QUOTE (Ikarus @ Dec 6 2007, 10:17 AM)


Ferry ride through Storfjorden in NoRwai, with my charming little sister.

Viking grave stone in Sundsvall, my old hometown.
...ah, what a land. I loved Norway.
Hi Ikarus,
Fine photo of Storfjorden ("The Great Fjord"), northern Sunnmøre. It was easy to recognize it. You travelled with a typical ferry of northwestern Norway on your way to Ålesund.
The pic of the Swedish viking grave-stone is interesting. It has a cross in the upper part and a decorated ring around.
The cross looks like a Celtic cross, and the decorated ring must Germanic. It was common that women's graves were decorated with a cross in the upper part of a grave-stone and with a decorated ring from times of the migrations of the Germanic peoples to the viking age. However, the crosses of such grave-stones were not Christian, but Germanic fertility symbols.
Anyhow, the cross of the gravestone on the pic seems to be a Celtic cross, and it may indicate that Christian missionaries came from England or Ireland, at least form the west. Seemingly, the grave-stone has a Christian Cletic Cross and a Germanic ring.
Y. sinc.,
Roland Verne
Norway