in Table 8.1, 51 mounds possibly interpreted in the sources as burial mounds are associated with those under the ground, but nearly half of these are either uncertain burial mounds (17) or stated in some sources to be natural features (6). Only 17 of the 51 mounds have been surveyed, and of these 13 are burial mounds, 1 uncertain and 3 natural. Those under the ground are associated with mounds mainly because they dwell in or are observed close to them (50). They seldom give their name to burial mounds (4), and these are all proper names recorded in the second half of the twentieth century. Although those under the ground are those creatures most commonly associated with burial mounds, the belief in them has not influenced the construction of common names that often express the main property of a mound. 8.4. 2 Tusser In the sources from Aust-Agder, and in particular in Setesdal, the term tusser is used more or less as a synonym to those under the ground. In other parts of Norway too the term is used, and the creature inspired the Norwegian writer Arne Garborg’s (1851–1924) work of poetry Haugtussa (1895). Folklorists have argued that the term tusse is recent, used when people did not know exactly what was in the burial mounds (Bø and Hodne 1974: 105). Birkeli views it as a simplification of names of several creatures transmitted from the heathen period (Birkeli 1938: 137). In the sources, the tusser are often said to have a special relationship to mounds, but they are also associated with other Iron Age sites in Agder (two quarries and a hill-fort).11 They are also commonly believed to dwell in 11

Tussestaua, Brattelandsåsen, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 017615; Tussestaua,

Illus. 8.5: Underjordshaugen Those under the ground were, according to the survey report from 1978, in the burial mound. Allegedly, before 1795, this mound was opened and a large scull was found (Holm 1795c: 63-4). Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Røynestad øvre, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004560). 129

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record nineteenth century and onwards, most importantly Johannes Skar’s folklore collection from Setesdal (mainly Skar 1961 [1908]). Map 8.3 shows that the belief in tusser is a tradition dominant in AustAgder and especially Setesdal, where the term is used almost synonymously for those under the ground. In Vest-Agder, one of the two mounds associated with tusser is close to Setesdal and was probably influenced by traditions in this valley. The relationship of the second mound in Vest-Agder to tusser is uncertain, but is still included in the overview.12 As shown in Table 8.1, 23 mounds possibly interpreted in the sources as burial mounds are associated with tusser, but half of these are uncertain burial mounds (7) or stated in some sources to be natural features (4). Altogether 13 of the 23 mounds are surveyed, and of these 9 are burial mounds and 4 natural. Tusser can live in or are observed close to mounds, or the trees by mounds may be inhabited by them (17).

Map 8.3: Burial mounds associated with tusser

trees, some that can stand on burial mounds. The term tuss comes from a Norse word meaning a troll (see section 8.5) (Torp 1992 [1919]: 819). The term is found in medieval sources, but is also used since the eighteenth century as a disparaging term (Birkeli 1938: 127-8). However, tusser described in the nineteenth-century sources differ from the trolls described in the same period: tusser are more humanlike creatures living under the ground. One source from Agder describes the young female tusse as beautiful, but encumbered with a cow’s tail that she tries to hide, but that she loses if she marries a Christian (Blom 1896: 11). Tusser are often associated with remote areas and particularly the mountain dairy farms used during summer. Legends often tell how it was important for the humans not to arrive at this farm too early or leave too late, as the two kinds of people could then meet and cause retribution from the invisible (e.g. Solheim 1952: 376-80). Most sources about mounds associated with tusser date to the late Båseland, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 017616; Horja, Mølland, Iveland, AustAgder, ID 016860.

Tusser even often give their name to burial mounds (12), contrary to those under the ground. Those mounds named after tusser are often called with variants of tussehaug (tusse-mound), usually used as a common name in the pre- and early twentieth-century sources. Hence, in the sources, these mounds are interpreted mainly according to their affiliation to magic and not because they are burial mounds. In Agder, the earliest reference to a tussehaug is probably in a 1714 report of a farm border survey.13 The introductory quotation by Bishop Hansen is the earliest published account of a tussehaug in Agder (Hansen 1803: 359-61). Still, it is often difficult to establish according to the sources whether mounds named tussehaug refer to burial mounds or natural mounds, in particular those mounds mentioned by Skar in Setesdal. Birkeli still emphasized that mounds called tussehauger are often burial mounds (Birkeli 1938: 133). This view was also held by Haakon Shetelig, who in the early twentieth century excavated several tussehauger in West Norway and heard stories about tusser associated with them (Schetelig 1911). However, only 4 of the 12 tussehauger in the overview are surveyed, and The name Tusshøu appears in a list of names on what is interpreted as burial mounds, sent by a local man to Oldsaksamlingen probably in the mid-1960s (UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Farsund/Diverse III, undated and unsigned letter). The name also appear in a later publication of names at Lista (Vere 1994: 333). 13 UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder, Diverse I, letter of April 7, 1994, from Paul E. Setane on “Tusserøys i Vegusdal”. 12

130

The rational and the magical of these, 3 are surveyed as natural and only 1 as a burial mound, indicating that tussehauger are not necessarily burial mounds. The overview shows that although mounds associated with tusser can be burial mounds, the relationship between tusser and burial mounds seems not to be as strong as argued by Birkeli (1938: 133). Tusser are still supernatural creatures that have some association to burial mounds and this affiliation is often highlighted in the literature. 8.4.3 Vetter Vetter is the third invisible creature that resembles humans. According to the folklorist Olav Bø (1918– 98), the name vette comes from the Norse word vættr, which means a supernatural creature, a spirit or a god (Bø 1987: 9). In Norway, the term is mainly found in Agder and in Telemark (Birkeli 1938: 140), but is used interchangeably with other terms. In the sources from Agder, vetter are often described as humanlike creatures closely related to those under the ground (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 27), like small people wearing grey clothes and a black hat (Blom 1896: 12), or as a black and scary creature reminiscent

Map 8.4: Burial mounds associated with vetter

Illus. 8.6: Vetehaugen In 1974, the owner informed archaeologists during the survey that it had not been disturbed because it was haunted. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Bjåstad, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 015093). 131

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record name vettehaug is also found in older sources than tussehaug. An entry in a dictionary, probably written in the late seventeenth century by a high official in Aust-Agder, explains that the vettehaug is a mound where elves live and that the farm people protect themselves with the trees on them (Hannaas 1911: 62). Even in a source from the second half of the nineteenth century, it is said that almost all farms in certain areas in Vest-Agder had legends about giving beer to vetter in the vettehaug (Storaker 1921: 152).

Map 8.5: Burial mounds associated with other creatures

of a cat (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 63). When in 1844 the philologist Ivar Aasen travelled through Agder to study local dialects, he wrote that the vette referred to a fabulous creature that seemed to be the same as the hulder or those under the ground (Bondevik et al. 1997: 44, 27). However, Birkeli suggests that vetter are more related to the religious sphere than other creatures, and they are more often sacrificed to (Birkeli 1938: 140). As shown in Table 8.1, 33 mounds possibly interpreted in the sources as burial mounds are associated with vetter, but more than half of these are uncertain burial mounds (11) or stated in some sources to be natural features (6). Altogether 13 of the 33 mounds were surveyed, and of these 9 are burial mounds, 1 uncertain and 3 natural. Map 8.4 shows that vetter are associated with burial mounds all over Agder, but mainly Vest-Agder. Vetter are said to dwell in or are observed close to burial mounds, alternatively they dwell in the trees that grow by mounds (13). Unlike those under the ground and tusser, vetter are associated with burial mounds mainly through names (27). Unlike tussehaug, vettehaug is more often used as a proper than a common name, although the tendency is in this case as well that older sources use vettehaug as a common name. The

A particular source critical problem is if the name vettehaug refers to the supernatural creature or a cairn/ mound (in some cases burials) where a fire has been lit as part of a guardsystem that was used from the Viking Age until the nineteenth century (termed vete or vede). However, in most sources, it is certain whether the name refers to the supernatural creature vetter or not, but exceptions occur concerning three burial mounds at Lista called Veden. One was possibly used as a vete (Rudjord 1981: 829), and is also associated with the supernatural creature vetter (Rudjord 1980: 43; Vere 1995: 320).14 Two other burial mounds called Veden may have a similar double meaning (Rudjord 1981: 829).15 However, since there are no certain references in the sources to the creature vetter, these have not been included in this overview. 8.4.4 Other creatures (alv, nisse and unknown) Other creatures that recall the invisible may be associated with burial mounds, such as the alv (the elves) and the nisse (a goblin), but the association to burial mounds is weak. The invisible may in the sources also simply be termed “a man” or an unknown person. Alv References to the alv, Norse alfr and English elf (Torp 1992 [1919]: 3), are known from Iron Age runic inscriptions and medieval Icelandic literature (overview in Boberg 1966: 1047). Based on a runic inscription on a Migration Age bracteate found in Vest-Agder (B 3410g), the Norwegian philologist Sophus Bugge (1833–1907) argued that folk-memory had kept the belief in the alv from time immemorial (Bugge 1891– 1903: 202). However, the alv as known in post-medieval Vetehøuen, Vere midtre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003953 Veden, Brekne, Farsund, Vest-Agder; Veden, Vesthassel, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003793 14 15

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The rational and the magical folklore both differs from and recalls the alv from earlier sources. A major difference is that, according to scholars in religious studies, the alv is often referred to in Norse sources together with the Aesir, and it recalls the Norse fertility gods Vanir (Røthe 1997: 32-3; Näsström 2004: 61-2; cf. Bø 1987: 66). A similarity is that the term alv may refer to the inhabitant of a burial mound. For instance, the burial mound of the ninth-century king Olaf Guthrøthson was sacrificed to after his death, and he was given the name alv, Olaf Geirstatha-Alf (Bø 1987: 66; Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of the Ynglings, chapter 48). The Swedish bishop Olaus Magnus (1490–1557) further described the alv as the soul of dead people (Olaus 2001 [1555]: 150). From Agder, the sources only rarely refer to the alv (also named with the Danish term ellefolket). The term can be used interchangeably with those under the ground (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 24-25), or with vetter (Hannaas 1911: 62). The sources connect the alv with two uncertain burial mounds: 1. Alvene were seen near a stone cairn, possibly a burial cairn, although the local informant (born c.1872) thought the cairn was laid up as a sacrifice to the alv (Eikeland 1963: 63-4).16 2. Alvene are said to dance over the mounds at a farm (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 24-5), but it is uncertain whether the mounds mentioned are burial mounds.17 The motif about the dancing alv has a particular interest since there is a recurring belief about them. Olaus Magnus described the nightly dance of the alv that left a circle in the ground where the grass could not grow (Olaus 2001 [1555]: 150). In the county of Rogaland, an archaeological site is even named after the belief in the dance of the alv: a circle in the ground called alvedans, but which is explained by archaeologists as the remains of haystacks (Lillehammer and Prøsch-Danielsen 2001; Lillehammer 2004). Nisse The nisse (a “goblin”) is an important creature in several tales collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This small and humanlike creature is often said to be a domestic creature and guardian of the farm, and lives in the outbuilding where he protects the animals. Birkeli argued that belief in the nisse can be traced back to about the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and that it then replaced an older domestic guardian (Birkeli 1938: 176). In Agder, the earliest references to the nisse date to the late eighteenth century (Eckstorm 1792: 22; Gjelleböl 1801: 37). The nisse has a strong position in contemporary popular culture because it is connected with Christmas and, to some extent, it has merged with the AngloAmerican Santa Claus. In Agder, the term nisse is nearly used interchangeably with other invisible creatures such as those under the ground, tusser 16 17

Guddal, Sirdal, Vest-Agder Lunde, Søgne, Vest-Agder

or vetter. The nisse can inhabit trees and mounds, but it has only rare associations with burial mounds. In Agder, the nisse is connected with two features possibly locally interpreted as burial mounds, but one is certainly natural.18 Unknown Some legends do not state the name of the invisible person, but they refer to “a man” or an unknown person that appears. These usually recall the creature that is a tradition dominant in the parish, most commonly those under the ground in Vest-Agder and tusser in Aust-Agder. In Agder, such unnamed creatures are associated with at least 4 burial mounds (including 1 uncertain and 1 natural). Although these unknown creatures are in other variants of the legends usually interpreted according to the tradition dominant the parish, they have been included in Map 8.5. 8.4.5 Conclusions The invisible people are associated with a total of 109 burial mounds (see Table 8.1), either because they give their names to them (44) or are said to dwell there or have been observed close to burial mounds (83), but several of these are uncertain (39) or natural (14). According to the sources, those under the ground and the vetter have the strongest affiliation to burial mounds, while tusser have a weaker connection. In several sources, the invisible people are interpreted as a transformation of the dead interred in burial mounds, but the discussion indicates that one must critically assess to what extent they have a special affiliation to burial mounds. One possibility is that their association to burial mounds is arbitrary, and does not differ from other natural formations such as natural mounds, stones, but also trees, etc. The fact that some burial mounds are associated with the invisible people still supports the view that local people have had a special consciousness about these burial mounds that, compared to other mounds, were seen as special structures in the landscape. Still, I will argue against any views that such beliefs have earlier been held about all burial mounds, because this perspective approaches the invisible as the last faded relicts of the memory of the dead interred in burial mounds. Instead, several sources describing supernatural creatures may be based on more recent beliefs, some may be inventions in the sources, but they may also be examples of people interpreting certain experiences according to beliefs held in the community. And perhaps, some beliefs might be “old” too… 8.5 Trolls The large and malevolent creature often termed a “troll” is a second main category of supernatural creature associated with burial mounds. The term troll can also be used synonymously with giants, in whom several scholars believed until the early nineteenth century, but although the beliefs in several cases overlap, giants are mainly discussed in section 9.5. Map 8.6 and 8.7 show that burial mounds associated with trolls are most 18

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Nissehaugen, Hannkodd, Åseral, Vest-Agder; Åsbø, Gjerstad, Aust-Agder

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record through their names, but these names may possibly have other interpretations too (discussed below). Different terms are also used for trolls, and these are explained in the following. 8.5.1 Trolls and rise The Norwegian term troll is probably related to the medieval German word trol, trolle, a ghostlike monster or a big clumsy person (Hodne 1995: 15). In Norwegian, the word troll has a second connotation too, referring to witchcraft: sorcerers and sorceresses are called trollmann (troll-man) and trollkvinne (trollwoman). In Agder, rise (also called røse and ryse) is a second term often used for trolls.

Map 8.6: Burial mounds associated with trolls commonly found in Vest-Agder, although also occurring in Aust-Agder. In the sources, the trolls are usually described differently from the invisible people, although the terms may be used interchangeably. The most important difference between trolls and the invisible people is that trolls are large and malevolent creatures, like monsters, and people must protect themselves against trolls with Christian signs (Klintberg 1972: 26). Trolls are more fabulous than the invisible people too: they have a stronger position in tales than in legends and are to a lesser extent believed in than the invisible people (Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 17). Compared with the invisible people, it is generally easier to find out if the accounts about trolls refer to burial mounds or natural structures. As shown in Table 8.1, 56 mounds possibly interpreted in the sources as burial mounds are associated with trolls, and only 8 of these are uncertain burial mounds or stated in some sources to be natural features (8). This tendency is also reflected in the surveys in Fornminneregisteret. A total of 27 of the 56 mounds have been surveyed, and of these, 21 are burial mounds, 1 uncertain and 5 natural. Still, a source critical problem is that most burial mounds are connected with trolls

Accounts about trolls are found in Norse literature (overview in Boberg 1966: 111-12). In the Middle Ages, the term was commonly used for all kinds of malevolent creatures and ghosts (Hodne 1995: 15). Medieval laws and the sagas may refer to the trolls as diabolic transformations of the dead. Clauses against raising trolls, interpreted as prohibitions against raising or wakening the dead from the burial mound (Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992: 97), are given in the Christian sections of the Norwegian medieval landscape laws of Gulating, Frostating and Borgarting (Gulatingslovi 1981: chapter 32, p. 47; Keyser and Munch 1846: 19, 182, 362). This prohibition was repeated in the first national law, Magnus Lagabøters landslov of 1274 (Keyser and Munch 1848: 51). The affiliation between the diabolic troll and the dead is also present in a late medieval source about the burial mound of the ninth-century king of Vestfold, Olaf Geirstatha-Alf (Røthe 1997: 26). According to the source, the king informed his people that they should not sacrifice on his burial mound because he would then become a troll and start to haunt. The people did still sacrifice on the burial mound, and it did later start to haunt (Spurkland 1997: 19-20). Although some trolls, as described in nineteenth-century sources, recall the medieval trolls described as ghosts, most legends in the researched sources describe them as large and monstrous creatures. 8.5.2 Jutul The term jutul (Swedish jätte, Danish jætte) may be used synonymously with the term troll, but is a derivative of jotun – the giants that in Norse mythology were the enemies of the

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The rational and the magical inhabitants of the country even concords to some extent with legends told in parts of Agder that describe the rise as the pioneers of a farm (Fjermedal 1962: 466), a belief also held abut the jette in Sweden (Klintberg 1986: 28-9). 8.5.3 Thralls (treller) In the eastern parts of VestAgder, seven burial mounds are connected with thralls and not trolls (see Table 8.1). In the same area, a standing stone is thrown up by thralls and not by trolls.19 Similar beliefs are described in the early nineteenth century in West Norway too (Neumann 1842a: 130; Sollund 1996: 17). In 1826, the topographer Jens Kraft referred to this remarkable belief in Agder (Kraft 1826: 56061), but suggested later that the word thrall was a derivative of troll (Kraft 1838: 366-7).

Map 8.7: Motifs connecting trolls with burial mounds

gods Aesir. The ideas about the jutuls and the trolls are often mixed together, but one essential difference between them should be emphasized. The jutul is the only species discussed in this chapter that is held to be extinct, whereas the other creatures, including trolls, are believed to continue to live among the people (Klintberg 1972: 25; Zachrisson 2003: 125). Although the jutuls differ from the troll by being extinct, the accounts about them are categorized as trolls in this chapter. The belief in the jutul resembles the idea, held by scholars until the early nineteenth century, that giants once inhabited the world, as discussed in section 9.5. For a period, these now extinct species of (heathen) giants may have lived side by side with the (Christian) humans. For instance, Andreas Faye argued that the jutuls – as well as dwarfs and those under the ground – represented the first inhabitants of the country. These were later conquered and expelled to the wilderness, but now and then they attacked their defeaters, later remembered in a mythical and fabulous way in the legends as the scaring and strong creature jutul (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XIII-XV). Therefore, they are often said to throw stones against the Christian people or churches. That the jutuls were the first

Although Kraft interpreted thrall as a derivative of troll, it is uncertain whether these legends actually refer to the human thralls or supernatural trolls. The association between thralls and burial mounds is found in later sources in the same area as Kraft described in 1826 (e.g. Nicolaysen 1862–6: 276; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 112; Helland 1903a: 190; Christiansen 1938: 150; Lauvsland 1959: 241). Even during the archaeological surveys in 1969, burial mounds were locally ascribed to thralls and not trolls (ID 016121, ID ik35373). These legends might support the fact that human thralls are referred to. However, the term is still used interchangeably as a standing stone that according to Kraft was thrown up by a thrall (Kraft 1838: 366), which in later sources is ascribed to a rise (Storaker 1928: 15-16; Lunde 1969: 111, ID 016236).20 8.5.4 Shieldmays (skjoldmøyer) The shieldmays are female warriors, or Amazons, described in Norse sources as women who participated in wars together with men, and they remind us of giants (section 9.5). In the northern and eastern part of Agder, Setesdal and Åmli, these warriors have influenced the interpretation of burial mounds and standing stones. In some sources, the shieldmays are described as strong supernatural creatures having the same qualities as the jutuls and thralls. They threw stones and rocks 19 20

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Stausland, Søgne, Vest-Agder, ID 016236 Stavangersteinen, Stausland, Søgne, Vest-Agder, ID 016236

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record as arrows against the Christians. Three burial cairns are also explained as originating from fights between shieldmays throwing stones against each other (e.g. Helland 1904a: 228; Skar 1961 [1907]: 232, ID 018644, ID 016661).21 The Christians or the sun could further petrify shieldmays, just as the trolls. 8.5.5 Trolls and their association to burial mounds The term troll is used as a general category in the following, although the large malevolent creatures are given different names in the sources. Trolls, including thralls and shieldmays, are associated with burial mounds mainly in four different ways (see Map 8.7): 1. Trolls are buried in burial mounds

See also Hannaassamlingen 404.39 and UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Åmli/ Risland, report of 21 June 1957 21

2. Trolls give their names to burial mounds 3. Trolls live in burial mounds 4. Trolls throw burial cairns together 1. Trolls are buried in burial mounds In Agder, legends and belief utterances that trolls are buried in burial mounds are connected to 9 burial mounds. These accounts are of special interest since they show that trolls differ from other creatures: trolls can die and be buried in burial mounds, while the invisible people are never buried in burial mounds, but live in them. The source critical problem is, however, that although the sources refer to trolls buried in a mound or at a spot, these may also be natural features, although legends and beliefs communicate that they are burials of these beings. A dramatic legend, first recorded in 1859, is one example that a troll was shot and buried at a locality named Rysefaldet (the

Illus. 8.7: An alleged troll grave Drawn in 1859 by lieutenant Emanuel Lund, but later, archaeologists argued it was a moraine (reproduced after Stylegar 1998 [1859]: 31, Vanse prestegård, Farsund, Vest-Agder). 136

The rational and the magical Troll Fall).22 According to the legend, the burial was marked with stones and a cairn, but these structures are currently not known (Stylegar 1998 [1859]: 29-30; Helland 1903a: 542). Another dramatic legend describes a fight between two trolls living in an Iron Age hill-fort. One troll lost his leg, and the leg and his body were buried in each of their mounds (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 59; Storaker 1941: 33; see also Helland 1903a: 350-51; Bergstøl 1959: 60).23 The site of an alleged find in 1774 of a large skeleton (Holm 1795a: 23-7, see also section 9.5), is in later sources named after a troll (Røsægra), indicating that people thought a troll was buried here (Helland 1903a: 165; Åsen 1967b: 558).24 2. Trolls give their names to burial mounds Trolls are most commonly associated with burial mounds through variants of the name Trollhaug (Troll Mound), or else the locality where a burial mound is located is named after a troll (e.g. the Troll Field) (42). Names referring to trolls can be used as common names (e.g. Fjermedal 1962: 466; Bergstøl 1930: 66). However, proper names with compounds of troll are more often found at burial mounds or a site. Variants of names are, for instance, Røsehauen, Rø(s)segrava, Røsegrafta, Røsens grav, Røysegravhaugen, Røsgravåkeren, Røsægra, Rysefaldet, Trollhaug, Trollkirka, Jøtnesborg, Jettehaugen, Trælhaugen, Trælhøiene. However, one source critical problem with these names is that the term røs can also refer to røys, Norwegian for cairn, and not to the supernatural creature rise. Nevertheless, several of these names are also in the literature or in survey reports interpreted according to an affiliation to trolls. Some sources may still give other interpretations of the names. One example is a locality named Røssevika (the Troll Inlet) where two burial mounds are surveyed.25 According to one legend, people were afraid of passing these burial mounds, probably because of a fear of the trolls, and a troll was according to the legend petrified at the spot. A second legend is a good example of folk-etymology: a crew on a Russian boat got ill during the Black Death and were buried in the mounds in Røssevika (Rudjord 1981: 536-7, ID 004224). 3. Trolls live in burial mounds Unlike the invisible people, trolls are only rarely said to live in or be observed close to burial mounds (8). If they do, the troll usually appears to the humans and scares them off, but in these cases the term troll is usually used interchangeably with other names for the creature. Examples are known of children being scared by trolls when they did not want to come home in the evening (Rudjord 1981: 537, 555),26 or the children were scared by those under the ground living in a cairn named after a troll (ID 003651).27 Galdal, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder Åbestad, Audnedal, Vest-Agder 24 Hægeland ytre, Vennesla, Vest-Agder 25 Høyland, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004224 26 Røsehøuan, Helvik, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID ik6983 (probably natural mounds) 27 Røsegraven, Kleivan vestre, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 003651 (probably a natural mound) 22 23

4. Trolls throw burial cairns together Seven burial cairns are explained according to an origin legend which said that thralls (ID 016121), trolls (Eikeland 1959: 60-62) or shieldmays (Helland 1904a: 228, ID 018644) threw stones at each other that fell down as heaps. However, this origin legend is more commonly associated with natural stones and standing stones than burial cairns. The same origin legend is also told about giants (see section 9.5), and the qualities of trolls and giants are interchangeable. 8.5.6 Conclusions In Agder, the supernatural creatures the trolls, including thralls and shieldmays, are relatively commonly associated with burial mounds, although several are actually natural features and some names may have other interpretations. Despite this relatively strong connection between trolls and burial mounds, it was not discussed by Emil Birkeli (1938). This is probably because the malevolent creature troll did not fit into Birkeli’s general theory that the creatures dwelling in burial mounds are relicts of ancestor worship. The association between burial mounds and trolls also does not support Birkeli’s emphasis on the harmonious relationship between the creature dwelling in burial mounds and humans. 8.6 Ghosts Ghosts are a third category of supernatural creatures associated with burial mounds. Various terms are used for these scary creatures, such as skrømt and gjenganger, but the terms draug and oskorei are also discussed. This fear of the dead is present mainly in two ways: 1. people experience a haunting or they fear something connected to the dead near a burial mound (26 burial mounds) 2. people interpret or use burial cairns as a varp (5 burial mounds) 8.6.1 Ghosts Most cultures have beliefs that the dead can reveal themselves, but legends about ghosts are also, as the folklorist Velle Espeland argues, a narrative genre with the purpose of scaring people (Espeland 1999: 163). Stories about ghosts are frequent in popular culture, but they are also significant causes of fear associated with burial mounds. Espeland explores five ways in which ghosts are sensed: they can be heard, seen, they touch people, smell, or one does not sense but only feels the presence of them (Espeland 1999: 1579). In the following, the term “ghost” refers to the supernatural phenomenon of sensing something unknown that is related to the dead in the burial mound. This scare is not always sensed by humans, but in some cases by a horse that has a special gift to recognize the supernatural (e.g. Løyland 1922: 40; Woll 1918: 59). An affiliated belief is that people see a fire over burial mounds termed nålys (Eikeland 2003: 85). According to the folklorist Velle Espeland, this name comes from the word nåe, a partly forgotten word meaning “dead” or “ghost”, and 137

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record The creature termed draug may also be interpreted as a ghost. The name comes from the Norse draugr that in some cases is identical with a “living dead person” (Christiansen 1964: 53). However, the term draug has changed to newer beliefs about people who have drowned in the sea and not been buried. This sea-draug is a malevolent spirit that can drag people into the sea, and hearing or seeing him is a warning about death. Therefore, traditions about the draug are particularly common along the coast, especially in North Norway (Bø et al. 1981: 258-9). In Agder, draug is used mainly in nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury folklore collections, but only associated with three burial mounds in Setesdal. Two of these are actually natural mounds with an attached legend about the stolen drinking horn (see section 8.7).29

Map 8.8: Burial mounds associated with ghosts

the nålys is a warning of death (Espeland 2002: 16). However, such a fire can also show where treasures are buried (section 6.3.3), or be the light of the creature dwelling in burial mounds (section 8.3). In Norwegian, several terms are used for ghosts (overview in Espeland 2002: 15-16). In Agder, most researched sources use the term skrømt, which has a newer and double meaning denoting something that is not real or serious. The term is used interchangeably with other names for supernatural creatures, and three burial mounds named after vetter are said to be haunted.28 When in 1844 the philologist Ivar Aasen recorded the use of the term skrømt in Vest-Agder, he documented that the term denoted a ghost, but it was also used as a name for all the fabulous creatures that could frighten people (Bondevik et al. 1997: 26). The term gjenganger is also used in the sources, meaning a person who returns after his death (Espeland 2002: 15).

The spirit oskorei may also refer to ghosts, and it has been much discussed by folklorists. The oskorei is a company of spirits that ride through the air from farm to farm at Christmas, and against which people must protect themselves, often with a cross on the door. The name has been associated with the Norse word osku, which means terror (Christiansen 1964: xxxii). The Norwegian philologist Ivar Aasen argued that the term meant “the scary journey” (Bø et al. 1981: 254), similar to English legends about “the wild hunt” (Christiansen 1964: 261; cf. Simpson and Roud 2000: 390). The spirit is also termed åsgårdsrei, by Andreas Faye among others (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 63-7), and he suggested that the term should be traced back to Norse religion as it denoted the company of the Norse gods Aesir (åsgudfølgjet). However, it is also believed that the term oskorei encompasses a belief that the dead came back to their homes at Christmas (Bø et al. 1981: 254-5). Despite the possible affiliation between the oskorei and the dead, traditions about oskorei have a minor affiliation to burial mounds which may be accidental. From Agder, the only example is that the oskorei had unsaddled on a mound that according to the local tradition was a burial mound (Lunde 1914: 34; 1969: 75).30 Moshaug/Vallarhaug, Moi, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 018520; Vaddarhaugen, Valle prestegård, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID ik12747; Sigurshaug, Hovtuft, Valle, Aust-Agder 30 Åros, Søgne, Vest-Agder 29

Vetehaugen, Fidjeland, Sirdal, Vest-Agder; Vetthaugen, Augland, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026933; Vetehaugen, Bjåstad, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 015093 28

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The rational and the magical Stories about burial mounds that are haunted (including draug and oskorei) appear relatively frequently in the sources, and they are recorded at 26 sites with burial mounds. Still, as seen in Table 8.1, ghosts are more seldom associated with burial mounds than the invisible people or trolls, but it is easier to establish whether the sources refer to burial mounds or natural mounds. Ghosts are associated with other archaeological monuments too, in Agder three stone-circles,31 which might indicate that people have rightly interpreted stone-circles as associated to the realm of the dead and marked them as scary places in the landscape. Ghosts are furthermore generally associated with churchyards, the former home of the dead, or the spot where a person has died. Most sources connecting ghosts with burial mounds date to the mid nineteenth century and onwards. The incidents might still have taken place earlier, but earlier sources only occasionally refer to stories about ghosts. That this topic was generally avoided is stated under the entry for the term “clairvoyant” in a late seventeenth-century dictionary from Aust-Agder. This describes how some people “can at night see considerable ghosts and warnings, etc.: something that is too long-winded to write about” (Hannaas 1911: 58). Before they were collected from the late nineteenth century, several scholars must still have heard stories about ghosts associated with burial mounds. One example is a legend about a burial cairn named Ternehougen (the Maiden-mound).32 A royal maiden was according to the legend executed and buried at the cairn, and this story was mentioned already in 1810 by the local priest,33 and later referred to by topographers and archaeologists (Kraft 1826: 568; 1838: 375; Nicolaysen 1862–6: 282, although he was critical to the legend). The legend that the dead haunted the place was, however, first published in 1875 in a local historical book (Flood 1875: 135-6). Ghosts are usually observed, or feared, in the evening and at night, and it could be dangerous to pass by burial mounds at these times. However, haunting could also start because people in various ways had harmed the creature in a mound. One example is a migratory legend that communicates that houses built on mounds must be removed because they disturb the inhabitant (ML 5075). The legend is told mainly about those under the ground that live in natural mounds, but also about four burial mounds said to be haunted (Eikeland 2003: 85; Rudjord 1980: 42-3; Sveinall 1976: 287; Neset 1988: 22-3). Grave-goods taken from burial mounds or flat-graves are also believed to attract the dead. According to a local historical source, even in the 1970s some people feared to have gravegoods in their houses (Sveinall 1976: 431). In order to prevent the attraction of the dead, the solution could be to give the haunted antiquities to a museum (Breilid 1966: 223-4, see section 7.5.2), or to rebury the human bones (Neset 1988: 223; Breilid 1974: 49, ID026933). A good eyewitness account of Dei sju steinan; Egeland ytre, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004530; Tingvatn, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder; ID 004868; Kjerkesteina, Havnevåg, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017433 32 Ternehougen, Knutstad, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004029 33 NBO, håndskriftsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056 X, report of November 9, 1810 from Abel to Oldsakskommisjonen, a transcript is in UO top.ark. file VestAgder/Farsund/Diverse I. 31

such a reburial exists from 1938, written by a foreign woman who complained to archaeologists that a man had destroyed a flat-grave: He had also alone unearthed a buried skeleton on a rocky knoll nearer his own homestead, in a rough oblong barrow or cist. His wife was terrified by the bones in both instances, fearing to be haunted by their owners, and finally prevailed on NN to throw them down a crevice of rock under their house which has a chink opening downwards so far that they are quite out of sight and inaccessible.34 A second precaution against haunting was, according to one legend, to cross oneself as a protection against the vetter dwelling in burial mounds: But in several hundred years people said that it haunted at Njå(r)land, where people had often seen light burning over the mounds. And the old people said that the priests told people to “cross themselves” in the face and on the chest when they passed there, day or night. If they did so, the vetter would be bound to their mounds and could not do any harm. (Eikeland 2003: 85, my translation)35 In local historical literature, burial customs may even be interpreted as precautions against haunting. One local historian argues that haunting is especially associated with cairns, although he documents two cases only where ghosts have been observed near these (Uleberg 1969: 60, 572; 1990: 39-40). The assumption underlying this view is that a person who suffered a violent death had to be bound with stones to prevent them haunting, an idea also found about burial cairns later used as varp, discussed in the next section. 8.6.2 Varp and burial cairns Varp, meaning to throw, is an assembly of smaller stones or branches thrown together to form a cairn or a heap. In AustAgder, this can also be termed varsel, i.e. warning (Solheim 1952: 52-64; 1973). In Agder, 5 prehistoric burial cairns were prior to the archaeological surveys locally interpreted or used as a varp (see Table 8.1).36 Since varp can in a few cases be burial cairns, traditions about them can be used to trace archaeological monuments (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 10; Skjelsvik 2002: 112; Solheim 1952: 53; 1973: 11; cf. Groseth 1999: 82). However, most varp differ from prehistoric burial cairns because they consist mainly of small stones compared to the larger stones used in a burial cairn (Sollund 1996: 33). The age of most varp is uncertain, but they are usually believed to be more recent than 1537, the decisive date to be automatically protected under the Cultural Heritage Act of 1978. The guidance used in archaeological surveys in the 1970s still mentions varp, together with sacred springs (St Olavs kilder), as an example of sites that can be surveyed because of traditions (Skjelsvik 1971: 15, 44, 49-50). A current juridical commentary to the Cultural Heritage Act also mentions that UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder, Farsund, Seland, letter of 6 October 1938 (ID ik15236) 35 Njåland av Skeie, Sirdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004364 36 A varp that probably is a burial mound is further mentioned in survey ik12685. 34

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 8.8: Røysheivarpet The cairn has locally been interpreted as a varp and not a burial cairn. At the spot, a woman was robbed and killed. According to older sources, the cairn was thrown together by the shieldmays (Helland 1904a: 228). Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Homdrom, Åmli, Aust-Agder, ID 017361). sacred springs and varp can be automatically protected, but emphasizes that the tradition must be documented back to the Middle Ages (Holme 2001b: 47-8). Still, in Agder, six varp are surveyed as automatically protected even when their age is unknown.37 The traditions about varp share similar characteristics: everyone who passes it must bring a stone or a stick and throw it on the cairn or the heap. This act has been explained as a protection against and “binding” of a person who died at the spot and who in some cases was buried there too (Solheim 1973: 14). In this sense, some varp may even be seen as “newer” burial cairns believed to be assembled in the Middle Ages or later. Although most varp are not burials, traditions about them give valuable information about how a few burial cairns locally may have been interpreted: they bind the dead. One example is traditions about a varp, in use in the 1950s (Eikeland 1959: 60-62).38 The local historian Ingvald Berner Eikeland relates the varp to a burial cairn in its vicinity, thus providing an ID 018104, ID 017914, ID 016783, ID 016668, ID 013543, ID 013541. In addition, two localities are surveyed because of traditions about varp although these were not found (ik33749, ik9199). 38 Klungland nordre, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, this burial cairn and varp is not surveyed and not included among the five in the overview. 37

original explanation why it was not the burial cairn that was used as a varp. The burial cairn is associated with trolls, named Jøtnesborg and explained to have originated after two trolls fought against each other and the one killed was buried in the cairn. According to Eikeland, the local people had to protect themselves against vetter in this burial cairn, but were so scared that they did not dare to put the stones on the burial cairn itself, but chose a spot close to it. This creative interpretation must be understood in relation to Eikeland’s programme of tracing traditions back to beliefs in vetter. His explanation is almost as fabulous as the legend itself, but is still a good example that traditions about varp and burial cairns can overlap. Eikeland even publishes a rite on how the stones should be placed on the varp in order to prevent the creature harming those who passed by: When the traveller threw on three small stones, he should say one word for each stone he threw. It is mentioned that someone said: “Stand in stone!” (...) That actually meant: “Stay where you are, vetter!” (Eikeland 1959: 62, my translation) Putting stones or sticks on varps has continued into the twentieth century, although not necessarily because people held the superstitious beliefs, but as a tradition that is joked about too. In the 1950s, Eikeland underlined this ambiguity: 140

The rational and the magical The “sacrifice” to the stone-varp here is still partly a reality. I have talked with several old and younger people in the parish, who still today throw three small stones on the varp when they have an errand in that direction. The older people take the sacrifice as a custom from olden times that cannot be broken, although they refuse to believe in any vetter or ghosts at the place. The young people answer with a smile that they do it more for the fun of it. But they still throw the three small stones that the old people said one had to do to avoid misfortune on their way. (Eikeland 1959: 61, my translation)

The variants share the same core: a man usually rides past a mound or a mountain, often during Christmas; he asks for a drink from the creature in the mound, receives a drinking horn or a cup and takes it with him. The legend can be interpreted as an origin legend that explains how the precious object has come into the possession of a family. According to this view, the British archaeologist Leslie V. Grinsell treats it as a treasure legend (Grinsell 1967: 12-13). The following variant from Agder, published in 1881, incorporates several motifs found in the legend: Two brothers at the farm Ime near Mandal sat and drank at Christmas. They then started to quarrel about whether one of them dared to ride around a mound at the place and call for a drink. He undertook to ride, and when he rode around the third time, the mound opened and he was given a full horn. Those who stood and watched shouted that he should ride across a barley-field that was in the vicinity. He did so, and the horn was thrown after him. Some drops hit the horse on the loin, and the flesh fell off down to the bone. The horn was lying in the barley-field and the mound-troll could therefore not get it back. It was long kept at Ime, and when it was sold, the old people said that one could not expect more fortune at the farm. The mound is still called the Ime-mound. (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 18, my translation)

8.6.3 Conclusions Burial mounds and cairns may be features in the landscape that humans have negative associations with because they may be haunted and people must protect themselves against these scares. However, connecting burial mounds with ghosts rightly connects these structures to the realm of the dead. The legends furthermore communicate a possible enduring, but also a general human, fear about the dead that probably existed after the burial mounds were constructed too. Ghosts are nevertheless associated with fewer burial mounds than the invisible people and trolls, although more burial mounds than are documented may have been feared. 8.7 The stolen drinking horn

8.7.2 Accounts

The overview of supernatural creatures indicates that magic may be physically manifested in the landscape through burial mounds, although it is often uncertain whether the structures of the mounds referred to in the sources are natural mounds or burial mounds. In the following, the legend about the stolen drinking horn, in English “the stolen fairy cup”, is discussed because it has been interpreted as the survival of a pre-Christian cult connected with burial mounds. However, as will be seen in the following, this affiliation is unclear and highlights the problem of interpreting supernatural creatures and mythical legends as relicts of cults about burial mounds.

In Agder, the legend about the stolen drinking horn is told about 12 sites (Map 8.9). In most cases, the horn comes from a mound (7), but also mountains, runes, rocks or a farm that suddenly appears. The creature that gives the horn is a draug, troll, tusse, vette or just referred to as a man or a girl. The first variant recorded in Agder was published in 1832 in poetic form by the writer Niels Matthias Aalholm (1811–94) (Aalholm 1832: 180-99). Andreas Faye published the legend in 1833 from a farmer whom he had heard it from (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 27-30).

8.7.1 Content of the legend The legend about the stolen drinking horn is one of the most famous and widely dispersed legends in the sources often said to be told about burial mounds (overviews in Berge 1924; Christiansen 1958: 168-77). This migratory legend (ML 6045) was recorded already in England in the twelfth century (Simpson and Roud 2000: 392), and it is known in Scandinavia, Germany and elsewhere in the UK. In Norway, it is an unusual example of a legend being transmitted over three hundred years with few changes of the major motifs. In 1595, Jens Nilssøn (1538–1600), Bishop of Oslo, collected on a visitation to Telemark the first variant of the legend in Norway (Nilssøn and Nielsen 1885: 393-4).39 This variant was first published in 1885 and it did not influence the local oral tradition, but other variants collected in the nineteenth century still share several similarities with this first recording (Christiansen 1922: 6-7; Grøtvedt 1976: 45).

In the national romantic period, the legend became popular since it could be connected to precious medieval drinking horns that again were given a special value because of the legend. Two of these drinking horns are still preserved in Agder. One (the Nerstein-horn) was in 1832 donated to the newly founded museum in Arendal and catalogued as accession number one (Dedekam 1860: 95). The second (the Ime-horn) is still owned by the family of Ole Fuglestvedt who first published the legend (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 18). A teacher who in 1862 celebrated Christmas at the farm afterwards gave a report about the importance of this horn: The old men got lively. They laughed and joked openly and in friendship. They entertained us for a long period with old legends and ballads. Even the large drinking horn that hung on the wall inspired the host to tell an amusing legend about it. (quoted from Bue 1978: 15-16, my translation)40

The account was first published in Lørdags-Aftenblad for Arbeiderklassen, no. 6, Christiania, 7 February 1863 40

39

Åse, Seljord, Telemark

141

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Although the legend is told in about 12 localities in Agder only, its popularity is evident through the high number of variants published during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In two variants from Agder, the motif about stealing the horn is even incorporated into larger legends about historically known people, but the motif about the horn has caught most attention and endured the longest. For instance, according to the legend, the first owner of the Nerstein-horn was a prosperous man called Sjur Nerstein. The ownership of the horn can be traced back, according to historical documents, to a historically known person named Sigurd Eivindssøn Nerstein who lived c.1385–1450 (Roscher 1972). If this is correct, the name of the owner is orally passed on for four hundred years before Faye heard the legend and published it in 1833. In a famous legend published in 1872 (Daae 1872: 25-31) about a man called Trond Hoskuldsson who lived in the seventeenth century, a variant of the horn motif is incorporated and explains why a precious drinking horn was in the possession of his descendants.

Map 8.9: The stolen drinking horn

Illus. 8.9: The Nerstein-horn The horn (in the middle) is still prominently exhibited with information about the legend. The horn is accession number one in Arendal Museum, currently Aust-Agder kulturhistoriske senter. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003.

Illus. 8.10: The Ime-horn Drawing from the early nineteenth century or earlier. Nicolaysen refers to the drawing (Nicolaysen 1873: 133-4), but it has not previously been published (reproduced after a photocopy in UO top.ark.) 142

The rational and the magical The stealing of the horn has the longest durability and is even referred to in several variants recorded in the twentieth century that omit to mention Trond (Lunde 1924: 65, 126, 129; Fjermedal 1935: 25-6, 71-2, 76).41 Even as late as in 1992, a local historical journal published the theft of the horn according to an oral communication at the farm (Rossevatn 1992: 38). 8.7.3 Interpretation The interpretations of the legend by the folklorist Richard Berge and religious historian Emil Birkeli are the most commonly discussed in the literature (e.g. in Bø et al. 1981: 261; Christiansen 1946: 68-70; Hodne 2000: 224). They interpret the legend as a relict of a pre-Christian cult about burial mounds. Richard Berge (1881–1969) argues that the legend about the stolen horn consists of two types. The first is, according to Berge, the most original type and recorded in Telemark and Setesdal, and Berge emphasizes that the legend is told about burial mounds and the dweller is a draug. In the second type, the legend is told about other landscape features that are the dwelling for trolls and other creatures. According to Berge, the variants of the first type resemble each other. Vallarhaug is the name of the mound and means the mound in the field. This mound is inhabited by a draug, which is the old term for the dead person in the mound. The person who receives the horn is named with variants of Gunnar Gjermann, who Berge suggests is derived from the Norse gerðarmaðr, the person in charge of the serving during a feast. Berge also suggests he was in charge of drinking a toast during Christmas to the inhabitant of the burial mound (Berge 1924: 39-42). Berge uses the variants of the first type to interpret the legend because these are seen as the oldest and most “authentic”. According to Berge, the person who should have given a drink to the burial mound did instead, at one point, break into the mound and offend the ritual by taking an object from the mound. The legend therefore resembles the medieval stories about mound breaking in order to take out for instance a sword that gives fortune to the owner (Berge 1924: 51). Berge further suggests that such fortune giving objects parallel the legends about the Holy Grail, and he refers to the Swedish folklorist Tobias Norlind. Norlind interprets the Swedish legends about the stolen cup as a degenerated form of the Holy Grail legend because the stolen cup is often a chalice (Norlind 1911: 6178). This association with a chalice also occurs in Agder, and the stolen object is in two cases given to a church (Skar 1961 [1908]: 456, 474). In several aspects, Emil Birkeli (1877–1952) follows Berge and interprets the legend about the stolen horn as a relict of ancestor worship. Birkeli takes a Freudian approach, and he emphasizes the degeneration of the old cult about burial mounds by discussing what he terms the original and the revaluation stadium of the legend. The original stadium is, according to Birkeli, characterized by ancestor worship of the mound. The old customs are revaluated after the introduction of Christianity, and both the mound and the dead are now 41

See also Hannaassamlingen (University of Bergen) 428.79, collected in 1910

dangerous. Birkeli describes this degeneration process, and he argues that when the original ancestor cult became distant in time, the poetic and dramatic importance of the legend increased, but at the same time, the burial mound disappeared and was replaced by natural formations such as a mountain or a stone (Birkeli 1938: 114). The folklorist Knut Liestøl (1881–1952) also based his interpretation on a trust in the durability of mythical legends that contain relics of pre-Christian customs related to burial mounds. Liestøl stressed the relationship with this legend and the accounts in the sagas of the mound breakings attempting to retrieve precious objects. Liestøl also explained the wide geographical distribution of the legend because it told about burial mounds that are found several places (Liestøl et al. 1963 [1939]: 206-7). These interpretations are, however, problematic, and already in 1946 Reidar Th. Christiansen objected to them. Christiansen claimed that if the legend could be traced back to a cult, it was not Norwegian since it was impossible to argue that the legend originated in Norway and was then spread to other countries. Christiansen therefore held that the characteristic of the legend is to explain something, in this case the provenance of a horn (Christiansen 1946: 68-70). By assessing the variants from Agder of the legend, it is furthermore highly uncertain whether its connection to the burial mound is as strong as proposed in the discussion literature. 8.7.4 Association to burial mounds Several interpretations of the legend are problematic because of the ambiguous affiliation to burial mounds, here considered from the recorded variants in Agder. In Agder, the legend is told about seven structures described in the sources as mounds. Two of these mounds cannot be identified.42 The five that can be identified are not burial mounds, although some are interpreted as burial mounds in the sources: • Vaddarhaugen from olden times were like churchyards for tramps who were not allowed to be buried in the churchyard (Skar 1961 [1909]: 13). The parish church stands on the site and a burial mound is not known.43 • Vaddarhaugen, also called Moshaug, was a tusse-mound (Skar 1961 [1908]: 456). The mound was destroyed in 1977 when it was used for rubble in the road and it was probably a natural mound of sand (ID 018520).44 • Lihaugene is described as a mound (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 28), but surveyed in 1957 as a rocky hill.45 • Melhaugen is described as a mound in several sources after 1910,46 but is a natural hill.47 Nesheim?, Farsund, Vest-Agder; Randesund, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder Valle prestegård, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID ik12747 44 Moi, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 018520 45 UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Grimstad/Lia survey of 4 September 1957 46 E.g. NFS Knut Liestøl VII, 48-50; Hannaassamlingen (University of Bergen) 428.79. The first publication of the legend refers to another location (Daae 1872: 27). 47 Pers. com. Sigmund Rossevatn 25 September 2003; Homstøldalen, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder 42 43

143

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record • Imehaugen is described in the sources as a mound (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 18) and a burial mound (Kraft 1838: 367), but surveyed in 1972 as a rocky hill (ID 015007).48 Although the sites are today not connected with burial mounds, earlier destroyed burial mounds may have been located at these sites. Locally, the structures may also have been interpreted as burial mounds, or as natural mounds inhabited by supernatural creatures. The collectors may also have interpreted the mounds mentioned in the legends as burial mounds because they regarded the creatures to be transformations of the dead. A counterargument that might support Berge and Birkeli’s interpretation is, however, that the variants from Agder are newer and they therefore treat natural features. The weakness of this interpretation is that even the oldest account of the legend, from 1595, treats a natural mound (Bø and Hodne 1974: 106), although the local people and the bishop could in the sixteenth century have interpreted it as a burial mound. Although other variants in Norway probably are connected to certain burial mounds, the overview from Agder shows that this connection is weaker than what is often stated in the sources. 8.7.5 Conclusions The major interpretations of the legend about the stolen drinking horn relate it to cults about burial mounds. Although this relationship might be correct, and the legend could be seen as a later variant of the medieval mound breaking motif, the variants from Agder are not told about certain burial mounds. Therefore, in this book, the legend is of central interest because mainly scholars (not archaeologists) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries connected it to burial mounds. The result has been that, since the early twentieth century, it has become perhaps the most important type of legend in Norway believed to have an association to burial mounds. UO top.ark file Vest-Agder/Mandal/Diverse II, survey report 19-31 August 1972, page 2 48

Period

Folklore viewed as

Although several scholars connected the legend about the stolen drinking horn to burial mounds, archaeologists have generally not given this legend much attention: the magical world of various features in the landscape has generally been on the fringe of the archaeological discipline, as discussed in the last section of this chapter. 8.8 Archaeologists and magic This chapter started from the assumption that burial mounds are often connected with the supernatural, i.e. a magic that is neither from God nor nature. However, the analysis has shown that burial mounds are only one of several structures in the landscape associated with magic, and it is uncertain whether several mentioned mounds are burial mounds. Nevertheless, the purpose of this chapter is to investigate how archaeologists have approached supernatural beliefs that have still surrounded some burial mounds. Contrary to the magical realm that some burial mounds could belong to, archaeologists have stressed the rational view and approached them as objects with a knowledge potential about the past when they were constructed. The magical world of burial mounds has been of less interest, and it could even be problematic since it indicated a local importance. However, Table 8.3 shows that although archaeologists in the nineteenth century mainly ignored supernatural beliefs, some beliefs were in the twentieth century actually discussed by archaeologists as survivals. After the increasing interest from the 1990s in archaeology about past religion, the magical world of archaeological monuments and sites has further gained a stronger interest. 8.8.1 Dangerous heathen superstitions (c.1750–1840) In the early sources, superstitions about archaeological monuments and sites represented dangerous relicts, such as held by Bishop Hansen whose view is referred in the introduction to this chapter (Hansen 1800, 1803). The magical importance of antiquities was also warned against in the archaeological

Response

•

dangerous superstitions

• •

seldom included although considered as old beliefs argued against as superstitions if mentioned

1840–1900

•

false

• •

seldom included demonstrate primitiveness of the people if mentioned

1900–1960

•

relics/survivals

• •

wonder that relics survived by the farmers appreciation of function to protect monuments

1960–1990

•

indication of localities with burial mounds

• • •

surveys referred to in surveys, but content not assessed seldom referred to in scientific publications

1990–

•

interesting

•

meaning orientation: burial mounds have an enduring influence on people possibility explored that some beliefs pre-Christian or used as analogies source for presenting burial mounds

c.1750–1840

• •

Table 8.3: General views and responses towards magic c.1750–2000 144

The rational and the magical journal Urda because, as discussed in section 7.5.1, it hindered the museums from collecting antiquities (Christie 1837a). Antiquarians who wrote in Urda could still view these superstitions as remarkable relicts of heathen religion, such as a belief warning against throwing warm water on the ground, as this would hurt the mound dwellers (Sagen 1837: 166).

