Rosala has a Viking museum just round the corner from the harbour. We were not sure what to expect, as museums on small islands can be a rather basic affair. Not the Rosala Viking Centre!
We were even greeted by hand-shake! But it turned out that the owners were waiting for somebody from a brewery and we could tell that they were a bit disappointed in us.
Nonetheless, we were asked whether we wanted to see an introductionary video on Viking religion before we started the museum tour. Of course we agreed. But before we were shown the video, the museum attended, who doubles as the cashier, gave us a half hour talk about the Vikings. It was excellent! It was a proper lecture and we learnt a lot from his very good overview of the job-description “Viking”.
The video itself was a revelation too. I had no idea that Lord-of-the-rings and Avatar borrowed so heavily from the Norse mythology. But what struck me most was the basis on the Norse creation myth. Here what i remembered:
First there was the hot world, underneath was the frosty place and in the middle it was just right. i.e. frosty were the frost ogre lived (you can tell it is a northern creation story). But then it started to thaw and that thaw become the primordial cow that licked Odin’s mother Bor into existence. From then onwards I got a little confused as a great many names pop up. But basically Odin kills the frost ogre, from whose blood, bones and flesh they made the earth, sky and all is made.Oh, and from the maggots in his flesh the dwarfs come into existence. The three sons of Bor then built a stronghold called Midgard. It seemed to become a bit boring so they created man and wife out of a tree. They then built Aasgard, another stronghold where Odin was the head-honcho and the humpty-dumpty amongst the gods began. They also had a sanctuary which was the biggest tree ever where they held council – Yggdrasil.
After this we started the museum tour. It was great. A long-house with furs, central fire place and all, a viking ship, various outbuildings with artefacts from the digs on Rosala, a display of weapons used by the Vikings, musical instruments and so on. All in all a great experience and worth a visit.
