By Johs. B. Thue
In the early Viking Age, Norse or European gods were seen to form a protective ring round the people who worshipped them, along the lines of religious traditions elsewhere in Europe. The place names of our own fjord landscape in Inner Sogn provide clear evidence of this religious heritage. Gudvangen is God’s own vang (eng. meadow).
The Nærøyfjord is named after the god Njord. Just as we enter the Aurlandsfjord, we encounter the lush village of Fresvik, which simply means Frøy’s bay. The Nærøyfjord is named after the god Njord, who lived at Noatun in heaven and ruled over winds and weathers. Furthermore, he governed the sea, and fire. Njord was the god to ask for help with sea journeys and fishing expeditions. Njord was incredibly rich. He was the god of trade and markets. It is easy to imagine that people from inland areas such as Voss, would approach the sea – the fjord – with fear and respect. They would clearly need to keep on good terms with this protector of the seas. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume it was the people of Voss who named the fjord. The Nærøyfjord was named in honour of Njord, in order to invoke all good forces in preparation for an encounter with the sea.
Gudvangen lies at the head of the Nærøyfjord. All place names ending in –vang suggest they were religious venues, used for performing rituals. Vossevangen must have been such a venue, as must Gudvangen and Aurlandsvangen. These –vangen names are all lining the ancient trail between the western and eastern parts of Norway. This trail may well have provided a basis for market places to be established where the inland route reached the fjord.
Anne Stine Ingstad is a Norwegain world-famous archaeologist. She proved that Norwegians and Europeans settled in North America five hundred years before Columbus stepped ashore. Her opinion is that Gudvangen may have been a very early market place, which is a plausible idea.
The Krossneset headland sticks out into the fjord and is easy for everyone to see. The headland must have been named after a cross erected there. This leads us straight into the ongoing debate about these crosses, which tend to be found along our western coast, all the way from the county of Rogaland and northwards. The crosses carried significant symbolic power in the fight between the old mythology and the victorious Christian faith. One of these stone crosses can also be found at Voss; one of our extremely rare inland crosses.
The Voss cross was erected on the route that linked the east to the west. The Krossneset headland bears witness of religious conflict between the new and the old. These days, there is general consensus among European religious scholars that the stone crosses were erected to signal that the land beyond was ruled by Christ. This was his land, albeit Njord’s name lived on till our present times.
The same is the case of Frøy at Fresvik, the gateway to the Aurlandsfjord, which branches off by skewed-looking mount Beitelen. In Old Norse, “beitel” means chisel, a tool for shaping wood and stone. According to ancient beliefs, mount Beitelen was used by supernatural spirits to carve the narrow Nærøyfjord into the landscape. The name of Trollgjelet (eng. Troll Gorge) is evidence of people’s belief in these giants who put their mysterious marks on the landscape, and who shaped the headlands, fjords, mountains and ravines.
In Old Norse mythology there were close family ties between Njord and Frøy. Njord of Noatun in heaven had two children by Skade. Their son was named Frøy, their daughter Frøya. They were both handsome and strong. Frøy ruled over rain and sunshine, which gave him the power to control the growth of the soil. He needed to be invoked to secure a good harvest and a rich yield. At Fresvik, Frøy’s bay, there is a farm called Hov. This must have been an important assembly place for the enactment of religious ceremonies. The lifeenhancing sun was key to their worship of natural forces. The farm of Hov at Fresvik lies at the very spot on which the sun first shines on its returns to this village after winter. At Solaløysa by Styvi however, there is no sunlight whatsoever, summer or winter. Yet Solaløysa is always green in summer.