An older source from Setesdal, known after a transcript from 1811 but written after the 1660s and before 1793, gives a lively description of these sacrificial mounds. However, it is uncertain whether the anonymous writer refers to heathen sacrifices or contemporary customs that he encountered: Many places in the parish there are small round mounds, covered with stones and soil, and as one can see with holes above; there were also probably burials in them. Stones are found around the hole, and a path goes around the entire mound. In these mounds it is said that (…) [people] have buried their idols, and that on their holidays old people have served them with prayers and other ceremonies, and by throwing on their ribbons that they had around the neck; and in this way they have walked around these mounds, and, as they called it, reconciled themselves. (My translation)49

That the beliefs should be old is apparent when the antiquarian Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (1778–1849) discussed a sacred tree on a burial mound in West Norway that he heard received beer at Christmas, although the people on the farm denied this. Christie argued that this sacred character of the beliefs could be traced back to old heathen customs and had survived because people had “in secret cautiously held sacred trees in honour” (Christie 1837b: 325). Although superstitions were usually evaded, scholars did in the late eighteenth century, as discussed in section 8.2.1, gain an interest in them. Still, in Agder, accounts about contemporary superstitions are sparse as clergymen and officials often found them problematic. In his thorough topographical descriptions from Vest-Agder, published 1794–5, the high official Peter Holm avoided the supernatural, while in the description of Setesdal the priest Reier Gjelleböl regarded the supernatural as too long-winded to include: To quote the names of most of these existing mountains, and all the mountains where it is said there live underground people (or the so-called nisser), and of which there are several fables, would both be too long-winded and seem useless. (Gjelleböl 1801: 37, my translation) Jens Kraft’s topographical work is characterized by a similar soberness and resistance towards referring to supernatural beliefs (Kraft 1826, 1838). In Agder, trolls and vetter are the only supernatural creatures associated with burial mounds that Kraft briefly refers to (Kraft 1838: 365-7). Despite the mixed attitude towards magic, archaeological monuments were frequently interpreted as remnants of preChristian religion. Knowledge about Norse religion was sparse, but based on a rationale that all non-Christian religions were in principle the same, the folklorist Anne Eriksen points out that writers could supplement it with descriptions of religion in the Old Testament and classical texts on Greek and Roman religion (Eriksen 2002b: 303). In the sources from Agder, this comparison is present by ascribing burial mounds, and other archaeological monuments, to such known religious phenomena as altars and sacrificial places. The priest Gjelleböl is one example, and he interpreted burial mounds in Setesdal as different from sacrificial mounds: Regarding antiquities, there are here both several burial places in the fields, where people in heathen times have been buried, and also sacrificial mounds, where they have sacrificed to their idols. In their burial places one often finds some of their old fittings (…). Regarding their sacrificial mounds, they are not always by nature formed, but thrown up with an amazing amount of stones with a small hollow in the middle. (Gjelleböl 1800: 24, my translation)

While these early scholars could interpret burial mounds within the realm of heathen religion, later archaeologists interpreted them according to the primary function of being depositories for the dead. 8.8.2 False interpretations (1840–1900) In the nineteenth century, superstitions are usually not considered in the yearbooks of Fortidsminneforeningen, although some archaeologists did refer to the beliefs about treasures interred in burial mounds and the problem of finding them (discussed in section 7.2.2.). In the archaeological sources, supernatural beliefs are surprisingly absent considering that other publications at this time frequently refer to them. One must therefore suppose that several archaeologists deliberately chose not to write about these beliefs. The purpose of the archaeological discipline was mainly to get knowledge about prehistory, not to collect and disseminate the current magical world of the burial mounds as held by the local people. These experiences were also of a fabulous nature and not appropriate to include in archaeological publications. This response can be seen in relation to the approach at this time towards rejecting studying prehistoric religion too, and antiquities were used to gain knowledge about the profane mainly (Notelid 1996). The turn towards the profane was among other things a response against earlier antiquarians who interpreted archaeological monuments as evidence of past religion. According to Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911), burial mounds and cairns represented burials only, and he argued that it “cannot be proved that any archaeological monuments are connected to heathen religion (…)” (Nicolaysen 1874: 10910). Following this view, Nicolaysen argued against Gjellebøl’s account, quoted above, that burial mounds were sacrificial mounds. Instead, Nicolaysen argued that the hollows were not related to sacrifices, but traces from digs or the collapse of a chamber inside the burial mound (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 254). Anders Lorange (1847–88) advocated a similar view. When NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056 X, ”Fragmenter af en ældgammel Beskrivelse over Sætterdalen i Christiansands Stift”, quoted after a transcript in Kildeskriftsinstituttet (Riksarkivet, Oslo) no. 197. 49

145

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record he, in 1870, presented his negative results after the excavations in 1869 and 1870 of the largest burial mound in Norway,50 in which he did not find a grave, he argued against any religious explanation, although he acknowledged that the dead person could have been sacrificed: I have also heard the supposition stated, that Raknehaugen was perhaps not a burial mound, but e.g. built for religious use. I consider this view as totally unfounded and unlikely (…).(Lorange 1871: 479, my translation) However, in the mid nineteenth century, not all archaeologists rejected religion. The Dane Jens J. A. Worsaae (1821–85), one of the founders of modern scientific archaeology, argued for a middle way towards the study of religion in the past. Worsaae both criticized early antiquarians who ascribed everything unknown to sacrifices and religious customs, but also warned against the view that archaeological monuments and antiquities referred only to everyday-life. Consequently, Worsaae suggested that religion had been important at all times and to all people, and the new stage in archaeological research should include such studies (Worsaae 1866: 326). Worsaae was met by scepticism, although some archaeologists supported the view that some antiquities could be related to religion (Melheim 2001: 6). Despite Nicolaysen’s scepticism towards the supernatural, he could communicate a mixed message in those cases he did refer to superstitions. Nicolaysen disregarded any association between trolls and burial mounds, and he argued that the term risegrav (troll-grave) was an erroneous common name for burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1860: 38). In Agder, he intentionally omitted references to the supernatural in his writings. For instance, he argued strictly against an origin legend that explained the construction of a burial cairn, but for Nicolaysen the troll must have been so fabulous that he did not refer to it at all (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 286).51 However, in another case, not from Agder, Nicolaysen appreciated the protective function of superstitions and the local people’s fear of retribution for disturbing ancient monuments (Nicolaysen 1869: 142).52 Nicolaysen could even refer to the custom of giving beer to burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 781), and he probably viewed this custom as an ancient survival. Unusually, Nicolaysen also used the legend of the stolen drinking horn as a source, although his sarcasm is apparent in his sober account (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 269, 780; 1873: 134).53 Nicolaysen’s use of the legend can be interpreted as an argument against Kraft’s (1838: 367) account that the horn came from a burial mound, which was not correct since the horn was younger than burial mounds. Nevertheless, the creatures in the legend were so fabulous that Nicolaysen did not have to comment on them, since the educated people reading his publications would also disregard them.

with his lively writing style mentioned superstitions about burial mounds during his excavation in 1877 at Lista (Lorange 1878: 95). Archaeologists active in other places of the country, in particular the headmaster and archaeologist B. E. Bendixen (1838–1918), did further briefly refer to superstitions in his reports from West Norway in the 1880s and ’90s (e.g. Bendixen 1889: 24-6, 34; 1890: 17, 61; 1892: 32-3; 1893: 27). 8.8.3 Important survivals from the past (1900–60) The next generation of archaeologists were more interested in religion in the past and the sacred character of monuments (e.g. Schetelig 1908a, 1912a; Shetelig 1945: 9). They also approached the magical world of burial mounds as important survivals from the past. Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955) became the strongest protagonist for the view that supernatural beliefs represented old survivals (Schetelig 1911, 1912b; Shetelig 1930: 72, 283; 1945: 90). Shetelig emphasized the sacred character of both the burial mound and the vegetation that grows on mounds. For him, these beliefs were seen as “a faint reflection of the old veneration or fear that once encompassed the memorials of the dead” (Schetelig 1911: 211). The creatures, such as tusser about whom Shetelig encountered beliefs in West Norway, were seen as recast from the mound dweller that was given different names at different places. According to this devolutionary view, the tradition had weakened over time and lost “the distinction that connected them directly to the heathen graves” (Schetelig 1911: 212). Shetelig recognized these survivals mainly because of their function in preserving burial mounds. However, according to Shetelig, most people did not know what burial mounds represented (Schetelig 1911: 207): Old beliefs have stuck. It is this view about the peace of the grave, originally protected by the fear of retribution if it was violated, that has preserved numberless burial mounds undamaged until our time. The respect for the mounds is even today very strong when a farm belongs to an old, domiciled family. (Schetelig 1911: 206, my translation) Shetelig’s article influenced other contemporary archaeologists. When Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) wrote his overviews of the prehistory of Agder, he acknowledged that vetter or tusser were the settlers of a farm, and that the burial mound with its vegetation was sacred and in some cases given beer (Gjessing 1921: 42-3). A. W. Brøgger (1884–1951) also viewed the creatures associated with burial mounds as transformations of the dead, and inspired by the writings of Emil Birkeli (1943), he wrote: (…) fantasy about the dead starts to breed and wander on wide roads to the folk-belief, folk-legend and folknarrative’s vigorous visionary world and narratives about the dead, until it ends with the hulder and tusser and mountain trolls. (Brøgger 1945: 21, my translation)

Other archaeologists were, however, more likely to refer to superstitions than Nicolaysen, such as Anders Lorange, who 50 51 52 53

Raknehaugen, Hovin, Ullensaker, Akershus, ID 010284 Brudesengen, Bruli, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004571 Stone-circle at Bilden vestre, Gran, Oppland, ID 033917 Imehornet, Ime, Mandal, Vest-Agder

The excavation of a site with flat-graves in Trøndelag in 1917–18 by Theodor Petersen (1875–1952), keeper of the archaeological collection in Trondheim (1915–48), is one example of how archaeologists in the early twentieth century supported the long-term survival of traditions about 146

The rational and the magical supernatural creatures. People had seen ghosts at the site, but did not know the graves, and Petersen argued that the remembrance of the graves had been preserved through a period of thirteen hundred years: With its hundreds of graves, Vahaugen has been under the special protection of supernatural forces. And even a long time after the burial practice stopped and the memory of them was forgotten, the fear of death and eeriness has rested over the place and surrounded it with a fear that has survived even to our present time and is still not completely erased. Old people know to tell that from time immemorial there has not been a lack of “ghosts” or those under the ground at Vahaugen, and it might still haunt there. We are here facing the last, faded remnants of a living tradition that has been kept in continuity from the older Migration Age and to the present, accordingly through a period of thirteen hundred years (Petersen 1923: 61, my translation, emphasis in the original).

in the main archaeological publications. For instance, Shetelig trusted and appreciated folk-beliefs as old, but he did not include them in his major archaeological publication on burials (Schetelig 1912c). Brøgger used folk-beliefs as a source to interpret the mound breaking motive in the Viking and Early Medieval sources (see section 6.2.2.), but referred only rarely to folklore sources. Interestingly he did not use the legend about the stolen drinking horn that folklorists compared with the medieval accounts (Berge 1924: 48-50). Archaeologists were also protagonists for the view that traditions gradually disappeared. This served as an argument that excavation of burial mounds was important for rescuing archaeological material for posterity. Consequently, any protective function of folk-beliefs did not influence archaeological practice, and Shetelig excavated burial mounds in West Norway that had until recently been protected, even when an old woman predicted misfortune due to the act (Schetelig 1911: 210).

Traditions of giving sacrifices to other types of archaeological monuments were also traced back to pre-Christian beliefs. In 1952, Sverre Marstrander (1910–86) argued that the tradition of whitewashing a stone in East Norway every spring to prevent disasters from striking the farm should be traced back to the fertility cult of the Migration Age. He connected the stone and other structures in the parish to “heathen beliefs and thoughts that continued to live their silent underground life far down in time” (Marstrander 1952: 211).54

Furthermore, supernatural beliefs were believed to be held by the local people mainly – the uneducated farmers who had transmitted their beliefs and fears – and not the educated, as illustrated in 1922 by Brøgger’s excavation in Agder of a burial chamber with the skeleton of the dead person intact.55 This is the only account from Agder in which the local people expressed a kind of fear for the dead during archaeological excavations. In a newspaper article about the excavation, Brøgger wrote:

Archaeologists even regarded the phenomenon of ghosts as a universal belief that enabled that current superstitions could be used to interpret Iron Age burial customs. Discussing a Viking Age boat burial in East Norway, which contained a peculiar stone placed with the body, Jan Petersen (1887–1967) used medieval sagas and later folk-beliefs about burial cairns used as varp to suggest that the purpose of the stone was to bind the dead (Petersen 1914). The view that stones can protect against haunting is one of the few examples where commensurability can be traced between folk-belief and interpretations even by later archaeologists (Bagøien 1981: 13; Ingstad 1992: 256; Løken 1974: 196-7, 210; Solli 2002: 229).

The woman at the farm shuddered at the thought of having it [the skeleton] lying here. Can we not bury him, she said. It is so long time ago, one objected, and besides he was a heathen. But he did have a soul, she said. She was not corrupted by science. (...) In the afternoon, everything was collected up. The people at the farm were glad that the skeleton had been taken away. (My translation)56

Although several archaeologists interpreted creatures associated with burial mounds as transformations of the dead, Per Fett (1909–96) gave an alternative explanation when he discussed the medieval mound breaking motif. Fett compared the nineteenth-century tales about people who fought against the trolls with medieval accounts about the mound breaker who fought the dead in the burial mound. These fights were, according to Fett, against forces representing a challenge not only to retrieve treasures, but also to gain wisdom and power, and these scares were seen as a literary allegory and an embodiment of forces and fears that people had to defy (Fett 1947). Even though archaeologists in the early twentieth century approached the magical realm of burial mounds with interest, it was mainly on the fringe of the discipline and not included 54

Majer, Østre Toten, Oppland, ID 032096

In this case, the local people expressed both fear and respect for the dead, while the archaeologist – “corrupted by science” – gently removed the skeleton away to their relief. Underlying this remark, the view is present that a fear for the dead mainly represents a superstition held by rural people and not by the educated. This view is also expressed in an interview conducted in 1988 with the archaeologists Eva Nissen Fett (1910–2003) and Per Fett (1909–96). They discuss her experience, probably in the early 1930s, when her cousin became scared after being shown recently excavated human bones, but she emphasized that the cousin came from the town and was not superstitious. Although Fett argued that anyone with a general respect and fear for the dead could get scared, the tendency in the interview is that superstitions are the main reason for rural people to get scared.57 Although superstitions belonged to rural people mainly, in the early twentieth century, archaeologists could apply Bringsvær, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017687 and ID 017471 “Gravkammeret. Brev til ’Tidens Tegn’ fra professor A. W. Brøgger”, Tidens Tegn, 16 December 1922 (cf. Rolfsen 1981) 57 Interviewed by Knut Andreas Bergsvik, 14 September 1988. Tape is property of Bergsvik, but parts of the interview have been published (Bergsvik 1988). 55 56

147

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record superstitions to explain their own bad luck. In section 7.4.2, it was mentioned that for Haakon Shetelig, objections against excavating burial mounds represented old relicts that did not prevent him from conducting investigations. However, according to later “archaeologist-lore”, Shetelig said that all archaeologists were superstitious.58 In the biography of her father, Shetelig’s daughter even uses folk-beliefs as an explanation for why he became ill. This story indicates that the beliefs were not restricted to the farmers only – in whom the beliefs had survived – but influenced urban archaeologists too. According to the biography, in 1904, Shetelig became ill during the excavation of burial mounds in West Norway, the same burial mounds that the local people had nine years earlier refused Oluf Rygh to excavate:59

in charge of the surveys, did not consider this when she discussed traditions about archaeological monuments and sites, although she included legends about treasure digging and retribution for disturbing a monument (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979). Still, in a later memoir, Skjelsvik recalls a fear she once experienced when in the 1960s she surveyed burial mounds in East Norway, showing that archaeologists even then could refer to the supernatural to explain their own experiences. In the English version, quoted below, Skjelsvik soberly named it “forest fear”, while in the Norwegian article she questioned entertainingly whether she experienced contact with the dead person buried at the site (Skjelsvik 1997:18): As I have lived in the woods all my life, I have never felt fear when walking through forest areas. I have, however, once in my life experienced “forest fear”. This occurred in October 1966 when I was surveying two small standing stones and three minor tumuli lying close to an old roadway. The old spruce trees grew densely in the silent forest. While describing the monuments I was seized by an eerie feeling, all my senses were on guard. I completed my work as quickly as possible. As it was time for lunch, I climbed up onto a low ridge adjoining the site. Here the forest was more open and rays of sun penetrated to the ground. The feeling disappeared. When I told one of my colleagues of my experience, he told me that he had had the same feeling when visiting the site in spite of the fact that he was not alone. (Skjelsvik 1998b)

Haakon Shetelig had a large excavation in Etne. While he excavated here he got very ill, received blood poisoning with boils, and never before had he been so ill. After a period he travelled back to Etne to complete the excavation. The same thing repeated itself. He became seriously ill, got blood poisoning worse than last time. To Brøgger he wrote on 2 July 2 1929: “Unfortunately, I dare not travel to Etne; I have been mortally ill twice since I came there, and I do not dare to try it a third time.” (...) Were there still strong powers who played and took retribution over those who disturbed the peace of the grave? The experiences in Etne shook Shetelig. He was for a period disillusioned with excavating (Hovland 1995: 105, my translation). That Shetelig’s daughter connected her father’s illness with the disturbance of the grave may be approached as a rationalization when people search for reasons to understand why things go wrong, and folk-beliefs are one way of explaining the unexpected. As such, this is an unusual example of an educated and urban archaeologist in the early twentieth century, or alternatively his daughter in the 1990s, “going native” and using folk-beliefs as an explanation of illness. 8.8.4 A source to trace burial mounds (1960–90) Interest in the supernatural decreased from the 1950s, and archaeologists discussed more rarely the great age of folkbeliefs or used them as a source for knowledge about the past. The contradiction is, however, that archaeological surveys, conducted in Agder between 1964 and 1989, included an abundance of mythical legends and beliefs associated with burial mounds and other archaeological monuments and sites. Several of these traditions had earlier been recorded, but they were now used to trace the sites, although some legends and beliefs were also recorded for the first time. However, the content or meaning of the beliefs was generally not discussed, but it is considered whether the structure mentioned is an archaeological site or natural. Despite the rich documentation of magic, Elizabeth Skjelsvik, 58 59

Ibid. Grindheim, Etne, Hordaland

In a few cases, supernatural beliefs could also influence archaeological interpretations, particularly customs and beliefs related to haunting. Influenced by Emil Birkeli’s (1938) discussion of folk-beliefs, Trond Løken interpreted burial customs from the perspective that the dead continued to live in the burial mound, but also that people had to prevent the dead from haunting (Løken 1974: 194-211). An anatomist, writing in a popular archaeological journal, compared, as did Fett (1947), the mound breaker in the medieval sources who cut the head off the dead with the hero in the folk-tales cutting the head off the troll. Beliefs found in these tales were used to shed light on the rare burial practice of burying the dead with his head between his legs to prevent haunting, although no Norwegian examples were mentioned (Holck 1982). From Agder, Anne Aure Bagøien’s discussion of Migration Age burial sites is the only archaeological study influenced by folk-beliefs (Bagøien 1981).60 Bagøien interpreted various customs both at the time of constructing the grave and later folk-beliefs from a similar perspective: precautions against the phenomenon of haunting (Bagøien 1981: 12-13). 8.8.5 Old beliefs, analogy and meaning orientation (1990–) Entering the 1990s, mythical legends and supernatural beliefs about burial mounds were increasingly included in archaeological works. Again, some beliefs were approached as old survivals, but they were also used as analogies to interpret the past, and in addition referred to as later interpretations and narratives of burial mounds.

60

148

Skollhaugan, Skreros, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 020213

The rational and the magical The new emphasis from the 1990s on seeing folk-beliefs as old survivals is present in a minor popular article published by the archaeologist Bjørn Ringstad who highlighted the burial mound as a cult site both in the pre-Christian period and in folk-beliefs (Ringstad 1990; cf. Ringstad 1988b). In this, and other publications in the 1990s, Shetelig’s work served as a documentation of such folk-beliefs (Schetelig 1911), and they were interpreted according to Birkeli’s (1938) theory of an old ancestor cult. Although archaeologists did not necessarily view all beliefs as pre-Christian relicts, they were seen as old and interesting customs. One example is Jan Henning Larsen who referred to accounts of sacrifices to trees and mounds in Setesdal (Larsen 1994: 114-15). Zanette Tsigaridas also used folk-beliefs as an analogy to interpret oblong Iron Age burial mounds from Agder. Burial mounds were interpreted as representations of houses, and Tsigaridas used folk-beliefs to suggest that the humans could see the “life” of the dead in the mounds as a reversion of the life in the visible world (Tsigaridas 1996: 84-5). The new importance given to the beliefs, and the possibility that some could be old, is in particular present in writings by the county archaeologists in Vest-Agder, Frans-Arne Stylegar (e.g. Stylegar 1999c; Stylegar and Vågen 2001; Eikeland 2003). Stylegar compares those under the ground with the mound dweller of the Iron Age ancestor cult (Stylegar 1999c: 343), also suggesting that trees in Agder that were given beer in recent times could be a relict of beliefs originating in relation to the Iron Age ancestor cult (Stylegar 1999c: 3489). Stylegar even interprets an unusual Migration Age grave, containing a clay figure, according to a legend collected in the early twentieth century. The legend tells how a woman who died in childbirth was interred with a little doll to prevent her haunting and searching for the child. Although this tradition is not necessarily old, Stylegar emphasizes the common fear of haunting, and he suggests that the function of clay figures interred in the Migration Age was also to prevent haunting (Stylegar 1997b). Stylegar further viewed the folk-beliefs as explanations as good as any other, as in his short reference to the migratory legend about a supernatural creature building the church (ML 7065). This origin legend commonly told in Scandinavia explains how a large church was built with the help of a troll or from those under the ground often coming up from a mound (in some cases a burial mound). The legend type was first recorded in Denmark in 1654 (Bø et al. 1981: 267), but an older variant is known from the Younger Edda when an unknown, that is a jotun (a giant in Norse mythology), promises to build a fortification around Midgard (Snorre Sturlason 1973: 624). In Agder, the legend is told about four churches,61 but only one variant ascribes a burial mound as the home of the church-builder (Fuglevik 1929: 55-6).62 Stylegar includes in the discussion of this church several variants of the legend as divergent views about the construction of a large stone church (Stylegar 1999c: 304-8). Discussing who actually built the church, Stylegar concludes by referring to the creature 61 62

Spangereid, Vanse, Finsland, Bykle Klobnehaugen, Njerve, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026943

mentioned in the legend and that “the name the folk-tradition gives him is as good as another, so let us call the church-builder ‘king Spang’” (Stylegar 1999c: 312). From the 1990s, archaeologists not active in Agder have also stressed the increasing importance of mythical legends and supernatural beliefs. Some have even considered the magic of natural formations. Kristin Oma discusses the possible great age of beliefs connected to a rock in the county of Rogaland, which the local people wanted to protect as a memorial of old times. Legends about tusser and those under the ground attached to the rock had been told and people earlier feared passing by it in the dark. Excavations around the rock retrieved Stone Age/Early Bronze Age flint implements, interpreted as deposits. Oma then interpreted the name of the rock – Lonaren – as a derivative of the Norse word for dwarf. Although Oma did not suggest that beliefs in the supernatural creatures should be traced back to about 2000 BC, she argued that the structure of the myth could have been similar in the Bronze Age. The myth tells about the dusk and the borders towards the other world inhabited by supernatural creatures: The legend Torkell Norheim told witness to a long tradition where visual imaginations probably have been changed and adapted to the prevailing society, but the core in the legend is that the rock has functioned as a door opener to another world, as an axis mundi where the dance of the tusser could take people over to the other side if one did not take care. (Oma 2002: 20, my translation) Other archaeologists have doubted whether folk-beliefs can be seen as relicts or possibly analogies that give knowledge about the past. According to Ingunn Holm, folklore collected in the nineteenth century about supernatural creatures reflects a landscape perception differing from its actual use in the Iron and Middle Ages. The collectors should have been biased and stressed the farm as the carrier of national culture, but excluded activities in the outfield, thus emphasizing that it was dangerous and inhabited by supernatural creatures, which does not correspond with the archaeological evidence of extensive use of the outfield in the Iron and Middle Ages (Holm 2002, 2003). Contrary to using mythical legends as relicts of pre-Christian religion or an analogy to study the past, Grete Lillehammer interpreted the folklore of certain archaeological sites as explanations that made them legible for the local people (Lillehammer and Prøsch-Danielsen 2001; Lillehammer 2004). Similarly, Hanne Lovise Aannestad stressed that mythical legends about Iron Age hill-forts indicated that the local people constantly give archaeological sites new meanings. She further held that the landscape as presented in the legends – contrary to Holm’s view – is similar to the one found in Norse mythology as it is divided between the homely infield and dangerous outfield (Aannestad 1999: 92-9; 2003: 38-41). This view rests partly on a study of landscape perceptions in Norwegian tales by the folklorist Ørnulf Hodne. Although the collectors in the nineteenth century did edit the legends and emphasized the landscape more strongly in the published versions than the narrators did, Hodne argues that both the early collectors and informants were pre-romantics who 149

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record stressed a dualistic view of the landscape: the undisturbed nature represented the dangerous while the cultivated landscape was valued for its aesthetics. From this perspective, the landscape as presented in much folklore can be used as a source of ancient folk-views about nature (Hodne 1993), although it might conflict with how landscape was actually used in the Iron and Middle Ages (Holm 2002, 2003). 8.8.6 Conclusions The overview shows that archaeologists have changed their approaches from arguing against the beliefs to seeing them as old relicts or as beliefs held in nineteenth-century rural society. The view stressed here – similar to Aannestad’s (1999; 2003) – is that the local significance of burial mounds is present through beliefs marking them as important formations in the landscape, although the possibility exists that some beliefs may be older or used as analogies in order to interpret preChristian beliefs. From this perspective, burial mounds are one of several structures that serve as a point of reference for people to explain why for instance a precious horn is held in a family (the legend about the stolen drinking horn), luck, diseases or disasters. Although these beliefs are not necessarily pre-Christian, a correspondence of interpretation is present since these beliefs connect the burial mound to the other world, and they were presumably dedicated to the world of the dead when constructed (cf. Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 16). Particularly in the nineteenth century, this supernatural significance was problematic for archaeologists who approached burial mounds from a rational angle and saw them mainly as sources to get knowledge about the past. However, archaeologists in the early and late twentieth century could recognize magic, but local people now only rarely held these beliefs. 8.9 Conclusions The magical world of burial mounds indicates that they may have gained local meaning and importance, although similar beliefs are often told about other natural formations in the landscape too. Nevertheless, the burial mound is one of several features in the landscape connected to the supernatural. For local people, this magical significance could be positive as it secured luck, but also negative since the burial mound was connected with the dangerous, with scares and could even cause misfortunes. Even if a magical significance was given to some burial mounds, archaeologists in the nineteenth century generally did not appreciate these local values they encountered, but advocated a rational approach and probably withheld local interests from their writings. Consequently, archaeologists may be seen as being part of the same modernization process that in the end led to the extinguishing of several locally held beliefs and interests (see section 10.7).

can give information about the past. In several contexts these conflicting interests are present today, and archaeologists must negotiate between their and other views. Both the magical and the rational approach, as discussed in this chapter, may be seen as political acts, as they can be used as arguments to get access to, and claims over, the archaeological record. Archaeologists argue that the record gives important knowledge about the past, and therefore they should have the main access to and ownership over the material. Conversely, indigenous peoples stress ownership over the record by highlighting the spiritual value of monuments and sites with which they have an affiliation. In several countries this conflict between indigenous people and archaeologists is a current political reality, but in Norway the rational approach has gained precedence and is today not seen as a political act. Although supernatural creatures are frequently referred to in local historical sources as examples of older beliefs held in a parish, people seldom sense or observe them. Still, as discussed in Chapter 11, a revival of some beliefs occurs, but most do not represent a reality for people and they have generally lost their function in contemporary society. Because most local people today view supernatural creatures as dead and buried, the magical world of the burial mound does not represent a threat to the rational approach as favoured by archaeologists. Conversely, perhaps it is the death of these creatures that is currently the cultural problem? The folklorist Valle Espeland puts it like this regarding ghosts: today there is a striking lack of ghosts in Norway; they are dying out and becoming an extinct species because, as he argues, not enough people are inventing them (Espeland 2002: 94). The same holds for the invisible people and trolls: the creatures that once gave some burial mounds a contemporary significance have died, and the nineteenth-century archaeologists would have appreciated their deathblow. From the 1990s, archaeologists have even tried to revive them by stressing the possible great age of the beliefs or that they have earlier given burial mounds meaning. However, stressing the importance of the creatures may also be seen as idealistic: the beliefs may now increase the contemporary local sympathy for preserving burial mounds – at a time when many people feel the creatures are as dead and distant in time as the burial mounds themselves.

The situation in Norway, during the establishment of archaeology in the late nineteenth century, has similarities to countries with indigenous people where archaeological sites are sacred. In these contexts, too, archaeologists have valued the sites from a rational position, as ruins or memorials that

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9 Knowing the past But when it now shall be told about the oldest times that we call the “prehistoric” periods (....), one should not expect to hear about great achievements, full of battles and other excitements, or about certain named chieftains who have carried out great achievements. It is not about these matters the old antiquities can tell us about. The antiquities give us so little information about great events, they give us so little information of events at all, they give us much more about daily life. (Petersen 1926: 117, my translation)

In 1926, the archaeologist Jan Petersen (1887–1967) published a chapter on prehistory in the parish-book of Lista, the parish in Agder with the highest density of burial mounds. Petersen introduced the chapter by asserting what the archaeological record gives knowledge about: it tells about the daily life of people in the past and not about specific people or events. The statement can be seen as an assertion about what the subject matter of archaeology is – to gain general knowledge about the past – but it also served as an argument against legends that precisely dealt with great people performing great deeds. In the second half of the nineteenth century, archaeologists argued against these stories, and Petersen’s statement is a rewriting of views earlier given (e.g. Lorange 1875: 5; Gustafson 1906: 99). Although Petersen, influenced by the early twentieth-century national movement, stressed the bond between the present and

the past people, he omitted to write about locally told legends that marked burial mounds as significant features in the landscape. He did still refer to their proper names and he kept the possibility open – as was relatively common at his time about beliefs and customs – that the contemporary tradition of burning midsummer fire on a rock-art site in the parish could have a connection to Bronze Age religion (Petersen 1926: 181, cf. section 11.2.4).1 Such customs were believed to be long-term survivals transmitted within the same population for thousands of years: (…) it was that people [the prehistoric], who through so many centuries and millennia have experienced the same nature that people now experience, and have seen the same 1 Penne, Farsund, Vest-Agder

Illus. 9.1: Jan Petersen excavating in 1918 a burial mound at Lista © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo (Sausebakk, Vere midtre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003953). 151

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record ocean and heaths, have journeyed on the same seas and on the same plains. And what the Lista-people now also ought to notice, is that it is from these people they descend from, it is their own ancestors, and it is these people who executed the first work with the soil, they were the first pioneers at the Lista-land. (Petersen 1926: 117, my translation) Although Petersen recognized the long-term survival of beliefs and customs, he chose to omit legends at Lista that connected burial mounds with great people and events. Instead, Petersen emphasized the view that archaeologists are the experts who know the past by studying the material remains from the past. This chapter discusses legends that Petersen opposed and how archaeologists have approached them. These stories can be termed “historical legends”: narratives telling about the construction period of the burial mounds, such as who is buried in them and the events taking place. These accounts are frequently found in sources from the early seventeenth century and until today; even currently, local people tell them as the major narratives about burial mounds. While these legends have marked the burial mounds in the consciousness of the local people, archaeologists have often viewed them as problematic, although exceptions occurred if people or events could be connected to written sources from the Middle Ages, especially by Snorri Sturluson (1964). The attitude of archaeologists towards historical legends about burial mounds has changed considerably (Table 9.1). In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, some legends were included as historical accounts in topographical reports and antiquarian literature, but they were resisted in archaeological publications in the mid nineteenth century. Especially Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911) argued that they were recent narratives that did not communicate knowledge about the past. The legends were again referred to in archaeological publications in the first half of the twentieth century, omitted c.1960–90, but reassessed from the 1990s. This chapter focuses in particular on the beliefs that royalty and giants are interred in burial mounds. These two notions

are chosen because they have been important for shaping the interpretations of burial mounds. Still, while royalty has an enduring importance for interpreting burial mounds, the belief in giants faded from the mid nineteenth century. 9.1 Contested knowledge about the past The legends discussed in this chapter indicate that people can construct their own narratives about the past without conducting investigative digs. Openings and finds from burial mounds may even be used to create new legends or to confirm older legends when people infer that the finds belong to a legendary person (e.g. Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 97; Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 65).2 From an archaeological perspective, these narratives are wrong, but they are seen in this chapter as evidence that the local people have valued some knowledge about these monuments. Internationally, conflicts between knowledge as given by archaeologists and indigenous peoples may be controversial, as put by Robert Layton: “It is not just archaeologists who value knowledge of the past” (Layton 1989b: 1). In accordance with this statement, the question asked by an archaeologist working in Madagascar is pertinent: “what is it exactly that archaeologists have to offer a cultural group already in possession of a sufficient and valid version of their own history?” (Raharijaona 1989: 191; also quoted by Layton 1989b: 14; Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999b: 18). How archaeologists should respond to orally transmitted knowledge has provoked, especially from the 1980s, a major debate. In North America, archaeologists have renewed during the 1990s their interest in the historicity of Native American oral traditions (Anyon et al. 2000: 61-2). The argument held is that Native American origin and creation stories can be related to the Pleistocene world, which is pre-10 000 BP (e.g. Echo-Hawk 2000b, 2000a; Harris 2003b; Harris 2003a). The Trygsland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015297; Åkre, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014361 2

Period

Folklore viewed as

Response

c.1750–1840

historical events

included in topographical and antiquarian accounts

1840–1900

false

often referred to argued strictly against

1900–60

interesting, but mainly false

seldom referred to usually not trusted, but some believed to be true more humble to than former archaeologists

1960–90

indication of localities with burial mounds

surveys referred to in surveys, but content not assessed seldom referred to in scientific publications

1990–

other stories about the past

meaning orientation: burial mounds have an enduring influence on people possible plausible content of some legends source for presenting burial mounds

Table 9.1: General views and responses towards historical legends c.1750–2000 152

Knowing the past Canadian indigenous archaeologist Heather Ann Harris puts it like this in her doctoral thesis: The reaction I receive when I declare to westerners that I am studying 12,000-year-old oral histories can be decidedly negative and dismissive. Members of the cultures that own these stories, on the other hand, are absolutely convinced of the accuracy and antiquity of their histories because they have well defined methods for maintaining that accuracy. (Harris 2003b: chapter 2) From similar perspectives, it can even be demeaning against Native Americans to refer to their oral traditions as myths and legends (Anyon et al. 2000: 64). Conversely, the traditions should be seen as historical accounts about the past: There is no doubt that a real history is embedded in Native American oral traditions, and that this is the same history that archaeologists study. Oral traditions contain cultural information about the past carefully preserved and handed down from generation to generation within a tribe. The archaeological record contains material remains of past human behaviour that provide physical evidence for many of the same events and processes referred to in oral traditions. Since oral traditions and archaeology have inherent limitations, combining them in research can create knowledge that goes beyond what is possible using either source by itself. (Anyon et al. 2000: 62) Acknowledging that archaeological interpretations may contradict oral traditions, the publication of such results should from this perspective: (...) not be done in a belligerent manner that directly challenges these traditions, and archaeologists should strive to place their conclusions in a cultural and intellectual context to help Native Americans understand the nature of scientific knowledge and other archaeologists understand the nature of oral traditions. (Anyon et al. 2000: 64) In Norway, archaeologists have also suggested that the Sámi people have transmitted traditions from prehistory until the late Middle Ages, possibly evidenced by depictions on the Sámi magic drum, used by the shaman, that resemble depictions at the 4200–500 BC rock-art site at Alta discovered after 1973 (Helskog 1987). Archaeologists further discovered in summer 2001 a new site in North Norway with 4,000-year-old rockpaintings, and the local people interpreted and identified the depictions according to characters they knew in Sámi mythology (Skandfer 2003: 56). Interestingly, the nineteenth-century evolutionary view, that both the folk and indigenous people have preserved the oral traditions because they are static, has in some cases been turned to the advantage of indigenous peoples: now it serves as an argument that they know the past and are the stakeholders of the archaeological record. In some cases, archaeologists have to acknowledge the traditions and include them in the archaeological accounts, although some Native Americans also worry that archaeologists will start to exploit their oral traditions (Anyon et al. 2000: 65). In some of these positive assessments of indigenous knowledge, the tendency seems

to be present, too, that while archaeological interpretations are increasingly recognized as constructions that are not necessarily true, oral traditions of indigenous peoples represent transmitted oral eyewitness that archaeologists should not only respect, but also consider as valid. Although the context and narratives as discussed in this chapter differ in several aspects from other indigenous oral sources, Raharijaona’s question on what archaeologists have to offer a group that possesses its own version of the past is relevant also in Norway where local people have told legends about the construction period of the burial mounds. 9.2 Historical legends In this section, the category “historical legend” is used for the discussed narratives, but it is important to be aware that most definitions of historical legends as formulated by folklorists do not cover these narratives. This section therefore discusses various definitions of historical legends, but also the debate in Norwegian folkloristics as to whether they communicate a truth or not. 9.2.1 Definitions of “historical legends” The term “historical legends” became an established category for narratives after the folklorist and priest Andreas Faye (1802–69) published his collection of Norwegian legends. Faye devoted one section to historical legends, but explained that the term did not imply that they were reliable historical facts, but were about people and events that had become historical (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 141). No definition was yet given before the folklorist Knut Liestøl (1881–1952) formulated it in 1939. According to Liestøl, historical legends have… … historical people and historical events as their main topic. This does not mean that the legends are historical in the sense that they are true and always tell about real events. But it is the historical person or the historical starting point or the historical connection that draws the attention and enables the legend to live. The historical legend often contains mythical elements (...). (Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 18, my translation) In 1973, the folklorist Bjarne Hodne suggested a new definition for historical legends that implied both that they could be compared with written sources and that a distinction was made between the facts a legend communicates and its attitude towards what is told (for instance towards a crime). According to Hodne, historical legends are therefore… … short, most often single-episodic narratives about events, conditions and people that are covered by other written sources, and that further can give an assessment and explanation of what is being told, just as the legend can take an attitude to what is being told. (Hodne 1973: 24, my translation) These definitions, however, do not include most legends categorized in this chapter as historical. For instance, Faye 153

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record excluded giants and kings not mentioned in written sources, and he discussed these in a separate section (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 83-98). Furthermore they do not concord with Liestøl’s definition as the people and events in the legends are usually not historical; nor with Hodne’s definition because the periods discussed are not covered in written sources. The legends may instead perhaps be approached as origin legends mainly, which means narratives that explain landscape features or names (Bø et al. 1981: 303). The legends are still considered in this chapter as historical because they ascribe the events and people to be historical. For the purpose of this chapter, a broader definition of historical legends is therefore given. Historical legends tell about people living and events taking place at the time the burial mounds were constructed, such as explaining who is buried in them even if this person has not existed. This definition encompasses legends about treasures interred in burial mounds, but these were discussed in section 6.3. 9.2.2 Historical legends and truth To what extent historical legends contain a historical “truth” has been a major discussion in folkloristics. The following gives a short selected overview of this historicity debate, but it is important to have in mind that it deals mainly with historical legends about people and events that took place from the sixteenth century onwards. Until the nineteenth century, several scholars trusted historical legends as evidence that could be used to interpret burial mounds. The writers of topographical literature distinguished between fables, which encompassed for instance superstitions and were excluded, and legends that could provide important knowledge about burial mounds. This distinction is present when the high official Peter Holm (1733–1817), in the topographical description of Agder, defends the inclusion of one legend that should not be seen as a fable (Holm 1795b: 35). The topographer Jens Kraft (1784–1853) also excluded fables, but referred to legends that he believed gave additional knowledge about burial mounds (e.g. Kraft 1826: 369, 558, 559, 562, 568). Although Kraft trusted the legends as historical evidence, he referred only briefly to the content of the legends (Kraft 1826: 368, 563), while the complete legend is in some cases published in later sources (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 91; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 97-8). After establishing historical legends as a distinct category, their historicity was increasingly scrutinized. Already Faye argued that they should be subject to a critical examination. Faye recognized that some historical legends connected to archaeological sites could be true in the sense that they had been transmitted since antiquity, although they had often changed during the lapse of time to become unrecognizable, and he argued: Another question is if an event from antiquity may have been kept alive through an oral legend. The possibility cannot be denied. When an occurrence, either because of its rarity, the participants’ remarkable properties, curious destiny, tragic death, etc. aroused common attention and

grasped the mind (…), it is quite likely that such a deed through the centuries could be remembered. This is even more reasonable when one considers that such great achievements often had several witnesses and frequent opportunities to be recalled in the memory; they were usually connected to an exterior artefact, such as a standing stone, a mound, a name, etc.; the owner of that farm, where a remarkable occurrence has happened or a famous man lived, may have kept the legend as a sacred inheritance from his forefathers, and the other inhabitants of the valley with a certain proud self-satisfaction remembered and told the event that bestowed on their name a certain fame. (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 141-142, my translation) Although Faye recognized that historical legends could be transmitted from antiquity, he argued that most had a later origin and were not “genuine tones from the vanished antiquity” (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 143). Faye argued that these legends originated because: (1) they explained the name of a place, (2) the farmers connected great people and deeds to known antiquities even if they had no relation to the object, and (3) the legends aimed at giving the home-place an important role by connecting it to great people and events (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 143-4). However, Faye also valued these legends because they “show that great men of the past and pasts deeds still live in the memory of the people and that next to our history founded on written documents, we have a corresponding legend history” (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 144). After Faye, several folklore collections were published that mainly contained historical legends, for instance those by the historian and librarian Ludvig Ludvigsen Daae (1834–1910), who partly grew up in Agder. Although Daae published several legends as historical evidence about people and events from the sixteenth until the early nineteenth century, Daae did not thoroughly discuss their historical value (Daae 1881 [1870], 1872). First in 1922, the folklorist Knut Liestøl carried out a thorough study of the historical value of the legends. Liestøl analyzed what he termed family legends, found mainly in the counties of Agder and Telemark, and that had been orally transmitted up to 350 years before they were written (Liestøl 1922: 12-13). Liestøl argued, using written sources as evidence, that the legends had a core of truth and that the main characters in the legends were locally important people who had actually lived (Liestøl 1922: 154). However, the legends also contained several “unhistorical” motives, and these made the legends rich, lively and colourful (Liestøl 1922: 155). Liestøl concluded that an oral tradition could be transmitted through 3-400 years, but the larger narrative would seldom be older although some motifs could be (Liestøl 1922: 157). After Liestøl, folklorists debated over the age and to what extent historical legends were composed from a historical core with later interpolations of mythical motives, migratory legends and inventions (overview of debate in Hodne 1973: 7-21; Swang 1975: 62-7). Some folklorists came to the opposite conclusion to Liestøl, arguing that although people had preserved several narratives and kept old beliefs, their truth could not be trusted without assessing them in detail, and even the core was often unreliable. While some oral narratives could have a reliability

