I thought I would share an oldy-but-goody today. This photo was taken about 25 years ago, just outside of Bergen. One of the amazing pieces of cultural history in Norway is the stave churches. While in the past centuries there were over 1000 wooden stave churches, today only 28 remain standing. All old churches are cool, but these are particularly cool because they were built entirely from wood by the Norwegians shortly after Christianity became accepted as the official religion of Norway. As such, the culture of the Norwegians was still very Pagan. So these churches are full of Pagan carvings, such as dragons, mixed with symbols of traditional Christianity, such as crosses. The stave church pictured above is in Fantoft, just outside of Bergen, and it is not the original church–it has been reconstructed after suffering natural damage.