This marks the twenty-Fifth year for the Stav Christmas Ornament. One of the more important Stav Churches in all of Norway lays at the head of the craggy mountain valley formed by the Sognefjord. It was built in 1180 as a Stav Church and its bones tell of it existing as a Viking Temple long before that.
Perhaps the best description of this Stav Church lies in a poem by a Danish Poet from 1886. ". . . a whim of childlike brilliance, a house for beetles, whittled from a naive giant's playful knife, with modest crosses and large nosed dragons, wrinkled and gnarled, twig upon twig. The interior is like a smokehouse dedicated to a mystic cult in which the darkness overwhelms the faintly smouldering tapers of Catholicism, which cast their light on farmers' iron clad axes and the flowing beards of Viking Kings . . ."
From its simple temple bones this icon of Stav Church lore has been enlarged over the centuries as the needs of the Church grew with the growth of the valley. In 1180 as Christianity saw the conversion from Temple to Church the footprint was enlarged with several expansions both horizontally and vertically, as well as the addition of the free standing Belfry visible today. Over the next 700 years various changes came over this great Stav Church; some good, some bad.
In 1870 the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments purchased the building and began a 15yr task of bringing the Borgund Stav Church back to its rightful form as we see it today.
Borgund has been used as the study model for many of the other Stav Churches that the Society for Preservation has undertaken. It is a fitting tribute to the people who have lived and worshipped there in days long gone by.
- Blue silk-screened design on porcelain
- 2.5" disk with ribbon
- Gift boxed with a detailed history of the church
- Manufacturer: Norse Traditions, A/S