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Knowing the past after 300 years, they could also become unreliable only after a generation (Nordbø 1928: 336-41). In 1962 the folklorist Brynjulf Alver criticized the debate about truth being based on a historical tradition. In disagreeing, Alver argued that the importance of the legends was that they represented the farmers’ view about what happened in the past, which often differed from written documents and the official version: The popular legend-tradition gives us the common people’s notion about the events. In epic form it shows us the reactions and reflections of the common people, their impressions and experiences, and perhaps not least their verdict and explanation of what has happened. (Alver 1962: 116) Bjarne Hodne later followed this critique, and he analyzed the meaning of historical legends not only according to the facts that a legend narrates, but also according to the attitude that was expressed in the legends (Hodne 1973: 26-7). As an extension of these views, in this chapter, the legends are not assessed according to whether they are historically correct, but mainly from the perspective that they express interests and interpretations that have often differed from the interpretations held by archaeologists. 9.2.3 Can historical legends about burial mounds be “true”? Although the historicity of historical legends has been a much debated issue in Norwegian folkloristics, and is perhaps not a relevant issue to discuss at all, folklorists have still argued that some of the oldest legends are about archaeological sites (Alver 1962: 92; Bø et al. 1981: 24). Examples from various parts of Norway are given of how the narratives can correspond with archaeological finds, which has provoked in some cases the interest of archaeologists, although in this chapter the legends are not valued higher if they represent a “truth”. King Rakne and Anders Lorange In Norway the legend about King Rakne is the most famous story told about a burial mound, Raknehaugen,3 which is also the largest in Scandinavia. This legend is exceptional because it is frequently referred to in Norwegian archaeology: 1. The legend is an unusual example of a king not mentioned in medieval sources (e.g. Snorri Sturluson 1964) being discussed in Norwegian archaeology. 2. Anders Hagen (1921–2005) used the legend about King Rakne as a leitmotif for writing his history of Norwegian archaeology (Hagen 1997), although I would argue that Hagen in this book overstated the role of folklore in Norwegian archaeology. 3. Even into the 1990s, the legend was referred to as possibly having historical accuracy. For instance, Einar Østmo wrote in 1997 that legends about kings are often attached to large burial mounds, and he argued that excavations more than once have confirmed the legends 3

Hovin, Ullensaker, Akershus, ID 010284

and their deep historical roots. Østmo referred to the legend about Raknehaugen only, suggesting that the legend could have preserved the memory of the construction of the mound (Østmo 1997: 43-4; see also Skre 1997b: 19, 22). The archaeological interest in Raknehaugen started when, in 1869 and 1870, Anders Lund Lorange (1847–83) conducted a famous partial excavation of the burial mound (Lorange 1870: 108-11; 1871). Lorange noticed that the mound had no traces of earlier digs, but even so, the local people knew that “in the mound lies a king between two white horses in a chamber of stone, and above the chamber have layer upon layer of timber been placed” (Lorange 1870: 110; 1871: 472). In his report, Lorange wrote that he did not generally believe in such stories about kings, but he was struck by the fact that the burial mound actually was constructed of timber, and he even found a horse. He excavated only small parts of the mound and did not find any burial chamber, but he still believed the mound was a burial place for a notable person (Lorange 1870: 110-11; 1871: 479-80). After this excavation confirmed the horse and the timber, Raknehaugen became the referenced example when archaeologists discussed the possibility of long-term transmittance of legends. The Swedish archaeologist Birger Nerman (1888–1971), director 1938–54 of Statens historiska museum in Stockholm, published examples from Scandinavia and Germany that showed that archaeology could prove the great age of folk-traditions. Nerman referred to Raknehaugen, and he argued that the tradition about the timber construction had been transmitted for at least 1,000 years (Nerman 1921: 217-19). The Norwegian archaeologist Bjørn Hougen (1898– 1976) thought that the story reflected a true tradition attached to the mound, evidenced by the timber construction and the horse, although he admitted that the horse was not found in a burial chamber (Hougen 1933: 58-9). A.W. Brøgger (1884– 1951) suggested that the mound was build over a Migration Age cremation burial of a King Rakne (Brøgger 1917). The story was probably as old as the mound, as certified by the find of the timber and the untouched condition of the mound before Lorange started the excavation (Brøgger 1937b: 151). In 1939–40, Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973) conducted a second excavation of Raknehaugen. Disappointingly he did not find any burial chamber and suggested instead that the mound was a cenotaph. Grieg was further certain that the horse was interred long after the mound’s construction, and he referred to a recent custom of burying dead horses in burial mounds. Grieg still recognized the long-term survival of traditions, and he argued that the local people had remembered it was a cenotaph, and they had therefore not later plundered an empty burial mound (Grieg 1941). A new examination of Grieg’s finds, supplemented with a small excavation of the mound in 1993, did confirm, however, that Grieg had found fragments of burnt bones belonging to a human (Skre 1997b), thus strengthening Brøgger’s theory that it contained a Migration Age cremation burial. Although Grieg rejected the legend about Raknehaugen, the timber construction has continued to be seen as evidence that

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record legends might have a core of truth (Østmo 1997: 43-4; Skre 1997b: 19, 22). However, this implies that no excavations should have taken place before Lorange heard the story of King Rakne (Sørensen 1974: 11). This seems unlikely since the horse was buried above the timber probably long after the construction of the mound, and the legend can probably not be seen as an example of an oral tradition being transmitted through 1,000–1,500 years. However, while the legend about King Rakne has not been proved, the legend about a famous find in 1876 has still not been refuted. Karl Rygh on the armoured knight In 1876, Karl Rygh (1839–1915), brother of Oluf Rygh and keeper of Vitenskapsmuseet in Trondheim, carried out a famous excavation in Trøndelag.4 Rygh came to the site after the local people found a spearhead and pieces of bones in a gravel pit. They gave these finds much attention because they connected them to an old legend. The location was under a steep cliff with significant marks after a landslide, while rocks were scattered around the place. Rygh was told that once upon a time a knight was riding with his horse, was swept away by a landslide and buried under the largest rocks. When in 1876 the gravel pit was being dug near the site, and people found bones of a horse and a spearhead under a rock, they connected these finds to the almost forgotten legend. Rygh excavated under the rock, found broken bones of a horse and a human skeleton, a late Iron Age spearhead and fired steel. Rygh found no reason to doubt the oral legend about a “knight” who was swept away by a landslide, and he considered the story to be a peculiar example of a legend surviving for at least 900 years (Rygh 1877: 87; 1879a: 175-7). Later, archaeologists have often mentioned this legend as an example of a long-term transmittance (e.g. Schetelig 1912b: 68; Petersen 1923: 61; Stylegar 1997a: 17; Holm 1999: 225). Even folklorists have used it as an example that archaeology can prove the great age of a legend (Alver 1962: 92-3; Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 39; Bø et al. 1981: 24-5). Hence, the legend has not been refuted, and it might be a rare example that oral accounts can concord with archaeological finds. Although such legends are rare, more examples can be found of people living among archaeological monuments interpreting them right, while archaeologists interpret them wrong, of which two examples are given in the following. Oluf Rygh on boathouses In 1879, Oluf Rygh (1833–99) excavated 44 structures in Agder that he interpreted as burial mounds.5 Most interesting were two structures explained as boathouses in earlier topographical sources (Holm 1795b: 32-3), by a geologist (Keilhau 1838: 168-72), and probably by the local people too. However, Rygh disliked this explanation: he argued against it in his report (Rygh 1880: 42-4, 51-3), but also in a letter written to his brother Karl Rygh one week after he finished the excavation.6 In the letter, Rygh stated clearly that he had Forbord, Malvik, Sør-Trøndelag Spangereid, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026937 6 UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Lindesnes/Diverse II, copy of letter 31 July 1879 from Oluf Rygh to his brother Karl Rygh at Vitenskapsmuseet in Trondheim 4 5

never believed in such boathouses, and he therefore decided to excavate them. To his joy, he found in one of the structures a rich burial from the late Iron Age. Rygh used the find as an argument that these structures were burial mounds, although he admitted that similar structures in other places could have different functions. Anders Lund Lorange disagreed with the local interpretation of these structures when he too, the same year as Rygh, excavated burial mounds in this parish. One of the mounds was shaped like a horseshoe and locally called a baadnøst (boathouse), but Lorange interpreted the structure as a burial mound although it only contained gravel and coal (Lorange 1880b: 157). After Rygh and Lorange’s excavations, these structures, earlier interpreted as boathouses, were by archaeologists termed burial mounds. Even the first protection act referred to “boathouses” as a special type of burial mound (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §2). However, both Rygh and Lorange were wrong: later research proved that the structures were boathouses, and the late Iron Age grave that Rygh found must have been interred after it went out of use (Rolfsen 1974a: 14-16, 1819; about Rygh as a field-archaeologist see also Larsen and Stylegar 2002). Consequently, it has been argued that Rygh and Lorange’s wrong interpretation delayed the study of Iron Age coastal culture (Stylegar 1999c: 142).

Illus. 9.2: Oluf Rygh’s drawing of a boathouse interpreted as a burial mound Rygh writes in the letter dated 31 July 1879 to his brother Karl Rygh: “Because I have never believed in these ‘boathouses’, I started to dig through the mound and ended up with a in the one corner a female grave from the late Iron Age” (reproduced after a copy of the letter in UO top.ark.). Nicolay Nicolaysen and clearance cairns Controversies as to whether a formation in the landscape is a burial mound or not are one of the most common disagreements between archaeologists and the local people. Most archaeologists who conduct surveys struggle with the difficulty of distinguishing a burial mound from, for instance, a natural mound or a clearance cairn. Conducting fieldwork for this research, I several times heard that local people complained that clearance cairns laid up by their father or grandfather had been surveyed as burial cairns. Several conflicts have arisen due to such controversies, and usually excavations can only give the right answer – in some cases this being the local people who are right, at other times the archaeologists. A rare example of such a controversy discussed in the literature was when, in 1878, Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911) excavated

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Knowing the past cairns in East Norway that he first interpreted as burial cairns.7 The cairns were empty and the local people said they were clearance cairns from the time of hakkebøndene – farmers who used hoes to clear the land from stones and who grew their crops between the cairns (Nicolaysen 1879: 220). Although Nicolaysen accepted that the structures could be clearance cairns, he was not convinced that the cairns belonged to the cultivation of the land by the time of these hakkebøndene. Nicolaysen also continued to excavate similar types of cairns and interpreted them as burials, but with no results as they were empty (Pedersen 1990: 53). Later research on clearance cairns, by the archaeologist Ingunn Holm, supported that the local tradition about this old cultivation method was right (Holm 1995, 1999, 2000). Holm interprets the clearance cairns as residues of a late Iron Age agricultural system using hoes that may have been in use until the seventeenth century. Holm applies two explanations in order to understand the correspondence between the oral traditions and her finds: 1. An unbroken oral tradition existed from the seventeenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century, or 2. The farmers had knowledge about agriculture and they could recognize the cairns as a residue of past farming methods (Holm 1999: 221-2). Holm applies the second theory that explains why it was more difficult for archaeologists, such as Nicolaysen, to distinguish between clearance cairns and burials. Archaeologists were usually recruited from the urban middle class with little knowledge about farming, which they therefore interpreted wrongly. However, local interpretations of cairns can also be wrong. This is evidenced through a case from Agder when in 1975 a farmer wanted to remove a cairn he argued was a clearance cairn, while archaeologists argued it had originally been a burial cairn. The excavation confirmed the interpretation held by archaeologists, and several graves were found when the cairn was excavated.8 9.2.3 Conclusions Legends and local interpretations of burial mounds can correspond in some cases with archaeological finds. The legend about King Rakne is an often-recurring example used if one wants to highlight that legends can be true, but this kind of evidence is sparse. Although legends and names can correspond with the archaeological sources, the following discussion does not consider the truth of the legends, but which legends are told about burial mounds and how archaeologists have responded to these.

  Skjerven, Gjøvik, Oppland  UO top. ark. file Vest-Agder/Lyngdal/Birkeland, reports from excavations in 1975 and 1976. For more controversies in Agder as to whether a formation is a burial mound or not, see excavation reports in UO top.ark. from 1975, 1977 and 1980 for the following farms: Øie, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder; Jortveit, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder, Østerhus ytre, Grimstad Aust-Agder.

9.3 Burial mounds and historical legends Historical legends frequently connect burial mounds with heroic people performing great deeds. These often differ from the archaeological narratives focusing upon the general. The archaeologist Mark Pluciennik discusses this divergence of narratives. He argues that while traditional historical narratives treat characters as named people, in archaeological narratives they are collectives, such as communities or vague social entities of archaeological “cultures” (Pluciennik 1999: 655). The focus on named people and the marvellous in oral narratives can also be seen as a romantic perception of the past. However, it can also be understood according to Walter J. Ong’s theory that explains how oral accounts are remembered and transmitted. According to Ong, the heroic and marvellous is easier to be organized and remembered in oral transmittances, while the colourless does not survive (Ong 1988: 70). Furthermore, events are transmitted in oral sources mainly if they are held to be important or significant in a given community (Vansina 1985: 118). Consequently, in this section, burial mounds are seen as mnemonics in the landscape, fixed points that sustain the transmittance of events and characters seen as significant by several people. In the sources, these are connected to burial mounds in three ways mainly: 1. By naming. A burial mound can have a proper name derived from the alleged buried person (Øysteinshaugen after Øystein) or express the alleged status of the buried person (the Kings Mound or Giant Mound). The status of the buried person can further determine the common name of burial mounds (a king’s mound or a giant mound). However, personal names do not always refer to a belief that a certain person is buried in the mound, but can denote people later owning a burial mound,9 living next to it,10 or a person who has taken soil from the burial mound.11 Using a name only, without an accompanying legend, as a source for a local belief that a person is interred in a burial mound must therefore be done with care. 2. Legends about a person buried in a burial mound. The legends usually tell about the violent death of the buried person, such as in a battle. Connections between a specific burial mound and a battle are not based, however, on a legend, but on a local dominant interest that generally interprets burial mounds according to battles. These legends can be seen to act as what the folklorist Anne Eriksen terms a “generalizing reason” where the writer concludes from the general to the specific (Eriksen 2002b: 303-4). Other interpretations of burial mounds are influenced from legends about the Black Death or plagues on boats, telling that people were then buried in cairns (Rudjord 1981: 537).12 Still, not all historical legends deal with battles or people who died in plagues. Some burial mounds are interpreted as burials of the pioneer of a farm (termed rudkall, but also haugebonde). These could continue to live in the mound as a household   Høuen a Oseas, Høuen a Ola, Vere, Farsund, Vest-Agder Engelshaug, Midthassel, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003796, according to local explanations named after a woman called Engel or an Englishman who lived next to the mound (Rudjord 1981: 695; Vere 1993: 181-3, 329) 11   E.g., Pålshaugen, Lunde, Søgne, Vest-Agder 12   Høyland, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004224

7

9

8

10 

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record guardian (termed haugebonde, gardvoren but also nisse, see section 8.4). A priest’s description from Setesdal in 1811, incorporating an earlier source, is the earliest reference found from Agder about the belief that pioneers are interred in burial mounds.13 However, the priest erroneously believed that these people were an ancient people with red hair living between the flood and the birth of Christ (rudkall/rødskall – “red-scalp”). People could trace, in a few cases according to the legends, even into the nineteenth century lineage to the pioneer (e.g. Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 65; cf. Olsen 1919). Archaeologists in the early twentieth century trusted these accounts as proof of long-term survival of oral accounts (Brøgger 1937b: 172). Tracing lineage to people living before the Middle Ages is, however, with all probability more wished for than correct. The accounts about the pioneer still indicate that even into the nineteenth century, burial mounds could be used to strengthen the bounds to the farm, just as in the Middle Ages (see section 7.2.1). The belief that the pioneer is buried in a burial mound further influenced several interpretations in the twentieth century, although most sources that connect burial mounds with pioneers base the interpretation on loose suggestions or interpretations. 3. Other associations. A few burial cairns are according to the sources not interpreted as burials, but constructed for various reasons by kings, giants or other people to use them for instance as fortifications.

1862–1866: 274; Flood 1877: 119; Stylegar 1999c: 121-3, ID 026937).14 This section first discusses the notion of royalty and the impact in Norway of historical archaeology. An overview is then given of burial mounds in Agder that have been interpreted according to royal burials, followed by a discussion on how archaeologists have responded to this dominant interest. 9.4.1 The idea of a king In contemporary usage, the terms king and queen refer to people being head of the state for life in a monarchy, but the terms are used less strictly in the researched sources. The etymological meaning of the Norwegian term king, konge, Norse konr, denotes a distinguished man or son of a distinguished man (Torp 1992 [1919]: 307). In the sources, the king can be a distinguished person ruling over a group of people because of lineage and/or his power to conquest, but the term can also generally refer to a powerful person or the head of a family or farm, termed a chieftain or just a mighty person. Consequently, kings and queens associated with burial mounds have little in common with the current meaning of a royal person; the terms are multivocal and the meaning ambiguous. Ambiguities even apply to the perceptions of a king that is the head of the state, explained as such by the Norwegian archaeologist and anthropologist Knut Odner: One of the most outstanding features of kingship as a symbol is its property to communicate different meanings in different periods. In pre-Christian times it was a symbol for sacred fertility, sacred healing and sacred descent. In the Christian period it also became a symbol for eternal justice and kings’ supreme power on earth. In the 19th century kingship became a symbol for maintenance of the union with Sweden by those who cherished this idea, and a symbol for emancipation by those who wanted an independent nation. In recent Norwegian society kingship is used as a symbol of authority by those who are in power; for those who are not in power kingship has taken on a meaning of national togetherness. (Odner 2000: 12-13)

Although historical legends deal with a variety of people and events, this section discusses in depth only two categories of characters that are most commonly related to burial mounds: legends about royal persons and giants. These are also the legends that have been most controversial among archaeologists. 9.4 Royalty and burial mounds In Agder, about 122 burial mounds are connected with royalty through names, legends or beliefs (see Map 9.1, 9.2 and Table 9.2). These usually refer to – but not always – a belief that mainly a king, or in a few cases a queen, is buried in these mounds. The notion in the legends of a king or a queen is to a large extent a nineteenth- and twentieth-century dominant interest, and one should be particularly aware that royalty have increasingly replaced other great characters. In Agder, the best example is the accounts about Spang who, according to folketymology, gave their name to the parish Spangereid (Spangisthmus). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spang is termed a giant (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 310; Ramus 1735: 117; Finne-Grønn and Tostrup 1897: 23; Jonge 1779: 190; Bing 1796: 640; Flor 1995 [1811]: 28), but a sea-hero in the late eighteenth century (Holm 1795b: 12). However, in most sources from 1810 and until today, he is termed a king (Kraft 1826: 563; 1838: 371; Keilhau 1838: 169; Nicolaysen NBO, håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 1056 X, Lund’s Fragmenter af en ældgammel Beskrivelse over Sætterdalen i Christiansands Stift (1811) (transcript of the description in 1877/1986 in Kildeskriftinstituttets manus no. 197) 13 

Although perceptions of royal persons are ambiguous, people have through various times had a profound interest in them, which is expressed in contemporary popular culture, such as in glossy magazines, legends and in medieval sagas. This interest can be seen as a structuring idea that shapes the human mind that Odner connects to a common Indo-European tradition: (…) I have suggested that the tradition of sacred kingship in Norway is an aspect of a great Indo-European tradition. I have also come to believe that this tradition was ultimately and originally embedded in a common IndoEuropean religion which, though very decentralized and not supported by written texts, nevertheless so powerfully structures the foundational models in the minds of IndoEuropean-speaking peoples that they are seldom disputed and still with us. (Odner 2000: 37) Kraft has this information from the priest Saxe’s report to Oldsakskommisjonen of 7 December 1810, see NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 1056 X 14 

158

Knowing the past Odner’s view that the notion of the king belongs to the deep roots of Indo-European traditions is not discussed further here. Still, it is certain that a profound interest in royalty has influenced the interpretation of burial mounds, although these interpretations are valued differently in the researched sources, as discussed in sections 9.4.4 and 9.4.5. 9.4.3 The impact of historical archaeology Connecting royalty with burial mounds is not only expressed through folklore, but has been significant also for scholars who have aimed at identifying royal burial mounds mentioned in written sources from the Middle Ages. Similar connections between royal persons and burial mounds became important for the construction of the nation in other European countries too, such as in Sweden (e.g. Nerman 1914, 1921; Lindqvist 1936) and Denmark (cf. Hvass 2000). In Norway, in particular Snorri Sturluson’s (1178/79–1241) book Heimskringla became an important source to identify royal burial mounds. Snorri tells the history of the Norwegian kings from mythical times and the god Othin, seen as a historical person, through the Viking Age, the conversion to Christianity around 1030 and until 1177 (Snorri Sturluson 1964). This identification of burial mounds began after the first translation of Snorri from Icelandic to Danish by a priest in Agder, Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614), published in 1633. The interest in Snorri increased after a new 1757 edition and the expansion of historical and topographical works, and it had an immense impact in serving as a general framework to be used to interpret the past. Snorri’s work, and other Norse sagas, even stimulated the construction of legends that connected royalty with burial mounds, even if these were not mentioned in written sources. However, to archaeologists, such folklore about royalty came to a great extent into conflict with the construction of a uniform nation, but they still aimed at identifying burial mounds mentioned by Snorri. In particular Nicolay Nicolaysen argued against local legends that connected royalty with burial mounds, discussed in section 9.4.5, and he was – as pointed out by Einar Østmo (1997: 46) – part of a national archaeological approach that to some extent used archaeological excavations as illustrations to Snorri. Nicolaysen gave an overview and aimed at identifying royal burials mentioned in the written sources, which he indexed as royal burials in his inventory of monuments and sites (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 851). Nicolaysen even later presented an overview of the burial places of the Christian kings (Nicolaysen 1871a), but was more critical of Snorri at the age of 83 when his own excavation could not prove the existence of royal burials (Nicolaysen 1901: 76-80).15 In the first half of the twentieth century, archaeologists continued to identify royal burial mounds mentioned by Snorri. This was in particular A.W. Brøgger who aimed at tracing the burial mounds of the royal family of the Ynglings in the county of Vestfold (Brøgger 1916, 1919, 1921b, 1937b; see also Petersen 1917; Shetelig 1930: 222-3; but cf. the early critical approach to Snorri by Gjessing 1913). Archaeologists continued with this task even into the 1970s (Løken 1977).   Møllebakken, Haugar, Tønsberg, Vestfold, ID 022169 (cf. Gansum and Østigård 1999) 15

In the 1990s, this historical archaeological approach became a target for critique. Based on new archaeological evidence, but also historians’ critique of Snorri’s account of the lineage of the Ynglings (Krag 1991), Snorri’s version of the past was now seen as political and written in order to support the legitimacy of the royal family of the Ynglings. Several burial mounds earlier connected with royalty were now instead interpreted as a political competition between local and Danish supremacy from the ninth century, even possibly being the burials of Danes (e.g. Christensen et al. 1992; Myhre 1992; 1994a: 80-85; 2002, 2003; Myhre and Gansum 2003; Gansum 1997; Gansum and Østigård 1999). Archaeologists also criticized Brøgger’s approach due to its influence from the early twentieth-century national movement. Although Brøgger opposed the Nazi national use and interpretation of burial mounds in Vestfold, Brøgger’s research was shrouded in a national pathos that archaeology should serve the nation (Myhre 1994c, 2001; cf. Østigård 2001). Although the source value of Snorri is currently debated, his version of the past has continued to have a strong local importance, of which two cases are highlighted. In West Norway, in 1974, some local people reconstructed a burial mound to resemble a description given by Snorri.16 Brit Solli argues: Snorri’s account was so dominant and meaningful for people that when the topography did not accord with the story, one changed the topography. (Solli 1997b: 172, my translation) From East Norway, the alleged burial mound of the ninthcentury King Halfdan the Black caused in the late 1990s a vivid debate in media.17 The controversy was whether the burial mound – that some people claimed was sinking – should be excavated or not to save the accompanying goods, believed by many to be a Viking ship. It was also believed that an excavation of the mound would be a rare chance to prove if Snorri was correct when he wrote that the head of Halfdan was buried in a mound at the farm (Universitetets Oldsaksamling 1999; Larsen and Rolfsen 2004; Rolfsen and Larsen 2005). Minor investigations of the burial mound indicated that it could predate Halfdan the Black, and in this case – as often before – an archaeologist argued that archaeology had to be the bringer of bad news (Skre 1999). The bad news was not received well by all, and one man wrote to a newspaper and wanted Snorri to be trusted by his own and forthcoming generations: We are now facing the danger of losing this treasure with an excavation. One of two things might occur: either the burial of Halfdan or another is confirmed, or the mystery about this legendary person disappears. The burial may also be invalidated, and what should we then have fantasies about? Either way our technical knowledge will increase, but the mound will be reduced to an object of soil and rubble. Let us therefore protect the mound, so that we can keep our legends and innocent imaginary pictures. (Gjerdrum 1999a, my translation) Egil Ullserks haug, Frei, Frei, Møre og Romsdal, ID 8365   Halvdanshaugen, Stein, Hole, Buskerud, ID 002257

16 � 17

159

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record that now are marked as important structures in the landscape, worth interpreting and telling a story about.

Never should anyone destroy the myth that Halfdan the Black is buried at Stein, in a protected mound. What reality can be so cold that it steals from us such a belief ? (Gjerdrum 1999b, my translation)

That burial mounds are associated with royalty is present in the sources in four main ways:

Similar views were also presented through the Internet pages of a local museum:

1. burial mounds are named after a royal person 2. legends about royal persons interred in burial mounds 3. beliefs that royal persons are interred in burial mounds 4. other associations to royal persons

Halfdan’s Mound at Stein is a national monument that is unique, partly because we can connect the myth about Halfdan the Black to it. He has become a part of our national history. Perhaps further investigation will confirm or deny the saga. What if we destroy the myth, will our descendants then ever forgive us? (My translation)18

1. Burial mounds are named after royal persons Burial mounds can be named after royal persons, either anonymously or named.

The above discussion supports the argument that, although written sources do not necessarily tell the “truth” about what happened in the past, in Norway, written accounts about burial mounds have often continued to have priority over other sources, including archaeological evidence (Myhre 1994b: 44-5; Solli 1997b; Aannestad 1999: 34-7). This tendency is commonly known for archaeology of historical periods where interpretations based on written sources take priority (Hills 1997: 33).

Anonymous royal persons. Names connecting burial mounds to anonymous royal persons are variants of Kongshaug (King’s Mound, 28 burial mounds) or Dronninghaug (Queen’s Mound, 7 burial mounds). These names can be used as common names (e.g. kongegraver, king’s graves), but mainly as proper names on burial mounds. Most burial mounds named with variants of King’s or Queen’s Mound have no legends attached to them, and the interpretation of these names is ambiguous, as discussed in the following.

However, not only the writings of Snorri give burial mounds a special value, but also local legends about royalty have locally distinguished these from other mounds. While archaeologists have often considered the royal mounds mentioned by Snorri, legends have been more problematic because they did not correspond with medieval sources. A rejection of these legends may therefore be interpreted as an impact of the national project by archaeologists.

Presumably, the anonymous royal names usually refer to a general belief that a king or queen is buried in these mounds. This interpretation is supported in legends told about a few of these mounds, which say that a royal person is buried in them. According to occurrences of such names in West Norway, the archaeologist Per Fett (1909–96) also supported this interpretation. Fett argued that they could be old, although he did not explain what he meant by “old”, and he referred to the belief that an important person was buried in the mound (Fett 1956: 71).

9.4.3 Royalty associated with burial mounds Royalty is an important dominant interest that shapes the interpretations of large burial mounds. About 122 burial mounds in Agder are, according to the sources, associated with royalty, as seen in Map 9.1, 9.2 and Table 9.2. These are mainly males (110 burial mounds) compared to females (14 burial mounds, of which two are also associated with males). Although several accounts can be seen as examples of inventions of traditions, they still indicate that royalty has been, and still is, important for interpreting burial mounds

However, the name King’s Mound can also refer merely to the size of the burial mound. This view is held by the archaeologist Elizabeth Skjelsvik, who surveyed burial mounds in East and Southern Norway (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15). Archaeologists have even used the common name “king’s mound” to describe a large burial mound in Agder (Larsen and Sollund 2002).19 The anonymous royal names should, from this perspective, refer to the physical grandeur of the burial mound and not necessarily to the alleged status of the buried person.

  http://www.ringerikes.museum.no/misc/arkeologi/halvdanshaugen.html (accessed 24 January 2008) 18

  Trålum, Grimstad, Aust-Agder

19

Total mounds

Association Name on burial mound Anonymous

Named

28

20

Nature

Legend

Belief

Other

56

25

5

King

110

Queen

14

7

1

5

3

2

1

Total

122

35

21

61

28

7

14

Table 9.2: Number of burial mounds associated with royalty Several motifs can be told about the same burial mound. 160

13

Knowing the past

Map 9.1: Burial mounds associated with male royalty

Map 9.2: Burial mounds associated with female royalty

161

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 9.3: Dronninghaug Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Undal prestegård, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 004954).

Burial mounds may even receive the anonymous name King’s Mound because a king is placed on the top of the mound. Examples are not known from Agder, but the folklorist Ludvig Ludvigsen Daae (1834–1910) refers to an example from East Norway: a mound was named King’s Mound after King Christian IV (1577–1648) in 1602 shot a pigeon from it (Daae 1881 [1870]: 191).20 This way of naming burial mounds can possibly be traced back to the Iron Age. The historian Absalon Taranger (1858–1930) investigated the concept of a King’s Mound in the late Iron Age, basing his discussion on medieval sources and the Danish folklorist Axel Olrik’s (1864–1917) enquiry into the phenomenon found in the sagas of “sitting on burial mounds” (Olrik 1909). Although such burial mounds could be, according to the sagas, burial places for royal persons too (Taranger 1934–6: 124-36), others could have been built for the main purpose of functioning as a royal seat (Taranger 1934–6: 120-24). The Danish folklorist Axel Olrik saw this late Iron Age custom of placing the king on top of a mound as reminiscent of an early Iron Age sacred royalty: the king was responsible for the culture, and sitting undisturbed on his seat on the mound enabled him to get in touch with supernatural forces (Olrik 1909). Named royal persons. Names on burial mounds referring to named kings (20) or queens (1) appear relatively frequently in the sources. These may be kong Åsmunds haug (King Åsmund’s Mound),21 or Syrshaugen (Syr’s-mound, a king according to the legend).22 All of these burial mounds have additional   Sandum, Gjerdrum, Akershus, ID 015450   Åsland, Åseral, Vest-Agder 22   Sira, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder 20 21

information stating that a royal person is buried in the mound. The only burial mound lacking more information is a good example of a tradition being constructed due to quotation errors in the sources, as seen in the following. In 1810, a parish-priest in Agder submitted a report about archaeological monuments in his parish to Oldsakskommisjonen, and he mentioned a burial mound named Atlak’s Mound.23 Several topographical and archaeological sources later cited Abel’s account about this burial mound (Kraft 1826: 566-7; 1838: 372; Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 84; Nicolaysen 1862–6: 280-81; 1877a: 164; Flood 1875: 117-18). However, the archaeologist Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973) wrote that the mound was called King Atlak’s Mound (Grieg 1938: 187). After this amendment, that probably must have been a mistake by Grieg, later local historical sources erroneously refer to Abel in 1810 having written “King Atlak’s Mound” (Rudjord 1981: 788; 1992: 186). This example shows that royal mounds can be created even by incorrect quotations by archaeologists. The example also documents the importance of studying all sources referring to a legend in order to attain knowledge about how they change meaning even after they are published. 2. Legends about royal persons Concerning 61 burial mounds, legends tell that royal persons are buried in them (56 about male royals and 5 about females). Generally, the legends are short and in some instances restricted   NBO, Håndskriftsamlingen, Ms. fol. 1056 X, report of November 9, 1810 from Abel to Oldsakskommisjonen, page 2; Tjørve, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003730 23

162

Knowing the past to one or two sentences, they usually give sparse information about the royal persons, and they have a similar content. While some are known from one source only, others are recorded in several variants. The legends that have a coherent narrative structure might also partly have been composed by the collector. Some legends have a long popularity as they are collected and commented upon during a long period, some from the late eighteenth century and until today. One of the best examples tells the story about two local kings and connects a burial mound to one of them.24 The legend is a short abstract of a folk-song with about 50 verses that was first recorded already in 1786 by the high official Peter Holm (1733–1817), but is known in several later variants too (for a discussion about the song, variants and transmission see Helland 1903b: 481-9; Liestøl 1925: 140-42; Kolsrud 1952; Steinnes 1963; Rudjord and Høyland 1977: 38-47). The enduring importance of this, and other similar legends, is highlighted by the fact that it is told, even today, as an historical fact at the farm where the king should have lived.25 Andreas Faye’s variant of the legend is here given in his succinct style: At the farms Gautland and Dårsnes in Vanse at Listerm two kings lived in the old days, whose names were Gaut and Herredag. They were enemies, and the king at Dårsnes was killed by king Gaut. To take vengeance on his father’s murder, the son equipped a boat (...). With this boat he attacked king Gaut, killed him, and after this accomplished deed, he gave his father a funeral feast at Dårsnes that lasted for eight days. At Gautland, king Gaut’s burial mound is shown. (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 94, my translation)   Gautland and Kvåle, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID ik14462 and ID 004303   Interview at the farm 13 August 2003

24 25

This account encompasses several motifs found in the legends about royal persons. The legend gives the name of the person, says s/he is buried in a given burial mound, in some cases interred with treasures. Almost as a rule, the death is due to a violent event: a battle or an execution. The battle is usually with the neighbouring king, caused by quarrels about the border between their farms, or because one of them was aiming at getting power over the other. However, in two other examples from Agder, the battle is not between two local kings, but against the Christianization of St Olaf (King Olaf II Haraldsson, 995–1030),26 about whom there is a rich and vivid folklore in Norway (Bø 1955). One important characteristic of the legend referred to, and others as well, is that the farm is named after the person who lived there and was buried there (eponymously). Although several farms in Norway are such eponyms, this relationship in the legends between named royal persons and place-names reflects a folk-etymological explanation of toponyms mainly (see section 9.4.5). 3. Beliefs that royal persons are buried in burial mounds The dominant interest that royal persons are buried in burial mounds has also shaped the general interpretation of burial mounds as, in several sources, it is suggested only that a royal person is interred, although now legends are known (28 burial mounds). Most of these sources do not contain any information about the alleged buried person, although some may try to connect burial mounds with those royal persons mentioned in medieval   Hanehaugen, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809; Kjempehaugen, Herefoss, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 017190 26

Illus. 9.4: King Gaut’s burial mound Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Kvåle, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004303) 163

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 9.5: Burial cairn interpreted as a defence by a king Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Lauvdal nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016781) sources. For instance, topographers searched for burial places in Agder of royal persons mentioned by Snorri, in particular the ninth-century King Olaf Geirstatha-Alf (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 302; Ramus 1735: 110; Kraft 1826: 355-6, 364-5; 1838: 216, 224),27 but his grave was from the mid nineteenth century localized to the county of Vestfold (Munch 1852: 397). In three other cases, between 1966 and 1980, local people connect burial mounds with kings and battles known from medieval sources.28 Finds of rich grave-goods have also led to local interpretations that a royal person, alternatively a great person, is interred in the burial mound.29 These suggestions, found mainly in local historical literature, differ not that much from the archaeological interpretation of rich grave-goods in that they too are ascribed to important people (see section 9.4.5). 4. Other associations to royal persons Burial mounds may also be associated with royal persons in other ways (at 7 localities). At 3 localities, burial mounds are explained as fortifications or walls built by kings. According to one legend, burial cairns had been built by the local King Hane for defence purposes against St Olaf who aimed at Christianizing the country (e.g. Kraft 1826: 369; 1838: 229; Skar 1961 [1907]: 231).30 A second

burial cairn was, in the early seventeenth century, interpreted as a fortress (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 270, 279), built according to later local historical sources by a king (Dannevig 1972: 38-41, 50-51).31 The historical King Olav 1 Tryggvason (c.968–1000) not only built walls on an island, surveyed in 1971 as burial cairns (ID 004659),32 but also stood upon a mound competing to shoot together with the great archer Einar Thambarskelfir (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 310).33 Burial mounds are also associated with members of the royal army or court: the men (warriors) of a king were buried in a burial mound (Thorsen and Schøning 1984: 83),34 and a maiden of a royal court (a terne) was executed and interred in a burial mound (e.g. Osmundsen 1880: 19-20).35 The seventh other association to burial mounds is related to a famous legend first recorded in 1664 in the parish of Spangereid by the, from 1682, royal Norwegian historiographer Tormod Torfæus (1636–1719): the girl Aslaug (often called Kråka) who became the Queen of Denmark. Torfæus’ variant is known after his correspondence and two Latin works from 1702 and 1711 (published in Helgason 1975).36 This legend, which in Agder is the most discussed oral narrative, was referred to by historians and topographers from the eighteenth century because it tells about people and events that occur in the Norse   Kastellet, Eide, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017268   Augland, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004659 33   Klobnehaugen, Njerve, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026943 34  Sandøya, Tvedestrand, Aust-Agder 35  Ternehaugen, Knutstad, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004029 36   Series Dynastsrum et Regum Daniae (1702) and Historia Rerum Norvegicarum (1711) currently under translation to Norwegian (see Titlestad 2001b). 31

  Gjerstad prestegård, Gjerstad, Aust-Agder 28   Nedenes, Arendal, Aust-Agder, ID 017740; Rød østre and Vardøya, Risør, Aust-Agder 29   For instance: Skeimo, Vegårshei, Aust-Agder, ID 017940; Snartemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004850; Ågedal ytre, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID 015136 30   Lauvdal nordr, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016781 27

32

164

Knowing the past sources and the medieval sagas about Sigurd Fafnersbane (Aslaug was his daughter) and the Danish eight/ninth century King Ragnar Lothbrok (whom Aslaug married). Variants of the legend have continued to be recorded and discussed into the twentieth century (recent overviews in Stylegar 1999c: 193-227; Strømme 2000). In the nineteenth-century National Romantic Period, a poem based on the legend was written (Schwach 1837: 3-23; 1856: 3-17; Schwach and Stubhaug 1992 [1848]: 233, 239), and it was later dramatized (Tvedt 1909). The legend has currently strong local importance: a local park is named after Aslaug, a new play about her has been performed four times (in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006), and the legend is locally essential telling for tourists. Places in the parish are named after Aslaug, among others a mound she used to sit on when she herded, although it is uncertain if it was a natural or a burial mound.37 However, the fact that the mound could not be shown in 1795 (Holm 1795b: 37) might indicate that it was a destroyed burial mound, alternatively that people could now not remember which mound had been connected with Aslaug. 9.4.4. Views about royal persons in the sources

after he died in a battle with St Olaf, was buried in a burial mound, while the cow he held as sacred was interred in a burial mound next to him (Skar 1961 [1907]: 231-2).39 The legend resembles a famous medieval account from West Norway about King Ogvald and the cow he worshipped (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, chapter 64). That this medieval account influenced the construction of the legend in Agder is supported by the fact that the first Norwegian edition of Snorri in 1633, known and read in Setesdal, contains translation errors that are incorporated in the legend (Liestøl 1930: 250-53; see also Olsen 1920: 36; Bø 1955: 31-2; Bø and Hodne 1974: 104; Bø et al. 1981: 24, 288). Folklorists also interpreted legends about royal persons as origin legends that connected place-names with anything historical and remarkable, and especially burial mounds became the focus for unhistorical inventions about royal persons (Liestøl and Bø 1977 [1939]: 24). Alleged eponyms were in particular discussed because they, according to folketymology, created concordance between place-names and named legendary people. Three main perspectives towards these legends in the literature can still be identified: 1. legends are better transmitted at a place where it concords with toponyms and known personal names 2. legends are transmitted because they are actually based upon older local traditions 3. the function of eponyms is considered

The sources are rich in legends about royal persons, but most do not assess their content or meaning. Some general approaches to the legends in the sources are discussed in the following. Local historical literature most frequently connects royal persons with burial mounds. Generally, the local historical literature is open to the possibility that especially kings are interred in burial mounds, although they recognize that these were minor kings or only great people. This emphasis on royal persons in parts of the local historical literature is comparable to their importance in the topographical literature (e.g. Holm 1795a: 26-7; 1795b: 32; 1795c: 28, 43-4; Kraft 1826: 562, 563, 565, 567, 568 ; 1838: 182, 189, 229, 342, 371, 372, 374, 375). The critical assessment of royal persons by folklorists – and archaeologists as discussed in section 9.4.5 – is to a minor extent included in the local historical sources. Folklorists assessed from the mid nineteenth century the truthvalue of legends about royal persons and compared them with written sources. One example is Andreas Faye who, although he believed there had been many local kings in the past, objected to the tendency that local people connected remarkable monuments and powerful men with kings (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 83-8). Nevertheless, legends about royal persons were included in other folklore collections as important oral transmittances from the past, but were commented on if they did not correspond with written sources (e.g. Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 97).38 In the early twentieth century, folklorists and philologists discussed how narratives about royal persons had been constructed. A prime example, from Setesdal, supports the view that the medieval sagas could influence the construction of these narratives. The legend tells about King Hane who,   Svenevik, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder   Trygsland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015297

According to the first perspective, the legend about Aslaug, who sat on a mound when she herded, was transmitted at Spangereid because place-names in the legend were found, or ascribed, to the parish (Helland 1904c: 492; Liestøl 1925: 143). Similarly, the legend about King Gaut survived and was transmitted because he could be associated with the farm Gautland and other place-names, although the events did not necessarily take place in this parish (Helland 1904c: 492; Liestøl 1925: 142). However, in 1963, the historian Asgaut Steinnes (1892– 1973) suggested, according to the second perspective, that the concordance with names in these legends and the parishes actually indicated that some of the told events could have occurred where these narratives had been transmitted (Steinnes 1963: 14, 17-22). Although Steinnes’ approach is criticized (Holm-Olsen 1985 [1975]: 332), local historical literature has supported this view (Eikeland 1981: 31-3), and even folklorists have agreed that these transmissions may have been based upon old local traditions concerning great people (Bø et al. 1981: 24). The folklorist Anne Eriksen explores, however, a third perspective on eponyms. She directs her attention towards their function of establishing a one-to-one relationship between people and places that occur in both folkloristic and medieval sources. Eriksen discusses the issue according to a thirteenthcentury text (Fundinn Nóregr) that explains how Norway was conquered and named: Nor was the first king who conquered

37 38

  Hanehaug and Kjyrehaug, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809

39

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record the country, and he gave a part of the country to each of his sons who then were named after them. This text became important for topographers in the eighteenth century as it served to explain the origin of the name Norway and its landscapes, and it was considered trustworthy since both the toponyms and personal names corresponded (Eriksen 2002b: 305). Following this perspective, the folk-etymological connections between place-names and people can be interpreted according to the function of the legends to establish the historical importance of the place – strengthened and witnessed by the presence of a burial mound. 9.4.5 Archaeologists and royalty Folklorists have, as discussed above, interpreted and discussed legends about royalty mainly according to their function and how the narratives have been constructed. In contrast, archaeologists have valued the legends mainly according to whether they correspond with what are considered as historical facts, refuting the legends if they do not. Trusting legends about royalty (1800–40) In the early nineteenth century, topographers and antiquarians frequently connected royal persons with burial mounds, contrary to earlier scholars who were more cautious. For instance, Peder Claussøn Friis connected archaeological monuments or places in Agder with royal persons only if they were mentioned in medieval written sources (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 302, 310, 319), a caution that was present in eighteenth-century topographers too (e.g. Ramus 1719: 62; 1735: 110, 116, 117; Schøning 1771: 202, 409; Jonge 1779: 190, 183, 193; Bing 1796: 589, 640). First in the late eighteenth-century descriptions, legends about royalty not mentioned in the medieval sources are included (Holm 1795a: 26-27; 1795b: 32; 1795c: 28, 43-4). Such legends are then abundant in the later topographical literature (e.g. Kraft 1826: 562, 563, 565, 567, 568 ; 1838: 182, 189, 229, 342, 371, 372, 374, 375). In the early nineteenth century, the interest in royalty is strongly expressed in the journal Urda that mainly covers West Norway. The writers aimed at connecting kings known from medieval sources with still existing burial mounds (e.g. Christie 1847). They also referred to, and trusted, legends about local kings and their burial mounds, although they did also question why not all kings were mentioned in written sources. One example is Bishop Jacob Neumann (1772–1848), who had a strong interest in archaeology and wrote several articles in Urda, who heard, during his travels in West Norway, accounts about kings interred in burial mounds. Although Neumann found it peculiar that not all of these royal persons were found in history (i.e. the written sources), he believed that the common people had preserved the legends through the centuries (Neumann 1837a; 1842b: 219-20). A similar view was held when, in 1836, the geologist Baltazar Mathias Keilhau (1797–1858) travelled through Agder and saw Spang’s burial mound. Although he regarded the legend as uncertain, because it was not known from the written sources, both the legend and the existence of the burial mound

confirmed the existence of this person that he suggested had been a sea-king (Keilhau 1838: 169-70). Refuting legends about royal persons (1840–1900) In the mid nineteenth century, archaeologists aimed at giving a deathblow to the National Romantic appreciation of legends about royal persons. Generally, this can be explained according to the development of archaeology as a rationalist discipline that disregarded oral accounts and trusted mainly written sources and the archaeological record. More specifically, it can be seen in the light of archaeology as a national discipline that opposed oral accounts about kings because these did not conform with the creation of a uniform state constructed upon Snorri’s sagas. The divergence can further be understood according to different perceptions of royalty: for archaeologists, the term was limited to a few people only, who were head of a kingdom, but in legends it was used broadly as a great person. Finally, while the legends constructed a one-toone correspondence between the size of a burial mound and the power of a person, archaeologists emphasized that in burial mounds ordinary people were interred, and as they represented daily life, all burial mounds could be used to construct the past of the nation. This last point was especially held in relation to legends about giants buried in burial mounds (section 9.5), but served in addition as an argument against legends about royal persons. Nicolay Nicolaysen is the archaeologist who most persistently, already after his first excavation in 1852 in East Norway,40 argued against legends about royal persons. According to Nicolaysen, such legends originated from loose suppositions or from travellers who liked to make the farmers believe such stories, and he joked about how easy it was to fool the common people (Nicolaysen 1853: 26). Nicolaysen still communicated a contradictory message in his report. He based the results on Snorri’s account and concluded that the eighth-century King Eystein was actually buried in one of the burial mounds he investigated (Nicolaysen 1853: 31-2). Hence, the site could be the resting place of the ancestors of the royal family of the Ynglings (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 179), a conclusion that interestingly resembled the oral accounts Nicolaysen also joked about. During his career, Nicolaysen stood firm in his rejection of legends about local royal persons, and he argued they were not worth considering in archaeology (Nicolaysen 1861: 289). Publishing the results of his 1880 excavation of the famous Viking ship from Gokstad, Nicolaysen rejected the royal name of the mound – Kongshaugen (the King’s Mound).41 Such names were, according to him, not based on old traditions; they were even often connected to natural mounds, but also to be discouraged because they tempted local people to dig for treasures: At any rate during the last centuries this mound has always been named the King’s mound, because, as people Borre, Vestfold, ID 001934   Kongshaugen, Gokstad, Sandefjord, Vestfold, ID 000967. Several traditions about the mound has been published (e.g. Hougen 1959). 40 � 41

