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The only Stave Church that we saw was in the Folkemuseum in Oslo. This church dates from around 1200 A.D. although the exterior dates from 1885. These Stave Churches are unique to Norway. Stave construction, in which posts are put vertically in the ground, predates horizontal log cabin constructions. The vertical building style helped achieve the lofty effect in wood that other Europeans did with stone.
These churches show the complex transition from the old Norse ways to Christianity. Although there are crosses on the lower gables, other decorations look like animal totems from earlier times. Inside there are runic inscriptions carved in the choir wall.
Like many children of Holocaust survivors, Diane had always winced at the archetypes from Norse mythology. "Thor's Hammer" was not only the name of the symbol that early Norse Christian's turned upside-down to make a cross; it was also the name of one of the Nazi storm troops.
In Norway, however, it was interesting to find out more about the old Norse mythology and overcome the prejudices. For example, it turns out that the fertility gods like Freyja and Njord known as the "Vanir" in the Viking period are more ancient than the "Æsir" we all hear about like Odin and Thor.
An essay in Finds of Rogaland: from Ice Age to Middle Ages explain that for the people of the Viking period "the god was a person's dearest friend, his ástvinr or fulltrúi: the faithful friend."
The essay points out that the old Norse and new Christian ideas meet in the first Christian provisions in the Gulathing Law from the early eleventh century:
"The first of our laws is that we must bow to the east and pray to the Holy Christ for a good year and for peace, and that we must keep our land fully peopled and have a temporal lord who has good fortune. Let him be our friend and we his and may God be a friend to us all."
The essay points out, "That God should be the friend of all derives from a deeply rooted Norse idea. The usual words in a Christian context would otherwise mean that one was either the slave of Christ or God's child."