Stones and more stones...

"Mistakes are Stepping Stones to Success"

- Anonymous

You would not believe how difficult it is to find a good quote about rocks or stone, strange right?  You might also be thinking, why in the world would she want a quote about stones?  Well today my Nordic Mythology class took a field trip to Sweden (yes to another country) to look at rocks.   Now before you think that this is super weird and that there has got to be more exciting things to see let me explain.  We first went to Ales Stenar, or Ale's Stones, or as I like to call it Sweden trying to out do England's Stonehenge and failing.  However it is still an impressive sight.  

Wikipedia says that it is a megalithic monument in Scania, Southern Sweden.  It is 73 yards long and formed by 59 large boulders of sandstone weighing up to 1.8 tonnes each.

 It is also strange that there really are not signs pointing to this or a road leading to it.  Nope you need to hike about half a mile up a giant hill (or if you are with my professor sprint) over cattle grates and into a cow pasture to see this.  Weird side note: all of these sites are on privately owned land.  If this was in the U.S. this would be in a national or state park and would have many many signs leading from the highway to a conveniently located parking lot right next to the site, but this is Sweden and apparently that means that all like historical monuments are in the middle of animal pastures.

 Once you get over the gale force freezing winds, the sprinting up the hill, and stepping around cow pies it was actually a spectacular view.

 I loved the clouds in my photos.

 And because its Scandinavia there was of course rain, luckily for us it was over the water and not over us.

 And sheep, I love sheep (not Katie I will still not have a goat/sheep farm with you) but I like taking photos of them.

This was the second site that we stopped at and it is one of the best preserved Viking graveyards in all of Scandinavia.  At one point there were about 600 stones here but now it is down to 370.  Some of the stones were placed in ship shapes and some in squares.

 My professor explained that historians think the ship shaped graves were for men because they believed the ship would take them to the afterlife and that the square graves were for women because a wagon would take them to the afterlife.

 This site was also in the middle of a sheep pasture, unfortunately they were afraid of us and ran before I could get a good picture.

 And there were red barns and John Deere tractors everywhere and it made me miss home.

 The third site that we visited was a hill in the middle of a newly plowed field, awesome (sorry bus driver but there was absolutely no way to avoid tracking mud into the bus).  This site had Runic Stones, or stones that had carvings on them.  This first stone had a mask/face on the front and then on the back...

 There is an inscription saying: Fader had this stone cut in memory of Bjorn, who owned a ship with him.  I know its so philosophical that I can hardly stand it.

 And this one says:  Fadir had these runes cut in memory of Ozurr, his brother, who died in the North.

 The SUN!!!!! When the sun comes out here we basically drop everything and try to soak up some rays because it lasts at most about 30 seconds before the clouds and rain come back.

 See beautiful freshly plowed field that we had to walk through to get to see the stones, the poor farmer I bet he planned his plowing perfectly so that there wouldn't be any tire marks, and we messed it up by walking through it.

 This is on the bridge going back to Denmark, the Oresund Bridge.  The bridge is 5 miles long and runs from Malmo, Sweden to the artificial island of Peberholm, which is in the middle of the strait.  The rest of the link is by tunnel under the water.  Apparently there were a few setbacks while digging the namely discovering 16 unexploded World War II bombs on the seafloor and a skewed tunnel segment.  Even with those setbacks the tunnel was still finished three months ahead of time (Can you imagine any U.S. construction project finishing 3 months AHEAD of time?)

 And finally I had fun editing some of my photos:

You might still be confused why my Danish University would take me on a field trip to Sweden.  Well for most of history Southern Sweden, or Scania, was part of Denmark.  Actually at one point in history Denmark was one of the worlds superpowers.  They controlled: Norway, England, Denmark, Southern Sweden, and Greenland.  Unfortunately most of those lands were lost in wars.  

Random Facts:

(quick note I am rapidly running out of interesting things to say about Denmark so this topic may become more broad)

- Cleanliness was actually hugely valued in the Viking culture.  Some of the most frequently found artifacts in Viking Age archaeological sights are tweezers, razors, and combs.  To this day in Danish, Saturday is Lørdag, of washing day.

- The word "cholesterol" is believed by some to be derived from the Norse word "kohlastroll" which, depending on what text is consulted either meant "foods slow to be digested" or "trolls for breakfast" (I personally like the second one, but that's just me)

- Viking law stated that if a person was insulted three times only the first two insults coul be settled by lawsuits.  The third insult had to be avenged in blodd or the insulted party could never again sue for damages for future insults.