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Knowing the past say, a king had been buried there with all his treasures. It is however also a thing that is well known, that no weight can be attached to tales of this description, as they certainly everywhere have been invented in later times and are but the product of loose suppositions that have no foundation in old traditions. Similar names have also throughout the country been given to many other mounds that clearly only owe their existence to nature. It was however the old stories mentioned above that made the sons on the farm, to whom the greater part of the hillock belonged, begin to dig into it shortly after new-year 1880 (...). (Nicolaysen 1882: 2-3, translation in original) • From Agder, Nicolaysen refers to 7 legends about royal persons interred in burial mounds, and he argues against all of them: • He inserts a question mark with the name “king (?) Åsmund’s Mound” (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 264).42 • King Spang’s grave is named after a person who has never existed (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 274).43 • The legend about King Sigar and a royal maiden who was executed and interred in a burial mound is without any reason connected to the farm Sigersvoll (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 282).44 • He uses the wording “the so-called King Bring’s Mound” (Nicolaysen 1872: 149), and he suggests that the size of the farm encouraged a legend that the farm had been a royal seat (Nicolaysen 1877b: 139).45 • The size of another farm too, with several burial mounds, presumably encouraged legends that the farm had been a royal seat (Nicolaysen 1877b: 139).46 • His own excavation of the so-called King’s Mound showed that presumably a woman had been buried in it (Nicolaysen 1883b: 28).47 • The name of a burial mound (Hanehaug after King Hane) was the result of a strange combination, often heard locally, that in this case originated because a man had once read in an old document that one Johan was interred in it (Nicolaysen 1893: 134).48 In addition to Nicolaysen, Oluf Rygh especially argued against legends about royal persons, if he ever mentioned them. After his excavations of burial mounds at Spangereid, in July 1879, Rygh wrote that the parish was famous for the legend about Aslaug who became the Queen of Denmark, but he rejected it as unhistorical (Rygh 1880: 21, 23). Rygh chose not to refer to the famous legend about King Spang associated with the site he excavated, and the folk-etymological explanation of the parish must for him have been a disgrace: Rygh was also a philologist who wrote the main work on philological interpretation of Norwegian farm-names, published mainly posthumously in 19 volumes between 1897 and 1936. Rygh   Åsland, Åseral, Vest-Agder   Spangereid, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026937 44   Sigersvoll and Knutstad, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003969 and ID 004029 45   Bringsjord, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004647 46  Bringsverd, Grimstad, Aust-Agder 47  Evje Nikkelverk, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder 48  Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809

therefore gave his own and certain etymological interpretations of the name Spangereid without mentioning the legend (Rygh 1880: 21). In September 1878, Rygh also excavated burial mounds in Agder and did not refer to the local explanation that plausibly he heard (Rygh 1879b: 169).49 According to the legend, published only three years after Rygh’s excavation, a king was after a battle buried in the largest mound and his men in the smaller mounds (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 94-5; Storaker 1941: 24-5). Consideration of legends of royalty (1900–60) In the first half of the twentieth century, archaeologists approached the legends about royalty more cautiously than Nicolaysen and Rygh, although – as given in the example in the introduction to this chapter (Petersen 1926: 117) – a generally critical attitude was present. Associations between royalty and burial mounds were still more often referred to without arguing against the content of them, and in some cases, they were even assessed positively since it was acknowledged at this time that oral traditions could be transmitted over a long period of time. A.W. Brøgger was the most known protagonist of this view. The investigation of large burial mounds in the country of Vestfold, seat of the royal family of the Ynglings, was an important task for Brøgger who used Snorri’s writings to interpret them (Brøgger 1916, 1919; 1937b: 14874). However, Brøgger tried to go beyond the traditions, particularly when the archaeological excavations did not confirm them. Most famous is Brøgger’s investigation in 1917–18 of Farmannshaugen (Brøgger 1921b), believed to be the burial of the ninth-century Bjorn the Chapman (Bjørn Farmann), son of King Harald Fairhair (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of Harald Fairhair, chapter 35).50 Brøgger excavated the mound, but found it empty, and he gave an explanation that defended both that the name of the mound was old and that it was constructed as a royal mound. Brøgger’s argument was that burial mounds are always named after the first name of the buried person, and not their nicknames. Therefore, the burial mound of Bjorn the Chapman should be named Bjørnshaugen. The name Farmannshaugen had nothing to do with the real Bjorn, and Snorri’s thirteenth-century description disturbed the real meaning of its name. According to Brøgger, the name referred to a person who travelled and gave his name to the burial mound because he had died abroad: Farmannshaugen should therefore be interpreted as a royal cenotaph. Still, Brøgger trusted the great age of the name, and he suggested that it had protected the burial mound. According to Brøgger, plunderers in the Middle Ages had spared the burial mound because they knew from the name that it was empty. Brøgger admitted that his investigation of the mound was negative if one wanted to trust Snorri, but the quest for the truth was still important: On the surface it might seem as if we have been carefully engaged in negative questions. In reality, all this work is a

42 43

  Stoveland, Mandal, Vest-Agder, ID 015210   Farmannshaugen, Jarlsberg hovedgård, Tønsberg, Vestfold, ID 001772

49 50

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record course in attempting to find out what really happened in the history of Vestfold both before and after Halfdan the Black. To be able to write history, one often has to clean away the stories from history. (Brøgger 1921b: 128, my translation) Brøgger, and his colleagues, still not clean up their history as much as their predecessors, and in several cases they tried to approach oral accounts as possible old narratives, such as in the following examples from Agder. In 1936, Sverre Marstrander (1910–86) excavated the same site as Nicolaysen in 1882.51 While Nicolaysen argued that a woman was presumably buried in the King’s Mound he had excavated (Nicolaysen 1883b: 28), Marstrander conversely quoted a legend telling about the seat of a king in the area (after Skar 1961 [1911]: 319). Generally, Marstrander was critical of legends because they “transform the real events by letting the fantasy give irrational forces free scope” (Marstrander 1938: 162), but he still acknowledged that legends could have a core of historical value. Most of all, Marstrander was struck by the fact that a legend about kings occurred in the same area as a large collection of burial mounds, and these mounds could actually indicate princely resources in the parish in the Iron Age (Marstrander 1938: 163). A second example is when, in 1922, Sigurd Grieg (1894– 1973) wrote to a local doctor and asked if he could record a legend about a burial mound, a legend that Nicolaysen had earlier joked about (Nicolaysen 1893: 134).52 In return, Grieg received a five pages long handwritten letter.53 Although Grieg with this request showed an interest in legends, it had a certain purpose: legends were useful in order to trace them during surveys. In Agder, between 1929 and 1933, Grieg conducted several surveys and he referred to royal names on burial mounds, or he wrote short reports that kings were buried in them.54 Although Grieg did not refer negatively to these legends, he probably did not believe in them. For instance, in 1931 a man from Agder reported to Grieg about a large burial mound and a legend about the king buried in it.55 The answer from Oldsaksamlingen clearly stated that legends about kings were attached to all large burial mounds and one should therefore not rely on them.56 Surveys and consideration of chiefdoms (1960–90) After World War II, legends about royalty were seldom referred to in archaeological scientific publications. If archaeologists used the name King’s Mound, this referred to large burial mounds mainly (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15; Rolfsen 1974b: 14-15). The legends still became important for tracing burial mounds during the archaeological surveys for the Economic Map, conducted in Agder between 1964 and 1989. Of the 122 burial mounds associated in the sources with royalty, 47 were surveyed with a reference to this   Evje Nikkelverk, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder   Hanehaugen, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809 53  UO top.ark. file Aust/Agder/Bygland/Nese, letter of 28 August 1922, from Sigurd Grieg and letter of 23 September 1922, from Gunnar Å Lande. 54 � E.g. UO top.ark. file Aust-Agder/Iveland/Eieland, survey report 1933; VestAgder/Mandal/Tregde, survey report of 31 August 1931 55   Bryggesåk, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 034728 56   UO top.ark. file Vest/Agder/Hægebostad/Bryggesåk, letters of 4 June 1931 and 6 June 1931 51 52

association. Ten of these were, however, surveyed as probably natural mounds, supporting the view held by Nicolaysen in 1882 that several mounds associated with royalty were natural (Nicolaysen 1882: 2). Although legends about royalty were generally not included in the archaeological accounts of 1960–90, archaeological interpretations concord to some extent with folklore. After the influence from neo-evolutionism, burials were used as sources to trace economical and political centres of the Late Roman and Migration Age in South-West Norway (see section 6.5.6). Interestingly, this focus on social stratification shares several resemblances with the legends about royalty that archaeologists at the same time refrained from quoting. Arguably, using the archaeological record to identify chiefdoms or political centres is based on a similar way of reasoning as the connection is in the legends between burial mounds and royal persons. The deductions infer, either from the richness of the accompanying goods or the size of burial mounds, that they must be associated with social complexity: economical and political centres (archaeologists) or burials of kings (folklore). Interestingly, the distribution of burial mounds associated with royal persons in the area Lista-Spangereid and the interior valleys, as shown in Map 9.1, corresponded in many ways with Bjørn Myhre’s identification of Late Roman and Migration Age chiefdoms, based on finds of imported prestige goods, with an economical and political centre in Vest-Agder based on Lista (Myhre 1987; 1992: 165-7). The correspondence also held to a certain extent for Aust-Agder, where both the imported goods and burial mounds associated with royal persons are fewer. This does not imply, however, that the legends – or the archaeological interpretation – are “true”, but it is an unusual example of archaeological and popular inferences meeting and attaining, to a certain extent, similar conclusions. Still, the archaeological sources do not refer to folklore, but base their conclusions on a thorough study of the archaeological record. Acknowledging the plausibility of royal persons (1990s) From the 1990s, a few archaeologists assessed the possibility that royal persons were interred in burial mounds, contrary to the former generation of archaeologists. This view is mainly present in local historical articles written by the county archaeologist in Vest-Agder, Frans-Arne Stylegar. Stylegar refers to royal persons associated with burial mounds in several of his local historical publications (e.g. Stylegar 1997a; 1999c: 29, 102, 119, 123, 124, 193-227, 312, 322; 1999b: 28; 2001b; Stylegar and Vågen 2001: 194, 195; Larsen et al. 2004: 93-5, 100-101). He refers neutrally to most accounts without assessing their content, which still indicates a more positive valuation of them compared to Nicolaysen, who would always argue against the legends. While the narratives do not necessarily tell about real people and events, Stylegar approaches them generally positively, even as plausibly according to the standpoint that oral traditions can be correct. Although they are not eyewitness accounts, but have changed through time, the legends resemble the medieval way of presenting history through the lives of kings representing the life and destiny of society, and they reflect an enduring interest 168

Knowing the past for royal persons until the present time (Stylegar 2001b). Stylegar further argues that a legend about a Viking Age chief buried on a farm corresponds with the archaeological interpretation that the farm then was important (Stylegar 1997a: 17).57 Stylegar even discusses the legend about Aslaug at Spangereid according to the view that several motifs may have been connected to the parish since the Viking Age, but shrouded in myth (Stylegar 1999c: 193-226). Stylegar’s perspective can also be contrasted with more critical views in the 1990s towards royalty. While Stylegar emphasizes the continuity of traditions, Brit Solli focuses on how knowledge is shaped, and she criticizes the one-to-one relation between the size of a burial mound and the status of the buried person as this is held in medieval sources, legends, but also by archaeologists. This relation ignores, according to Solli, the active role of monument building, such as constructing burial mounds not only to demonstrate power, but that they may also be interpreted as an expression of desperation in times of stress (Solli 1997b: 168-9). Both Stylegar and Solli make interesting observations about legends and beliefs that royal persons are associated with burial mounds. The point taken here, however, is that the construction of the legends about royal persons is complex, and their association with burial mounds is ambiguous. To a certain extent, the legends correspond with a past reality in the sense that great people also lived then, and the legends express a popular interest in the great. Several legends are also influenced by medieval storytelling, especially by Snorri, but although these legends may be seen as an invention of tradition, they actually also resemble and reproduce the medieval way of telling. Although the medieval sources do not correspond with what “actually” happened either, the legends take the listener into a similarly exotic and entertaining past that the medieval sources ascribe to the Iron Age, and they populate the past with great people performing great deeds. 9.4.6 Conclusions Royalty is an important dominant interest that has shaped the interpretation of burial mounds, both in medieval sources and in accounts from the late eighteenth century and later. Several legends can be explained as inventions of tradition since the association with royalty increases with time. However, this in fact underlines, rather than undermines, the importance of these narratives: they are recurrent important references for interpretations of burial mounds. Royal persons have even caught the interest of archaeologists, who have used written sources to identify royal burial mounds. Oral narratives about local royal persons have therefore been problematic, although they were assessed more positively from the 1990s. This new positive assessment of the legends can be seen as an attempt to create a dialogue between the perceptions of the past as held by archaeologists and non-archaeologists. However, such an agreement also conceals the ambiguity of these legends and inquiries about how they have been constructed.   Skipshaugen, Tregde, Mandal, Vest-Agder, ID 015165

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9.5 Giants and burial mounds Burial mounds are more commonly associated with giants than royalty, but mainly through the names they are given. The belief in giants can even be an old scholarly practice, but it was the belief, together with that in royalty, that from the mid nineteenth century Norwegian archaeologists most persistently argued against. It is even one of the pseudo-archaeological beliefs that the American archaeologist Kenneth L. Feder currently argues against (Feder 1999: 40-54). Although the belief in giants is false, Swedish archaeologists have emphasized that it has influenced the interpretation of several monuments and given them meaning (e.g. Burström 1994; Burström 1993: 15-16; 1997b: 107-8; Zachrisson 2003; Jensen 2002; cf. Klintberg 1986). This section investigates how the belief in giants has influenced the interpretations of burial mounds in Agder and how archaeologists have responded to these beliefs. However, the term giant as used in the sources is ambiguous, and it is often uncertain what kind of belief the term refers to. 9.5.1 The idea of giants Both in Norwegian and in English, the term “giant” (in Norwegian kjempe) is an ambiguous term (Simpson and Roud 2000: 143-4). In Norwegian, the term refers especially to three notions discussed in this section: 1. an extinct humanlike species (sometimes called a jutul as discussed in 8.5.2) 2. a monstrous and malevolent creature (some times called a troll, discussed in 8.5) 3. a large or strong person Although at least three different notions about giants can be identified, these are not clearly separated from each other, but interchangeably referred to in the sources. 1. An extinct humanlike species Prior to the early nineteenth century, several scholars believed that an extinct species of heathen giants (resembling the jutul discussed in 8.5.2) had once inhabited the world and for a period lived side by side with Christian humans. In the seventeenth century, this idea was a generally held scientific view (Klintberg 1986: 28). The Old Testament was even used as a source to support the view that giants had existed, and the Bible contains according to Feder 18 references to giants (Feder 1999: 40-41, cf. Genesis 6.4). Although the belief in giants had Biblical support, the Swedish archaeologist Ola W. Jensen argues that scholars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries approached them differently, which caused various interpretations of ancient monuments ( Jensen 2002: 194). The Swedish ecclesiastic Olaus Magnus (1490–1557) is one of the leading scholars in the sixteenth century who supported the view that giants had once existed. He devoted one book in his famous history of the northern peoples to jättar (giants), which he described as different from large people, kämpar (Olaus 2001 [1555]: 207-64). Other scholars were, however, more critical of the existence of these creatures ( Jensen 2002: 193, 219-22). One example, discussed by the Norwegian archaeologist Asgeir 169

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Svestad (1995: 128-9), is the Danish–Norwegian bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764). Pontoppidan doubted the belief in giants because he had never found any unusually large skeletons in the burial mounds he opened, but he did not disagree totally that giants had existed because this would deny both the Bible and nature (Pontoppidan 1969 [1763]: 51-2). Although various opinions about the existence of these creatures were voiced, they remained a strong belief held by several scholars in Scandinavia until the early nineteenth century. As late as 1806, the Danish antiquarian Rasmus Nyerup (1759–1829) referred to the view held by the medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammatius (died c.1220) that large stones proved the existence of giants (Nyerup 1806: 17-18). Saxo had argued: In the distant past there were giants, an ancient people whose existence is attested by the massive stones which formed the roofs of burial monuments and dolmens. Should anyone doubt these are the works of giants, they should tell us who else could have placed such enormous blocks in such positions. (Saxo quoted from Schnapp 1996: 156) The Danish historian Vedel Simonsen (1780–1858) published in 1813 a history of Denmark, in which he argued that the oldest period was the jætte- or Aesir-period, and that titans and giants then populated the country. Several contemporary scholars must have supported his view, and Simonsen – who was a member of Oldsakskommisjonen and owned a large collection of antiquities – received a silver medal for his thesis (Tanderup and Ebbesen 1979: 56). 2. A monstrous and malevolent creature The belief in the extinct humanlike giants can resemble the malevolent supernatural creatures jutul and trolls discussed in section 8.5. Andreas Faye interpreted legends about both kings and giants as modifications of the legends about the supernatural creatures trolls; the farmers even believed that the old kings and giants were so strong that they could throw large stones at each other, exactly like the jutuls and trolls did (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 83). A similar interchangeable use of the terms is present also in the sources from Agder. 3. A large or strong person The Norwegian term kjempe (giant) can also refer to a person being larger and stronger than others, a good fighter, but is also used for people who are intellectually or culturally gifted (Landrø and Wangensteen 1986: 289). In some legends, the term denotes that the person is a king or chieftain, and there is a transition from terming great people giants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but kings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Andreas Faye also devoted one section in his collection of legends to both kings and giants (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 81-98).

been used as criteria to identify burial mounds associated with giants (several motifs can be told about one burial mound), of which the first is most commonly found in the sources: 1. ‘Giant’ in the name of the mound 2. Finds of large human bones 3. Accounts about interred giants 4. Giant throw stones ‘Giant’ in the name of the mound Names that refer to giants indicate that the belief in these beings has been important for the interpretation of archaeological monuments. This is especially true through the Danish term (also used in Norwegian) for Neolithic passagegraves, jættestue, which initially ascribed these megalithic graves to giants. In Danish and Norwegian, burial mounds can be named with variants of “giant mound” (kjempehaug). In Agder, this usage is found with 124 burial mounds or localities that have burial mounds. The term “giant mound” is, however, ambiguous and refers to at least three different notions. First, the term can denote the burial place of a giant or a great male fighter (Nicolaysen 1860: 38; 1874: 109; Ringstad 1987a: 49). Second, it is a name generally used for burial mounds described in a poetic language (Dahlerup 1929: 1122-23). In the nineteenth century, several writers used this term, such as the dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) in his first performed historical play Kjæmpehøien (1850). Third, the name can simply refer to a large burial mound (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15). Although it is often uncertain which meaning the term “giant mound” refers to, it has generally changed from the nineteenth century, when it was used as a common name for burial mounds or to denote the burial place of a giant, to the twentieth century when it refers to a large burial mound. In the twentieth century, scholars generally avoided using giant mound as a common name, but the term did continue to be used in local historical literature and in letters written by local people to Oldsaksamlingen, but rarely towards the end of the twentieth century. During the twentieth century, the proper name Giant Mound gradually replaced the common name of giant mound. Variants of the proper name are frequently found in the surveys in Fornminneregisteret (28 burial mounds). Elizabeth Skjelsvik, who was in charge of the surveys, argues that this name refers to a large burial mound (Skjelsvik and Miland 1979: 15). However, legends told about a few of these mounds named Giant Mound ascribe them to the burials of great people, such as a king,58 a local chief,59 or a man who fell in battle,60 and the proper name probably does not refer to the size of a burial mound alone.

9.5.2 Giants: association with burial mounds In Agder, about 149 burial mounds are associated with giants, as shown in Table 9.3. Four recurring motifs in the sources have

Kjempehaugen, Grindheim, Audnedal, Vest-Agder Kjempehaugen, Herefoss, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 017190 60  Kjempehaugen, Homeland, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder 58  59 

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Knowing the past

Motif

Number

Name giant mound

124

Large bones found

10

Buried giant

24

Giant throw stones

3

Total burial mounds associated with giants

149 (10 natural)

Table 9.3: Number of burial mounds associated with giants Several motifs can be told about one burial mound.

Map 9.3: Burial mounds associated with giants

Illus. 9.6: Kjempehaugen According to the legend, a chief who fought against St Olaf is interred in the burial mound (see 10.5.2). The mound lies in a schoolyard, and a flagpole is set up next to it. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Herefoss, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 017190). 171

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Finds of large human bones The belief in giants could gain support if large bones were found when burial mounds were dug up. In Agder, such large bones have been found in burial mounds at 10 localities.61 These finds confirmed both for scholars and the local people either (1) the existence of a large species of humans that were now extinct, or (2) that people were larger and stronger before. The relatively low number of these finds indicates that such discoveries were not common even when the belief in giants was commonly held. Some sources referring to finds of large bones might even mean a thighbone only (e.g. Seland 2001: 386). However, in other cases, it is clearly written that the bones were unusually large and must have belonged to a special person. The earliest account of the find of a giant is the most vivid and discussed case. The high official Peter Holm (1733–1817) did not doubt that giants had existed, and he published a report of a discovery in 1774 by local people of a large skeleton in a burial mound (Holm 1795a: 23-7).62 The local people measured that the dead remains must have belonged to a person who was nearly 8.5 alen high (more than 5 m), and his sword was 4 alen (2.5 m). According to the local people, a giant must have lived at the farm and quarrelsome giants had once populated the whole parish. The local people also interpreted the find according to an old legend, and they questioned if the dead person was a king who had lived at the neighbouring farm or one of his fighters killed at the spot. Holm also gave a second account from Agder of the find of a large human skull, but he did not discuss whether this belonged to a giant (Holm 1795c: 63-4).63 Holm’s detailed description of the find served as a support for the theory that giants had once existed. Holm must have thought the reader would not rely on the account of the farmers only, but he supported their observations by writing that he had seen large teeth, and he confirmed that they belonged to a human and not an animal. Holm further strengthened his argument by referring to the historian Tormod Torfæus (1636–1719) who in his history of Norway (1711) supported the existence of giants (Holm 1795a: 26-7). In Agder, priests reported in 1810 and 1821 the finds of large bones.64 However, they did not discuss whether these bones   In addition, Nicolaysen refers to a find that might be confused with the one at the neighbouring farm (Nicolaysen 1883a: 205-6, Ågedalsstrand, possibly mixed with a similar account from Øydne ytre, Audnedal, Vest-Agder). Large bones were also found in churchyards. From Agder, the most famous example is the legend about three men who allegedly came to the parish Bakke (Vest-Agder) c.AD 1100–1200. One was buried under a large stone slab in the churchyard, and even in 1901 and 1951 the custom of burying one’s descendants under the same slab was practised. Some unusually large bones were found during a reopening, and it was believed that these belonged to the first buried person who was a giant (e.g. Eikeland 1976: 32-41). In 1834 a large skeleton was also found at a churchyard in Agder (Søegaard 1868: 36). As a child, I even heard myself that skeletons had been found in the 1960s under the church in the parish where I grew up, one said to be unusually large, but unfortunately they were secreted away. 62  Hægeland ytre, Vennesla, Vest-Agder 63  Underjordshaugen, Røynestad, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004560 64  Atlakshaug, Tjørve, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003730; Øydne, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID ik8741. 61

belonged to giants, but only wrote factually that they were unnatural or unusually large (letters reprinted in Undset 1878: 11-12).65 A later opening of a grave, revealing finds of weapons from the ninth century, of which a shield boss in 1882 was sent to Oldsaksamlingen (C.10887), was associated, however, with a legend about a locally known giant.66 Although the body had disappeared, the finder measured its size from the black soil in the grave as 3.5 alen (about 2.2 m), which served as proof that people were much larger before. Locally, this find was connected to a legendary pioneer, and the people at the farm still regarded themselves as his descendants (Blom 1896: 12930, 167; Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 65). Such narratives that describe pioneers as giants, but also as trolls as discussed in 8.5.2, are found in Sweden too. The Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg points out that some of these giants do not merely belong to a mythical tradition, but can actually be connected to historical people (Klintberg 1986: 28-9). However, the legends about these historical people have certainly become fantastical as they are ascribed great strength and size corresponding to their great deeds. The finds of large bones continued to make a great impact on the local people long after they were found. They could, for instance, be connected with supernatural creatures. Some large bones, which a priest reported about in 1821, were according to the legend taken home, but they created such a noise in the house that they were reburied (Breilid 1974: 49, ID ik8741). In 1922, the archaeologist Helge Gjessing reported that the find in 1774 of a giant was still told about at the farm.67 The location was now named Røsægra (the Troll Field) after the find of a troll (Helland 1903a: 165; Åsen 1967a: 558). Local historical literature, published in the twentieth century, also continued referring to the finds of giants. One writer argued that the 1774 find could not be attributed to confusion, and the find continued to be an unsolved mystery (Åsen 1967a: 558-9). Another writer, referring to the 1821 find, argued that the priest did not exaggerate the size of the bones, but that a large person who was a fighter really was buried in the burial mound (Breilid 1974: 22). Accounts about buried giants Most legends telling that giants were buried in burial mounds were collected during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These legends refer to strong or large people mainly, often fighters, but some may possibly refer to an extinct species of giants too. Legends about the burial places of giants are told about 24 burial mounds in Agder, but giants can also be said to be buried for instance under standing stones or rocks.68 The earliest accounts are about the giant Spang – in later sources called King Spang – who was buried in a giant mound (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1608-9]: 449; 1881 [1632]: 310; Ramus 1735: 117; Finne-Grønn and Tostrup 1897: 23; Jonge 1779: 190; Flor 1995 [1811]: 28). A second good example is the   NBO, håndskriftsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056 X, report of 9 November 9 1810 from the priest Abel to Oldsakskommisjonen 66   Åkre, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014361 67   UO top.ark. fileVes-Agder/Vennesla/Hægeland ytre, report of September 1922 by Helge Gjessing 68 �������������������������������������������� Gyberg, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004860; Kjempesteinen, Sandøya østre, Tvedestrand, Aust-Agder, ID 018546 65

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Illus. 9.7: Atlakshaug Before 1810, extraordinarily large bones were found in this burial mound (probably the one marked by me with an arrow). The mound was also reported to be used as a watch point for maritime pilots, and in the late nineteenth century, a seamark still stood on it (reproduced from Flood 1894: 48-9, Tjørve, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003730).

legends about the burial place of the giant Fakse.69 Fakse was so big that he left a hole in the mountain when he fell on his skis, and a small lake was formed when he spilled a bucket of cream. Several sources refer to the legend (e.g. Kraft 1826: 368; 1838: 228; Aasen 1923: 89-90), but Andreas Faye’s version is quoted here: In Gjøvdal in Åmli there lived in the old days at the farm of Mosvald a giant whose name was Faxi. He came to fight with Raye Hougsiaa, Dreng Tuftene and Starke Omland, all at that time known giants. They challenged him. He defeated them all, one after the other, but feeling tired after the fight he sought a court place in the vicinity to get protection. Before he came to the place, Starke Omland shot him with an arrow from a loft and he was buried close to the parish road, where people still show his grave, and the size of his body is marked with stones. If this measure can be trusted, Faxi was a large man, 16 feet high and 4 feet between his shoulders [approx. 5 by 1.3 m]. (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 91) This legend stresses an exact correspondence between the size of the burial mound and the interred giant. Such a correlation was referred to in local historical publications even as late as 1956, arguing that the stones mark his size (Aarli 1956: 354). This belief that stones at burial mounds mark the size of giants, but also trolls, is found in other places in Agder too (Kraft 1826: 566-7; 1838: 373-4; Helland 1903a: 542). This interpretation is also known from Sweden (Klintberg 1986: 32), and seventeenth-century scholars suggested that stonesettings and triangular graves indicated the burial places of the stretched-out bodies of giants ( Jensen 2002: 220-21). In local historical publications, several legends about giants interred in burial mounds are given a positive value. For instance, in 1795 Holm referred to a story about two giants buried under standing stones after a battle (Holm 1795c: 69).70 This story is commented on in local historical literature in the twentieth century, although the giants are now referred to as humans (Lauen 1957: 334; Neset 1988: 46-7; Gysland   Harstveit, Åmli, Aust-Agder, cf. ID 017210   Gyberg, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004860

1995: 185-8; 2002: 7). The story is still believed to have been told through hundreds of years with a core of truth (Gysland 1995: 186), telling about the conflict for land in the parish during the Iron Age (Gysland 2002: 7). Giant throw stones Burial cairns along the coast can be associated with the origin legend about giants throwing stones at each other. That the same type of legends are told about trolls, thralls and shieldmays (see 8.5.5) reflects the interchangeable use of the terms. In Agder, burial cairns at three localities are explained according to this early legend (Flood 1875: 118; Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 98; Storaker 1941: 29). Even a girl has the power to throw a standing stone when she competes for a boy (ID 016996).71 This type of legend has probably been told about other cairns too, but omitted by the collectors. According to the writer Constantius Flood, this origin legend was common, but he referred to one account only and viewed it as a legend of minor interest (Flood 1875: 118). 9.5.3 The rejection of giants In the early nineteenth century, scholars rejected the belief in an extinct species of giants, and it was not given any “Renaissance” like that of royal figures buried in burial mounds. Legends about great and strong people, good fighters, were still published in folkloristic and local historical sources. Such accounts served a national purpose of presenting the ancestors as heroic. The emerging doubt about giants (1800–1840) From the early nineteenth century, topographers started to resist the belief that giants had once populated the earth. The two editions of Jens Kraft’s topographical descriptions are of special interest since they reflect the development of thoughts by the scholars. For instance, in the 1826 edition Kraft inserts a question mark after the size of the skeleton and the sword from the find of the giant that Holm reported in 1795 (Kraft 1826:

69 70

  Øresland østre, Lillesand, Aust-Agder, ID 016996

71

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record 559-60), but in 1838 he states that the size must have been exaggerated or that the bones could not come from a human (Kraft 1838: 365). Kraft refers in 1826 to Holm’s account about a large skull (Kraft 1826: 570; cf. Holm 1795c: 64), but moderates the account in 1838 to a human skull (Kraft 1838: 376). Kraft mentions briefly in 1826 that a giant was buried in a burial mound (Kraft 1826: 368), but mentions in 1838 the burial mound only and not the giant (Kraft 1838: 228). Although Kraft was generally critical of the existence of giants, his view is ambiguous. For instance, he did not argue against a find of large bones reported by a priest in 1810.72 Kraft wrote that large bones were found and that the person had to be 5 alen (3 m) long, which matched the length of the chamber in the burial mound (Kraft 1826: 566-7; 1838: 373-4). Since the 1810 report does not mention the size of the bones, Kraft himself might have seen and measured the burial chamber and used this as an indication that extraordinary humans could have existed. Kraft even used the common name giant mound frequently in both his 1826 and 1838 edition of his topographical descriptions; probably mainly on large burial mounds, but also on some associated with battles. Kraft could therefore also refer to a 1821 report of finds of antiquities in a giant mound, but still omit to mention large bones (Kraft 1826: 564; 1838: 371; cf. letters in Undset 1878: 11-12). This ambiguous treatment by Kraft of giants is present in other sources too. For instance, Faye noticed that legends about both giants and kings connects with legends about jutuls and other supernatural creatures, partly because they were all represented as strong beings who threw large stones (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 83). However, while Faye did recognize that the legends about jutuls recalled the first extinct and cruel inhabitants of the country (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: XIII-XV), he argued against the existence of giants. In the introduction, he argued strongly against the belief in giants held by the farmers and in earlier topographical and antiquarian descriptions (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 81-98). These were instead the result of a general wish by most people to search for a glorious past inhabited by strong ancestors and heroic people of the past – literally interpreted by the farmers as giants. Faye mentioned several examples of such a fallacy, and he referred to both of Holm’s 1795 accounts of a large skeleton and Kraft’s association of the length of the burial chamber to the size of the buried person (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 84). Still, according to Faye, if one told the farmers that giants had not existed, they would question the objection and refer to the visible monuments from the past to support their belief: how could ordinary people build giant mounds, or how could one then explain the finds of large bones (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: 83)? Rejecting giants (1840–1900) While scholars such as Jens Kraft and Andreas Faye expressed ambiguous views about the belief in giants, later archaeologists rejected any such beliefs. Nicolay Nicolaysen was the archaeologist who argued most strongly, in two   NBO, håndskriftsamlingen, ms. fol. 1056 X, report of 9 November 1810 from the priest Abel to Oldsakskommisjonen 72

articles mainly, against all four associations between giants and burial mounds (Nicolaysen 1860: 38; 1874: 109-10). For the emerging discipline of archaeology, the belief in giants represented a fallacy that it was important to argue against when encountered. The name of a giant mound. When, in 1860, Nicolaysen published his nomenclature on monuments, he replaced the fallacious terms “giant mound” and “giant grave” with “burial mound”, because this “says precisely what it is, neither more nor less” (Nicolaysen 1860: 38). Nicolaysen argued that the term “giant mound” referred to the belief that adult men only were interred in burial mounds, which he proceeded to argue against. After this rejection, the term was nearly completely omitted from archaeological sources, and in Agder, a letter written in 1923 by Helge Gjessing being the only example of archaeologists using the term.73 In this letter, Gjessing politely asked the local police to tell a farmer about the illegality of digging up old giant mounds, using the term probably to enable communication between archaeologists and the local people who still used that description. Finds of large human bones. Nicolaysen argued strongly against accounts of finds of large bones attributed to giants, accounts that former topographers and antiquarians, but also the contemporary farmers, believed in: They believed it was only adult men, not women and children, who were buried in this way [in burial mounds]. They still believed that in the old days all people were much bigger than now, and this belief is strengthened by the common people when large bones or teeth are found in burial mounds, and it does not occur to them that other creatures than humans often are interred in the mounds, and that the remnants belong to animals, especially horses. Yes, this belief is so strong, as I have frequently noticed, that it even deludes people’s sight; thus even when the bones belonged to people of below average size, it was still told by those who had seen them that bones of “large giants” were found. (Nicolaysen 1860: 38, my translation) In his inventory, Nicolaysen repeated the rejection of finds of large bones. Although he referred to the pre-1795 find from Agder of a large human skull without any comment (Nicolaysen 1862–1866: 285), he either inserted a question mark after the size of the bones (Nicolaysen 1877a: 164), or he stated that of course horses’ bones were found (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 281). Nicolaysen argued especially strongly against Holm’s account of the find in 1774 of a giant, a story that he viewed as so fabulous that a delusion could have been present, and the account of the find should not be taken seriously (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 267). Accounts about interred giants. Nicolaysen further argued against the view that giants, interpreted as great fighters, were interred in burial mounds, which he related to the general belief that people buried in burial mounds (who could be giants, kings or other people) died a violent death usually in   UO top.ark. file Vest-Agder/Lindesnes/Melhus, letter of August 23, 1923 from Helge Gjessing 73

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Knowing the past battle. Antiquarians before Nicolaysen had also raised critical concerns against interpreting all burial mounds as the remnants of battle (Neumann 1842c: 205-6). However, Nicolaysen refuted the idea nearly completely, and he argued against the belief that all men in the past were fighters, and that burial sites were constructed after battles: One also further believed that all men in the old days were Vikings or fighters, and that it is only these that are buried in the mounds, while many of these people have certainly never put their foot on a ship or been in a bloody fight. This last imagination is related to the view that when several mounds are found at one place, it is immediate said, that there has been a battle and those fallen are buried there. That it sometimes might be like this cannot be denied, but this is certainly something that no human can know so far as the sagas do not refer to it, and it is in most cases hardly right. The view came into being partly because one, as usual, searched for the most artistic explanation, and partly because one did not think that as well as we have churchyards, so there was in the heathen period certain places where a family, a farm or a parish buried their dead. (Nicolaysen 1860: 38, my translation) . Giant throw stones. Nicolaysen later repeated his general critique against the belief in giants and battles, arguing against the belief too that burial cairns originated after giants threw stones: Likewise, one believed what the common people still often think, that the large old stone cairns were collected to be used by giants as ammunition, or that they originated from battles between giants. The burial mounds, one thought, were only built for giants, as has its expression in the name giant mound, and where a larger assemblage of such mounds existed, they bore witness to a battle held at the place. In relation to this, one even placed events mentioned in the sagas that happened long into the Christian period, whereas even our oldest Christian law prohibits burials outside churchyards. In reality, these things are completely different. (...) The stone cairns are burials similar to other mounds, and these do not cover giants only, but other people too, both men and women. (Nicolaysen 1874: 10910, my translation) According to this statement, Nicolaysen trusted that written sources mainly, and not archaeological evidences or oral accounts, could trace events about battles in the past. The rejection of battles and fighters can even be interpreted according to what was in this period formulated as the subject matter of archaeology: to investigate the peaceful past of ordinary daily life and not ancient warfare. Therefore, antiquities were collected to establish chronologies in order to construct the past of the nation, including weapons, and they were not interpreted according to warfare or as status symbols. Nicolaysen often used the results of his excavations to decide the gender of the buried person, and evidence of female burials was used as arguments against the belief that only fighters were interred in burial mounds (e.g. Nicolaysen 1874: 110). From this perspective, Nicolaysen’s determination of gender can be

interpreted partly as a response against folk-beliefs, although he realized that male graves were dominant (e.g. Nicolaysen 1883b: 28-9; 1890: 66; 1891a: 54; 1894b: 76). Giants on the fringe of archaeology (1900–2000) In the twentieth century, the belief in an extinct species of giants had generally disappeared and did not shape the interpretation of burial mounds by either scholars or the uneducated. The folk-belief is still found in the sources that fighters are interred in burial mounds, or that burial sites have been constructed after battles. Legends about giants were also included in topographical and folklore collections as examples of old legends about great and strong people who had earlier lived in a parish (e.g. Helland 1903a: 350-51, 528; 1904b: 483; 1904a: 229; Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 64-5; 1961 [1907]: 237-41). Amund Helland even used the common name “giant mound” on burial mounds in his topographical descriptions. He still opposed Holm’s description of the find of a large giant, and he argued that the interpretation was due to a misunderstanding, although he published the account for the sake of curiosity (Helland 1903a: 165). Because the beliefs now represented a lesser threat against archaeological knowledge, archaeologists did not get stirred up against them, but still argued against the belief in large giants if they met it (e.g. Brynildsen and Petersen 1913: 45). Archaeologists also continued to argue against legends and beliefs about battles (e.g. Lorange 1875: 5; Gustafson 1906: 99, 135; Shetelig and Hovland 1978: 32-3; Petersen 1926: 117; Solli 1997b: 169). In the 1990s, as the belief in giants is no longer held, legends about giants throwing burial cairns together has been mentioned by archaeologists as one example that these cairns are marked by the local people as special features in the landscape (Sollund 1996: 15, 17). During the 1990s, ancient warfare received even stronger international interest within archaeology, although legends about battles continued to be seen as a false folk-belief. This encompasses issues such as conflict in the past (cf. in Norway Fuglestvedt and Myhre 1997), or heritage connected with violence (international examples in e.g. Uzzell 1989; Uzzell and Ballantyne 1998; Meskell 2002). Currently, the importance of warfare in the past is to some extent posed in contrast to the peaceful past of agricultural societies that has often been emphasized in archaeology. The Danish archaeologist Helle Vandkilde stresses, however, the danger that the new focus on warfare also communicates stereotypic myths about heroes, as expressed in older epics (Vandkilde 2003: 136-8). In Agder, the archaeologist Frans-Arne Stylegar has even referred to a legend about giants as an important narrative that possibly transmits information about the process of Christianization. The legend tells about a giant who fought against a man over a conflict of land, but he died and was given a heathen burial in an oblong burial mound, while the man he fought against was later given a Christian burial under a stone cross at the churchyard (e.g. Neset 1988: 60-64; Gysland 1995: 167-9).74 Stylegar suggests that the legend may, in principle, 74 

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Kålemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004874 and Eiken kirke, Hægebostad,

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record be very old and that it tells about the transitory period from heathendom to Christianity, when some people were given a Christian burial while other people continued to be given a heathen burial (Stylegar 2001c: 7). Strong evidence is not used to give this argument support, but it is a good example of archaeologists in the 1990s reassessing the content of a legend about giants, while not considering a belief in giants. 9.5.4 Conclusions The belief in giants is one unusual example of preconceptions governing the interpretation of archaeological material. Those who believe in giants used the available archaeological record to prove their point, by indicating the large bones found in burial mounds, or by stressing the correlation between the size of a grave and the buried person. When in the nineteenth century archaeologists dismissed such beliefs, these giants then disappeared from the interpretation of burial mounds. The belief that people earlier were large and good fighters, connected with narratives about battles and fights in the past, did still continue to be held by the local people. During the 1990s, the possibility of a violent past even gained a “renaissance” in archaeology through a new interest in ancient warfare, although giants were still dismissed. Still, legends about battles are generally dismissed as false and interpreted to be influenced from narratives in the Norse sagas about battles. However, the view that burial mounds are built after battles can also be seen as the result of experiences people actually had of violence in the post-medieval period. For instance, analysis of court protocols shows that in the early seventeenth century the interior valleys of Agder, particularly Setesdal, had the highest frequency of murders in Norway (one in 3,450 people were killed each year 1601–15). This might reflect that this part of Norway maintained archaic cultural traits, indicating that what the sociologist Norbert Elias terms the “civilization process” had not yet started, although the decrease in murders during the seventeenth century indicates civilization was now beginning (Løyland 1992: 65-71; Sandnes 1990: 76-8). Examples that actual experiences about violence might have shaped the interpretation of burial mounds are common. One type of legend, termed “legends about slaughtered priests” (Palmenfelt 1985), tells about farmers who gave resistance towards the authorities, even killed them and in some accounts buried them in cairns (e.g. Claussøn Friis 1881 [1606]: 225; Blom 1896: 82-5, 133; Skar 1961 [1907]: 249).75 Today these cairns are not known, and it is uncertain whether these accounts are connected to prehistoric burial cairns or cairns actually built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as graves, but possibly, people who have actually lived can be connected to older burial mounds. A second example is legends about tension over borders, of which narratives about approximately 50 sites in Agder are included in Spang (not all about burial mounds). The quarrel usually ends with a fight and the internment of one contestant at the spot. Although Vest-Agder 75  Sigersvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder; Valle prestegård, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID ik12747

these accounts can be seen as origin legends that explain a border, or in some cases the location of a burial mound, they are also examples of how property conflicts in agricultural society can be used to interpret burial mounds. Hence, the focus on violence is not necessarily influenced from Norse sources, but may also stem from experiences of conflicts in an agricultural society. The focus on fights in the legends may even reflect an enduring interest in violence in narratives from the Viking Age until the nineteenth century. From this perspective, the medieval sagas might precisely have gained an interest because their focus on battles and great people coincided with already popular local narratives. 9.6 Conclusions This chapter has discussed what can be termed historical legends because they tell about people who are buried in burial mounds. These narratives may also be seen as origin legends as they explain why a burial mound or a site is constructed, and they usually interpret a large burial site according to battles. These legends have often marked the burial mounds in the consciousness of the people, but despite this function, the accounts were problematic for the emerging archaeological discipline in the nineteenth century due to the emphasis on the fantastical past and fallacious interpretations. Most controversial were legends about royalty and giants. In opposition to these beliefs, archaeologists stressed that burial mounds gave information particularly about daily life, and not about special named people (e.g. royalty) or dramatic events (e.g. battles). Scholars also gave a deathblow to the belief in an extinct species of giants, but locally, fighters and royalty continued to be significant for the interpretation of several burial mounds. Historical legends can be seen as expressions that local people have “known” about the past independently from archaeological excavations. These legends can remind us of what are termed oral traditions in the context of indigenous archaeologies. Consequently, the view that the past is known prior to archaeological research is not restricted to indigenous peoples, but is found in a Western setting too. According to some views, particular in the US, these oral traditions represent historical accounts about the past that should not be interfered with by archaeologists, for archaeologists can use them as sources to gain knowledge about the past. Communicating the expert view has been met with stronger scepticism because of the inherent relationship between archaeology and colonialism, and how Western interests and world-views shape the interpretations. Conversely, in a Western setting, it is generally accepted that archaeologists must contest and educate people against such false locally held views. From this perspective, archaeological results should be communicated, even if this causes conflicts of interpretation held by other people. Although legends and folk-beliefs about what happened in the past may have been important for marking burial mounds in the consciousness of the local people, these narratives are not necessarily more important than the archaeological. 176

Knowing the past Archaeological narratives give burial mounds an importance too, although they – with their focus on the anonymous, general and often statistical knowledge – might to a lesser extent than the folkloristic narratives seem to manage to communicate elements about the past that encompass a broader human interest. The archaeological narratives are also complex as they are constantly changing, and theories that one generation of archaeologists held as important are abandoned or considered as less relevant to discuss by the next generation. While the folkloristic narratives are changing too, several narratives contain motifs that seem to have a broader human interest. These are in particular stories about great people that are similar in the sources from the seventeenth through to the twenty-first century, but which also remind us about the emphasis on great people and battles in Norse sagas. Archaeologists have often argued that the similarity between the major features in legends (e.g. kings and battles) and the sagas stem from influence from Snorri. However, considering the social conditions in Agder until the eighteenth century, such as violence, Snorri could also have gained a local importance because several motifs and structures of medieval narratives already were dominant interests that shaped the construction of legends, while Snorri might have reinforced this process. Although the folkloristic narratives often are false, and archaeological narratives give a more coherent view about the past, they might contain some elements that archaeologists could use to communicate their expert knowledge to a broader public. This can be seen as important because in the nineteenth century archaeologists rejected those narratives that marked the burial mounds in the consciousness of the local people, but possibly did not manage to replace them with knowledge that attained a similar broad interest. This was alarming considering that while archaeologists aimed at deterring local interests in burial mounds, their disturbances escalated during the nineteenth century, as discussed in chapter 10.

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10 Destroying burial mounds If you are not a good child, the archaeologists will come and protect you. (Parents to their children, Agder, 1970s)

Growing up in Agder in the 1970s and ’80s, having been born in 1972, I used to hear stories about archaeologists – “archaeologist-lore” (cf. section 7.3.3). One day I heard about parents in one parish scaring their children by saying that the archaeologists would come and protect them if they did not behave well. This saying might have been just a joke, and I am not sure if any children actually heard the threat. However, this rumour indicates that local people could, in the 1970s and ’80s, make negative jokes about archaeologists, and this coincided with the increasing attempts at this time by archaeologists to preserve burial mounds in situ. These preservation efforts came into conflict with the interests of several local people who ascribed other values to the landscape of burial mounds and wanted to increase the use of land. So far, this book has emphasized that local people, and not only archaeologists, have an interest in burial mounds. Conversely, in this chapter, I argue that several local people have frequently, if they could, disturbed burial mounds: the mounds have been completely destroyed, reused, given new functions, or their visual appearance altered, while the antiquities buried there have been lost. These disturbances are still treated as part of the life histories of burial mounds – their stage of death. Some despoliations can even be seen as meaningful for those performing this act, as it could improve their life. From this perspective, some disturbances may reflect the significance that local people have given them and, as with oral stories, disturbances are acts that archaeologists often find problematic because they are seen as destructive of the scientific record. In this chapter, I discuss four factors that might have influenced the preservation and destruction of burial mounds: folklore, Christianity, the Cultural Heritage Act and archaeological practice. I consider to what extent legends and folk-beliefs might have had a protective function, but also whether Christianity has actually encouraged the destruction of burial mounds. I also ask to what extent the Cultural Heritage Act and archaeological practice have stimulated the protection of burial mounds, or whether conversely these have had the effect of increasing destruction. These issues are framed within the larger international debate on the role of cultural heritage, and it is argued that, in an ethnic homogeneous society such as Norway, conflicts about protection due to different values are present when various groups ascribe to burial mounds different significance. 10.1. The significance of destruction One argument explored in this chapter is that the protection of burial mounds is encouraged if these structures in the landscape

are seen as meaningful, but what is meaningful changes from person to person, group to group. In the context of indigenous archaeologies, in particular, these issues have been discussed, and it is recognized that disturbances can be seen as part of the values given to monuments and sites, but these often come into conflict with the significance given by archaeologists. Archaeologists usually find burial mounds meaningful, or significant, because they constitute an important archaeological record which should be preserved and/or skilfully examined in order to gain knowledge about the past, or even to experience it (cf. Tilley 1994). The term “significance”, or values, is in this regard important because, as argued by the Australian archaeologist Laurajane Smith, the term became during the 1970s and ’80s vital in archaeology for determining the management of archaeological sites. By examining the significance concept in the context of archaeological practice in the US and Australia, Smith argues that the archaeological interpretation of significance takes prerogative and determines the government of cultural heritage, and not those values other groups might give a site (Smith 2004: 105-24). The problem of differing values given to archaeological sites is especially discussed when Western archaeology encounters indigenous interests. Examples abound where archaeologists view as a “dead” archaeological heritage somewhere that is part of a living culture for other people, some such cases having been referred to in section 8.1. In some countries this has led to reassessments of the significance concept. One example is the revised Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter (1999).1 This charter acknowledges different cultural significance given to archaeological and historical sites by groups that have an affiliation to or who use them (Meskell 2002: 569-70). This encompasses for instance an acceptance that rock-art can be repainted by Aborigines (Bowdler 1988; Sætersdal 2000: 170). The importance of reassessing the significance concept is emphasized in contemporary conservation ethics. One ethic is formulated as culturally relevant conservation, which is argued to be a method “for the planning, treatment and care of valued living cultural sites and objects with an ideological objective of recognizing the unique cultural contexts that surround and shape such heritage”. From this approach, conservation should “facilitate a sustainable, long-term relationship with the natural and cultural resources of a place and its associated memories and ways of life” (Matero 2003: 69). A second conservation ethic is termed functional conservation, which emphasizes that conservation is done for the users of the objects. Negotiation   http://www.icomos.org/australia/burra.html (accessed 24 January 2008)

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Destroying burial mounds is stressed within this approach and “conservation decisions should not be imposed, but agreed upon between affected subjects” (Viñas 2002: 30). In some contexts, the reassessment of significance can even challenge the idea of what constitutes the authenticity of the fabric of a monument. These issues are most importantly discussed in the Nara Document on Authenticity (Larsen and Jokilehto 1995; cf. Holtorf 2005b: 112-29; Myrberg 2002, 2004). The Nara document acknowledges that diverse cultural beliefs should be taken into account in conservation: All judgements about values attributed to heritage (…) may differ from culture to culture, and even within the same culture. It is thus not possible to base judgements of value and authenticity on fixed criteria. On the contrary, the respect due to all cultures requires that cultural heritage must be considered and judged within the cultural contexts to which it belongs. (Larsen and Jokilehto 1995: xxiii) From this perspective, acts, customs, etc. that are destructive to the fabric can be recognized as significant, and as “authentic” parts of the monuments. These include for instance traditional renewals of monuments (Byrne 1995), which can be termed “constructive destruction” (Holtorf 2005b: 144-9). The reassessment of significance and authenticity concepts may further, on the extreme, recognize that destructions are part of the life histories of monuments and embodied with meaning: their death (e.g. Bradley and Williams 1998; Holtorf 1998b, 2000-05, 2002b; 2005b: 78-91). Even preservation can be seen as the death of monuments, and Cornelius Holtorf argues as such about the preservation of Neolithic megaliths after they have been excavated: “After the completed autopsy, their bodies have been mummified and are displayed to the public while the dates of their lives are published in obituaries” (Holtorf 2005b: 90). Despite the importance of seeing alterations of monuments from a life-historical point of view, this organic perception, which is indeed romantic, is only critically recognized in this chapter, and I disagree that it can be seen as almost “natural” for burial mounds to “die”. Conversely, archaeological conservation is precisely intended to decide that certain objects are so important that one wants to preserve them and prevent detrimental effects on them, an idea which is supported here, although this in come cases has the effect of fossilization. The life-historical approach, which encompasses the death of monuments, is still a useful concept for challenging a disciplinary view on how preservation should be carried out. One example is the pragmatic approach taken by the archaeologist Emma Blake, which caused her to start accepting contemporary uses of Sardinia’s nuraghis (Bronze Age towers):

however, more uncertain. For instance, Holtorf recognizes that vandalism is part of the life-histories of archaeological monuments (Holtorf 2000-05: 5.3.1; 2005b: 146), but to what extent vandalism should be considered as a meaningful expression that should be protected, and perhaps supported, remains uncertain. Two different examples from a nonWestern context highlight the problem of vandalism as against what is seen as meaningful cultural destructions. On 14 May 1998 some local people deliberately splashed paint over the rock-paintings of Domboshava, in Zimbabwe. This act has been explained as a result of the alienation that several local people felt when rain-making activities were banned at this site after the declaration in 1938 of the rock-paintings as a National Monument, and when from 1988 the paintings were promoted for tourists. The damage received sympathy from the local community, and “by removing the paintings there would be no reason to have the place declared a National Monument. This would allow the community to continue with their traditional practices” (Taruvinga and Ndoro 2003: 8; cf. Omland 1999: 89; Sætersdal 2000: 171-2). Hence, the destruction can be seen as a cultural act that highlights its local cultural significance as a rain-making shrine, which was discouraged after the site was declared a National Monument. Although the act was imbued with cultural meaning, the paintings were restored, and the effect of what may be considered as vandalism was minimized. A more controversial and well-known example is the Taliban’s destruction in March 2001 of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan. After the World Heritage designation of Bamiyan in 2003, the destruction was internationally commemorated, and even possibly preserved, as an example of iconoclasm (Omland 2006b: 253). The site now represents what the archaeologist Lynn Meskell terms negative heritage, defined as “a conflictual site that becomes the repository of negative memory in the collective imaginary” (Meskell 2002: 558). Highlighting the problem of protecting negative heritage, such as the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Meskell argues: For the Taliban, the Buddhist statues represented a site of negative memory, one that necessitated jettisoning from the nation’s construction of contemporary identity, and the act of erasure was a political statement about religious difference and international exclusion. For many others today that site of erasure in turn represents negative heritage, a permanent scar that reminds certain constituencies of intolerance, symbolic violence, loss and the “barbarity” of the Taliban regime. (Meskell 2002: 561)

I see that right now the structure [the nuraghi] is a shed, and a dog house, and a lookout point, and a source of curiosity, inseparable from all it has been before. Now evaluating this, I find I do not mind its use as a shed; it appeals to me that this ancient structure is still of use to someone after so many centuries. (Blake 1999: 235; cf. Blake 1998)

To Holtorf, the case of Bamiyan shows the importance of not only condemning the destruction of cultural heritage, but also studying and theorizing “what heritage does, and what is done to it, within the different lived realities that together make up our one world” (Holtorf 2005c: 238; 2006: 108). From this point of view, the destruction of both the rock-paintings of Domboshava and the Buddhas of Bamiyan can be recognized as, for some groups, culturally significant acts that also are part of the life histories of the monuments and that should be protected and valued as such.

To what extent vandalism should also be accepted as a meaningful alteration of archaeological monuments is,

However, while these acts can be seen as culturally significant because they are driven by religious or cultural expressions, 179

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record they are also the results of mixed motivations of emotions, economical and political nature. In the context of rockart conservation in third world countries, the Norwegian archaeologist Eva M. Walderhaug Sætersdal emphasizes such a complexity, and she questions why the sympathy we might give local people in remote countries often contrasts with the situation in our own countries, such as Norway. “The sometimes naive empathy we feel towards these distant conflicts contrasts with how we regard similar conflicts closer to home as economic or political wrangles outside our field of responsibility” (Sætersdal 2000: 173). The destructions of Domboshava and Bamiyan are two – of several – extreme cases with only few resemblances to the protection and destruction of burial mounds in Agder. However, they exemplify Sætersdal’s objection that we often aim at being sympathetic to the conflicts in other countries, and we can even accept destructions of the cultural heritage as culturally significant acts, while this might be more difficult in a cultural context we are our situated in ourselves. The consequence is that we might give sympathy to those who damaged the rock-art of Domboshava, and explain the act in terms of alienation, but will conversely see disturbances of burial mounds in Norway as destructive vandalism or explain them as due to economic gain. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to investigate disturbances of burial mounds in Agder from a local point of view.

occurred because of intensive agriculture from 1900 until the 1950s and ’60s, but destruction then decreased dramatically. Of the estimated c.420 burial mounds and cairns at Lista in 1991, 15 (4 per cent) were destroyed without permission in the period 1964/66–1991, compared to 10 (2 per cent) that were legally removed. Reasons for destroying burial mounds in this period were mainly cultivation (30 per cent) and for gravel (20 per cent), but also construction of roads (17 per cent) and houses (10 per cent). The report concluded that burial mounds preserved today were mainly located close to current farm buildings and areas where modern agricultural activity had been mainly abandoned, and they would in future be increasingly threatened by building houses, road construction and other developments (Mydland 1992: 10, 29, 56, 59).

10.2. The death of burial mounds in Agder

In a 2004 report on decimation in the municipality of Lillesand (Aust-Agder), similar factors threatening the protection of archaeological sites were identified. Of the archaeological sites surveyed between 1980 and 2003, which were mainly burial mounds and cairns, 2.9 per cent had been destroyed and 7.2 per cent damaged. These disturbances were not mainly due to agriculture, which was earlier one of the most important factors for destruction, but due to construction in built-up areas (activities related to roads, industry, houses and holiday homes). Sites located near built-up areas would also in future have a higher risk of damage. A second destructive factor, currently seen in Norway as the largest threat towards the protection of the cultural landscape, is natural forestation as areas earlier used for grazing are now not utilized, resulting in archaeological monuments being forgotten (Sollund 2004).

Disturbances of burial mounds in Agder can be seen as an attempt by people to improve their living conditions. This approach to destructions is discussed in this section by considering how extensive the disturbances have been, and what kind of destructions have occurred.

Both these reports indicate that the destruction of burial mounds decreased from the 1960s, but they do document that illegal destructions still occur. Current destructions of burial mounds are still not discussed in the following, but mainly those that took place before 1960.

10.1.1 Destruction in Agder How many burial mounds in Agder were destroyed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has not been estimated. However, frequent references in the sources to destructions indicate that the number of burial mounds in several areas of Agder used to be several times higher than those still preserved today. Studies from East Norway also indicate that probably most burial mounds were preserved into the nineteenth century, when destruction suddenly escalated due to large production changes in the agricultural landscape (Bertelsen et al. 1986: 8-9). The general tendency is that the scale of changes increased after the adoption in 1857 of a new law of severance (the first from 1821), which in Norway caused a drastic change of land use and demography. These changes coincided with and were the result of other thorough changes in the country during the late nineteenth century – economic, demographic, cultural – characterized in 1942 by the Norwegian author and historian Inge Krokann (1892–1962) as the great change (Det store hamskiftet). Destructions continued probably to be high until after World War II, but decreased from the 1960s when preservation was increasingly enforced. In Agder, the first study of destructions was carried out at Lista in 1991. A report then suggested that the major damages had

10.1.2 Sources on destructions Short accounts about destructions of burial mounds can be found in all categories of researched sources. However, most of these accounts differ from legends because they lack the fantastical, and they are short notes mainly about events that have taken place. Most accounts date from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, but references to finds of antiquities in eighteenth-century topographical literature indicate that burial mounds were opened up and destroyed before the demographic changes of the nineteenth century, although less intensive. Accounts of disturbances are usually sparse and they contain at best the name of the person who destroyed the burial mound and why he did so (usually due to cultivation or using them for rubble in roads). Information about the wider situation surrounding the destruction is seldom given. If anything was found, commonly potsherds and rusty objects, people usually tossed these away, or sold them to a traveller or gave them to a museum. Accounts that are more detailed can be found in selected sources, such as in a letter written in 1975 by a local historical amateur. The writer visited an old man in the parish, born in 1889, who told him about the burial mounds that in

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Illus. 10.1: Burial mound reused as a potato cellar Today just one cellar is preserved, but previously it had three and even a small building that people used to cook food in for special occasions such as funerals. Until around World War II, the burial mound had this multi-purpose function. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Vere midtre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003810). 1902 and 1959 he had helped clear away. The account shows that the destruction was important to improve the land, but it was a time-consuming activity and most of the rubble could not be utilized: Petter Hauane was interested in cultivating the land. So one day in the spring of 1902 he said to me: “Take my horse and cart and carry away the mound at Mo. (...) Empty it into Køyta at Valtjønn [a lake].” The giant mound was full of small and large stones, so I carted it for six whole days.” Jakob continued: “Most of it I emptied in Køyta, but some in Valtjønn, and the largest stones I just left at Brauten, a piece of land just beyond Mo. This was the smallest mound in the south-east. Some of the other mounds were taken for rubble in Rennehaven when they built the new Tveide road.” Jakob Mo told further: “We disposed of the rest of the mound with a bulldozer in 1959 when we altered the road and built new outbuildings. That mound was full of stones, larger than in the smallest mound. We used it for rubble when we built the bridge over Kvennebekken [a brook].” (My translation)2

However, the burial mounds also represented a problem because – although they had “always” been there – they were often “lying in the way”. Burial mounds are often found at sites with significance also today, for instance at places with a good view, close to farmhouses or on arable land. In 1979, a house owner used this “misplacement” of burial mounds as a main argument for removing them: (...) the inconvenience is that the burial mound is lying in the middle of the garden in front of the house, so that it is troublesome for the building up of an ordinary plain garden. (My translation)3 The opinion that the location of burial mounds is indeed very troublesome, and not only a problem for attaining a plain garden, is present in this application from 1934 to release the protection of a burial mound: As Dr Grieg knows, the mound is located very troublesomely close to the house-wall at the north-eastern corner of the house and is a barrier to the view towards the main road, it hinders the construction of a road around the house, and it takes up space in the yard. In case the mound is to be preserved for some time before we are given permission to remove it, or if people want to preserve it for the future, I hereby take the liberty to claim rightful compensation. (My translation)4

10.2.3 Destruction as improvement of life For archaeologists, accounts about destructions represent sad testimonies of the extinction of a rich and non-renewable archaeological record. However, these accounts also tell us about peoples’ efforts in Agder to transform the landscape and make the land better arable in order to improve the standard of living. The soil of the burial mounds improved the land, the gravel was used to construct roads, and the stones were important building material for fences, walls and chimneys. Other archaeological monuments too could be utilized for similar purposes, such as stone circles, standing stones and rune stones. From this perspective, the local value of the burial mounds was their usability as a raw material, and the accounts about destructions even share some similarities with treasure legends that could fulfil the dream of being rich (section 6.3).

Some reuses could preserve parts of the burial mounds by giving them new functions. In the nineteenth century, burial mounds were utilized as potato cellars: their interior was dug out and replaced with a small room built of stones to store and protect the potatoes against frost during the winter. They served as foundations for houses, or in a few cases features in the gardens of the wealthy, on which a flagpole could be raised. Along the coast, the most common reuse of burial cairns was putting seamarks on them, and a large cairn has even been used

UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Lyngdal/Lyngdal prestegård-Oftebro, letters 197980 4  UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Maberg, letter of 29 November 1934 3 

  UO top.ark file Aust-Agder/Birkenes/Birkeland nedre, letter of 25 April 1975 to Oldsaksamlingen 2

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Illus. 10.2: Lighthouse built on a burial cairn Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Rauna, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003808).

Illus. 10.3: Burial mound reused during World War II as a bunker Burial mounds can have an enduring importance in the landscape and people’s attention is drawn to them. This burial mound (behind the car) has a long history of use and has been excavated twice (see sections 7.3.3 and 7.4.2). During World War II, it was integrated in a bunker. After the war, the bunker was taken over by the Norwegian military, but it was bought in 2001 by an architect couple who converted and extended it as a holiday house. Heritage managers saw this project as a positive reuse of a bunker, even though they have often refused the construction of new buildings near burial mounds. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Svarthaug, Dyngvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003927). as the foundation for a lighthouse.5 This reuse can even be seen as a continuity of tradition, as several cairns after construction have been used for navigation (cf. Knudsen 2003: 65-84; Marmøy 1993: 77-82). A special reuse occurred during the Napoleonic Wars (1807– 14) when some burial cairns along the coast, according to information in Fornminneregisteret, had watch huts inserted. During the German occupation in World War II (1940–45) too, several burial mounds and cairns along the coast, especially at Lista, were rebuilt as bunkers and artilleries as part of the Atlantic Wall. Today these constructions are reminders of World War II, although they were transformed to what may be viewed today, especially by older people, as a negative heritage. Visiting the coastline today, it is often impossible to know 5 

if some bunkers are rebuilt burial mounds or else bunkers camouflaged as burial mounds. Although burial mounds could be important natural resources for the local people, others complained about the destructions and reported finds to Oldsaksamlingen. One example is O. Sørvig, who in the 1920s chaired the severance in Vest-Agder and witnessed the changes in the landscape. He complained in 1920 and 1922 about the local peoples’ lack of interest in burial mounds: I have for a long time been aware that after a severance there is a danger that such mounds are plundered for stones to fences and so on. (...) When under severance I have found such mounds, I have pointed out to the people concerned that they should lie

Rauna/Kviljo, Farsun, Vest-Agder, ID 003808

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Destroying burial mounds untouched, but it will probably not last many years before this instruction unfortunately is forgotten.6 If each case does not prohibit the removal of such old monuments of antiquity, it will not help the already old law we have about these things. People do not know that such a law exists and – they would rather not know it. (My translation)7 Local historians also uttered strong criticism towards their fellow villagers who destroyed burial mounds. One example is Laurids Eriksson who, in the 1930s and ’40s, collected folklore from the island of Hidra in the western part of Agder, and he reported archaeological finds to Oldsaksamlingen: Here the people are mainly fisherfolk. It is my certain conviction that fishers and most inhabitants of the coast have little sense or interest in any scientific or general education, except what is needed for their nourishment or subsistence. Because of ordinary people’s ignorance, the antiquarian and archaeological research have no entry here in the district, so that age-old settlements, grave-findings, and other important antiquities are simply and crudely levelled and thrown away. (My translation)8 Although several local people, especially from the early twentieth century, worked at preserving burial mounds, archaeologists mainly came up with measures to prevent destruction. 10.3. Combating destruction The destruction of burial mounds can be seen, in some cases, as a way of improving the conditions of living, but this is obviously a problem for archaeologists since it destroys the archaeological record. For archaeologists, the destructions have often served as a testimony that local people have a low interest in the past. For instance, Anders Hagen (1921–2005) asserts in his history of Norwegian archaeology that in the first half of the nineteenth century the concern for preservation was mainly restricted to a few individuals who were officials, artists and who belonged to the middleclass. The farmers – who cultivated the land and were influenced by religious pietism that broke down old taboos – had conversely less interest in burial mounds (Hagen 1997: 57). In the nineteenth century, archaeologists also used legends to support the argument that local people were not interested in the past: they enjoyed exaggerated stories about the past and even increasingly destroyed the burial mounds to cultivate the land. Since archaeologists held a critical view towards local people, they stressed four main measures to combat destruction: archaeological excavations, legal protection, surveys and monitoring. 10.3.1. Protection through excavation (c.1870–1900) The view that local people are destroyers of the relicts of the past is communicated in several nineteenth-century reports UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Kvinesdal/Diverse II, letter of 5 January 1920 UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Kvinesdal/Rødland, letter of 2 March 1922 8   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Flekkefjord/Diverse I, undated letter (probably from the 1940s) 6  7 

by archaeologists who travelled through and excavated burial mounds in Agder. Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911) noticed that the parish of Fjære had a rich number of burial mounds, but the local people had started to use them for gravel for the roads (Nicolaysen 1876a: 204). On his visits to Lista, the archaeologically richest parish in Agder, Anders Lorange (1847–88) noticed that the soil of several burial mounds was used to improve the fields (Lorange 1878: 100). These observations present a coherent picture of the situation in Agder in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, the destructions also served as an important argument for archaeologists: they legitimized archaeological excavations and the acquisition of antiquities (section 6.5.4). Since the people were not behaving as caretakers, archaeologists should be responsible for both the construction of knowledge of the past and the protection of burial mounds. Archaeologists also aimed at educating the public about the importance of archaeological research, partly through Fortidsminneforeningen’s yearbook. These educational efforts were still limited due to the low number of members in the society, and it did not have broad public support (see section 4.3.3). For instance, of the 744 members at the fiftyyear anniversary of the society in 1894, only 5 per cent (38) lived at the countryside where the burial mounds were located. The educational effort must have been extremely limited in Agder: only 2 per cent (15) of the members came from Agder, even though archaeologists had been active there since 1871 (Fortidsminneforeningen 1894: XIX). The next generation of archaeologists complained that the dominant view at that time was that burial mounds contained something for science only so were not restored (Brøgger 1937b: 137-8). However, this view needs modification because Fortidsminneforeningen also stressed the protection of burial mounds in situ, although this had a lower priority than excavating them. For instance, Nicolaysen recommended the restoration of burial mounds after their excavation, although he realized it was often useless because several would soon be later destroyed. Nicolaysen even viewed excavation as an act of restoration, and he argued that if one followed his excavation technique, burial mounds were actually restored through excavation. One just had to finish off the work by throwing stones and gravel from the sides towards the middle, then putting the turf back on the burial mound (Nicolaysen 1874: 126). This view might explain why Nicoalysen did not write in his excavation reports from Agder that he restored the investigated burial mounds. Several mounds he excavated are also preserved today, although they have large craters and damage that indicate that Nicolaysen often did not follow his own advice. However, other archaeologists, such as Anders Lorange, Oluf Rygh (1833–99) and Th. Winther, stated that they restored some of the excavated burial mounds (Lorange 1878: 94-6, 100-01; Rygh 1879b; 1880: 23; Winther 1881a: 97-8), of which several are still preserved (cf. Larsen and Stylegar 2002: 158). Although Fortidsminneforeningen did not advocate legal protection of the burial mounds (see section 6.5.5), the society bought historical monuments and made agreements 183

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record with owners for protection. These included mainly medieval buildings and ruins, but also burial mounds and standing stones, although none in Agder (overview in Nicolaysen 1894a: 9). 10.3.2 Legal protection (1905–) With the adoption in 1905 of the first Cultural Heritage Act, burial mounds gained legal protection. The law prohibited any disturbances without consent, such as destruction, damage, interference with or removals (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §1). The 1905 law even gave the authorities the right to restore a protected site, but also stated that archaeological monuments investigated for research purposes should, if possible, be put back to their original condition (Cultural Heritage Act 1905: §5). With strong local support, selected famous burial mounds were also restored in East Norway: Gokstad (1929), Oseberg (1948) and Raknehaugen (1946–8 and later). In 1932, the area around the site of Borre was even protected as a “national park” (Trøim 1999: 81-5; Hagen 1997: 206-14). The 1905 law was, however, criticized already in 1939 by the archaeologist Sigurd Grieg (1894–1973) because it intended mainly to preserve the antiquities interred in burial mounds, and it did not see burial mounds as part of the old cultural landscape (Trøim 1999: 74, 81-4). The 1951 law therefore repeated the prohibitions in the 1905 law, but defined more precisely which disturbances were forbidden, such as digging in protected sites, but also visual disturbances including covering, concealing or disfiguring them (Cultural Heritage Act 1951: §1; Holme 2001b: 35). The 1978 law restated these precisions, of which the wording currently says:

No person shall (…) initiate any measure which is liable to damage, destroy, dig up, move, change, cover, conceal or in any other way unduly disfigure any monument or site that is automatically protected by law or to create a risk of this happening. (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §3) Compared to the 1951 law, the 1978 law strengthened the protection of the sites in the landscape as it also prohibited risks that could disturb burial mounds. The law also introduced a protected security zone of, if not otherwise delimited by the authorities, 5 m around all automatically protected sites (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §6; Holme 2001b: 62-4). Further, the concept of “unduly disfiguring” protected sites was enforced more strongly in the 1990s. While “undue disfigurement” was in the 1951 law restricted to the protected sites themselves, it currently aims at preventing enterprises outside the security zone, such as houses, roads, etc., considered by archaeologists to cause visual disturbances of the site in its surrounding (Holme 2001b: 37-8). 10.3.3 Archaeological surveys (c.1960–90) The legal protection of the burial mounds from 1905, however, did not solve the problem of destruction. Documents from Agder in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive show that the local people often ignored, or did not know, the protection law. Especially in the 1920s and ’30s, when burial mounds were disturbed, Oldsaksamlingen sent copies of the law to owners and the local police to inform them about the legal protection, but by then it was usually too late. With the increasing mechanization of agriculture after World War II, burial mounds faced a new threat and continued to be disturbed without permission.

Illus. 10.4: Restoration of burial cairn after its excavation Photo: Helge Gjessing, 1922. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo (Sangesland, Vennesla, Aust-Agder, ID 016274). 184

Destroying burial mounds Anders Hagen is one archaeologist who after World War II started to argue for a stronger monitoring of archaeological monuments and sites. Growing up in the countryside of East Norway with burial mounds on each farm, he now realized that his childhood’s “landscape of burial mounds” was to disappear (Hagen 2002: 178). Hagen then started in the late 1950s, according to his own account, a solitary offensive to educate the public about the sad protection status of monuments and sites (Hagen 2002: 176; Trøim 1999: 91-3). Hagen’s offensive resulted in 1963 in organized archaeological surveys for the Economic Maps (Trøim 1999: 93). This resulted in protected sites increasingly being considered in the planning work, which also strengthened the archaeological control and monitoring of them. A second result was the suggestion in 1967 to select 233 important monuments and sites, of which 59 sites had burial mounds, for stronger protection than the law already gave them. A public purchase of the sites was suggested as one means of better preserving these sites (Norsk kulturråd 1967). However, these efforts were too incidental, and after ten years only 7 per cent of the sites had gained special protection (Møllerup 1988: 25). 10.3.4 Monitoring but preserving old disturbances (1990–) From the second half of the 1980s, the problem of destruction encouraged research on destruction in order to improve preservation. The inherent contradiction is still that although contemporary alterations are unwelcome, older disturbances are seen as a significant part of the monuments’ and sites’ history. A report from 1986 recognized that although the adoption of the Cultural Heritage Act in 1905 had prevented much destruction, it still accelerated through the twentieth century (Bertelsen et al. 1986: 8-9). The suggested actions were mainly to strengthen the monitoring of monuments and sites, although the report also concluded that research on destruction should not only take into account the physical remains, but also the world of ideas that give life to the cultural heritage (Bertelsen et al. 1986: 30). In the 1990s, the monitoring of the preservation status of surveyed archaeological sites began. A study in 1990 of five municipalities in Oldsaksamlingen’s district showed that between c.1970 and 1985 approximately 0.4 per cent of the surveyed monuments and sites – mainly burial mounds and cairns – disappeared each year without permission (Larsen 1990). However, considering that most archaeological sites are not surveyed, partly because they are not visible above ground, the actual number could be higher. From 1997 a monitoring programme, led by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, controlled the preservation status of archaeological monuments and sites in 16 municipalities, including one in Agder (Sollund 2004). Based partly on these studies, an estimated 1 per cent of cultural heritage sites in Norway, including buildings, were destroyed each year. This led, in 2000, to the formulation of a national aim of halving the destruction by 2008 to 0.5 per cent (St.meld. nr. 8 (1999– 2000): chapter 4). Estimates still showed that, by 2004, 0.7

per cent of cultural heritage sites worthy of preservation were annually destroyed, and the national goal of halving the loss was extended to 2020 (St.meld. nr. 16 (2004-2005): 16). While the monitoring is important in order to get an overview of the losses, this approach has been criticized. For instance, it stresses mainly the outside of the cultural heritage, although this might be rational if one aims at an instrumental protection (Brattli 2006: 157). The approach is also influenced by nature conservation in the sense that monuments and sites are approached as ecological “biotopes” with a quantified stock, and not as unique objects that each represent a story (Solli 2004b). In line with these critiques, contemporary conservation ethics, which aim at considering different significances of archaeological monuments, are hardly taken into account when sites are monitored. Still, older changes can be seen as significant to preserve. For instance, a guide to the maintenance of archaeological sites, issued in 1998 by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, stressed that disturbances should in some cases be preserved, but also advised that restorations should not come into conflict with legends and traditions: There are several examples of newer disturbances that underline the special location of the site in the landscape. When war memorials, lighthouses, seamarks and burial cairns are connected to the same viewpoints, these also tell a story. (Riksantikvaren 1998a: my translation) The importance of preserving older disturbances, which corresponds with views given by a few archaeologists (e.g. Solli 1997b: 165; Aannestad 1999: 78), is still mainly because they have the quality of being “old”. Whereas contemporary alterations based on current significance are recorded as unwelcome and negative changes. In the following, two cases exemplify this inherent contradiction. In Agder, the contradiction was evident when in 1998 a young man rebuilt a Bronze Age burial cairn to resemble a fortification (Omland 2004b: 100).9 Because it had lost “its original form and meaning content”,10 archaeologists restored the cairn in 2003. Unfortunately, archaeologists in this case did not talk with the man who rebuilt the cairn; it was seen as a police case, and no one found out why he performed the act. However, the act can possibly be seen as meaningful in the sense that other people value large cairns differently from archaeologists. The act could for instance be placed in a tradition from the seventeenth century that interprets selected burial cairns along the coast as fortifications, or the stones are believed to be storages of “ammunition” to throw at the enemy ( Jensøn 1915 [1646]: 66; Möller 1797; Neumann 1842a: 130; Ström 1793: 95-6; cf. Eriksen 2002b: 303-4). In Agder, the first description that explains a burial cairn as a fortification dates to the early seventeenth century (Claussøn

  Buene, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder, ID 016529 UO top.ark., jnr. 99/1710, report of 4 August 1998, by Fylkeskonservatoren, Vest-Agder Fylkeskommune 9

10 

185

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Illus. 10.5: Burial cairn rebuilt in 1998 as a “fortification” Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Buene, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder, ID 016529).

Friis 1881 [1632]: 270, 279).11 This interpretation became a folk-belief, and can still be found in local historical sources, after it was rejected as false in the late eighteenth century by the historian Gerhard Schøning (Schøning 1910: 80, 112, 273), and later by Nicolay Nicolaysen (Nicolaysen 1874: 109; see also Brynildsen and Petersen 1913: 45; Ringstad 1987b: 45-6; Sollund 1996: 17). During the Napoleonic Wars (1807–14), burial mounds were also used as watch huts, and as bunkers during World War II (1940–45). Possibly, even the 1998 rebuilding of the cairn can be interpreted from the perspective that the image of a fortification continues to shape the perception of burial cairns. A second example is a project of reviving, on New Years Eve 1999, the custom of burning beacons. The historical background of this project is that the Norwegian King Håkon the Good (c.920–60) was given, according to Snorri, credit for organizing a communication system with beacons on mountains. These were lit at times of unrest, and allegedly it took seven nights to spread the news of danger from south to north (Snorri Sturluson 1964: Saga of Håkon the Good, chapter 20). The system was later extended and was in use until the Napoleonic Wars (1807–14). Beacons were not only constructed on mountains, but in Agder also on burial mounds (cf. Wikander 1983). A relatively common local interpretation of burial cairns, particularly through the names they were given, is that they were also beacons.   Kastellet, Eide, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017268

11

Despite being positive towards the idea of burning fires on New Years Eve, archaeologists generally did not support beacons burning on archaeological sites, since this could cause damage and the ash could pollute future radiocarbon dating. In Agder, archaeologists were involved during the planning of the celebrations, and beacons at monuments were not lit (Appel 1999). However, in the east Norwegian county of Vestfold, people with a strong interest in local history came into serious conflict with heritage managers when they decided to burn a beacon at an Iron Age hill-fort (Hansen 2000).12 The example highlights that although beacons are today seen as an important part of the history of archaeological monuments, a revival of the tradition of burning them is still seen as destructive by heritage managers. In both of these examples, older interpretations and traditions were to some extent revived, but seen as destructive by archaeologists. The cases thus indicate that contemporary interests in and uses of burial mounds, based on different significances given to burial cairns, also today are difficult to handle, even though previous changes might be seen as important parts of the monuments’ history. 10.3.5 Conclusions Measures for protecting burial mounds have mainly stressed the archaeological control over and interest in burial mounds,   Skåne søndre, Borre, Vestfold, ID 001945

12

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Destroying burial mounds but have changed focus away from mainly excavations (in the nineteenth century), to legal protection (after 1905), and surveying and monitoring them (in the 1960s and ’90s). Even though the 1990s have recognized their later uses and disturbances as part of the mounds’ life history that should be preserved, this does not seem to include contemporary uses and disturbances that are seen as destructive. Why so many burial mounds have actually been preserved without the control of archaeologists is, however, an issue seldom considered in the destruction debate, and will therefore be considered in the following sections. In the context of indigenous archaeologies, the view that archaeological sites were protected before the adoption of legal tools is used as an argument that the people had an interest in them before the advent of colonial archaeology (e.g. Ndoro and Pwiti 2001: 22-3; Ndoro 2001: 8-9; Taruvinga and Ndoro 2003: 4). The archaeologist Holtorf also raises this issue regarding the preservation of Neolithic megaliths: Archaeologists have often complained about the thousands of monuments that have disappeared during the last two centuries, but they have never asked why so many ancient monuments seem to have been preserved so well over the three, four or five millennia beforehand. Was that entirely because of a lack of heavy machinery for their destruction, or did people also feel a commitment not only to the past and their ancestors, or to future generations, but perhaps also to the stones themselves? (Holtorf 1998b: 27) Before protection was imposed with the adoption in 1905 of the Cultural Heritage Act, the local people did preserve several burial mounds without legal enforcement. Four seldom discussed factors that may have influenced both the preservation and destruction of burial mounds in Agder are therefore discussed in the following. These are the function of folklore (section10.4), Christianization (section 10.5), the effect of the Cultural Heritage Act (section 10.6), and the role of archaeological practice (section 10.7). These factors are all ambiguous: while in some cases they may have sustained preservation, they may in other cases have encouraged destruction. The four factors are mainly conceptual, but it could be that several burial mounds have been preserved for purely practical reasons too, for instance because it was not feasible to destroy them if the land could not be developed or because much labour was needed. 10.4. The function of legends and folk-beliefs This book has mainly discussed legends and folk-beliefs about burial mounds as indications that the local people have had an interest in them and given them a value. This view has been influenced by the view that the greatest threat towards archaeological monuments and sites is that they be forgotten and left as mute fossils in the landscape (Zachrisson 1997a: 36). From this perspective, legends and folk-beliefs attached to burial mounds should be one factor that increases the protection of burial mounds. In this section, this view is partly argued against: while folklore can in some cases encourage preservation, it can conversely mark them out for destruction too.

The view is often held in Norwegian archaeology, but also for instance in Denmark (Lund 1987), that folk-beliefs protected burial mounds before the adoption of a law. Several examples of folklore having this function have been referred to in chapters 6, 7 and 8. The Danish antiquarian Thomas Broderus Bircherod (1661–1731), who enquired why antiquities were destroyed in Denmark, established already in 1701 this alleged causality between beliefs and protection. Bircherod argued that burial mounds had been preserved because of superstitions, and he wrote that the various creatures that inhabited them would seek retribution if they were disturbed. Despite this protective function of the beliefs, Bircherod saw them as absurd, but regretted at the same time the consequence when they were no longer held: The last years, especially since the monks disappeared [i.e. after 1536], these absurd ideas started diminishing, but then the mounds have also been reduced in many places. (quoted from Nyerup 1806: 27, my translation; cf. Svestad 1995: 135; Aannestad 1999: 38) This mixed attitude towards such beliefs has also been present in Norwegian archaeology. Nicolay Nicolaysen was negative towards the supernatural beliefs about treasures interred in burial mounds, but he still realized they had a protective function (e.g. Nicolaysen 1874: 122, see section 7.2.2). Oluf Rygh admitted that legends in rare cases could make the monuments better known to local people (Rygh 1883: 30). In East Norway, the Reverend Reinert Svendsen – active in archaeological work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – accepted that various narratives about archaeological sites were important for keeping local interest in them, although he did not believe in the stories (Svendsen 1902). Haakon Shetelig (1911) appreciated various beliefs against desecration that he argued had preserved burial mounds up until his time (see section 8.8.3). The cases mentioned by Shetelig have since often been used as examples of the protective role of folk-beliefs (e.g. Iversen 2005: 25; Aannestad 1999: 39). Helge Gjessing (1886–1924) acknowledged what he regarded as a common belief in Setesdal that people had protected the burial mounds of the pioneers, later transformed to a supernatural creature (Gjessing 1921: 42; see also Gjessing 1920a: 182-3). Arne Skjølsvold recognized that several burial mounds had been preserved because of respect towards the dead, but also because of taboos and fear and reverence about disturbing graves (Skjølsvold 1984: 6-7). Isa Trøim writes in her study of Norwegian cultural heritage legislation that folkbeliefs preserved the monuments before the adoption of legal protection (Trøim 1999: 20). Presenting a project on the preservation of cultural heritage in North Norway, directed 1997–9 by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Tromsø, folklore is given a high value as it could encourage protection: Graves, house-sites and strange stone formations were interpreted as testimonies of the activities of the ancestors, as traces of unknown people, or as the works of gods. The traces became signs, which together with rocks, mountains and other special topographical features created an entire and cultural meaningful landscape. The landscape contained more than useful resources, it was something 187

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Feature

Number

Stop digging

16

Protected

22

Not build house

10

Farm burns

18

Fear

12

Retribution

13

Total of burial 87 mounds said to be protected Table 10.1: Number of burial mounds protected against disturbance by various beliefs Several features may refer to one burial mound.

Map 10.1: Burial mounds protected against disturbance by various beliefs Beliefs communicated about burial mounds at 87 sites in Agder

one lived not only off but also in. (Hansen and Olsen 1997: 40, my translation) Although Norwegian archaeologists have in general supported the idea that folklore can protect burial mounds, they have only seldom used this belief as an argument for preserving a certain burial mound. In Agder, the only example found in the sources is when a burial mound, believed by Oldsaksamlingen to be King Spang’s mound, in 1980 was destroyed due to development.13 The museum then accepted that its preservation could be suspended if the mound was both excavated and restored nearly at the same place: This might be an unusual case, but because Kings Spang’s mound is commemorated in the name “Spangereid”, we think this can be defended. (My translation)14 In this case, when a mound was threatened by development, the archaeologists appreciated and used the traditions in order to secure preservation, contrary to nineteenth-century archaeologists who argued against the same legend (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 274; Rygh 1880: 21). This example also indicates   Spangereid, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026937 UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Lindesnes/Diverse III, letter of 22 February 1980

13

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that although archaeologists can use folklore as an argument in support of preservation in a conflict, the value of a legend does not necessarily safeguard local interests in favour of preserving a burial mound. Conversely, while folklore may support preservation, it may also encourage local people to dig up burial mounds or mark them as scary and negative places in the landscape that should be destroyed. Therefore, legends and folk-beliefs may be seen to have had a dual role of both sustaining preservation, but also defying the beliefs by destroying burial mounds, as discussed in the following. 10.4.1. Beliefs sustaining protection In the following, six recurring motifs in folklore are discussed that may have protected burial mounds in Agder. Although most legends have probably not been trusted as actual events, they may have gained a protective function by communicating a message that one should restrain from disturbing burial mounds. All beliefs are not necessarily connected to any taboos against desecrating a grave, but may be related to the problematic act of searching for treasures more than disturbing burial mounds (see section 6.3.4). In Agder, the discussed beliefs are told about burial mounds at 87 sites (including 188

Destroying burial mounds 12 uncertain burial mounds and 9 natural mounds). Burial mounds said to be inhabited by supernatural creatures (chapter 8) may also have been protected, but are included only if any protection is definitely stated in the sources. (1) People stop digging when they find a chamber In Agder, accounts referring to 21 sites report that the local people stopped opening up burial mounds when they came to a chamber. Regarding 5 of these sites, people experienced some kind of fear when they came to a grave (see below), but 16 do not give any reason. These accounts were discussed in section 6.4.4 and are not repeated here, but it is emphasized that local people have in several cases restrained from opening up burial chambers, even when they dug burial mounds. However, it is uncertain whether this was due to a general respect for the dead or because people realized when they found a chamber that they were digging graves that were protected by law. (2) People say burial mounds are protected According to accounts told about 22 burial mounds, people have deliberately protected these for various reasons (see also section 7.4.2). Of these mounds, 8 have grown large trees, and the trees in these cases are important to protect as they are believed to be inhabited by supernatural creatures. Most famous in Agder are the tusse-trees (pines) on the farm of Sordal in Setesdal where the branches are still left on the burial mounds (see section 11.2.2).15

burial mounds is from a late seventeenth-century dictionary that states people then generally protected their vette-mounds and they did not take anything from the trees growing on them (Hannaas 1911: 62). Accounts about people protecting burial mounds are also found in sources from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but by then they were regarded as old beliefs. Other burial mounds may have been protected because they were believed to be inhabited by supernatural creatures, but these are not included in the overview if the sources do not absolutely state that it was beliefs that led people to protect them. Reasons given for the local protection of burial mounds are sparse, but it is usually because they viewed them as sacred, or due to fear of misfortune if they damaged them. For instance: “Slævdal received all his wealth from this mound. He held it as sacred and laid up a stone-fence around his part (...)” (ID 003855).16 Or: “About some old birches (…) it has been predicted that when they die, the end of the world is drawing near” (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 61). It may also be due to a general respect for the dead rather than supernatural beliefs, as in this account from the archaeological surveys of 1987: “[the informant] had heard from her father that this was a grave. One should not disturb the grave; it has been lying like this as long as she can remember”.17 Reasons for protecting burial mounds may change over time. Supernatural beliefs may have been important in one period for protecting burial mounds, as in this legend:

From Agder, the earliest account of people protecting the Sordal, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635 , interview on the farm 7 August 2002 15 

Mollohaugen, Slævdal, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003855   Reistad, Flekkefjord, Vest-Agder, ID 003751

16  17

Illus. 10.6: Protected trees growing on burial mounds These are the most famous protected trees in Agder standing on burial mounds. Supernatural creatures maybe inhabit them. See also Illus. 11.2. Photo: Atle Omland, 2002 (Sordal nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635). 189

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Earlier, folk-beliefs protected this mound. Three birches grew on it, and people respected these as sacred. No one should disturb them. Once three servants each broke sprigs from them, and the legend says that when the farmers heard this, they chased them away and afterwards the servants were struck by a serious misfortune. Another time a little boy took some of the dry sprigs that lay on the mound. An old woman, who saw this, then shouted: “My dear child, oh dear Father, you must not touch this mound, put them back again as quickly as you can!” She let the boy show her how the sprigs had been lying and put them back again as they had been. (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 96, my translation)18 However, when in the late 1960s the same burial mound was in the way of new road improvements, a man argued it should be preserved because of a legend about a king. This is also a rare example from Agder of local people arguing to preserve burial mounds because legends give them a special value compared to other mounds:

or else people could continue to live on the top of the burial mound after rendering the dead harmless by reburying the bones in the churchyard: But he did not get any peace in his house, and he regretted that he had used a burial mound as a building site. The whole house shook, the doors swung open, or if they were open they would slam shut with a rumble and bang. Then he decided to dig in the old burial mound to see if he could solve the mystery. He found some bones which he took in a bag, went to the churchyard, and buried them there. Later it was quiet in the house, and the man lived in peace until he died. (Neset 1988: 22, my translation)21 (4) People stop digging when they see the farm burn down One fear, which possibly has protected burial mounds, is the sight of a farm starting to burn when people dig for treasure. Some stories are included in Fornminneregisteret almost as historical accounts, and not as legends: In about 1910 Gustav Eriksen (now dead) dug up the cairn to find something. People at the Naglestad farm say that objects were found that prove it was a burial. They are now lost. While he was digging, he suddenly thought the houses at the farm were burning, so he gave up digging. (My translation)22

(...) this is one of those mounds that ought to be protected because a legend is attached to it. However, it is questionable whether all mounds should be protected when nothing special is connected to them, and they just look like ancient monuments. (My translation)19 (3) One shall not build house on a mound According to a migratory legend (ML 5075), people must abstain from building outbuildings on mounds because it harms the creatures living in them, usually those underground. The creatures then ask the humans to remove the house. Although these legends are told mainly about natural mounds or uncertain burial mounds, they might have prevented people from building on burial mounds too. A typical variant of the legend goes like this: One Christmas Eve, when the people at this farm were sitting eating their Christmas porridge, a stranger came in and said to the man: “Will you come with me and see how we do Christmas Eve?” They went out together, and walked into the mound. When they came in, the stranger said: “Here you can see how we have to manage. It [the dung] runs from your outbuilding and straight into our Christmas food.” So the man then moved the outbuilding. (Bergstøl 1930: 87-88, my translation)20 Accounts about 10 sites are known from Agder where people should not build on burial mounds or uncertain burial mounds. Most variants relate a prohibition against outbuildings, because of the dung that harms those underground, and a collector from Lista even argued that he never heard it said of farmhouses (Vere 1994: 163). However, according to other variants, people could experience retribution also when they built farmhouses on or close to burial mounds. The farmhouses were then moved because they burned down (Breilid 1965: 182), or were haunted (Rudjord 1980: 42; Eikeland 2003: 85),   Kollshaugen, Fuglestvedt, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015272 “Kollshaugen i Marnardal”, Sørlandet, 19 October 1968 20   Revøy, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder

In Agder, this fear is related to digs of 18 burial mounds, of which some are natural mounds locally believed to be burial mounds (see section 6.3.3). When the diggers believe they have found treasure, they see the farm burning, run to extinguish the fire, but realize it is a delusion. When they return to the mound, they see that the treasure has disappeared or the opened hole is filled up, preventing them from continuing to dig. (5) People stop digging because they get scared According to accounts told about 12 localities, people got scared when they dug up burial mounds and in most cases stopped (see section 6.3.4), e.g.: Gulaug Langbuksa was so brave on a Thursday night that he wanted to dig up a mound. He should not have done so, because he saw such terrible things after he had been digging for a while. He was glad he survived and never returned there. This must have happened before 1800. (Fiane 1989: 139, my translation)23 Although people have not necessarily believed in these legends, they still relate that danger can occur if people dig up burial mounds, just as: (6) People are punished for disturbing burial mounds or trees on them Legends and beliefs relate that punishments occur if one disturbs burial mounds (see secion 6.3.4). This threat is told   Gyberg, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder   Naglestad, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004981 23   Hurvenes, Froland, Aust-Agder, ID 0177570

18

21

19 

22

190

Destroying burial mounds about 13 burial mounds in Agder (including dubious burial mounds and some natural ones), some having sacred trees damaged, but it is also told about desecration of sacrificial stones. According to most of these accounts, people got hurt or caught an illness if they disturbed burial mounds: (...) there is a large mound that three men started to dig up, although they knew it was dangerous to do so. When they had been digging for three days one got sick and died, the second was paralysed and the third went mad. Then people were certain that there was something terrible in that mound. (Vere 1994: 243, my translation)24 People who got hurt when they dug up burial mounds could also get well by following a magic ritual: A man at Knivsland dug up an old burial mound. Then his back started to hurt so much that he had to go home and lie down. Later in the evening an old woman came to him. “Have you got any advice for this pain in the back?” he asked. “Yes, you must have been too close to the mound,” she said. “You should go to the burial mound three Thursday nights in a row and ask ‘for good’”. He did so, and every time something answered from the mound: “I know that.” The man got well. (Vere 1994: 15961, my translation)25 The threat that people could get diseases from burial mounds is not just connected to the act of disturbing them. According to a rare belief recorded in folklore collections from Agder (Bergstøl 1930: 31; 1959: 45-6; Storaker 1932: 21-2), children could get a special disease (omve) from mounds, churchyards and the sea. In order to cure the child, the mother had to find out where the disease came from and take the child to the site: If it was from the mound – from the forces under the ground – they had to take the child in early morning at dawn, when no one knew about it, and carry the child three times around a mound where those under the ground lived. (Bergstøl 1930: 31, my translation) A second punishment is that the digger loses his property if a burial mound is disturbed, although this belief is more often told about strangers who retrieve treasure from burial mounds and afterwards lose it (see section 7.5.3). According to one legend, a man nearly lost his farm because he dug up a burial mound (called a heathen mound) that was good to have on the farm: They thought it was good that there were heathen mounds at the farm. Tarkjell decided to dig up Storehaug. Then came Gunnar Nordgarden walking by. “I think it is sad that you want to disfigure your farm,” he said. “Do you think this will have any effect?” said Tarkjell.

“If you dig up these mounds, you will be as poor as the sun is warm,” said Gunnar. And so it happened for Tarkjell: he kept the farm, but no more than that. (Skar 1961 [1909]: 102, my translation)26 10.4.2 Beliefs encouraging destruction The motifs discussed in section 10.4.1 indicated that folkbeliefs may have helped protect burial mounds. However, the legends also report that people did not protect burial mounds due to a positive interest in them: they did not dare to do otherwise, just as many people today protect burial mounds mainly because they are legally obliged to. Therefore, the legends can be interpreted from the perspective that they communicate a twofold message: they warn against disturbing burial mounds, but they also tell warning stories about people who risked defying these threats. It was argued, in section 10.2.3, that the destruction of burial mounds could improve peoples’ lives, as the mounds could be a hindrance to using the natural resources. However, the legends and beliefs about protected burial mounds could prevent improvements. The accounts do not necessarily communicate that the beliefs are important, but instead a message that people feel suppressed by the beliefs and want to free themselves from both the beliefs and burial mounds if they can. That people have probably always challenged and defied such fears is evidenced by accounts of breaking into mounds in the medieval sagas, but also the later legends that describe the dangers that could harm the person digging for treasure. Some legends might even be interpreted from the perspective that they recommend that people should defy their fears and disturb burial mounds – and not that they should be preserved. People could possibly disturb burial mounds deliberately to show that they were not superstitious, and people even lost their beliefs when the trespasser was not hurt. One example is the legend about a man, born in 1750, who cut the branches of a protected tree standing on a possible burial mound: Daniel never believed in these fictional gods. And he wanted to cut the branches of the birch. Then was OldInger afraid: “God, let me never live that day!” she said, “You will hurt yourself, my son! You will lose your life!” she said. Daniel cut the birch. Then Old-Inger did lose her faith, because she saw he did not get hurt. (Skar 1961 [1903/1925]: 96; 1961 [1908]: 444-5, my translation)27 People could also defy customs, such as stopping sacrificing to burial mounds and especially trees, feeling relief when they could stop the practice. According to one legend, people stopped giving beer to the burial mound when “a servant drank the beer himself, and people noticed this did not have bad results” (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 62; Storaker 1928: 33-4).28 The importance of freeing oneself from the beliefs is Storehaug, Frøysnes, Bygland, Aust-Agder   Jordet, Valle, Aust-Agder 28   Kollshaugen, Fuglestvedt, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015272 26 

Langeland, Farsund, Vest-Agder 25   Knivsland, Farsund, Vest-Agder 24 

27

191

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record related in a legend telling of a creature which inhabited the mound visiting the humans when they did not sacrifice, but they chased it away: At Øyslebø there is a mound called Vettehaugen. On this stood a big old tree. Next to this all the men in Øyslebø used to pour a bowl of beer just before Christmas to the vette that lived there. An old man at the farm got tired of this and thought he needed the beer himself. So he stopped doing it. But that evening the vette came home with him and lay down on the doorstep of the kitchen. The vette was angry. But the man took the poker from the chimney and went up to the vette and chased it away. After this, no one saw the vette again and no one brought any more beer to it. (Storaker 1928: 35, my translation; see also Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 63)29 Other examples of people not following the beliefs are the rare accounts from the twentieth century where the creature in the mound is given a pedagogical function and is used by parents to scare children into being obedient. For instance, a troll will take the children if they do not come home in the evening (ID 004224),30 or the giants in the mound will take them if they are not kind (ID 004968).31 This threat may have had a negative effect on the perception of burial mounds, as people might have aimed at freeing themselves from both the threat and the mounds. This is supported by interviews conducted in 2001 with two women in Agder who were scared by adults when they were children in the 1970s. One informant said she used to play at a burial mound in the neighbourhood in daytime, but she did not dare after dark because she was scared of the creatures said to live in the mound. They did not like this threat, and it was probably one reason why this burial mound was marked as a negative feature in the landscape.32 10.4.3 Conclusions The cases when people defy threats, or when legends about treasures inspire them to dig up burial mounds, indicate that legends and folk-beliefs do not always protect burial mounds. Consequently, whether folklore today can be described as helping preserve burial mounds is uncertain. In North Norway, studies on local awareness about preservation of archaeological monuments and sites have also tried to find out whether knowledge about local traditions can encourage preservation, but a quantitative survey could not demonstrate any clear connection between knowledge about traditions and attitude towards protection (Bertelsen et al. 1999: 25). Interviews and talks I have had with local people and owners of burial mounds also indicate that although folklore indicates that people are aware of burial mounds, this does not necessarily secure their preservation today. The aesthetic features of the burial mounds, that they are not lying in the way, or it takes too much effort to remove them, are often more important in protecting them. Still, some people find that burial mounds with traditions attached are more special than other burial mounds. These

are the burial mounds they talk about and in some cases also want to learn more about – although this might equally be formulated as a wish to have them excavated. 10.5. Christianity The acceleration of the destruction of burial mounds in the nineteenth century has been connected with the expansion of Christian pietism in the same period (e.g. Hagen 1997: 57). In eighteenth-century Sweden, clergymen who often had strong antiquarian interests also destroyed prehistoric cup marks because the local people gave sacrifices to them (Grundberg 2000). These destructions are related to the previously discussed view that folk-beliefs may have protected archaeological monuments, but as these beliefs were considered heathen, people destroyed what they associated with non-Christian beliefs and customs. That the change of religion and ideologies has led in some contexts to the destruction, on grounds of iconoclasm, of archaeological monuments and art around the world is an established fact (Gamboni 1997). Monuments connected to one religion may further be diabolized. The British archaeologist Leslie V. Grinsell puts it like this: “the god of one religion becomes the Devil of that which replaces it” (Grinsell 1976: 20). Archaeological monuments in the UK are even connected to the devil through names and folklore (Grinsell 1976: 20-23; see also Roymans 1995: 15-17). However, as will be seen in this section, the conversion to and later changes in the Christian religion have not always encouraged destructions, and burial mounds may even be interpreted within a Christian world-view. Two particular important periods when Christianity may have influenced the protection of burial mounds in Agder are considered: (1) the early Middle Ages with the transformation from heathendom to Christianity, and (2) the influence of pietism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 10.5.1 Possible Christianization (Middle Ages) The conversion of Europe to Christianity may have caused the destruction of older sacred sites, although conversely a Christianization, or depaganizing, of the monuments might also have occurred. In Europe, one source that supports that pre-Christian monuments were Christianized is a letter written in AD 601 by Pope Gregory I (c.540–604) to Abbot Mellitus on his departure to Britain, in which he is advised not to destroy the pagan monuments: (...) we have been giving careful thought to the affairs of the English, and have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols in that country should on no account be destroyed. He is to destroy the idols, but the temples themselves are to be aspersed with holy water, altars set up, and relics enclosed in them. For if these temples are well built, they are to be purified from devil-worship, and dedicated to the service of the true God. In this way, we hope that the people, seeing that its temples are not destroyed, may abandon idolatry and resort to these places as before, and may come to know and adore the true God. (Bede 1964: 86)

  Øyslebø, Marnardal, Vest-Agder   Høyland, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004224 31   Valleheien, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 004968 32   Two interviews, 19 July 2001 29 30

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Destroying burial mounds In Europe, Neolithic megaliths are examples of the Christianization of archaeological monuments in the Middle Age as some were given Christian symbols or incorporated into Christian churches ( Johnson 1908: 132-49; Grinsell 1976: 16-20; Holtorf 1997, 1998a; 2000–05: 7.3). Other European examples support that buildings used by one religion are often reused by later religions: Roman temples became Christian churches (e.g. the Pantheon), mosques were converted to Christian churches (e.g. at Cordoba), or churches to mosques (e.g. Hagia Sophia). The possibility exists that burial mounds also in Norway were Christianized in the Middle Ages, or made harmless for the Christians. This view stresses the point that religions and ideologies are often capable of adapting, of which the process of Christianization can be analyzed in terms of syncretism and acculturation (for literature and debate see Brendalsmo 2001: 114-20). This is briefly discussed through three points, while a fourth point – breaking into burial mounds possibly according to the translatio motive – has earlier been considered (section 6.2.2), and is not repeated here. (1) Crosses are erected on burial mounds. In West Norway, about 60 crosses of stone are known to have been placed in the landscape in the early Middle Ages (Birkeli 1973: 127214), but none for certain in Agder (but see Stylegar 2001c). Legends often explain that these crosses were early meetingplaces for the Christians before a Church was built, and the saying “he does not goes to the cross or church” indicates a godless person (Bendixen 1912: 77). Some crosses are put up on burial mounds, which are in some cases termed Cross Mounds, and crosses are even carved on a few standing stones in West Norway (Birkeli 1973: 86-126). These crosses have been interpreted as a Christianization of heathen monuments and examples that monuments can be transformed from one religion to another (Solberg 2000: 315-17). (2) Inserting a cross in a burial mound. In Norway, nearly 20 leaden crosses from c.AD 12–1300 have been found, some with runic and Latin inscription, and several were inserted in older burial mounds. Most are from West Norway, but one simple cross is from Agder, found in a burial mound by Nicolay Nicolaysen, and he argued that the cross had been inserted after its construction (Nicolaysen 1878: 258).33 The act can be interpreted as an attempt to Christianize the dead, but also as a Christian protection against the dead in the burial mound (Olsen 1912: 8; Haavaldsen 1995; Knudsen 1995: 26; Sørheim 2000: 24; 2004). (3) Building churches on sites with burial mounds. Studies from several areas in Norway indicate that c.50-70 per cent of churches built in the early Middle Ages are located at, or close to, localities with burial mounds. This can support that these places had religious and political importance before the introduction of Christianity (Brendalsmo 2001: 126-7). The often-debated question in Scandinavian archaeology is whether this situation reflects cultural continuity when the Christian church took over older sacred sites. In the 1960s, the theory of such a cultural continuity was generally discredited,

but was again discussed in the 1980s and ’90s when the Christianization process was interpreted as a syncretism of religious practice (overview of discussion in Brendalsmo 2001: 123-32). The three points discussed might support a Christianization of certain burial mounds in the Middle Ages. However, only a small number of monuments, and mainly in West Norway, can have been Christianized by erecting a cross, carving crosses on standing stones, or inserting crosses in burial mounds. Building churches close to burial mounds is more common, also in Agder, where several significant sites were chosen for churches, although no estimates of these occurrences exist from Agder. Still, it is uncertain whether the correlation between church and burial mounds denotes Christianization, although it might indicate continuity of cultural and/or political power at the site. One argument against continuity is that several significant sites were not chosen for churches. Building Christian churches near burial mounds was not limited to the Middle Ages either, but continued in Agder into the twentieth century. For instance, in 1935 a church was built precisely on the site of a large burial mound that was removed.34 Even in the late 1980s, a mission house was, to the annoyance of archaeologists, built on a site with burial mounds.35 The rationale behind locating medieval and twentieth-century churches on these sites is usually explained differently: the former is interpreted as cultural continuity, while the latter indicates that the sites are as good locations today for religious or profane buildings. Nevertheless, the fact that several burial mounds did survive after the introduction of Christianity suggests that they were probably not deliberately destroyed after the conversion to Christianity, and several survived next to a church for a thousand years. Legends and folk-beliefs also indicate that burial mounds continued to have local importance: some were even interpreted within a Christian worldview in folklore recorded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 10.5.3 Interpretations from a Christian worldview (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) In Agder, six different motifs indicate that burial mounds could be interpreted from a Christian worldview. Map 10.2 gives an overview of 42 such burial mounds (one is natural), and in addition 5 stone-circles. Although several of these have been destroyed, this was not necessarily the result of pietism. In Agder, pietism had a strong influence in the nineteenth century, and the area is still one of the most Christian conservative parts of Norway where the layman movement is important (cf. Repstad and Henriksen 2005; Henriksen and Repstad 2005). Nevertheless, in the sources, the Devil is never mentioned in relation to archaeological sites, although people were aware that some burial mounds were the residues of a heathen past. In Setesdal, burial mounds could even be termed with the common name “heathen mounds” (Holm 1795a: 39;   Sandnes kirke, Haugen nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016821   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Mandal/Valand, documents from the 1980s

34

  Fjære, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017548, C8277

33

35

193

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Motif

Number

Creature Christianized

7 (including 1 nature)

Church or monastery

25 (including 3 stone-circles)

Christian worship

5

Other Christian name

6 (including 1 stone-circle)

Moved to church

4 (including 1 stone-circle)

Total of burial mounds

47 (1 nature, 5 stone-circles)

Table 10.2: Number of burial mounds interpreted from a Christian worldview

Map 10.2: Burial mounds interpreted from a Christian worldview

Skar 1961 [1907]: 232; 1961 [1909]: 11, 102). Scholars in the nineteenth century also interpreted supernatural beliefs as survivals not only of heathendom, but also of papistry (section 8.2.1). From Norway, deliberate destructions by clergymen of archaeological sites due to their apparent heathen affiliation are to my knowledge not known, although priests condemned superstitious beliefs (chapter 8), and alleged that “house-gods” should be destroyed (section 5.7). In Agder in the nineteenth century churches were also cleared of religious art that was seen as ungodly (e.g. Gundhus 2005). Priests also considered sacrifices to burial mounds, trees, stones and other features as idolatrous and condemned the practice. The most famous legend in Agder, recorded in several variants, entertainingly relates how a priest criticized the custom of sacrificing to a stone called Granne. The farm-people destroyed the stone around 1850 (Eikeland 1959: 53), when “enlightenment displaced superstition” (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 67), but not the priest who earlier had made his “sacrifice” to the stone: They told a story about one of the old Bakke-priests who travelled to the then chapel of ease, Sirdalen. He had heard

about Granne and made a detour to Oftedal. They showed him the stone and told him to sacrifice to it. “Yes, watch, I shall sacrifice!” said the priest and sat down behind the stone and untied his pants. But afterwards, he got such tummy bugs that they lasted for fourteen days and nearly made him believe in Granne. (Seland 1918: 5, my translation)36 Although pietism is one of several factors in the nineteenth century that counteracted the power of supernatural beliefs, pietism is seldom mentioned as a major reason for deliberate destructions of a given burial mound. One account only definitely ascribes the destruction of a burial mound directly to Christianity, stating briefly: There was a cairn at Rullenn in Eikjen that supposedly had been a sanctuary for the old people. The father of the narrator dismantled it, saying: “Now I am going to get rid of this old idol-cairn!” (Lunde 1924: 49, my translation)37 Furthermore, no accounts from Agder confirm that clergymen deliberately destroyed burial mounds to eradicate superstitions.   Oftedal, Sirdal, Vest-Agder   Rudlend, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder

36 37

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Destroying burial mounds

Illus. 10.7: Burial cairn at Kjørkjebakken (the Church Hill) interpreted as a church Photo: Atle Omland, 2004 (Bjerge, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 003650).

Religious convictions could however present difficulties for collecting folklore (section 8.2.3). Christianity may even have marked burial mounds as features in the landscape not worth protecting, although this is difficult to detect in the sources. Instead of diabolizing the burial mounds, several sources communicate a kind of a “Christianization” of them as they are interpreted from a Christian worldview (see Map 10.2). Christian people may also identify themselves with the pre-Christian people who lived in the parish and were interred in burial mounds. Although this “Christian” folklore often indicates that people did not know what the mounds represented, Christianity is still a pre-conception that influences the interpretation, and this is discussed in the following through six points.

creatures to be heathens, but that they longed for salvation (Skjelbred 1998: 55-6; Birkeli 1938: 121). In Agder, the legend is told about two burial mounds and one natural mound.38 The most detailed variant, probably collected in the 1870s, goes like this: At Holheim vicarage there is a mound that they call Rundhaugen. They also call it Knefallshaugen because there is an old legend that people in the heathen period sacrificed to their gods there. This mound is rather different from other places. In the past, they saw many strange happenings there. A man passed by on a dark evening. Then he saw a fire burning there, and the mound was a beautiful castle, standing on posts of gold. He heard them playing, singing, they were happy and they called out between songs: “We have hope! We have hope!” When the man had heard this for a while, he called out: “There’s no point in hoping, there is no hope for you!” Immediately it became dark on the mound, and instead of the merry song,

(1) The creature in the burial mound is Christianized Accounts about 7 burial mounds (one natural) relate how the supernatural creature dwelling in burial mounds could in various ways be Christianized. One example is a stereotypical migratory legend (ML 5050) that says that people held the

  Lista, Farsund, Vest-Agder; Holmegård, Mandal, Vest-Agder; Melhauen, Homstøldalen, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder 38

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record they cried and moaned because of what the man had said, as he had dispelled their hope. The man went to the priest and told him about it (...). The priest said: “You should not do that. Now you must hurry back and tell them that they can hope and that hope will comfort and save them.” The man went back to the mound and said the words the priest had recommended. Then it became joyful on the mound again. They lit a fire, played and sang merry songs about their hope during the long, dark night. (My translation)39 According to other legends, people said “God’s peace in the mound” when they sacrificed to burial mounds (Storaker and Fuglestvedt 1881: 63).40 Other accounts use Christian terms to describe various features connected to supernatural creatures. For instance, one burial mound is called Trollkirka (the Troll Church),41 a hill with a structure interpreted in several sources as a burial mound is supposed to be the church of those underground (Rudjord 1992: 590).42

Brendalsmo and Stylegar 2003; Stylegar 2001a; Bertelsen 2002). Still, the legend about the disputed church is in most cases an origin legend that explains unknown structures of burial cairns or stone-circles with the more familiar churches. This connection between burial mounds and churches makes it thus less likely that they were destroyed because of pietism. (3) Burial mounds are interpreted as places of early Christian worship In section 10.5.1, erecting a cross was discussed as a possible Christianization of burial mounds in the Middle Ages. Such crosses are not known in Agder, but legends about crosses erected on burial mounds still indicate, together with names such as Krosshaug (Cross Mound), that 5 burial mounds locally may have been interpreted as places of early Christian worship. These accounts are all vague, but the collector of the following story aims at giving it authority by referring to the informant who is as an old and trustworthy man: In my youth, many years ago [in 1914] we went on the 17th of May [Norwegian national day] parade from Birkeland to Hægebostad church. Ola sergeant directed the parade. (...) On the way back, Ola sergeant stopped north of the church, where the burial mounds are. He asked the assembly to stand up on the two biggest mounds, and he himself stood on the small mound in the middle. From there he spoke to the audience, and said: “Here where I stand is the old sanctuary of Hægebostad. Here on this mound stood a cross before we got the church in the parish. People who wanted to marry had first to go to the cross on the Cross Mound and give proof of their faithfulness. Later they could get married in a church. But it was a long way there and hard to cross the uplands, especially in winter.” Ola sergeant also said that there was an old saying in the parish about the cross on the Cross Mound. When a nice girl wanted get married, a “smart” girl as the parish-people used to say, it was said: “Yes, this is a girl one can go with both to the cross and to church.” There was no better testimony a girl could get. (Neset 1988: 48-9, my translation)43

(2) Burial cairns are interpreted as remnants of churches or monasteries In Agder, 22 burial mounds and also 3 Iron Age stone-circles are interpreted as remnants of churches or monasteries, and they – or the locality – may have names compounded with church, monk or monastery. Such names are common in several parts of Norway, and archaeologists have noticed that burial cairns especially may be wrongly named after or linked with monks (Brynildsen and Petersen 1913: 45; Fett 1953-7: 363; Hougen 1932: 17; Shetelig 1930: 65; Sollund 1996: 16). The sites usually get these Christian names because people interpret unfamiliar structures according to what they find familiar, but also distant, such as monasteries and Roman Catholic monks. However, the names also indicate that people have connected burial mounds to the otherworld. Some of these interpretations are connected to a stereotypical migratory legend of the disputed church (ML 7060): an origin legend that explains the present location of the parish church. According to the legend, people started to build the church, but supernatural forces then moved the building-materials at night to the present site, and the burial cairns or stone-circles are believed to be remnants of the unfinished church. Archaeologists have been well aware of this legend about the disputed church, and Nicolaysen argued strongly against the legend when he encountered it in Agder (Nicolaysen 1871b: 149; 1886: 154). However, from the 1990s, archaeologists have used names and legends that refer to churches as indicators that there really has been a Christian building at some of these sites in Agder, and other places of Norway, in the Middle Ages (Brendalsmo 2001: 53-4, 60-61; 2002a: 63-6; 2002b;   Norsk Folkeminnesamling, Moltke Moe 101, pp 14-15. See also Osmundsen (1880: 14-15) and Norsk Folkeminnesamling, Knut Liestøl VII, pp. 48-50 40   Helle, Audnedal, Vest-Agder; Øyslebø, Marnardal, Vest-Agder 41   Sunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004263 42   Lunderhaug, Vanse prestegård, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003938 39

Another Cross Mound is named after monks, Munkehaug (Monk Mound). In folklore, this name has been explained as denoting the burial place of a monk, and according to the legend the mound had a cross on its top and was used for Christian worship (Blom 1896: 131; Skar 1961 [1909]: 12).44 However, this association with monks is possibly based on folk-etymology (Åkre et al. 1983: 349), but the example still shows that burial mounds through legends and beliefs may be interpreted as places for early Christian worship. (4) Burial mounds are given other Christian names A total of 5 burial mounds, and in addition 1 stone-circle, are given Christian names, although they are not necessarily believed to be Christian structures. One example is Alterringen (the Altar Rail) because the burial mound reminds one of this feature in a church.45 The names Bedehaug or Bønehaug   Krosshaugen, Hægebostad prestegård, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004861   Munkehaug/Krosshaug, Nomeland, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014359 45   Alterringen, Åmot, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder 43 44

196

Destroying burial mounds

Illus. 10.8: Artist’s reconstruction of monks worshipping at Krosshaug/Munkehaug Drawing: Olav Bjørgum (reproduced from Ryningen 1987: 675, Nomeland, Valle, Aust-Agder, ID 014359).

Illus. 10.9: A grave moved to a rectory The grave was excavated in 1967, moved twice, and is currently displayed at the old rectory, used as a cultural centre, next to the old parish-church. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Søgne prestegård, Søgne, Vest-Agder).

197

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record (Prayer Mound) refer presumably in most cases to a belief that the mounds had a religious importance for the heathens, but are also examples that Christian terms are used to suggest the religious significance of burial mounds.46 (5) Burial chambers are moved to churches In the twentieth century, 3 pre-Christian burial chambers, and in addition 1 triangular stone-circle, were after archaeological excavations moved for display and preservation to churchyards or close to churches. Rightly enough, archaeologists moved two of these graves, but this might have strengthened local identification with the pre-Christian past. Both the burials and the churches represent something “old” that is important for the local identity. The churches are also centrally located in a parish, significant public buildings, and good sites to display old things even when these have pre-Christian affiliation. (6) Christian people identify themselves with the past and with heathen people A sixth feature, not shown in the overview in Map 10.2, is that writers of local historical literature often identify themselves with the pre-Christian past, even though they might be active in the Norwegian Lutheran State Church or in the conservative lay-movement. In parts of this literature, burial mounds serve as an important source of identity connected to the pre-Christian period. For instance, celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of a church in 1965, a song written in 1907 about a burial mound (Illus. 9.6) introduced the festschrift (Herefoss Sokneråd 1965: 8-10).47 The song describes the mound as the burial place of a local chief and his men who died in battle when, in the early eleventh century, St Olaf converted the parish to Christianity. Although the heathen period later in the book is described as dark, and joy is expressed that Christianity finally came to the parish (Herefoss Sokneråd 1965: 13), the local chief is described positively in the song and given sympathy: he was like a father to the people and he strongly resisted St Olaf. 10.5.3 Conclusions The examples discussed support the argument that although burial mounds were constructed in a pre-Christian period, indications can be found in the sources that some have been interpreted within a Christian worldview. Several burial mounds are not seen as heathen, and people even ascribed them to Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church. However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries some Lutherans and pietists regarded Catholicism almost as a non-Christian confession. Nevertheless, the Christian interpretation did not necessarily protect burial mounds, as several of these have been destroyed. Although burial mounds could be interpreted within a Christian worldview, some were possibly destroyed because Christian pietism generally weakened the respect previously given them.

10.6. The Cultural Heritage Act As a third factor, we shall explore to what extent the Cultural Heritage Act, adopted in 1905, has protected burial mounds. From one perspective, the law replaced the function of supernatural beliefs that in some cases could have protected burial mounds. Burial mounds were now associated with a new fear: the threat of restrictions on a property and punishment from archaeologists if they were disturbed. Unlike the heritage managers working for the protection of post-medieval structures, archaeologists were not forced to initiate dialogues on how to solve conflicts, but could use as their strongest argument that the law gives automatic protection to burial mounds. In the twentieth century, people were nevertheless only seldom sued for disturbing them, but prosecution of environmental criminality was strengthened with an amendment of 1993 to the Penalty Act (§152 b). This made it possible to give a six-year penalty for serious destruction of cultural heritage sites of national or international importance (Holme 2001a: 216). The argument explored here, however, is that the law can have had a dual function (similar to folklore): it can sustain the protection of burial mounds, but also in certain cases encourage their destruction. The argument is developed by exploring the role of conflicts between archaeologists and local people after the adoption of the law. Two factors are considered: (1) local resistance to reporting finds, and (2) the role of conflicts over preservation. 10.6.1 People fail to report finds One possible adverse effect of the Cultural Heritage Act is that people failed to report finds after the adoption of the law. This possible consequence of the law has increasingly been reflected on, for instance by the archaeologist Frode Iversen hundred years after its adoption. Researching frequencies of reports of finds in the municipality of Etne, West Norway, Iversen argues that several burials were silently removed after the adoption of the law, unlike earlier when people were rewarded by the museum when they reported finds (Iversen 2005). Failing to report finds may be due to resistance towards state ownership of the finds, as discussed in chapter 7. The cases considered here are, however, mainly due to the fear of protection of private property, or anxiety about reprisals for having disturbed a burial mound. That such fears may be true is considered in 2005 by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, with the suggestion that people should get within a given period amnesty for reporting finds.48 The use of the term “amnesty” intimates a potential punishment for not reporting finds. Therefore, not surprisingly, a major national newspaper surmised in a feature article of September 2006 the resistance and fear of farmers about reporting archaeological finds.49 The Directorate for Cultural Heritage countered the article by arguing that most fears expressed by the anonymous informants in the article were unfounded.50 The article and   ”Amnesti for fornminner”, Fædrelandsvennen, 29 March 2005 ”Trusler fra fortiden”, A-magasinet [Aftenposten], 1 September 2006 50  ”Ingen økonomisk trussel”, Aftenposten, 18 September 2006 (comment by Nils Marstein, the Director General of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage) 48

E.g., Vemestad øvre, Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004815; Langeid øvre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016645 47  Kjempehaugen, Herefoss, Birkenes, Aust-Agder, ID 017190 46 

49 

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Destroying burial mounds the subsequent letters to the editor still document that the current unwillingness for reporting finds was connected with a contemporary “folk-belief ”: people feared they would have to pay for excavations or stronger protection of their land if they reported finds. This fear of reporting finds is present in documents held in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive. For instance, a man who in 1973 visited a farm in Agder witnessed the destruction of a burial mound when its gravel was utilized. He brought the finds to Oldsaksamlingen, but restrained from giving the exact location of the burial mound because, as the archaeologist afterwards wrote in the report, he “emphasized all the time that the people were so afraid for us. This might mean, and I think it meant, that they knew what they did”.51 Newspapers also express resistance towards reporting finds due to fear of protection of the land. In an otherwise positive article about a large archaeological excavation of burial mounds in Agder in 1978, the article concluded with a negative remark: Several landowners disapprove of the restrictions because of the monuments and sites. Let us finally include a remark we heard from one of those who felt personally what restrictions mean for him. “From now on a find will never be reported, instead one throws it out with the rubbish because otherwise restrictions will be imposed on the whole property”. (My translation) 52 During fieldwork conducted in Agder, I too heard accounts from informants that people do not report finds, but in some cases destroy or hide them to avoid attention from archaeologists. The informants usually say this is a general view held in the parish, but not by them, although they occasionally can – or are willing to – give examples. One example only was given in an interview conducted in 2001. The interviewee told me about a former project in the parish of collecting local place-names. One collector then realized that several names – that referred to archaeological sites – could cause restrictions on properties in the parish, so allegedly he chose to burn these records. To what extent deliberate destruction is common to avoid archaeologists is still uncertain, and might be less frequent than are the rumours. Although some incidents certainly have taken place, and still do, accounts that people hide finds might as well have become a contemporary “legend” with the purpose of communicating opposition towards preservation enforced by archaeologists. From this perspective, accounts that people destroy finds will be seen not always as actual evidence of destructions, but as contemporary “archaeologist-lore” that conveys a protest against the current practice of protection. 10.6.2 The role of conflicts about preservation The role of conflicts about preservation is a central issue for assessing the adverse effects of preservation through the   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Kvinesdal/Opofte, document of 26 July 1973   ”Arkeologiske utgravninger på Lindesnes”, Dagbladet Sørlandet, 23 June 1978 51 52

Cultural Heritage Act. The archaeologist Grete Lillehammer emphasizes that much contact between archaeologists and landowners is through conflicts. According to this view, conflict is an important medium of contact; a lesson Lillehammer learned already in the late 1960s when she as a young student of archaeology in Oslo carried out surveys in Agder (Lillehammer 2004: 20-21). Influenced by these experiences, Lillehammer describes in her research from the county of Rogaland the cultural landscape as the meeting place of tensions between archaeologists and farmers who both view themselves as managers: the former of the cultural heritage and the second of the land (Lillehammer and Prøsch-Danielsen 2001; Lillehammer 2004). Conflicts between archaeologists and local people in Agder are documented in the correspondence kept in Oldsaksamlingen’s archive. Newspaper articles are also important sources. From Agder, the sources indicate that conflicts about preservation between archaeologists and local people became more tense from the 1960s until the ’80s. Archaeological control then became tighter as preservation in situ was favoured, and increasingly burial mounds were taken into consideration in planning work. These conflicts were often necessary in order to preserve burial mounds at a time of large developments, but the possibility also exists that the tensions could cause negative public opinion towards archaeologists. A general more positive view towards archaeological protection seems to be present, however, from the 1990s, which coincides with a period of stronger environmental awareness, and newspapers now treat the transgressors of the Cultural Heritage Act in a negative light. One example of a conflict is when, in 1972, a man at Lista illegally built his house on a burial site, and it caused so much local upset that archaeologists considered prosecuting the transgressor. The conflict attracted national newspapers to the parish, aiming to protect “the little man” from the authorities, and one man stated: It is my opinion that the authorities give too much priority to those who lived here a thousand years ago compared to we who live here now. And when they send police after an unsuspecting house-builder, then the archaeologists walk on the top of the paragraphs so that they crack. We are a subservient people, – but eventually this can break us. There must be a limit, he claims. And many concur. (My translation)53 These views are, however, not necessarily representative of views held locally, and in this case Oldsaksamlingen complained that the newspaper focused mainly on negative attitudes and ignored several local interests.54 Still, the fact that several newspapers stressed conflicts and opposition towards archaeologists might have had the effect of encouraging stronger local resistance against protection. A fiercer conflict surrounded the restoration during the 1970s and ’80s of the burial mounds at the farm of Lunde at Lista.   ”Bygde sitt hus på oldtidsgrav. Listas beboere raser mot arkeologene”, Dagbladet, 3 July 1972 54  UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Hananger, letter 4 July 1972 to Dagbladet 53

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record This case is discussed in the following in order to assess the role of preservation conflicts and possible adverse effects of the Cultural Heritage Act.55 The case is chosen because it is the strongest preservation conflict that has taken place in Agder, while in this period tensions at Lista between archaeologists and local people were also generally strong. The conflict was not managed through mutual dialogue, and the Cultural Heritage Act was strongly cited to favour the archaeological significance of the site. Interviewing people in the parish in 2001, the protection and restoration were even then considered negatively, and the conflict may have had the adverse effect of encouraging stronger negative views locally towards archaeologists and what was seen as unsound protection. In 1743, a burial mound at the site was the object of possibly the first excavation in Norway (section 6.5.2), a second excavation by Anders Lorange in 1877 (section 6.5.4), and in 1906 a third minor investigation by A. W. Brøgger. The excavations yielded rich finds from the early Iron Age, but despite the archaeological significance, the burial mounds were not restored after the excavations, but left in a ruined state. Locally, the burial mounds had mainly an economic importance as the owners took gravel from them. Different values were still given them, which are expressed in an unusual discussion in 1931 in the municipality council, as to whether the owner should be allowed to continue his utilization. Some council members supported that the main value of the burial mounds was economic, as they contained gravel, and these members even argued that archaeological excavations had destroyed the cultural value of the mounds. A majority of the members still supported the view, as held by archaeologists, that the mounds continued to have a cultural value, and they advised that the owner should not be given permission to take gravel.56 Although the local council in 1931 supported preservation, the protection conflict prevailed and escalated after the suggestion in 1967 that the site, with its surroundings, should receive stronger protection due to its archaeological significance (Norsk kulturråd 1967). Oldsaksamlingen then proposed to protect a larger area around the site, but also to restore the burial mounds, and such a restoration was believed to strengthen the local reputation of the museum.57 This assumption was, however, a gross mistake although Oldsaksamlingen had earlier restored large burial mounds in East Norway because of strong local interests (Hagen 1997: 206-14; Trøim 1999: 81-5). After World War II, people at Lista had also restored archaeological sites, e.g. by erecting fallen standing stones,58 but the restoration of these burial mounds generally caused fierce resistance, although a local historian strongly supported preservation and restoration.59

summarized through the following five points. Differing views about disfigurement of the site. After the burial mounds had been excavated, several houses were built close to the site that would be visually affected by restoration. A tarred road to one of the houses, which went through the site, would have to be removed and trees be cut down that were planted by the house owners as protection against the wind. One owner also wanted to build a motel close to the site, but was not given permission. Archaeologists saw these developments as disfigurement of the site, and they even expressed hopes that these houses would one day be demolished.60 However, the house owners argued that the restored burial mounds would disfigure the houses: the houses were less protected from the wind if the trees were cut down, and the restored burial mounds would distort their view. In a newspaper in 1985, one owner stated this view on how the burial mounds would disfigure his home: It seems that Oldsaksamlingen can disfigure as they will – no authority can stop them. Most of these burial mounds lie on my property. I have told them they can take the mounds with them, and I would like to see them set up in their gardens so that they had something to look at. The burial mounds have a diameter of 20 m and they are 3.5 to 4 m high. (My translation)61 Disputes about which burial mounds were protected and which should be restored. On 12 December 1968, due to the favourable light on this day, archaeologists discovered a severely damaged burial mound at a site where they had not seen it before.62 While it was supposed to be restored, the owner argued it did not have legal protection because – if it was a burial mound – it was hardly visible and had been destroyed by earlier archaeological excavations.63 Oldsaksamlingen then proclaimed its right to restore the burial mound according to the Cultural Heritage Act of 1951 (§7).64 In 1971, the museum even gained support from a court decision that the feature was a burial mound that should be restored.65 Various perceptions of significance of the burial mounds. Archaeologists stressed the view that burial mounds had value as monuments, but this view gained less local support because people argued they had been emptied for their content. Locally, the six burial mounds restored between 1972 and 1986 were therefore seen as “fakes” that would deceive future generations about what the burial mounds had looked like. In 1974, a man living next to the site even threatened to place a “warning sign” at a burial mound, stating: These burial mounds are reconstructed. They have absolutely nothing to do with cultural value. More information provided here. (My translation)66

The case gives some insight into differing values that can be bestowed on a burial site, causing local protest that can be

  UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, letter of 21 April 1982, p. 3   ”Eiendommen forringes grunnet gravhaugene”, Farsunds Avis, 8 May 1985 62   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, report of 13 December 1968 63   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, Ankeerklæring til Høyesterett, 7 August 1971 64  UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, letter of 3 December 1975 65   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, Agder Lagmannsrett, 2 June 1971, Ankeerklæring til Høyesterett, 7 August 1971 66   ”Lundefeltet på Lista ryddes og restaureres: Oldsaksfolk: Kulturtiltak. 60

  Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173 56   ”Lista herredsstyre. Møte 9. novbr. 1931”, Lister, 18 and 20 November 1931 57   UO top.ark., Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, report of 5 April 1968 58   E.g. Vanen at Vere midtre (ID 003953), and Piggsteinen at Nordberg (ID 004001) 59   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Farsund/Lunde, letter of 21 February 1968 to Oldsaksamlingen, and also several newspaper articles during the preservation conflict 55

61

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Destroying burial mounds Today one can park next to the site, climb the burial mounds, and the local people even got their foot- and cycle-path. The site, however, is mainly deserted and is now partly overgrown. There is no board on the site to provide visitors with information, although in the early 1990s an obscure board was set up some hundred meters away that gave information about the area as a whole. While the restoration in 1968 was supposed to enhance the local reputation of Oldsaksamlingen, by showing that it took the preservation of burial mounds seriously, on the contrary, Illus. 10.10: Parents and children demonstrate against the protection of burial even today, the burial mounds mounds serve as reminders in the landscape Facsimile of VG, 31 October 1983 (Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173). of the strong conflict between archaeologists and local people around their opposing views of Who shall be protected. The restoration brought up issues about the significance of the site. whom it was important to protect: the dead or the living. In 1983, when a planned foot- and cycle-path became difficult to authorize because of the site, people used the argument that archaeologists protected the dead more than the living. Therefore parents organized a demonstration march to secure the school road, which caused strong headlines in the newspapers: • More important to protect the dead than the living? (Farsunds Avis, 23 September 1983) • Death road due to burial mound (VG, 31 October 1983) • Are buried Vikings more important than the safety of our schoolchildren? (Fædrelandsvennen, 17 November 1983) For whom were the burial mounds restored. Although the local people and newspapers questioned the preservation and restoration of the site, the local interest was aired that information about the burial mounds should be displayed at the site. For instance, during the restoration in 1986, the local newspaper requested that a board be set up. The archaeologist then in charge promised that a board would in the future be erected, and the site would be made into a park, with parking space and benches. Although the restoration project as such aimed at benefitting the local people and other visitors, a board was still problematic, and the restoration seemed to take precedence for the archaeologists. Even considering the costs of restoration, and the major physical alterations entailed at the site, the archaeologist was quoted in the newspaper: It [the board] costs money. Besides, it is not easy to set up a board since the whole area is protected (…). (My translation)67

Vandalisme, svarer nabo”, Fædrelandsvennen, 26 June 1974 67  ”Gravhaugene på Lunde blir stadig større”, Farsunds Avis, 27 August 1986

Illus. 10.11: Restoration of the burial mounds at Lunde Photo: Per Oscar Nybruget, 1986. © Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo (Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173). Conducting interviews in the parish in 2001, the dominant view about the restoration was still negative. Some people viewed the burial mounds as fakes, and they laughed that under one of them are the remains of a tarred road that used to lead to one of the houses. Others preferred the appearance of the ruined mounds before their restoration, overgrown with trees and with traces of disturbance, wear and tear. The burial mounds still have local importance as the children nearby use the slopes for sledging (but did not know they were burial mounds). In 1989 women in the area even started to use one burial mound as their annual meeting place on May 1 (see section 11.2.4). An interest in the site was also apparent as people I talked to requested more information about it, especially asking that a board should be set up. One neighbour also requested more cooperation with archaeologists in the restoration process, although she had been granted one of her wishes:

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record They were worn down in some places, but you could still see they were burial mounds. And there were several trees. My mound had thirteen. (…) There were five mounds altogether, though there should be six according to the old map by Lorange. They did not inform us neighbours, because I do not own much land, but there came several lorries and diggers and some men who cut down the trees. I was walking with my dog and was alarmed: what are you doing, cutting down the trees? Where shall I now go to walk my dog? (…) Well, we shall save one tree for you. And there is one tree left there. (My translation)68 10.6.3Conclusions We cannot confirm that the Cultural Heritage Act, in giving automatic protection to burial mounds, also encouraged destruction because it made people desist from reporting finds, or because it caused preservation conflicts between archaeologists and local people. Nevertheless, through these conflicts, archaeologists did strengthen their role of being experts from Oslo who could enforce what several could see as unsound decisions because the law, more than mutual dialogue, became the means to ensure protection. Although the case of Lunde is unusual, it is one of several tense conflicts in the 1970s and ’80s that may have caused stronger hostility towards archaeologists. 10.7. Archaeological practice To what extent archaeological practice may have encouraged the destruction of burial mounds is discussed as a fourth issue, and this is also related to the above consideration of the law. This point recognizes that the archaeological significance given to monuments and sites may, in extreme cases, reverse the effects by encouraging destruction, as was claimed by the art historian Dario Gamboni, an expert on iconoclasm: The history of iconoclasm shows abundantly that the act of symbolizing – tying certain objects to certain values – sometimes has contradictory effects. It recommends certain objects to the care of those who share these values but attracts the aggression of those who reject them or who feel rejected by them. (Gamboni 2001: 11) Gamboni discusses the problem of cultural heritage targeted during war, especially in internal conflicts. Although these cases are extreme, his reflection is relevant also when archaeologists and local people give differing values to archaeological sites. In Norway during the 1990s, the question was raised as to whether archaeological practice affected local interests in preservation. For instance, the initial consideration of a research project in North Norway questioned whether the emergence of the professional authority of archaeologists and cultural heritage managers – responsible for both interpretation and preservation – could be one factor that caused local people to feel alienated from the value and meaning of their cultural heritage (Hansen and Olsen 1997: 42). Earlier, I have suggested that the massive archaeological excavations of burial 68 

Interview, 19 July 2001

mounds in the late nineteenth century broke with beliefs that earlier had prevented their disturbance, and encouraged local destructions (Omland 1999: 92-5). To trace any clear causality between archaeological practice and local resistance towards preservation is difficult. For instance, a quantitative survey among the public in North Norway could not establish any relationship between the expert interests and local attitudes to preservation (Bertelsen et al. 1999: 25). During the research for this book, the question was also given less emphasis, although I have also earlier considered possible adverse effects on preservation due to conflicts between archaeologists and local people (Omland 2002: 36). Although any causality between archaeological practice and local attitudes towards preservation is difficult to trace, various factors might indicate that the role of archaeology might have negatively affected local attitudes towards preservation. The argument is developed through five considerations. 10.7.1 Archaeologists oppose legends and folk-beliefs Archaeologists, especially in the nineteenth century, opposed folklore and folk-beliefs about burial mounds. These narratives were not necessarily found credible and, as discussed in section 10.4, it is uncertain to what extent folklore in the nineteenth century did protect burial mounds. Nevertheless, these narratives marked out the burial mounds in the consciousness of the local people, and as special features in the landscape, and often they represented the main local knowledge that archaeologists decided to resist. Nicolay Nicolaysen was the most explicit objector against folklore, but other archaeologists challenged folk-beliefs about burial mounds too. For instance, prior to the excavations in the late nineteenth century, local people had preserved several burial mounds, but the reasons are seldom stated in the archaeological reports (see sections 7.3 and 7.4.). From Agder, only Anders Lorange writes that legends and superstitions prior to his excavations had helped preserve two mounds (Lorange 1878: 95; 1880a: 233),69 and possibly a third (Lorange 1878: 95).70 These beliefs did not prevent Lorange from excavating; on the contrary, the burial mounds had even stronger archaeological interest because they were undisturbed. Interestingly, after the excavation Lorange restored these three burial mounds, possibly because of their local importance, and they are still preserved. Considering in addition the few objections against excavating burial mounds, but also against collecting antiquities (chapter 7), and supernatural beliefs surrounding several burial mounds (chapters 6.3 and 8), some large-scale excavations in the nineteenth century might have impressed the local people as they progressed with no incidents, showing that digging up burial mounds was a harmless activity. 10.7.2 Burial mounds as repositories for antiquities In the nineteenth century, the massive excavations implied that the main importance of burial mounds was their content.   Svarthaugen, Dyngvold, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003927; Ringhaugen, Strisland, Audnedal, Vest-Agder, ID 015124 70   Sverreshaugen, Hauge østre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004161 69

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Destroying burial mounds Although their value as monuments could be acknowledged too, the excavations probably influenced the local perception of the burial mounds: they functioned mainly as repositories for antiquities. That burial mounds are mainly repositories for antiquities is one view I have currently heard from non-archaeologists who do not understand why burial mounds lie unexcavated in the landscape. They want them to be investigated to find out what is in them and to learn more about the past. However, in the nineteenth century Nicolaysen was sometimes asked why one should excavate burial mounds. He argued they had to be excavated because museums needed more antiquities and it would rescue the objects from later dangers (Nicolaysen 1874: 122). However today archaeologists want to preserve burial mounds as monuments, while non-archaeologists often want them excavated, or they see those emptied for their content as valueless and do not see any reason to preserve them. The conflict over preserving the site at Lunde (section 10.6.2) indicates that earlier excavations are one factor that can reduce the local value. The argument that burial mounds have a value mainly as depositories for antiquities is even held in applications from owners for permission to remove or reuse burial mounds. In 1926, a farmer argued that it would not destroy the cultural value if he took soil from a burial mound to cultivate his land.71 In 1983, another farmer asked to remove the burial mound to get better access for his machines. When he was not given permission, he asked to remove the top only as this would not do any harm to the burial mound.72 In 1965, an owner argued that his burial mounds, excavated in 1878 by Oluf Rygh, hindered access to his house and they were valueless: All the burial mounds were excavated in the 1880s [sic.], so it is my opinion that they no longer have any value. (My translation)73 Concerning a burial mound at Lista, damaged severely during World War II, the female owner in her 30s stated to me in 2001 that it was only a heap of soil: If it had been a nice burial mound (...), then I would think it was good to look at and something to take care of. I think there is nothing left of what was there originally. It tells me nothing. It is just as if you had tipped out a heap of stones (...). (My translation) 10.7.3 Archaeologists were part of the modernization process Today, archaeologists may regret the destructions of burial mounds in the nineteenth century, perhaps even that supernatural beliefs lost their importance. The paradox is, however, that the development of archaeology as a modern and scientific discipline was dependent on these changes taking place, which enabled the establishment of an organized cultural heritage protection plan that aimed at rescuing what was lost (cf. Bertelsen et al. 2001: 86).   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Kvinesdal/Eigeland øvre, letters 1926-37   UO top.ark. Aust-Agder/Valle/Rysstad I, letters 1983 73   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Mandal/Bringsdal, report 17 June 1965 71 72

Hence, archaeology was an inevitable part of the same modernization process that stimulated the destruction of burial mounds. These changes also made the large-scale excavations of burial mounds possible and gave researchers access to a massive archaeological record. The modernization in the nineteenth century, and its effects on archaeological research, are thus comparable to the large archaeological rescue projects in Norway after World War II that retrieved new kinds of archaeological material, such as Stone Age settlements or iron production sites. 10.7.4 Nationalization and the role of the authorities Excavations in the nineteenth century, and legal protection from the twentieth century, came about because archaeologists believed that burial mounds, with their content, belonged to the nation as represented by the archaeologists. Archaeologists now became experts with responsibility for both research and management of the archaeological record. Local people could object, however, that archaeologists were endowed with the role of being experts, even if they themselves were interested in archaeology and supported protection. For instance, in 1970 a man from Lista wrote several letters to the newspapers in which he objected to archaeologists who did not take preservation seriously enough. He complained that Oldsaksamlingen, according to many people, “had for a long time shown insufficient respect for monuments and sites here in the district”. He therefore requested the ministry to deprive Oldsaksamlingen of the right to protect the sites because “we cannot afford to lose any more”.74 Confusingly, the man also objected to several instances where Oldsaksamlingen had actually tried to preserve archaeological sites in the parish, and he regretted that these hindered local development. How can this seeming contradiction be understood? The protest may be interpreted as opposition towards the authority of archaeologists who are not obliged to consider local interests. This situation causes objections against the authorities when they try to carry out preservation, but also disapproval if archaeologists do not do enough to preserve sites of local importance. Although both archaeologists and local people support preservation, archaeologists have become the authorities who make the decisions that cause local protests, and one can question to what extent this sustains local preservation. 10.7.5 Burial mounds belong to academia When, after 1905, archaeologists became the keepers of the burial mounds, these now belonged to the domain of academia as represented mainly by the university archaeological museums. Although the burial mounds as such became nationalized – and belonged to everyone – excavations and preservation had the purpose of securing the archaeological record as source material mainly for archaeological research. Hence archaeological significance, and not locally held values, was what was important for management.   “Fortidslevninger”, Fædrelandsvennen, 23 May 1970; see also “Oldtidsminner og Oldsaksamlinga”, Farsunds Avis, May 23, 1970 and “Oldtidskulturminner”, Fædrelandsvennen, 18 June 1970. 74

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record However, in 1990, the role of the archaeological museums was weakened when the counties were formalized as part of the management of the archaeological record, but also for a second time in 2001, when permission to release the protection of an archaeological site became the province of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage. Although the managers at these institutions are archaeologists, decentralization aimed at better incorporating different interests, and the record should really be managed not primarily as a research source for academia, but also for public enjoyment (cf. 1992 amendment of Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §1). 10.7.6 Conclusions None of the above five factors indicate that archaeological practice encouraged destruction. One objection – as also Iversen (2005: 33) points out – is the contrafactual question of what would have happened if the law had not been adopted, or if the discipline of archaeology had not emerged? This question is not discussed further, but taking the large destructions that are documented to have occurred, both the law and archaeological practice have doubtless been important for preservation. Nevertheless, the – I am inclined to say – obvious fact that the law and archaeological practice have actually prevented destructions and in several cases supported preservation, still makes it important to consider possible adverse effects. Therefore, the main argument put forward is the following. Locally told narratives, as expressed through legends and folk-beliefs, have represented images of burial mounds that marked them as places in the landscape and that could possibly enable the dream of becoming rich (see treasures, section 6.3). The narratives have placed the burial mounds in the realm of the magical that could be both dangerous and could secure wealth (chapter 8). Burial mounds are visual features that could connect the parish and the farm to the fantasy of a great past by inhabiting it with kings, giants, ancestors and great battles (chapter 9). However, for archaeologists, burial mounds represented a scientific source material that had to be protected (section 10.3). Archaeologists could also excavate burial mounds and take the antiquities with them (section 6.5), which could in some cases cause protests by local people (chapter 7). Seen from this perspective, archaeologists and local people gave the burial mounds different values. Burial mounds became a special feature in the landscape over which the local people now lost control. In the end, these conflicting values may have been one of several factors that encouraged their destruction, although archaeological practice certainly also in several cases supported preservation. 10.8. Conclusions Preservation and disturbance have been a battlefield between archaeologists and local people due to the differing significance given to burial mounds. While, from a life-history perspective, it may be recognized that burial mounds will one day die – by being removed, reused, etc. – the Cultural

Heritage Act, first adopted in 1905, established the legal right for these features that they should be preserved for posterity, or alternatively excavated, as an important scientific record that gives information about the past. By denying beliefs that earlier could have encouraged their preservation, archaeologists now became the stewards and guardians who also regretted the destruction of burial mounds. While those people who in the Middle Ages broke up burial mounds (section 6.2), or in later periods dug for treasures (section 6.3), could be stigmatized and seen as norm breakers, in the twentieth century transgressors of the Cultural Heritage Act faced the fear of placing themselves outside society by being criminalized. This chapter has stressed the importance of considering four factors, at a conceptual level, that may have had the double function of influencing both the preservation and destruction of burial mounds. The discussion highlights that even within an ethnic homogeneous group, such as the Norwegians, differing significance may affect the preservation of archaeological monuments and sites. Therefore, the conflict has been approached with a similar acceptance towards disturbances as in some indigenous contexts, and consequently, with a similar critical standpoint towards archaeological practice. Despite these aims, I have realized that it is easier to accept disturbances in the nineteenth century as locally important, and in addition being critical to archaeological practice at this time. These conflicts are remote in time, just as contemporary indigenous contexts are remote in space, making it is easier to accept divergent interests. Whereas in the late twentieth century the situation is reversed: current disturbances are difficult to support, and I accept that transgressors should be prosecuted. I even consider it as part of my profession as an archaeologist to work for and ensure proper preservation or excavation of burial mounds, and I do not find it ethically problematic to argue for my view when I meet people with other opinions. Because I consider preservation important, I am surprised to hear negative attitudes from non-archaeologists towards protection. Although many people support preservation, others say when they hear I am an archaeologist that they cannot grasp the importance of protecting burial mounds. I, on the other hand, do not understand why people want to destroy burial mounds that in Agder are, apart from a few other types of archaeological sites, the only visible pre-medieval structures in the landscape. My preservation view is often challenged. Some people question why one should give more respect to those who died a thousand years ago, while after 25 years graves in the churchyards of Norway can be destroyed and reused. Other people object to having burial mounds on their land or close to their houses: they do not want to live among the dead and they prefer the graves to be removed. Seeing each burial mound as unique, I argue for the importance of preserving them all, although several are emptied for their contents. Hence, I oppose the view that the past is not endangered because an increasing number of cultural heritage sites are surveyed or found important to preserve (Holtorf 2001; 2005b: 131). My point is, not very originally, that burial mounds should be preserved because they continue to 204

Destroying burial mounds enhance the cultural value of the landscape by giving it the depth of time, and they are almost the only visible remnants from the Bronze and Iron Age people who once lived in the area. From this perspective, I disagree that destructions may be supported from a life-historical perspective that can see it as almost natural for them to die. This idea is still useful in order to reflect about the disturbance of burial mounds and the various values given them, such as the aim has been in this chapter. Nevertheless, reflection on archaeological practice, why we preserve and for whom, and the possible adverse effects of archaeological practice, is important even when the preconception is that preservation should be encouraged. Consequently, the last part of the book discusses the contemporary role of folklore and local involvement in archaeology.

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Part III 11 Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology In Part II, I discussed folkloristic narratives that would differ from the mid nineteenth century from the dominant archaeological interpretations of burial mounds. So far, to a minor extent only, I have scrutinized to what extent these narratives are currently told or seen as meaningful. In this chapter, contemporary local interests in burial mounds are considered, and I discuss to what extent these also should influence current archaeological practice. Thus, the major inquiry is to investigate who are the stakeholders of the archaeological record, and from this question who should be its stewards. The main argument put forward in this chapter is that local interests in burial mounds can currently be traced in Agder, and archaeologists should not be too dismissive of local efforts at using the past, and its physical remnants, to sustain local identities. A critical stance is still taken towards the view that other stakeholders should receive management responsibilities: archaeologists are still important experts in the contemporary knowledge-based society that requests knowledge about the past and expects a knowledge-based management. The role of archaeologists as the experts should therefore not be weakened, although it needs resistance from society and various stakeholders in order to sustain what is in this chapter formulated as a socially robust discipline. 11.1. Stewards and stakeholders of the archaeological record Since the 1990s, archaeologists have aimed at including various interests in several international contexts. Consequently, this raises the question of who the stakeholders are in the archaeological record and who should be its stewards. The most radical view uses contemporary indigenous interests as an argument that the archaeological record belongs to its descendants who should also be its stewards (see chapter 1.3). This view is present in principle 5 of the First Code of Ethics (1990) of the World Archaeological Congress that states: “the indigenous cultural heritage rightfully belongs to the indigenous descendants of that heritage” (quoted from Tarlow 2001: 256). A variant of this principle is present in national legislations, most importantly in the US Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA, 1990). NAGPRA affirms the rights of Native Americans to human remains and significant cultural objects of their tribe (Watkins 2000: 51-68). In the context of NAGPRA, it has been argued that oral traditions may possibly be used as a source to trace

cultural affiliation to cultural objects back to about 15 000 BP in order to claim funeral objects (Echo-Hawk 2000a). From similar perspectives, the Australian archaeologist Laurajane Smith has characterized the dominant heritage management as the “authorized heritage discourse” (AHD). According to Smith, this “focuses attention on aesthetically pleasing material objects, sites, places and/or landscapes that current generations ‘must’ care for, protect and revere so that they may be passed to nebulous future generations for their ‘education’, and to forge a sense of common identity based on the past” (Smith 2006: 29). Smith lists several consequences of this “authorized heritage discourse”: • it defines who the legitimate spokespersons for the past are – experts such as archaeologists, historians, etc. • the authoritative experts are the caretakers of the past, and they therefore work actively to disengage the present from an active use of the heritage, unless any uses and changes are under the guidance of professionals • heritage represents something good and important, and the experts have the abilities and knowledge to identify these values contained at important sites Other less radical instruments support dialogue and a moderate inclusion of interest groups. In an American context, the importance of archaeological stewardship is stressed in the Principles of Archaeological Ethics, which was adopted in 1996 by the Society of American Archaeology. Although archaeologists are seen as the stewards, they still care for and advocate “the archaeological record for the benefit of all people” (Principle No. 1 quoted from Lynott and Wylie 2000: 11). The stewards are from this perspective not only accountable to the interests of archaeological research, but, as argued for by Mark J. Lynott, “the stewardship concept requires that archaeologists become aware of and respect the wide range of other legitimate interests in the possible uses of archaeological sites” (Lynott 2000: 31). Similar views are stressed in the ICOMOS 1990 Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage. The charter highlights that the archaeological heritage is “common to all humanity” (article 3), but still aims at including other interests: Active participation by the general public must form part of policies for protection of the archaeological heritage.

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology This is essential where the heritage of indigenous peoples is involved. (article 2, cf. Cleere 1993: 403)1 The Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter 1999 is one example of conservation guidance that aims at connecting people to their cultural heritage (Meskell 2002: 569-70). In contrast to NAGPRA, the Burra Charter includes individuals and not only groups, and it is commented upon as such: The Charter recognises the need to involve people in the decision-making process, particularly those that have strong associations with a place. These might be as patrons of the corner store, as workers in a factory or as community guardians of places of special value, whether of indigenous or European origin. 2 Although community inclusion is formulated as one aim of the charter, it has also been criticized for being tokenistic due to its focus on conserving the fabric and the maintenance of the cultural significance of a site (Waterton et al. 2006). In several former colonized countries, archaeologists aim at reconnecting the bounds between the local people and the cultural heritage too, such as at Great Zimbabwe (Ndoro 1994, 2001; Ndoro and Pwiti 2001). The view that the archaeological record belongs to all, and not only archaeologists, is also stressed regarding museums in the Western world. The archaeologist Nick Merriman puts it like this in a British context: (…) the past is something that belongs to all, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth and upbringing. Consequently, everyone should have the right to gain access to their history, even if they choose not to avail themselves of this opportunity. Museums and similar organisations are one of the principal means by which people can gain access to the past, and everyone should thus have the opportunity to visit them and feel at home in them. (Merriman 1991: 1) Even UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, which stresses a global interest in World Heritage sites that should be shared by all, has from the mid-1990s increasingly emphasized the importance of local involvement in the protection of these sites. At the same time, various groups also challenge the world interest in several World Heritage sites (Omland 2006b: 2489). However, not only indigenous people but, as argued for in this chapter, local people in Norway and Agder have today an interest in the archaeological record, such as burial mounds. These interests question to what extent local people, and other interest groups and stakeholders in Norway, should also be considered as stewards of the archaeological record. 11.2. Current local interests in burial mounds Currently, there is a general interest in Norway in the past and the protection of cultural heritage as explored in this chapter.   Charter available at http://www.international.icomos.org/e_archae.htm (accessed 24 January 2008) 2  After comment at http://www.icomos.org/australia/burra.html (accessed 24 January 2008) 1

Since the public have an interest in archaeology, and several local people experience the effects of archaeological practice as they have protected monuments and sites on their property, stewardship is also important to discuss. In Norway, public interests in archaeology are confirmed through Gallup polls showing that up to 90 per cent of the population support protection in theory, although not necessarily in practice (Flaatten et al. 1996: 10-11; Bertelsen et al. 1999: 19; Bertelsen et al. 2001: 104-5). The categories of cultural heritage that people held as the most important to preserve, according to the polls, are churches and churchyards, followed by old towns and archaeological sites (Flaatten et al. 1996: 15). Surveys further indicate that local significance, more than national value, is the most important argument held by the public to preserve the cultural heritage (Bertelsen et al. 1999: 20, 22; Bertelsen et al. 2001: 105). Local interests in archaeological heritage may be expressed in a number of ways. Studying contemporary importance of Neolithic monuments in Germany, Holtorf discerns fourteen ways in which these monuments are seen as meaningful today (Holtorf 2005b: 92-111). This chapter restricts the discussion, however, to two main notions that reflect the contemporary local importance of burial mounds: the prevailing importance of folkloristic narratives, and the fact that burial mounds continue to attract the interest of people who in different ways visit or use them as meeting places. 11.2.1 The endurance of folklore Most legends and folk-beliefs discussed in this book are old narratives that offered answers formulated to help understand burial mounds in a society different from today. Currently, in a post-modern society with a more educated public and high flow of communication, these are not interpretations that most people today would find meaningful in the sense that they represent good answers to questions about burial mounds. Folklore has further changed as has the rest of society. Presentations of archaeology and the past in popular culture, such as films (e.g. Russell 2002; Holtorf 2005b), may be viewed as contemporary folkloristic narratives, although it has not been researched to what extent these influence the interpretation of burial mounds in Agder. Because several narratives are attached not only to place but also to time, they cannot necessarily be used to stress the current local importance or meaning of burial mounds. The Norwegian ethnologist Arne Lie Christensen makes a similar point in his discussion of the contemporary unwillingness in the countryside to build houses that follow local traditions. Old houses are instead replaced with buildings that for architects and heritage managers often represent a scar in the landscape. Christensen points out that if people built houses according to old traditions, this would be comparable to the view that they should stop wearing jeans and put on national costume every day (Christensen 1995: 36-7). According to this view, both traditional and contemporary houses can be seen as answers to various needs in a society that changes over time, which is also reflected through different tastes.

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record From a similar point of view, legends and folk-beliefs represent answers to questions about burial mounds that were formulated at a different time and are hardly applicable in a different present. Despite this, some people do continue to live in old houses or build new ones according to local traditions, other old houses are converted to museums (or demolished), while national costume may still be worn on May 17 (the Norwegian national day) or at weddings. The traditional culture has hence maintained its importance, although people do not surround themselves with it everyday – just as with folklore about burial mounds. When the priest Andreas Faye (1802–69) published the first collection of Norwegian legends, he hoped that these stories would amuse children (Faye 1948 [1833/1844]: V). Perhaps precisely because of this function attributed to legends, parts of the older collected folklore have an enduring importance and have become part of a “Norwegian culture” or “heritage” that functions as a link from the present to the past. Mythical legends and folk-beliefs are for instance of profound interest in current publications of Norwegian folklore (e.g. Hodne 1995, 1999b, 2000; Sivertsen 2000). Local historical publications also indicate that folklore has a current importance, and legends are included because they have been told in a parish or as examples of earlier held beliefs. The archaeological surveys conducted in Agder between 1964 and 1989 also recorded an abundance of legends that showed that several people then knew narratives about burial mounds. The prevailing importance from the 1990s of the older folkloristic narratives are further present when archaeologists, such as myself, approach them as part of the life histories or cultural values of burial mounds. Other archaeologists see them as elderly survivals, of which examples have been referred to in previous chapters. Although I am critical of approaching the legends as records of pre-medieval events or pre-Christian beliefs, archaeologists still might use them as analogies or inspiration for particular details – certain events, named people and supernatural forces. As such, the narratives contrast with the general and anonymous past often presented by archaeologists who “explain” antiquities and burial mounds through statistics, and see them not as remnants of singular people but as collectives that should be used to answer general questions about the past, such as daily life, economy, social structures or religion. Several folkloristic narratives even last longer than archaeological theories. While some archaeological interpretations soon find their way to the scrap heap, meanwhile some folkloristic narratives have continued to be referred to in the research literature as important, although not true, accounts about burial mounds. The best example is again the accounts from the early seventeenth century until today about Spang being said to be interred in a burial mound. Although the narratives about Spang have changed over time to reflect contemporary interpretations about who this character was (a giant, sea-hero, king, malevolent supernatural creature), variants of the same narrative have endured in the sense that it connects a locally “known” person to a burial mound, even when this burial mound is not known today. The

endurance of these folkloristic narratives contrasts with several pseudo-archaeological interpretations that, according to the Danish archaeologist Jes Wienberg, often disappear with their originator (Wienberg 2004: 50). Despite this endurance of folkloristic narratives, current studies in Scandinavia have ambiguous views of their contemporary local meaning. In Sweden, the archaeologist Torun Zachrisson has investigated to what extent members of local historical societies know the traditions about archaeological monuments, and she realized that it was mainly the names on the most impressive monuments that were known. The respondents in Zachrisson’s study did not have knowledge about formerly known legends about treasures, kings and battles. Researching children’s perceptions, Zachrisson argues that they create their own traditions at the same time as they transmit parts of the narratives that parents and grandparents have told. Children also have most interest in the fantastical, and they connect giants to natural features in the landscape that they perceive as ancient monuments (Zachrisson 1997b). Researching in the late 1990s the local perceptions in North Norway, the archaeologist Mia Helena Krogh argues that local people did not know many traditions about archaeological sites. The few traditions known were mainly revitalized through newspaper articles or by visiting experts, but even when the traditions were rediscovered, they did not strongly influence the consciousness of the local people (Krogh 1999: 71). Krogh further argues that although much archaeological knowledge about cultural heritage has been disseminated, this knowledge has “disappeared” as none of her informants could tell her anything specific about the monuments and sites or their prehistory (Krogh 1999: 89). These findings are confirmed by a second study from North Norway that highlights the fact that local interest is often limited to monuments and sites on someone’s own property, while similar monuments on a neighbour’s property are less interesting (Pramli 1999: 114). Conversely, Brit Solli encountered in the early 1990s several oral stories and local interpretations when she conducted excavations at the island of Veøy in West Norway. These stories could generally be traced back to, and represented a blend of, written sources from the eighteenth until the twentieth centuries, narratives of earlier historians and archaeologists working on the island, together with the interpretations of locally storytellers. The local people did still find Solli’s archaeological narrative interesting and they included it in their own narratives. Although the local (folkloristic) and Solli’s (archaeological) narratives were incommensurable, this did not bother the local storytellers she met who simply aimed at telling good stories (Solli 1996b: 77, 79; 1996c: 222, 225). The enduring importance of old narratives for shaping current local identities is also stressed in a study by the archaeologist Frode Pilskog. Pilskog studied the reception history from the eighteenth century until today of an alleged Viking Age battle in West Norway, known according to medieval written sources. Since the eighteenth century topographers and historians had discussed where the correct location of the battle was, and it continued to be a local pertinent issue in the twentieth century. Archaeologists however argued in the 1960s and ’70s that the 208

Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology site could not be identified and that the battle could have been just a myth. These assertions were not accepted locally, although the archaeologist Per Fett (1909–96) was a locally respected scholar. The local people instead created their own past, partly by conducting their own “archaeological” excavations during the years 1982–4 to find the location of the battle. The local geography was even adapted to the narratives, one settlement even changing its name in 1897 to conform with the saga. The alleged 1,000-year anniversary of the battle was even marked in 1986, with the presence of the Norwegian Prime Minister and the King. A national monument was unveiled, a burial mound constructed and a standing stone raised to commemorate the battle, which also served to confirm its right location (Pilskog 2003, 2005). That local resistance towards archaeological interpretations may be present struck the archaeologist Bjørnar Olsen when he asked a local fisherman in the northern county of Finnmark for his view about a labyrinth nearby (constructed possibly AD 12–1700): “I don’t know very much about these things, but so much I know and so much has my father told me, that the labyrinth here has nothing whatsoever to do with that university rubbish you told me”. I tried to ask him what he meant, but he refused and started to talk about the weather and the decreasing salmon population instead. After a while I gave up and left, somewhat bewildered, somewhat depressed. (Olsen 1991: 57) 11.2.2 Continuation and revitalization of folklore – Agder 2001–4 During the summers of 2001–4 I conducted fieldwork in Agder, visiting about a hundred farms, trying to find out whether people still told the old recorded narratives about burial mounds (see section 5.8 on my fieldwork). Questions I asked people included: • how did you get to know that the mound is a burial mound? • do you want the burial mound to be preserved? • do you want the burial mound to be archaeologically excavated? • do you know any names, traditions or stories about the burial mound? The talks confirm that both earlier documented and not previously collected stories are locally known, but it depends on the personal interest of the informant. Describing the local storytellers encountered in West Norway, Solli distinguishes between those people who (1) learned the stories from reading and are less part of an oral tradition, and (2) those who have less of an intellectual and more of a personal relationship with the site and whose stories are based on oral sources (Solli 1996c: 218-19; 1996b: 74-5). These two categories of storytellers do not encompass, however, the variety of views encountered by people in Agder. Instead, below I suggest four categories of informants, categorized according to their interest in archaeology and folklore about burial mounds. These are stereotypical categories to be used as a tool in this section, and

several informants represent a combination of them. The enthusiast is usually a middle-aged or elderly person with a strong interest in local history not limited to their own farm, but usually the parish. The enthusiast has often been through higher education, but is an autodidact in history or archaeology. The enthusiast usually knows stories about burial mounds from local historical literature and talks with elderly people. These accounts are then often blended with their own interpretations, but also influenced from readings of academic publications, other literature and media. The enthusiast usually expressed a keen interest in my research project and requested more knowledge about burial mounds. The traditionalist is often an elderly person who has lived on the same farm most of their life. Knowledge of stories about burial mounds is usually limited to their own farm and learned mainly from oral sources. Most traditionalists I met did not have higher education. They could express trust in the stories they had heard, which made me unsure of how to respond, but also they saw them just as legends to which they did not give much attention. The indifferent individual could be found in all age groups, with and without higher education, but was most often below 40-50 years old. The indifferent person had usually not given much attention to burial mounds before I asked them. Several did still have knowledge about them from local historical literature or elderly people, whom they then advised me to see. The indifferent person could have some knowledge about burial mounds, but it seemed not to be important for them to communicate this to their own children. While some maintained their indifferent attitude during the talks, others became more curious and started to ask me questions. The opponent could be found in all age groups, with and without higher education, and is characterized by being in opposition towards archaeologists. The opponent would look at me as suspicious and wanted to convince me about his or her own views. Some opponents also considered folklore about burial mounds as old rubbish and hence found my errand slightly odd. All of these types of informants were relatively easy to communicate with, but both the enthusiast and the opponent could represent a challenge because they had the strongest personal interpretations to confront me with. Most interviewees had gained knowledge about burial mounds from their family. One indifferent owner was, however, first told by the archaeologists after the archaeological surveys that a particular feature was a burial mound, causing a dispute between the owner and archaeologists as to whether it was a burial mound or not. Asking people which knowledge about burial mounds they would communicate to their own children or grandchildren, most informants were uncertain what to say. While one enthusiast would use the Norse sagas as inspiration, one indifferent individual would refer to archaeologists as having the correct knowledge. Answers regarding the future of the burial mounds differed. The enthusiast was eager both to protect or to excavate to 209

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record gain knowledge. Some traditionalists wanted the burial mounds to be left in peace, while others welcomed excavation of them, but also supported that they should be removed to enable better utilization of the land. The indifferent and the opponent protected burial mounds mainly because they were legally forced to, but the opponent might also disagree that burial mounds should be protected and did not appreciate the restrictions. Some informants opposed that burial mounds should be protected after archaeologists had excavated them as they reckoned they were then “empty”. I heard several complaints that the artefacts found in burial mounds could not be viewed locally and that people ideally wanted them returned. However, taking the antiquities to Oslo was not solely considered negatively. Both the enthusiast and traditionalist could see this collection practice as a confirmation that the archaeological record from the parish was so important that it required special care and research in an archaeological museum. The indifferent category also both supported and opposed that antiquities be sent to Oslo. The opponent – who would often otherwise oppose in situ protection of burial mounds – would conversely often support that they were stored and displayed locally, if the opponent gave the antiquities any value at all. Several informants were curious about what was inside the burial mounds, and they requested information about general issues such as their age, status of the buried person and what one could expect to find in them. Although many burial mounds we talked about had actually been excavated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, only a few enthusiasts knew what had been found, when the excavations took place or the name of the archaeologist involved. The folklore that most informants had knowledge about were accounts about royal persons interred in burial mounds, but also legends and beliefs about battles, buried treasure and digs in search of these. That burial mounds contain treasures is a general belief still held in the sense that people joke about how they contain gold, but they do not actually strongly believe that burial mounds contain rich valuables. Although most informants saw the stories as “legends only”, and the opponent could even argue strictly against legends, a few informants – especially older traditionalists – could argue that they were true. In this regard, I managed to get an answer from a man in his early 80s about why a king referred to in sources from the late eighteenth century was not buried at the farm where he had allegedly lived, but in a burial mound at the neighbouring farm. According to the version of the legend now told at the farm, differing from the late eighteenth-century accounts, the king had lost his legs in battle and could not manage to walk home to the farm, so was buried next to it. Since the man seemed knowledgeable about old legends, I wondered where the queen was buried, having in mind that queens are seldom mentioned in folklore. Laughing about the question, he did not know the answer, but suggested that people did not care much about women at that time, and therefore probably nobody gave any attention to where she had been buried. When I asked about mythical legends and supernatural beliefs, the traditionalist and the indifferent would commonly smile

and see these as remnants of superstitions mainly held earlier by people on the farm or in the parish. Some beliefs could still be used as references for interpretation, although this largely added amusement and they joked about it. Two informants, one indifferent and the other an opponent, even told me that the adults scared them as children in the 1970s talking about a supernatural creature in one burial mound. Perhaps the best recent example from Agder on the continuing relevance of the beliefs, although not collected during my fieldwork, occurred in 1988 when Oldsaksamlingen excavated a burial mound in Setesdal due to the extension of a road. A man expressed his fear about the mound being excavated and what this might cause. This was told like a joke, but an understatement of seriousness could be sensed because, allegedly, lightning is said to have struck his house during the excavation.3 This example shows that people can refer to what is usually considered as old beliefs to shed light on the unknown, as is present also in other contexts in north Europe when people use old beliefs as a source for interpretation in order to rationalize when things go wrong (cf. Muir 2003: 20304). Despite the ambiguous response towards mythical legends and supernatural beliefs, I realized that beliefs and customs about archaeological sites are still held, and they represent a blend of continuity and revitalization of old traditions. In Norway, perhaps the only customary practice, if one excludes Sámi sites, that has a certain continuity from at least the mid nineteenth century is the annual whitewashing to prevent misfortunes of the Majersteinen stone in East Norway (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 108, cf. chapter 8.8.3).4 This is comparable to a similar stone in Sweden (Zachrisson 1997c: 94). The annual custom of whitewashing this stone is an unusual example of a tradition continuing even when the farm gets new owners. The greatgrandfather of the present owner bought the farm in the 1920s and was asked by the previous owner to continue the whitewashing. After apparently seven cows died when one year he forgot, the stone has been whitewashed every spring since.5 In Agder, such continuity of traditions is unsure, but some customs represent a blend of continuity and revitalization. This blend is apparent in the current respect given not only to burial mounds, but especially to old trees growing on them. For instance, the veneration given to a tree might have been apparent when I observed in 2003 that its remains were lying on the burial mound after it had fallen down in the late 1970s, but it had died already after a storm in 1921.6 A second example is that both living and dead trees are still standing on burial mounds at the farm of Sordal in Setesdal. These were believed to be inhabited by supernatural creatures and were, according to a contemporary description from 1879, still protected (Nielsen 1880: 86). An archaeologist even heard in 1929 that people had given offerings to the trees twenty years

  Pers.com. Karl Kallhovd December, 2002. The story is not mentioned in the archaeological report from the excavation, see UO top.ark. Aust-Agder/Valle/ Straume report of 8 January 1990 4  Majer, Østre Toten, Oppland, ID 032096 5   Interview during the whitewashing of the stone 14 April 2002 6  Kvinartolla, Engesland nedre, Birkenes, Aust-Agder 3

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Illus. 11.1: The annual whitewashing of the Majersteinen stone Photo: Atle Omland, 2002 (Majer, Østre Toten, Oppland, ID 032096). earlier.7 Visiting the farm in 2002, I found those trees that had died were still left on and not removed from the burial mounds (see section 8.2.3 and illus. 10.6). I was especially surprised to hear that the owner, a traditionalist born in 1927, had in the 1980s annointed them with beer after brewing for Christmas and drinking with friends. Although some people in the parish had viewed this almost as idolatry, more people joined in later and even the priest later said he would have wanted to participate if he had known about it. The participants did not observe any of the creatures said to inhabit the trees, although one who drank too much had to sit down, and suggested that those under the ground had drugged him.8 The examples referred to above are just a few of several in which old folkloristic narratives and beliefs resurface. However, folklore about burial mounds since the 1990s has mainly been revitalized as “tourist lore” in the portrayal of sites. 11.2.3 Folklore in the portrayal of burial mounds

Illus. 11.2: Annointing sacred pines with beer in the 1980s The owner holds a framed newspaper article about the offerings in the 1980s to the pines (“Blant offertre og gravhauger”). The parish priest framed the newspaper article, gave it to the owner and told him to hang it at the entrance: “You must have it in a visible place so that everyone can see it!” “No, I do not dare do so, because people will think I am an idolater.” “Never mind,” said the priest, “those who cannot accept that will have to leave.” The case exemplifies the changing attitude towards these beliefs: what in the nineteenth century represented dangerous superstitions was seen in the twentieth century as important old traditions. Photo: Atle Omland, 2002 (Sordal nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635).

In an English context, folklorists have argued that tourism has in the last decades become “a major new context for the transmission of folklore” (Simpson and Roud 2000: 365). “Tourist lore” encompasses in this section not only the portrayal to foreign tourists, but also to a local public when monuments and sites are made more accessible by cutting down vegetation, constructing small parking lots, and otherwise portraying them. Different ideas of how to portray burial mounds in Agder on noticeboards are discussed in the following, showing that in some cases these portrayals have strengthened their role as meeting places, and folklore has increasingly become an important part of that portrayal. 7  UO top.ark. Aust-Agder/Byland/top.ark.reg., survey 22 July 1929 8  Sordal nordre, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016635; interview 7 August 2002.

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Illus. 11.3: Board set up in the late 1990s by the county council and local municipality The board gives information about the folk-belief that supernatural creatures often dwell in burial mounds, a belief that is now also used as an argument on the board for protecting them. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Heddeland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015258). From a Swedish context, Zachrisson stated in 1997 that folklore can play an important role in how archaeological monuments are portrayed. According to this perspective, boards should include not only the official archaeological interpretation, but also present their history in a changing landscape that includes later disturbances and legends (Zachrisson 1997a: 39). Similar views are today integrated in the ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (adopted 2008). According to this charter, the portrayals should both be based on multidisciplinary studies, but also what is termed as “traditional storytelling or memories” (Principle 2). To some extent, both the ICOMOS charter and Zachrisson give folklore an ideal role. For instance, Zachrisson argues that the local people will recognize the history of their sites better because of the local colour. However, considering that much folklore is contained in old narratives, it is not certain that people today will find these narratives meaningful, although folklore can be of current interest. Zachrisson still has a point when she argues that the stories represent an important contrast to the stereotypical information about burial mounds often presented by archaeologists on boards. According to similar perspectives, the archaeologist Gørill Nilsen argues that boards set up in the 1990s at archaeological and recent historical sites in North Norway vary according to whether they were made by academics, such as archaeologists, or from local initiatives. Locally initiated boards present locally known knowledge about the recent past, such as World War II and the former utilization of natural resources, while the academic boards inform people about archaeological sites and ethnicity, treating people of the past generally and anonymously (Nilsen 2003b; cf. Hauan 2002).

When in the summer of 2003 I visited 32 localities in Agder with boards that currently presented burial mounds, and in addition rune stones, stone-circles and old trees, it became apparent that the ideology of presenting these in situ had changed considerably in the last decades. Most importantly: the boards set up by both archaeologists and local people from the 1990s showed that folklore is important to present to visitors. This contrasts with the pre-1990 situation up until the early 1980s, when almost no burial mounds in Agder were portrayed on boards. For decades, archaeologists at Oldsaksamlingen resisted in situ descriptions of archaeological sites. For instance, in 1935 a newspaper in Agder complained that the local people were destroying burial mounds and asked Oldsaksamlingen to set up boards telling people about their importance. The archaeologist in charge then argued that burial mounds were protected even without being marked. Interestingly he reckoned a board was unnecessary since according to him it was mainly experts who had an interest in burial mounds.9 Similar arguments were quoted as late as 1968, after a local historian in Agder feared that development would illegally destroy a burial mound and she asked Oldsaksamlingen to put up a board to enforce its importance;10 the archaeologists in charge disagreed and argued just as their predecessor had done in 1935: All ancient monuments are protected by law and cannot be destroyed or disturbed. (…) Any special marking should be unnecessary to set up; because if one marked one special monument with a protection sign, this could easily be understood to denote that other, unmarked monuments were not protected. (My translation)11   “Skal Sørlandet faa si eigi oldsaksamling?”, Agder Tidend, 29 June 1935 Krosshaugen, Hægebostad prestegård, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004861 11   UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Hægebostad/Hægebostad prestegård, letter 8 9

10 

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Illus. 11.4: Board set up in 1997 on local initiative The board gives information about the legendary local King Hane. Pictures of antiquities found at the farm serve as illustrations to the legend. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Hanehaugen, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809).

During the 1970s and ’80s, archaeologists increasingly stressed the importance of presenting and maintaining archaeological sites in order to preserve them (e.g. Norsk kulturråd 1967).12 Standard boards were now set up that communicated in particular their protection status.13 In 1986, similar types of boards were recommended to be used nationally, and they had two aims: (1) to protect the sites, and (2) to increase knowledge about them (Mikkelsen 1986: 1). However, these standard boards emphasized that the sites belonged to the archaeological domain: they refuted several locally held interpretations of the sites, and presented only the correct interpretation and underlined that the law protected them. The presence of state authority was further emphasized with the reproduction of the Coat of Arms of Norway. During the fieldwork in 2003, varying types of boards made by Oldsaksamlingen in the 1980s were still on display at one burial field, two stone-circles and two rune stones (see illus. 11.8). The space given to official interpretation and authority of the state decreased on the boards set up in the 1990s. This was mainly due to decentralization in 1990 when the county councils were given the duty according to the Cultural

Heritage Act of 1978 (§11 a) to restore, present and make archaeological sites accessible to the public. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage further issued guidelines for the work and emphasized the importance of including local interests in the sites (Riksantikvaren 1998a, 1998b, 1998c). Maintenance, access and presentation of several sites were now increasingly planned together with the local municipalities and owners. The first larger project was initiated at Lista in 1991 as part of a management plan that aimed at incorporating archaeological sites as an important part of the landscape. Archaeologists now stressed the significance of access to and presentation of selected sites for the local people, a larger public and tourists (Mydland 1992: 33-7). When in 2003 I visited 18 of the boards set up in Agder after 1990, these were all less standardized than the older boards and had more details that were distinctive to the site. Although archaeological knowledge was given priority on the boards, folklore was usually included. At a time when the supernatural creatures once said to inhabit the mounds have lost most of their local value, the legends and beliefs were now used to stress the importance of preserving the sites. One board, probably set up in the late 1990s, stated: The mounds here at Heddeland have filled people with wonder and respect for nearly 2000 years. And we can still experience history here close at hand. But be careful: it is our common responsibility to protect the mound people

August 1968 12   See also several articles in the popular archaeological journal Nicolay 1977– 87, such as nos. 27, 31, 33, 40 and 47 13  Cf. manuscript of a board to be set up at a burial cairn at Herøya (ID 016516), found in UO top.ark. Vest-Agder/Kristiansand/Holte, 19 January 1972

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record and their dwellings, so that they can dance and sing for many more years. (My translation)14 The example highlights the fact that the portrayal of old folklore is today not a threat to archaeological knowledge, as it was in the nineteenth century, but even archaeologists can refer to old beliefs as an argument to sustain preservation. Despite a stronger local aspect in the presentation of archaeological sites, boards in North Norway have been criticized for not being based on local interests and that they present the past generally and anonymously (Nilsen 2003b; cf. Hauan 2002). Although divergences between archaeologically initiated boards and local boards can be traced in Agder too, several boards from the 1990s that include folklore can be said to be trying to bridge a gap between archaeologists and local people. For instance, the boards set up after the initiative of local people from the 1920s up until 2000 often stress the local proximity to the past, while the archaeological knowledge is of less importance. Perhaps the best example is a board set up in 1997 by, unusually, the current owner of the burial mounds.15 The board gives information mainly about the local legendary King Hane, said to be buried in the burial mound after he was killed in battle with St Olaf. The historicity of the legend was already in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries rejected by archaeologists, folklorists and philologists (see section 9.4.4), but is not discussed on the board. Although Nicolay Nicolaysen in 1893 excavated 35 burial mounds at the farm, excavations are only briefly referred to and pictures of antiquities serve mainly as illustrations to the legend. 11.2.4 Burial mounds are meeting places Burial mounds have continued to be significant features in the landscape, attracting the attention of people and perpetuating their use as meeting places, so representing, just as folklore and folk-beliefs do, the continuation and revitalization of traditions. These uses were reinforced from the 1990s when more people visited burial mounds because of the information presented in situ. Three different ways of using burial mounds as meeting places are highlighted, all of which can be seen as a continuation and revitalization of traditions. People congregate at sites with burial mounds In Agder, an account published in 1632 is the earliest recorded example that a burial mound served as, or is believed to have been, a meeting place (Claussøn Friis 1881 [1632]: 310). According to this account, termed by the writer to be a rumour, King Olaf Tryggvason (c.968–1000) and the great archer Einar Tamberskjelve once stood upon a burial mound and competed as to who could shoot furthest. Two standing stones are said to mark the spots where the arrows landed.16 The most recent example of burial mounds being used as meeting places is when each county and municipality in Norway in 2005 selected important cultural or natural places as both Millennium locations, to mark the transition to the twenty-first century, and in celebration of the hundred-

year anniversary of the dissolution in 1905 of the union with Sweden.17 In Agder, two sites were chosen as the local Millennium locations.18 One was also used for the local celebrations in 2002 of the hundred-year anniversary of Agder becoming a distinct part of the country, termed Sørlandet. As part of these celebrations, a copy of a rune stone, the original in the property of Oldsaksamlingen, was set up at the site (cf. section 7.5.5). In Agder, the congregation at burial mounds until the early twentieth century was based on older traditions. For instance, sites with burial mounds could be used to celebrate the night before St John’s day (the evening of 23 June). People could then have a bonfire on the mounds, while they would also eat, drink and perhaps dance. Traditionally, this day, named jonsok or St Hans after St John the Baptist, was the most important day of summer, but the customs are vernacular more than Christian and might have been influenced by pre-Christian celebrations of Midsummer. Most traditions in Norway take place on the evening before St John’s day, and they are, according to the folklorist Brynjulf Alver, connected with fertility, but it was also a supernormal day as supernatural forces were active (Alver 1970: 130-32). Archaeologists in the early twentieth century considered the custom of a bonfire at archaeological monuments as a possible old custom going back to preChristian periods (Petersen 1926: 181; Schetelig 1911: 211). Although the custom might be old, it can also be seen as one of several examples of archaeological sites being located at special and visible sites that attract people even today and therefore endure or are reinvented as important meeting places. According to the sources, eleven burial mounds in Agder have been used as congregational places for the evening before St John’s day, and in addition a rock-art site. This is documented through eyewitness accounts or the fact that burial mounds are named with variants of Jonsokhaugen (St John’s Mound). Still, none of these sites are currently used as sites for bonfires. One traditionalist, who had earlier participated in these celebrations at a burial mound, told me that the custom stopped during World War II because the entire site was then rebuilt as a fortified place.19 At another site, a traditionalist told me that the celebrations and the bonfire at one burial mound stopped approximately in the late 1950s when they moved the celebrations to the old school.20 However, the site renewed its local importance as a meeting place when in the early 1990s it was made accessible and explained to visitors on boards. Interviewing in 2004 a couple aged around fifty, who lived close to this site, they told me that during the Millennium celebration on 31 January 1999, at midnight, about thirty people went to the site and stood singing next to a standing stone called Vanen. People had also earlier given this stone much attention and used it partly as a reference to find a special fishing-place in the sea. Several informants interpreted the stone as phallic and connected it   Article Tusenårssted at http://no.wikipedia.org (accessed 24 January 2008)   Evje Nikkelverk, Evje og Hornnes, Aust-Agder; Snartemo Bautapark, Snartemo, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004850 19   Jønsokhaugen, Tjørve, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003901 20  Vere midtre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003953 17 18

  Heddeland, Marnardal, Vest-Agder, ID 015258   Hanehaug, Nese, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016809 16   Klobnehaugen, Njerve, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder, ID 026943 14 15

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology

Motif Name Account of use Number of burial mounds

Number 4 8 + 1 rock art-site 11 + 1 rockart site

Table 11.1: Burial mounds used for congregations the night before St John’s day Several motifs can occur about the same burial mound.

Map 11.1: Burial mounds used for congregations the night before St John’s day

Illus. 11.5: Wedding in 2002 at the burial site of Sausebakk The wedding ceremony was conducted in front of the standing stone of Vanen. Until the late 1950s, a burial mound at the site was used for a bonfire. Photo by a wedding guest, 2002 (Vere midtre, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 003953). 215

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record with fertility. In the early 1960s, a local youth association had even raised up the stone after it had been lying down for several years. In 2002, the couple even had their wedding ceremony with the standing stone because they liked the site so much. Several of the 130 guests did not previously know the place, but they too found it special and allegedly felt it created a special atmosphere for the wedding. Burial mounds are used as “thing” (court) mounds On 1 May 1989, a group of women started an annual congregation on a burial mound in their vicinity to discuss and solve matters of local concern.21 A short ad in the local newspaper summons the annual meeting, and the one in 1995 briefly states: “The burial mound’s May 1 friends. 3 o’clock”. The meetings are documented in a scrapbook that contains newspaper cuttings about the burial field, pictures from the meetings, a list of who participated, what they ate, drank (sherry) and discussed.22 Archaeologists had previously restored this mound that now assumed local importance even though the restoration had caused a major conflict between archaeologists and the local people (see section 10.6.2).   Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173   In private ownership

This assembly reminds us of possible earlier uses of burial mounds as “thing” (court) mounds, that is, a place where matters regarding the law or other disputes were solved. These thing places, that could cover a landscape or smaller geographical units, have been called in Norway a ting, and they are known from the Viking Age, but can be older (Andersen 1974). Today, the term ting is used as a suffix in the names of current Norwegian court districts. After 1814, when Norway gained its own constitution, the Norwegian parliament was named Stortinget (literally the Large Thing). In Agder, 20 burial mounds (including 2 uncertain ones) are said to have been used as a site for the local court, including the current use of one burial mound at which women annually meet. That burial mounds are interpreted as sites for the assembly of the court is usually reflected in the fact that they are given variants of the name Tinghaug (Thing Mound). In Agder, the first reference to a thing mound is found in a document from 1492 (Lange and Unger 1861: 689-90).23 Five farms in Agder with burials mounds said to be thing mounds hosted the thing in the Middle Ages or later. These mounds may have been used as an assembly for the thing, or they are alternatively interpreted as thing mounds because the thing

21 22

23 

Foss, Lindesnes, Vest-Agder

Illus. 11.6: Women assembling 1 May 1990 on a newly restored burial mound The initiator points at a picture of the burial mound before restoration, and she is quoted: “Nothing is as it was before in Farsund, not even the old burial mounds, Raghnild Carlsen says, and shows a picture of an earlier edition of the Lunde burial mounds. But both she and her fellow sisters are more concerned about current problems” (My translation). Facsimile from Farsunds Avis, 18 May 1990 (Lunde, Farsund, Vest-Agder, ID 004173). 216

Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology

Map 11.2: Burial mounds and stone-circles interpreted as the assembly for a “thing” “Thing mounds”

“Thingsteads”

Motif

Number

Number

Name Thing Mound

Interpretation of use

Farm used as assembly for thing

Burial mound

Uncertain burial mound

Stonecircle

Uncertain stone-circle

14

8

5

18

2

34

3

Table 11.2: Burial mounds and stone-circles interpreted as the assembly for a “thing” Several motifs can occur about the same burial mound.

met at the farm. However, most sources that connect burial mounds with the thing are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.24 The view that certain burial mounds were sites for the thing is trusted in old antiquarian and topographical literature (Holm 1795c: 63; Kraft 1838). Archaeologists have also been supportive of the view that burial mounds could have a function in the Iron Age and Middle Ages as meeting places for the purpose of religion, politics or jurisdiction (e.g. Grieg 1941: 18, 24-6; Ringstad 24 

That local people believe that archaeological sites were in the past places to congregate is especially apparent when 1987b: 41-2; 1991: 143; Østmo and Hedeager 2005: 392; cf. Holtorf 2000– 5: 5.2.10; Neergaard 1902). Even Nicolaysen, who asserted that ancient monuments had in general no relation to jurisdiction (Nicolaysen 1874: 109-10), deliberately included the name Tinghaug in his overviews of burial mounds in Agder without commenting the local interpretation (Nicolaysen 1862–6: 246-7, 270, 285, 287).

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Ages until 1926. The annual assembly has continued until today as a fair, although moved to another farm in the parish.26 Burial mounds become places for commemoration Burial mounds may be used to commemorate people who have lived much later than the buried person, such as people who died during World War II. In Agder, such commemoration occurs at four sites with burial mounds.27

Illus. 11.7: Drawing of Tinghaugen Drawn on 22 July 1805 by the infamous antiquarian Martin Friederich Arendt (1773–1823). The stone in the middle was believed to be the seat for the judge. The burial mound was destroyed c.1840. Reproduced from a drawing kept in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (Øie øvre, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder).

After 1945, memorials commemorating people lost during World War II were built in most parishes in Norway. These are usually erected at a central location in the parish, such as at sites with burial mounds located near the church. Memorials can be set on top of the burial mounds or erected between them. People in the parish usually congregate and lay a wreath on these memorials on 17 May, the Norwegian national day that commemorates the adoption of the constitution in 1814. Through these memorials and the annual gathering, burial mounds gain a function also of commemoration nationally important events in modern times (cf. Dietler 1998; Holtorf 2002a, 2003). 11.2.5 Conclusions Burial mounds today have current local importance as evidenced by the continuity and revitalization of folklore, but also with contemporary uses as meeting places. From this perspective, local people today may also be seen as stakeholders in burial mounds.

An increasing number of sites explained and made accessible to local people and visitors might even strengthen in the future the local interest in burial mounds, and as such shape the local identity and strengthen peoples’ feeling of belonging to a place. This local interest can still be problematic for archaeologists if, as discussed in section 7.5, it causes stronger local calls for the return of antiquities from the designated archaeological Illus. 11.8: Standardized board at a stone-circle museums. Furthermore, using burial mounds to Set up in the 1980s by Oldsaksamlingen, the board informs that shape local identity and strengthening the sense of stone-circles are graves and not thingsteads. Still, local people term them even today with the common name tingstedet. Photo: Atle Omland, 2003 (Vik, belonging to a place can be problematic at a time when cultural heritage protection for sustaining Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017668). identity is seen as complex due to its patriotic and Iron Age stone-circles are interpreted as locations for the thing: thingsteads (37 in Agder, including 3 uncertain ones). Such stone-circles are commonly termed with variants of the common name tingsted. Regarding one site in Agder only, legends are told about the thing that assembled at stonecircles.25 These legends are probably influenced by the actual use of this farm as the site for the local thing from the Middle   Tingvatn, Hægebostad, Vest-Agder, ID 004868

25

Archaeologists have rejected, however, in most cases that stone-circles are thingsteads, contrary to the situation regarding thing mounds. Nicolay Nicolaysen asserted that stone-circles represented a special type of grave. He further argued that ancient monuments in general had no relation to jurisdiction (Nicolaysen 1860: 41-2; 1874: 109-10). This interpretation has since been generally held in Norwegian archaeology, although a possible multiple function of stone-circles is considered in the literature (e.g. Gustafson 1906: 139; Holm 2000: 64; Magnus and Myhre 1976: 220; Myhre 1967; Skjelsvik 1951, 1958; Svendsen 1902; Østmo and Hedeager 2005: 392). 27 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Brekken, Arendal, Aust-Agder, ID 018021; Bygland prestegård, Bygland, Aust-Agder, ID 016801; Fjære, Grimstad, Aust-Agder, ID 017551; Feda, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004451 26 

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology

Illus. 11.9: A wreath laid on 17 May 2000 on a memorial at a burial mound The memorial commemorates those in the parish who died during World War II. Photo: Olav Granlund, 2000 (Vårdøyhaugen, Feda, Kvinesdal, Vest-Agder, ID 004451).

nationalistic potential. This controversy of using the cultural heritage to stress identity became an issue much discussed in Norway during the 1990s – coinciding in time with when archaeologists were also supportive of the local importance of archaeology.

than their predecessors did. Today, this approach is generally criticized (Myhre 1994c, 2001; Østigård 2001), although Brøgger’s perspective has also been interpreted not as a national project mainly, but as an attempt to give archaeology a current significance by linking it to a then important movement (Skre 2001).

11.3. Stakeholders and the Norwegian controversy between identity and difference

After World War II, and especially from the 1960s, scientific research itself was formulated as a higher interest for conducting archaeology, but also to rescue the archaeological record from post-war developments. Although arguably, tacitly the national framework was still present.

The various local interests in burial mounds question how archaeology can today be made relevant to diverse groups of stakeholders. The most pertinent question, discussed in Norwegian archaeology since the mid 1990s, is whether archaeologists should use the past as a source for creating identity and stimulating a sense of local belonging to a place, or to emphasize the differences and potential dangers of using the past for constructing identity. As will be argued in the following, archaeologists should aim at preventing dangerous nationalist uses of the past and the cultural heritage, but warnings against using it to sustain identity may also be seen as a new claim from experts over the archaeological record. Ever since archaeology was established as a scientific discipline, the challenge has been present as to how to make it applicable in contemporary society. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the higher interest of archaeological research was of primary importance, which resulted in a rejection of local interests. Archaeology was still given a contemporary application: the archaeological record should be used as a source to attain proper knowledge of the nation’s past. After independence in 1905 from Sweden, archaeologists such as A.W. Brøgger (1884–1951) stressed nationalism more strongly

During the 1990s, a new turn was made. Research continued to be a prevailing factor that governed the management of the archaeological record, but public interests were now highlighted through an amendment in 1992 of the purpose of the Cultural Heritage Act. According to this amendment, the cultural heritage is important to preserve as a “scientific source material and as an enduring basis for the experience of present and future generations and for their self-awareness, enjoyment and activities” (Cultural Heritage Act 1978: §1). In 2005, a white paper further highlighted the potential for utilizing the cultural heritage in local developments and for value creation (St.meld. nr. 16 (2004-2005): 45-57). Although various ways of finding applications for archaeology have been sought, the archaeologist Brit Solli has criticized Norwegian cultural heritage management for operating within a paradigm that aims at creating a national identity based on an alleged similarity to past people (Solli 1995b, 1996a; 1997b: 175-9; 1997a, 2000; 2002: 241-4). Solli formulates this as “a paradigm of identity”, but counters it with “a paradigm of 219

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record difference” that stresses the wonders and exoticness of the past, and that past people were actually different from us. Solli is in particular critical of interpretations of the Viking Age, and she argues that the Norse people differed from the image constructed by historians and archaeologists within a national paradigm. In contrast, Solli stresses cultural interaction in the past between the Norse and the Sámi people. She even explores, from the perspective of queer theory, certain unmanly aspects of the mighty Norse god Othin (Solli 2002). The suggestion for a paradigm of difference can be understood in relation to a current multicultural Norwegian society. By arguing that the people of the past were different from us, the past does not “belong” to Norwegians only, but also to immigrants. The paradigm of difference can also be seen as a tool for archaeologists to study the past without giving knowledge and input to neo-Nazi groups. These encompass for instance the neo-religious group Vigrid that uses the Viking Age and Norse religion for racist purposes. That the pre-Christian past can have a dangerous potential is also present, as in the period 1992–2000 groups and individuals influenced by heathenism and Satanism set fire to 56 Christian buildings, including a twelfth-century stave church that in 1992 burned to the ground (overview of fires in Holme 2001a: 215). Although both the neo-Nazi and Satanist groups are tiny and have major public opposition against them, these fires highlight a potential danger. Conflicts between these marginal groups and archaeologists have still mainly been absent. For instance, when youths who allegedly belonged to Vigrid intended in May 2004 to visit the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, “to learn about pre-Christian Viking culture in Norway”, they were allegedly hindered by radical left factions, but not by the museum.28 Several archaeologists in Norway have supported the paradigm of difference (e.g. Østigård 1999: 20; 2001; Rustad 2000; Kyvik 2002: 130). It also gained support during a debate in 2004 concerning the theoretical framework for a planned new museum building in Oslo to house Oldsaksamlingen. The medieval historian Magnus Rindal started the debate by arguing that Norway needs a national museum to display the most important objects from the country (Rindal 2004b), a view that reminds us of earlier calls for a national museum (Undset 1885; Gustafson 1902: 15-19). Rindal’s approach was immediately criticized by other scholars who called for a museum with a wider application in a global present. Egil Mikkelsen, the current director of Oldsaksamlingen, argued that the museum in a multicultural society should favour cultural understanding that highlights a different past (Mikkelsen 2004b), instead of stressing similarity to the past. The paradigm of difference has also gained support from the ministry and directorate in charge of cultural heritage. Researching governmental documents on cultural heritage protection, the archaeologist Terje Brattli argues that since around 2000 the term identity has been replaced by terms such as character of place or belonging. Except for the Sámi and other minority groups, ethnic or national identity is seldom projected on the cultural heritage in documents produced by   “Blitzere til angrep mot nasjonalister på Bygdøy”, Aftenposten, 24 May 2004

28

national authorities, because this is seen as politically incorrect (Brattli 2006: 124-5). In several aspects, the paradigm of difference is important because it warns against projecting current identities back in time, it can minimize nationalist uses and might enable multicultural participation in the cultural heritage. However, the paradigm of difference also creates new problems. Solli herself points to the most pertinent issue, since the paradigm of difference can be seen as a new form of imperialism if it is applied to indigenous peoples who want to use the past to construct their identities. Solli formulates this inherent contradiction as follows (e.g. Solli 2002: 242): 1. Archaeologists should be careful not to stimulate dangerous nationalism or stress the dominance of one cultural identity at the expense of cultural diversity (cf. Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Kohl and Fawcett 1995). 2. Minority groups, such as indigenous peoples who have been colonized and often suppressed, should be allowed to use the past to create their identities (cf. Layton 1989c, 1989a; Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990). Solli mentions a “moderate relativistic” approach that might solve this inherent contradiction: minorities should be allowed to use the paradigm of identity, contrary to the majority who have often suppressed these groups and therefore should keep silent (Solli 2002: 242). The possible consequence of this view in Norway is that the ethnic minority of the Sámi people, as well as immigrants and other subordinate groups, should be allowed to use the archaeological heritage to construct contemporary identities, but this use by ethnic Norwegians is seen as incorrect and with potential political dangers. Solli has therefore countered this suggestion by arguing that identity and belonging are important also when a “different past” is studied, but to past people and landscape and not affiliation to any “ancestors” (Solli 1997a: 19). Still, it may be questioned whether the paradigm of difference can alienate ethnic Norwegians today and the affiliation they might feel to the past and the historic environment. For instance, currently, one major problem for preserving burial mounds is that people do not feel a sense of belonging or identity towards them, and the paradigm of difference might have the potential of dislocating people from the cultural heritage (cf. Krogh 1999: 114-15). Furthermore, the paradigm of difference is based upon preconceptions as to how to view the past, just as the identity paradigm projects identity as important. None of these paradigms considers, however, to what extent people actually want to use the past to construct identities or not. Although the past does in several ways represent “a foreign country” (cf. Lowenthal 1985), local people may feel ownership and affiliation to the relics from the past in their vicinity, even considering past people as their ancestors. Similarly, archaeologists often feel both ownership and an academic identity to the same relicts when they survey, excavate or research them, but allegedly this ownership serves the more correct “higher interest” of research.

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology On the extreme, even the paradigm of difference can be viewed as an extension of a nationalization of the cultural heritage. In the late nineteenth century, burial mounds were intended to be nationalized by archaeologists who opposed local interests. The massive excavations and collecting of antiquities that then occurred can be seen as a means of distancing the local people from the burial mounds they lived among. Although I am critical of an essentialist view of stressing the identity of a place, archaeological monuments and artefacts can have a prevailing importance for several local people who view them as parts of their identity and use them to strengthen their sense of belonging to a place. This is even current today when antiquities are claimed to be returned to local communities to be used to construct local identities and as a source for local value creation (chapter 7). Conversely, the paradigm of difference can be used to strengthen the archaeological interests in the archaeological record because it is believed to have a less dangerous political potential than local interests and the sense of belonging to the past. The paradigm of difference can even be interpreted as a new identity paradigm. Solli discussed a queer Norse past that is different from the known, which again can be used to create contemporary (subordinate) queer identities and new affiliations to the Viking Age and Norse religion. In this regard, Solli’s approach might even resemble neo-religious groups that revitalize folk-beliefs and customs to construct their identities, such as the society established in 1999 called Foreningen forn sed, but also the fellowship of Bifrost, which are stated nonracists in their statutes.29 To conclude: the paradigm of difference has proposed in Norway an important reflection about uses of the past. The paradigm is still problematic as it can be interpreted as a new fear held by the experts against the interests of various groups. One argument repeated throughout this book has been that ethnic Norwegians do not necessarily feel affiliated to the practice of archaeology. However, if people want to use the archaeological record to construct current identities based on a kind of similarity to past peoples, even if it is not in accordance with archaeological interpretations and interests, this can be defended considering that it is not “damaging” (for instance racist, too patriotic, although it must be questioned who defines what is “damaging”). The interest of other groups should still not exclude the research interests of archaeologists. This issue therefore leads to the next issue: if other stakeholders in the archaeological record are acknowledged, often with divergent interests, who should then be its stewards? 11.4. Stewards of the archaeological record Archaeologists became, after the adoption in 1905 of the first Cultural Heritage Act, stewards of the archaeological record in Norway. This stewardship was a consequence of archaeologists viewing themselves as the main stakeholders in the archaeological record that they used to construct the past of the nation, although for the benefit of all. In contrast, See http://www.forn-sed.no and http://www.bifrost.no/ (accessed 24 January 2008) 29 

several stakeholders are today recognized, but a critical concern is here still raised towards handing stewardship over to other stakeholders. I argue that archaeologists continue to be the main experts in the archaeological record and should maintain a special position as stewards. These issues are explored by discussing tendencies in indigenous archaeologies, but although a modest critique is raised, it is outside the scope to interfere with decisions about these issues taken in other countries or concerning the Sámi in Norway. The question of who should be the stewards of the archaeological record is currently an internationally debated issue, particular in the US (e.g. Groarke and Warrick 2006; Lynott and Wylie 2000; Smith 2004: 81-104; Wylie 1999, 2005). In section 11.1, an overview has been given of instruments that in different contexts have the purpose of either (1) handing over stewardship to indigenous peoples, or (2) that moderately aim to include various stakeholders and stress dialogue. Both of these approaches can be seen as controversial. Based on studies of the situation in Australia and North America, the archaeologist Laurajane Smith argues that archaeologists should not have a special claim on access and control over the archaeological record. Consequently, Smith airs her critique towards the second approach that highlights dialogue, and she supports other critics who consider dialogue as tokenistic that can have the effect of reinforcing the privileges of archaeological authority (Smith 2004: 29, 50-55, 102, 198-9). The American Indian archaeologist Joe Watkins asserts similar views, and he argues that stewardship must be shared with “Indigenous Nations throughout the world” (Watkins 2003b: 282). From this perspective, a “truly indigenous archaeology will never happen until indigenous populations control the quality and quantity of archaeology performed within their homelands” (Watkins 2000: 177). Watkins further held that the “idea that the American past is a heritage to be shared by the entire world – one that scientists are most qualified to understand and present to the public – removes American Indians from the stage” (Watkins 2003a: 137). Other archaeologists have reformulated the stewardship concept so that it does not combine stewardship with a principle of conservation. Instead, archaeological practice should be “constrained and regulated by obligations to individuals, communities and groups”, and archaeologists should respect decisions “located outside the archaeological profession” (Groarke and Warrick 2006: 176). In contrast to Smith and Watkins’ view, the argument proposed here is that it might be problematic to give ownership rights to interest groups and those arguing to be the descendants of the archaeological heritage. Of special relevance is Sarah Tarlow’s warning against the formulation of general ownership rights by indigenous peoples to the cultural heritage, as given in the First Code of Ethics by the World Archaeological Congress (1990), since such rights might in addition enable far right and neoNazi claims (Tarlow 2001: 256). Although indigenous, but also local people’s, involvement in the archaeological heritage is important, nationalist related uses of archaeology are particular incumbent if ownership and stewardship are handed over to one stakeholder represented by alleged descendants that now gain prerogative in the archaeological record (cf. Kristiansen 2002; Olsen 2001). From this perspective, even trends in

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record UNESCO’s World Heritage work from the mid 1990s might be problematic due to the increasing stress on the view that the cultural heritage belongs to groups. According to this strategy, all “cultures” should be represented on a World Heritage List, a view that resembles social anthropological perspectives from the 1930s that view culture as mosaics that emphasize their rootedness to particular places (Omland 2006b: 257-8; cf. Wright 1998; Eriksen 2001; Dahlström 2003: 12-15, 269). The Danish anthropologist Kirsten Hastrup has further given a powerful critique against indigenization in archaeology and anthropology. Hastrup questions the view that indigenous knowledge should be privileged above other knowledge and she scrutinizes what the term “indigenous peoples” means and what they are indigenous to. Hastrup sees indigenization as a mistake because scientific research requires a distance to the analyzed object at the same time as the concept does not abolish the imperialistic gaze, but gives privilege to a new one that is not necessarily better (Hastrup 1999: 223). Additionally, while an indigenous archaeology may include the interests of earlier subordinated stakeholders, it may be exclusive to other groups, such as archaeologists, who also have an interest in the archaeological record. Highlighting these issues, Mike Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina argue from a Madagascan context that the term “indigenous” is both ambiguous and exclusive, and they suggest replacing the term with the more inclusive concept “local”. The term “local” does not indicate that a present population is autochthonic, and it further allows archaeologists to study the archaeological record for the sake of research, but also that the local people can learn about what can be termed “their” past because they live in the place (Pearson and Ramilisonina 2004). In line with similar thoughts it is argued, in a Swedish context, that heritage management can be seen as a representative system where antiquarians represent cultural heritage interests against other interests. Being an antiquarian still means to serve the public, but this does not necessarily denote an increased participatory democracy, because arguably some people want others to take these responsibilities. According to these thoughts, management occurs in a dialogue with a public that is best represented if someone also takes a stance for values that can in some cases differ from the public opinion (Burström et al. 2004). The consequence of these considerations is that although local stakeholders in several cases should be recognized, and archaeologists must reflect upon their own and other interests and aim for dialogues with various groups, this does not denote that other knowledge is necessarily better than the archaeological or that the interests of archaeologists should be weakened. This view even has the implication that archaeologists should in several contexts, but explored here only in Norway, maintain a privileged position of being stewards of the archaeological record. However, as other archaeologists in Norway have argued (Bertelsen et al. 2001: 105-6; Nilsen 2003a: 389-90), this also requires a dialogue that takes into account the interests and values of different stakeholders. Being in a privileged position further requires a constant reflection by archaeologists on both their own and

other interests in the archaeological record where also agendas and decisions ought to be transparent. This interchange between various stakeholders can take place in what has been termed an “agora”. Such an interchange has the aim of creating a socially robust archaeology and it resembles in some instances the notion of multivocality. 11.5. The role of expertise in the knowledge society This section discusses the role of expertise in the current knowledge-based society, comprising a high number of educated people. While several archaeologists have over the last ten years argued for a multivocal archaeology to enable a broader perspective on heritage interpretation and management, I question whether the notion of social robustness might be a better framework in our current knowledge-based society. 11.5.1 Multivocal archaeology Multivocal approaches in archaeology have been suggested, from the late 1990s in particular, as strategies that can counter Western values and create a broader perspective on heritage interpretation and management. However, what I will question here is to what extent multivocality is possible, and whether the concept can apply to the actual archaeological process. The term multivocality has been used as a response to commitments that archaeology should be plural (e.g. Shanks and Tilley 1989; 1992: 245). In archaeology, this plural obligation was formulated as an answer from critiques especially by indigenous peoples, but also to feminism. However, as has been seen throughout this book, the term is relevant also in Western contexts, such as in Norway, as the public interprets and ascribes divergent values to monuments and sites. That the discipline of archaeology in particular has responded to divergent values is highlighted by the fact that if one searches the database Oxford Reference online, which includes dictionaries covering a broad spectrum of academic disciplines, only the archaeological dictionary gives a definition of multivocality, as follows: Literally, ‘many voices’; an approach to archaeological reasoning, explanation, and understanding that accepts a high degree of relativism and thus encourages the contemporaneous articulation of numerous different narratives or parallel discourses. Thus different groups will adopt different positions in relation to their interpretation of the past, and the meanings that they attach to physical remains. (Darvill 2002: 275) Multivocality can on the one hand be interpreted as a kind of representation, an approach that aims at including a variety of values and representations of heritage. Currently, this approach is in particular present in the global heritage management regime, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. In this context, the concept of heritage has been relocated during the recent years from a marginal to a central position and is now aimed to be represented on the World Heritage List (Labadi 2007: 166; see also Omland 2006).

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology Multivocality can on the other hand also be interpreted as a strategy to be applied during the process before heritage managers, archaeologists and others take decisions. This approach seems to be present at the excavation project at Çatalhöyük in Turkey started in 1993, a project that has disseminated the notion of multivocality internationally. According to its director Ian Hodder, people with conflicting interests in the past want to be engaged in the archaeological process in different ways, and a multivocal approach should enable mechanisms that allow divergent interests to be taken into account (Hodder 1999: 159-61, 183, 195; 2000a). However, since the strategy of multivocality in the context of the Çatalhöyük project seems to refer to the process more than the result, Hodder also argues that at some stage a standpoint must be taken based upon archaeological evidence, which can stand in contrast to other interests. This might explain why publications of the research results present mainly interpretations constructed by archaeologists (e.g. Hodder 2006). However, some kind of multivocality can be traced, for instance information about the communities that are interested in Çatalhöyük and what they want to get knowledge about. We also get to know that women groups are interested in the site because they interpret finds of female figurines as evidence for the presence of a Goddess, which, although wrong, has led archaeologists to focus more on the role of women who once lived at Çatalhöyük (Hodder 2006: 32-42). One can also argue that the project is multivocal if one reads Hodder’s book together with other publications, such as one by the site guard that tells the story of the excavation from the point of view of the “Other” (Dural 2007). That multivocality might be concerned with the process more than the result is also present in the management plan for Çatalhöyük, which was overseen by Ian Hodder.30 A multivocal approach might have been present during drafting of the plan since it does identify interest groups that have been consulted in a participatory process of writing it. The plan even mentions local meanings given to the site and that various groups shall be included in the process of interpreting and preserving Çatalhöyük. Still, the management plan is not multivocal on how the site shall be managed and preserved, but it reflects a conservation ethic that Smith names the “authorized heritage discourse” (see section 11.1). For instance, Çatalhöyük shall be preserved in its landscape; it should have a buffer zone with restrictions on building activity; and awareness should be instilled in the farmers of the region that they should not plough over mounds; but it is difficult to attain knowledge about what is actually the local people’s interest for the future of the site. The ambiguity of the multivocal approach is also present in several works applying it. Increasingly, after 2000, the term has been applied in archaeology, as indicated in a full-text search I have operated for uses of the terms “multivocal” or “multivocality” in the digital versions of six selected

international journals that publish articles on heritage issues.31 Browsing the 53 articles found, several occurrences of the term “multivocality” are simply reviews and references to books that apply this strategy, in particular the works by Ian Hodder. In other articles, the term “multivocality” has become a buzzword used to place oneself within a position in archaeology that is currently seen as important. In some works, the term is “namedropped” almost as an ethical imperative or commitment to take into account different interests in the past and heritage. Possibilities and limits for multivocal strategies are to a lesser extent assessed, although some articles do discuss the challenge of multivocality. One could question whether these ambiguous approaches taken towards the idea of multivocalism indicate that it is hardly possible in practice. For instance, in the work with a webpage on the archaeological project at the Levi Jordan Plantation in Texas, US, multivocality was employed as one of four important strategies, and it simply meant “that we wanted to ensure that a diversity of people had the opportunity to participate in the ‘conversation’ of the website” (McDavid 2002: 307). However, in this project, the American archaeologist Carol McDavid realized that to achieve multivocal communication was difficult: visitors did not take the opportunities provided to express dissent against archaeologists on the website. This could possibly be because people saw her as an authority in being part of a scientific discipline. McDavid further suggests that although multivocality might be on the agenda of the researcher, it is not necessarily so for the public visiting a site. Further, McDavid realized that people possibly did not need a critical dialogue with archaeologists about their pasts and their relationship with the past. Rather, it could even be seen as arrogant by archaeologists to suggest that they do. McDavid therefore questions whether multivocality is then not a Good Thing? Despite the shortcomings, McDavid argues that multivocality is worth a try, but that one should continue to look at the concept critically (McDavid 2002: 311). The critical reflections by McDavid remind us about the view expressed in 1996 by the Norwegian archaeologist Brit Solli. Solli argues that it was impossible in practice to carry out plural and democratic archaeology when she in the early 1990s conducted an archaeological excavation on the West Norwegian island of Veøy. Instead, people wanted her to tell what she knew. This led Solli to conclude that “this kind of archaeology should be left to be speculated upon in the Cambridge armchairs where it once originated” (Solli 1996b: 251; 1996c: 225; cf. Skeates 2000: 123). Still, it has been argued that the advantages and limitations of mulitivocality should be discussed according to the cultural and historical setting (Habu et al. 2008: 5). Along similar lines, from a Bolivian context, the archaeologists Kojan and Angelo argue in favour of applying multivocality in the sense that archaeologists must immerse themselves and their work in their contemporary social context. Hence, multivocality may These were American Antiquity (1935–2003), Antiquity (1927–2007), International Journal of Heritage Studies (1994–2007), Journal of Social Archaeology (2001–7), Norwegian Archaeological Review (1999–2007), World Archaeology (1969–2007) 31 

Catalhöyük Management Plan (2004), produced as part of the Temper project. Available at http://www.catalhoyuk.com/smp/index.html (accessed 24 January 2008). 30 

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record not only be understood as a diversity of voices, that can also cause more reactionary claims such as Nazism, but as part of a larger project that interrogates and discusses contemporary uses of the past (Kojan and Angelo 2005: 396-9). Such an approach to multivocality might even counter an alleged plural archaeology that is in practice undemocratic. Colonial Rhodesia is one example where consent to the enigma of Great Zimbabwe caused an acceptance of highly imaginative alternatives of who its constructors had been. This acceptance was in reality what I have earlier termed a “plural suppression” of the fact that the black population had built the monument (Omland 1999: 82-3). Similarly, also Ian Hodder warns against dangers with the idea of multivocality as it can be part of an imperialist tradition, or it can be confused with commercial approaches that intend more to include consumers than enable a socially engaged multivocality (Hodder 2008).

(Gibbons et al. 1994). Mode 2 of knowledge production is said to have emerged after World War II and stresses issues such as application, social usefulness and transdisciplinarity of knowledge. This contrasts with Mode 1 that highlights academic interests, disciplinary context and the autonomy of practitioners. This model can be applied as a useful analytical concept to discuss the contemporary role of expertise, but it does have shortcomings. For instance, critics argue that not all academic disciplines operated within Mode 1 before 1945. The idea of an autonomous science is further said to be a partial idea under Mode 1 because it can be seen as a “rhetorical creation on the part of scientists anxious to justify their social position” (Godin 1998: 467). The argument has further been developed in this book that archaeology in Norway has never been autonomous, but has always aimed at finding contemporary application for conducting archaeology.

From these perspectives, it becomes clear that using the term “multivocality” must be done with care. First, it might be seen as naïve if archaeologists and heritage managers just name-drop the term “multivocality” as an ethical imperative as it can also disclose other agendas. Second, the notion of multivocality might also be seen as tokenistic if it should be seen as a process mainly, since at one stage decisions based on the archaeological material will usually be taken. Third, perhaps not all people want to be engaged with their past, or some people might want the knowledge of the expert.

Despite shortcomings of the model, the idea of social robustness and the agora are useful concepts to understand also the current situation of archaeology. According to the view framed within Mode 2, a transformation to socially robust knowledge takes place in the social place of the agora. This agora is not populated by “the mob”, but today by welleducated citizens, and social robustness is created through debate, contestation and negotiation (Nowotny et al. 2001: 201, 204, 210). This idea of socially robust knowledge resembles the democratization of the sciences requested by the Belgian chemist and philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers. Stengers calls for a critical stance to statements such as “it is proven that” which can be seen as statements that execute power (Stengers 1999: 5-6). Stengers conversely argues that knowledge is grounded on someone being interested in refuting the produced statements (Stengers 1999 793: 69), and she supports the idea that the public should participate in those issues they are interested in (Stengers 1999: 73).

To me, the notion of multivocality therefore seems to balance neatly between the interests of archaeologists and those of other interest groups. One could therefore conclude with the assertion that a Western “hegemony” is still present in global heritage management (e.g. Byrne 1991; Smith 2004, 2006). The counterargument is that the discussion as seen above, has changed considerably during the 1990s and 2000s in the direction of more plural voices, although perhaps not always the practices of what heritage is and how it should be managed. On the contrary, it is also possible to argue that the important role of the expert should be seen as justified, since after all we live in a world where expertise is important in most fields, although not conducted in a social vacuum. This might question whether the term “multivocality” can be replaced by other terms that better describe archaeological practice, such as that it should be socially robust by being resisted by society. 11.5.2 Socially robust archaeology in the agora The argument held here is that professional expertise does not exist in a vacuum, but in a society that critically resists it and that therefore might give academia what is here termed “social robustness”. In 2001, the notion of an agora was suggested by some social and political scientists as a social place where academic knowledge attains social robustness (Nowotny et al. 2001: 201). The crucial argument held by this position is that if academic knowledge is today to remain reliable, it must be socially robust (Nowotny et al. 2001: 178). This view is framed within the context of knowledge production that these writers in 1994 termed Mode 2 or “the new mode of knowledge production”

Socially robust knowledge further shares some similarities with the above discussion of a plural or multivocal archaeology. One important difference is, however, that socially robust knowledge seems to emphasize more strongly and not to conceal the importance of the experts who are said to be the “most powerful mediators between ‘science’ and its neighbours in the agora” (Nowotny et al. 2001: 215). Discussing socially robust archaeology in the context of Norwegian archaeology, a resistance from society can be articulated by stressing interpretations based on folklore and folk-beliefs that have been discussed in this book. However, several of these narratives have an ambiguous and uncertain contemporary value and other means of resistance might today be more significant. One powerful objection might be to question to what extent archaeologists manage to produce knowledge from rescue excavations that, according to §10 of the current Cultural Heritage Act of 1978, usually the developer must pay for. In 2003, the costs of excavations carried out by the then four archaeological university museums were 106.6 million Norwegian crowns, of which Oldsaksamlingen spent 41.4 millions (NOU nr. 8 2006: 51).32 These excavations are   Then approximately 13 and 5 million Euros, or 16 and 6 million US$.

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Stakeholders and stewards in contemporary archaeology grounded on the trust between archaeologists and the society that pays that it is important to secure the archaeological record in order to gain knowledge about the past. Questions from society about the extent to which the recovered material is actually used to produce knowledge may from this perspective be as relevant as aiming at a multivocal and plural archaeology that stresses diverse interpretations by various groups. These objections can further create a more social reliable archaeology that is obliged to produce what an agora of the educated public demands: knowledge about the past, of which different groups might request various issues to get knowledge about. The process of building archaeological knowledge and passing this on to the public – some of whom might already possess their certain versions of the past – should be from these perspectives in the twenty-first century also an ethical commitment from the archaeological discipline. However, the response from society can also provide an important input for archaeologists, and issues might have to be incorporated in research projects that even conflict with other current theoretical trends in archaeology that would be more academically “favourable” to emphasize. Still, the question is to what extent such an agora, which allows negotiation, currently exists in Norwegian archaeology. Possible answers to this question will not be considered at length, and are indeed a research project on their own. However, what should be stressed is that although archaeological knowledge is seldom discussed in the agora, the public do contest parts of archaeological practice. Preservation conflicts from the 1960s did take place in an agora as resistance towards archaeologists was expressed in local newspapers (chapter 10). Scattered protests against the ownership of archaeological objects in five designated museums represent in addition a contemporary critique against the current practice of archaeology (section 7.5). Such claims are important because they also put stronger pressure on the museums to make a better job of meeting local interests in learning more about the archaeological record. However, these needs can only be fulfilled if the museums also get more financial resources to disseminate knowledge, lend out antiquities, create travelling and temporary exhibitions or give better access to the objects through the internet and to museum visitors (Omland et al. 2005). The most important significance of this resistance towards the practice of archaeology might therefore be that it obliges archaeologists and the museums to reflect on their role as stewards of the archaeological heritage. This might nourish a socially robust archaeology that can cater for various current needs, but at the same time archaeologists should also in the future be the experts as they have knowledge about the past and the archaeological record.

rejection of local knowledge can be seen as an attempt at that time to create a trustworthy archaeology among the public towards whom the discipline was then oriented: the educated middle class and not the common people. However today the descendants of the common people are often well educated and part of an agora, and they can therefore participate in creating a socially robust archaeology. This book has been written according to ideas formulated in the 1990s and 2000s that stressed the importance of the local, the specific, divergent interests and the role of cultural heritage for sustaining identities, and it has therefore generally aired a critical view towards the practice of archaeology pursued by Nicolaysen and his colleagues. While Nicolaysen’s approach was influenced by rationalism, the approaches from the 1990s that the current research has been framed within can instead been seen as influenced by romanticism (see chapter 4). However, archaeology might again turn towards rationalism after this inclination to romanticism. Pluralism, multivocality and the inclusion of local and indigenous people are today stressed in several contexts, but reactions towards these views might be raised according to other needs from society; such as from indigenous and local peoples who request that archaeologists be the experts whose obligation is to build on knowledge about the past and disseminate this to the public. 11.6. Conclusions This chapter has argued that there is currently local interest in burial mounds in Agder. This interest is present partly through both a continuity and revitalization of folklore, but also burial mounds attract the attention of people who in various ways use them as meeting places. This current interest in burial mounds is used as one argument that not only archaeologists, but also the local people, are stakeholders in them. Despite several stakeholders in burial mounds being identified, it is still argued that archaeologists, who are the main experts, should be their stewards. A general critique towards an indigenization of the cultural heritage is thus raised. Nevertheless, the view is held that archaeologists need some resistance in order to sustain a socially robust archaeology. If not, Norwegian archaeology faces the danger that the British archaeologist Robin Skeates generally warns against concerning archaeology, that “archaeologists will find themselves becoming increasingly marginal to the needs of society in the twenty-first century” (Skeates 2000: 124).

Even this book can be seen as one attempt at sustaining a socially robust archaeology as contested views are discussed and also made available in the accompanying database of Spang. This has been one, of several possible, means of creating an agora in the early twenty-first century. However, social robustness changes over time. Archaeologists in the nineteenth century, such as Nicolay Nicolaysen (1817–1911), argued strictly against local interpretations of burial mounds. This 225

12 Conclusions: indigenous and Norwegian archaeologies I hope that, by using folklore material, I have been able in this book to highlight that there has been – and still is – local interest in burial mounds in Agder, southern Norway. Legends and folk-beliefs, collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, indicate that not all burial mounds turned after their construction into fossilized relicts in the landscape that were first enlivened when archaeologists discovered them. Instead, oral accounts document that the monuments have been marked in the consciousness of people living in their vicinity who incorporated them in various narratives. Various responses to these narratives by archaeologists have also been investigated, and I have argued that this has followed a cycle of rationalism and romanticism. Archaeologists were mainly negative to the narratives in periods characterized as rationalist, such as when archaeology was established as an autonomous discipline (c.1840–1900) or turned towards more “scientific” approaches (c.1960–80s). Conversely, archaeologists have assessed these narratives more positively in periods characterized as romantic, such as during periods with stronger national influence (c.1900–60), or they have emphasized pluralist meaning (from the 1990s). After the lengthy discussions, one may ask what the implications are of this work. To conclude, I will briefly mention five implications for Norwegian archaeology and a sixth implication that looks at the international relevance. 12.1. Implications for Norwegian archaeology The first implication is perhaps a bit naïve, as it is hoped that the book can generate more interest from both archaeologists and non-archaeologists in burial mounds, stories told about them and various uses of them. This could possibly serve a higher interest of preserving them, although it is not certain, as discussed in chapter 10, whether folklore does enhance the protection of archaeological monuments. However, the book and the accompanying database might stimulate more people to visit burial mounds and gain knowledge about the stories surrounding them. I would also appreciate it if heritage managers, in some cases, enabled people to continue to engage with some archaeological monuments by letting them use them in various ways, for instance for bonfires, sailing marks, flagpoles, but in some cases also in other ways that are not based on old traditions. Secondly, I do request that archaeologists be in some cases more open to divergent interests in the archaeological record. Still, I do not call for any revolutionary change in archaeological practice, but actually I think it is an important standpoint to credit the expert role of archaeologists.

Thirdly, I hope the book might stimulate more reflection on the role of archaeology in society, and question the effect of archaeological practice. For example, one issue discussed is to what extent the Cultural Heritage Act and archaeological practice have sustained the protection of burial mounds, or alternatively encouraged local destructions. Although any clear causality on these matters is difficult to establish, I have emphasized that archaeologists, especially in the nineteenth century, did combat those narratives that marked the burial mounds in the consciousness of the local people, precisely in the same modern period as destructions escalated. Fourthly, the book briefly touches on where archaeology might move in the future. The book has been written according to romantic ideas formulated in the 1990s and 2000s, which stressed the importance of the local, the specific, divergent interests, and the role of cultural heritage for sustaining identities. However, archaeology might again turn towards rationalism after this inclination to romanticism. Although pluralism, multivocality and the inclusion of local and indigenous people are all today stressed in several contexts, reactions towards these views might be raised according to other needs from society; such as from indigenous and local people who request that archaeologists be experts whose obligation is to build up knowledge about the past. Fifthly, the suggestion in chapter 11 for a “socially robust” archaeology might be seen as provisional. However, when I developed these thoughts, I felt that it somehow reflected both my personal views and my professional commitment to both archaeology and society since the approach seeks a “middle way” that tries to cater for the needs of both. However, I do think these and related ideas have to be developed further. Finally, although the cases discussed have been Norwegian, they might have a broader international relevance as discussed below. 12.2. International relevance One idea explored throughout the book is that archaeology as practised in a Western context shares several similarities with colonial or indigenous archaeologies. Five themes about burial mounds have been assessed – digging them up, ownership issues, magical importance, oral records from the past and disturbances – arguing that several controversies are present in a non-Western setting too. The responses that Norwegian archaeologists have made to the local people and their interest in burial mounds resemble views asserted by the colonizers about the colonized, especially during the establishment of the discipline in the mid nineteenth century, although there are also significant differences. 226

Conclusions: indigenous and Norwegian archaeologies Firstly, I would like to point to the notion of difference that is similar in the context of archaeology in Norway to the colonized countries. With relation to difference, I think about the divergence between archaeologists and those people who live among the archaeological monuments (local people, indigenous people, etc.). This difference is rightly enough particularly strong between archaeologists who belong to one ethnic group but carry out fieldwork in an area populated by another ethnic group who also use the archaeological record as a source to construct or maintain their identity. Also in Norway, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, archaeologists were the experts who usually came from an urban and educated middle class, and they regarded themselves as different from the local people who lived in the countryside that contained the burial mounds of archaeological interest. Still, in Norway these two groups did have the same ethnic background, and archaeologists did identify themselves in the early twentieth century with this folk. Secondly, scholars in the nineteenth century perceived, according to evolutionary perspective, the culture of both the common people (the “folk”) and the indigenous peoples as static. This had two consequences. On the one hand, scholars could express a negative view towards the farmers and indigenous people who were described as simple, uneducated, not capable of holding coherent views about the past, and who had superstitious beliefs about archaeological monuments. On the other hand, scholars could also see the static elements of the culture as positive: the farmers and indigenous people had actually preserved and transmitted a repository of cultural relics. In Norway, in the early twentieth century, archaeologists held this view that the people were transmitters of Norwegian culture, an approach that recalls the role currently given, in some contexts, to indigenous peoples who are seen as the bearers of age-old oral stories (although the evolutionary view is rejected). Thirdly, since the 1990s, indigenous and local peoples’ versions of the past have often been included in archaeology, but this has different implications. In some indigenous archaeologies, oral accounts are argued to contain actual testimonies about the past that by some are seen as equal to archaeological knowledge. This might also have the consequence of giving indigenous peoples property rights in the archaeological record. In Norwegian archaeology, the meaning oriented approach has been stressed, and stories are not seen as representing actual accounts of the past, although these possibilities are in some cases explored. Most narratives discussed in this book therefore do not represent the same “threat” to archaeology as they did for archaeologists in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although some legends might have current local value, they are mainly of historical interest, and to a lesser extent than indigenous knowledge they represent a challenge for contemporary archaeological knowledge. The consequences of these similarities are relevant for both indigenous archaeologies and archaeology in Norway. For instance, I am critical of the label “indigenous archaeologies” that suggests difference from and opposition towards Western archaeology and that sees indigenization as a solution, but that

in several ways recalls the national approach taken in Norway in the early twentieth century that carried a political potential hazard. The book can also be seen as a critique towards archaeologies in a Western setting that do not consider local interests. Although being critical of the label “indigenous archaeologies”, their importance is that they consider the involvement of stakeholders, which thus stimulates an important reflection on archaeological practice. “Indigenous archaeologies” can further be used, as in this book, to shed light on the practice of archaeology in a Western setting, but also the opposite. These considerations do all question the role of archaeologists being both the stewards and the stakeholders of the archaeological record. In the nineteenth century, archaeologists in Norway who argued against legends and folk-beliefs about burial mounds not only influenced the knowledge about them. The result of their discipline had a larger effect: it resulted in 1905 in the nationalization of burial mounds with archaeologists becoming the experts who gained both legal and epistemological control. This can be seen as negative if one supports the view that local people should have control over “their” cultural heritage, or property, and they should not feel alienated or distanced from “their” past. However, several contrafactual questions can be raised that highlight the positive effects of this appropriation of the cultural heritage. How would archaeology have developed if it had not rejected local interpretations of burial mounds and developed its own methods to construct knowledge about the past? Although archaeological theories and methods are constantly reformulated, resisted and rejected, the question is important to consider what our knowledge would have been today if it had relied on oral accounts told by local people instead of retrieving a substantial record to be used for archaeological research. 12.3. In support of archaeology Although this book has aimed at including other voices and interests, it airs a critical attitude towards both an “indigenization” and handing over of stewardship to other groups in Norway. Further, the argument is made that archaeology has actually been capable of adapting to various needs in contemporary society. In the nineteenth century, the discipline of archaeology catered for the need to attain knowledge about the past, which caused a rejection of folklore. In the first half of the twentieth century, archaeology satisfied the need of a young nation to construct its national identity based on the discoveries of the “folk”. After World War II, archaeologists strengthened the protection and control over the archaeological record to reduce the destruction caused by escalating post-war development, which caused new preservation conflicts with local people. From the 1990s, archaeologists have stressed the importance of local involvement in heritage protection, and several also approach folklore more positively, which accords with a stronger focus on giving heritage management and the academic disciplines a broader foundation in society. Hence, archaeology has always

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record located itself in what was in section 11.5 formulated as an “agora”, and archaeology has been both resisted by society and has aimed at giving the discipline contemporary relevance. Although the discipline in the nineteenth century detached itself from the local people who belonged to an uneducated sector of farmers, it did still place itself in an agora with the urban and educated middle class. The tendency in some indigenous archaeologies is, however, that various groups increasingly aim at getting control over the archaeological record that they see as theirs. However, being in the agora does not imply a complete acceptance of other contemporary interests. Both archaeology and society have to resist and negotiate with each other. In the Norwegian context, where archaeological monuments and sites can be used as arguments to stress preservation as an alternative to utilizing the land for constructing buildings, industrial sites or roads, archaeology does continue to give important resistance against developments that can on cultural grounds be seen as unsustainable. Consequently, archaeologists should still have an important role to resist other views and even make unpopular decisions in some cases in order to improve research or preservation – even against the objection of those people who currently live among the burial mounds.

228



Appendix 1: Spang

The corpus database Spang is attached to this book on a CD. The database can easily be accessed with the computer program Microsoft Access. Spang is in Norwegian, but this chapter gives an overview of the information in the database. Spang contains folklore and life histories of burial mounds, but also other archaeological monuments and sites, in the counties of Agder. More information about the material and the selection process is given in chapter 5.

Figure 1: A record in Spang

4

229

Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record Content of Spang Figure 1 shows the form used in Spang to view the records. Information about each field in Spang is listed in the following. ID The unique ID number of each record. ID nummer ID number in Fornminneregisteret of the monument mentioned in the account. Number is followed with a question mark if is uncertain if the right monument has been identified from the registry. Several numbers are given if several surveyed monuments are mentioned in the account. The numbers are as a general rule listed according to order of appearance in the account. Vernestatus Protection status of a surveyed monument according to Fornminneregisteret. Protection status included only in those records imported from Fornminneregisteret. • R = the monument is automatic protected because it predates AD 1537 and is surveyed as preserved • X = the protection status is uncertain because the monument is destroyed, the surveyed site is a findspot, a natural feature, or younger than AD 1537 Fylke Current county where the mentioned monument is located. You can search: • Aust-Agder • Vest-Agder Kommune Current municipality where the mentioned monument is located. You can search: • In Aust-Agder * Arendal * Birkenes * Bygland * Bykle * Evje og Hornnes * Froland * Gjerstad * Grimstad * Iveland * Lillesand * Risør * Tvedestrand * Valle * Vegårshei * Åmli * and in addition Setesdal for general accounts about this valley that stretches through the municipalities of Evje og Hornnes, Bygland, Valle and Bykle •

Gård

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Audnedal Farsund Flekkefjord Hægebostad Kristiansand Kvinesdal Lindesnes Lyngdal Mandal Marnardal Sirdal Songdalen Søgne Vennesla Åseral

Name of the farm in the land register where the mentioned monument is located, other variants of the spelling of the name is in addition given. In brackets, the parish that the farm belongs to is given. Several farms can be listed if several monuments are mentioned in the account. As a general rule, the farms are listed according to order of appearance in the account. Gnr Number of the farm in the land register. Bruksnavn Name on a smaller farm unit at the main farm (included mainly in records imported from Fornminneregisteret). Bnr Number on a smaller farm unit at the main farm (included mainly in records imported from Fornminneregisteret). ØK Reference to the Economic Map where the monument is mapped (included mainly in records imported from Fornminneregisteret). Museumsnr. Museum number of antiquities found in relation to a monument mentioned in the account: • B = Bergen Museum • C = the Museum of Cultural History (Oldsaksamlingen) Kildekategori Source category included in Spang. You can search: • annet (other source). Most of these sources have been categorized in more details and you can search: arkitekt (architect), filolog (philologist), forfatter (author), geistlig (clergyman), geolog (geologist), historiker (historian), kunsthistoriker (art historian), militær (mili-

In Vest-Agder 230

Appendices tary), reiseberetning (travelogue), religionshistoriker (scholar of religious studies), skilt (board presenting a monument) • • • • • •

antikvar (antiquarian) arkeolog (archaeologist) avis (newspaper) bygdebok (parish-book) folkeminnesamling (folklore collection) Fornminneregisteret (the Sites and Monuments Registry) • lokalhistorisk bok (local historical book) • lokalhistorisk tidsskrift (local historical journal) • topograf (topographer) • UO top.ark. (Oldsaksamlingen’s topographical archive). Includes also selected accounts from the accession catalogue, and these can also be found by searching UO hovedkatalog. You can in addition search Bergen Museum top.ark. (Bergen Museum topographical archive). Referanse Bibliographic reference to the source. Surname included only of writer of a published source, but the entire bibliographical reference is given in appendix 3. The field contains the entire reference for archive sources and newspaper articles. År Publication year of the quoted source. Alternatively, the year an archaeological monument was surveyed or material recorded in an archive.

• • • • •

runer (runes, rune-stone) sten (stone, rock, usually a natural feature) steinbrudd (quarry) steinsetning (Iron Age stone-circle) tre (tree, often viewed as sacred and inhabited by supernatural creatures) • tuft (building site) • varp (cult deposition cairn, probably post-Medieval) • Generally, monuments and sites are categorized according to the interpretation given in the account and not according to the interpretation given by archaeologists. The terms can also be coded with the following marks: • ([name monument]) = term used on monument in Fornminneregisteret if this differs from the term used as the main category in the field (only in records imported from Fornminneregisteret), e.g.: gravhaug (gravrøys) • ? = uncertain if the source interpret the feature as the categorized type • “ ” = feature probably interpreted in at least one source as the categorized type, but surveyed by archaeologists as nature, or alternatively as another type of monument Navn Name on monument referred to in the account, alternatively the locality name. Emneord

Page number in the source.

Keyword all accounts in Spang have been analysed with. Appendix 2 gives an overview of these keywords with a description.

Fornminne

Beretning

Type of monument mentioned in the account, including some natural features. You can search:

The exact account about the monuments and sites, referred in quotation marks. In rare cases, short additional information about the account can be given.

Side

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

bautastein (Iron Age standing stone) berg (mountain) boplass (settlement) bygdeborg (Iron Age hill-fort) flatmarksgrav (flat-grave) folkeminne (general comment on folklore) gravhaug (burial mound), the term includes gravrøys (burial cairn) haug natur (natural mound not interpreted in the sources as a burial mound) heller (rock shelter) hule (cave) jernvinne (iron extraction site) kilde (well) kirke (church) kirkegård (church-yard) kors (cross) mur (wall) naust (Iron Age boat-house) oldsak (antiquity) ristning (engraving, rock-art, cup-mark)

Queries and conditions Spang can be searched by using conditions, or criteria, that combined will narrow down the records displayed. The included version of Spang has been sorted ascending after: fylke > kommune > gård > år. Conditions that can be used when making queries in Spang include among others: • * = asterisk, find the term within asterisk, asterisk recommended used in all queries • < = less than (numbers and years) • > = more than (numbers and years) • and • or • not • and not The table below gives selected examples on how conditions can be combined to retrieve relevant information in Spang.

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

The “filter” functions are recommended for such simple queries. Example number three is shown in Figure 2, and you will retrieve the relevant records by: (1) press the

second button (filter by form), (2) type the conditions in relevant fields, (3) press the third button (apply filter), (4) press the third button again to remove filter.

Field

Write

Records found

År

> 1989 and < 2000

All sources dated to the period 1990-1999

Kildetype

not *Fornminneregisteret*

All sources except Fornminneregisteret

Referanse Emneord

*Nicolaysen* *tolkningsuenighet*

All records in which the archaeologist Nicolay Nicolaysen disagrees with the content of a folklore account

Emneord

*kong* or *dronning*

All sources referring to royal people

Emneord

*kjemper* and *kjempehaug*

All sources referring to both giants and burial mounds termed or named Giant Mound

Kommune Emneord

*Farsund* *skatt*

All records from the municipality of Farsund referring to treasures

Kildetype Fornminne Emneord

*arkeolog* *gravhaug* *tinghaug*

Archaeologists commenting the interpretation that certain burial mounds are thing mounds

Figure 2: How to filter records in Spang

232

imports

from

Appendices Copyright The ownership of the database Spang belongs to Atle Omland. Spang should only be distributed with the book Stewards and stakeholders of the archaeological record. Archaeologists, folklore and burial mounds in Agder, southern Norway. Spang should not be copied or distributed without consent from the owner. Ownership of each record in Spang belongs to the publisher, writer, archive, etc. of the source. Information about the owner is included in each record. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage owns the records from Fornminneregisteret. Spang can freely be used for simple queries for the purpose of research, enjoyment or curiosity. If using Spang as a source for a publication, etc., the database should always be referred to and in addition the original source. The owner of Spang cannot be held responsible for any errors, and it is advised always to confer with the original source if a record is quoted. The correct reference to a record in Spang, if you are not using the original publication, is Spang followed by the unique ID number (the first field that is named ID). For instance, Spang 581.

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Stewards and Stakeholders of the Archaeological Record

Appendix 2: Keywords in Spang: an encyclopedia of folklore about burial mounds Appendix 2, attached to this book on a CD, is of a list of keywords by which each record in the database Spang has been analyzed, including a description of each keyword. This appendix can be seen as an “encyclopaedia” that, together with the database Spang, represent a popularization of the research. The keywords, which are all in Norwegian, are listed in alphabetical order with an English translation given in brackets and a reference to the chapter in the book that treats it. Reference to other keywords are given in the text by using →, followed by the keyword. Each record also gives references to selected examples from farms in Agder by using →, followed by the farm name underlined. The keywords used in Spang differ from folkloristic catalogues, and their purpose is to enable simple searches of the database. Although some keywords were identified after catalogues of Norwegian folklore, most keywords were “invented” by working with the sources and according to what kind of information was seen as relevant for the research. The aim was to keep the keywords simple and easy to understand for other people too. The keywords will not match other keywords when making searches; one of several examples is the term kjempe (giant) that was used first, but a search for kjempe also matches kjempehaug (giant mound), so the keyword was changed to kjemper (giants).

Appendix 3: Published sources in Spang Appendix 3, attached to this book on a CD, is a bibliography of all published sources of which extracts have been included in Spang. The bibliography is listed in alphabetical order by author or editor. Spang contains texts from archival and newspaper sources too, but the full references to these are included in Spang and are not repeated in Appendix 3.

Appendix 4: Lists of burial mounds Appendix 4, attached to this book on a CD, lists the tables that relate to the maps printed throughout the book. The tables contain mainly farm names and various motifs, while the complete folklore texts can be found in the database Spang, Appendix 1. The overviews of maps and tables are the result of interpretations of the texts in Spang. By searching Spang yourself, you might find other examples that for various reasons have not been included in the maps or tables in this book.

234

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