Kjeaasen

By Arne Fronsdal

The story will describe the danger of crossing the Skaw from Denmark to Norway, and then proceed through Norway and settle at the Kjeaasen which is popularly known as Kjeaasen, on a plateau, sitting precipitously 550 meters above the fjord, hidden away from the tax collector and the threat from their Danish pursuers. What possessed people to live in a remote place such as Kjeaasen? A combination of flight, fear, independence, taxes, lack of sustenance elsewhere. There were hardships, silence, winter storms, cold, wet, misty days rising up from the fjord below, heavy clouds, rain, sleet, snow from the mountains above. One of the children was lost off the steep cliffs and they – like the animals - were since then tethered by ropes.
It is thought that the Kjeaasen was lived in from the first man on a single visit around 1300 then the arrival from Bergen from 1347 to 1425 and then it was deserted until the arrival of Herald and Maria around 1625 and deserted 20 years later. And then again populated around 1850’ies until the present. Whenever Kjeaasen was repopulated, new animals had to be brought up which of course must have been very cumbersome; presumably, they brought up calves rather than cows. Typically, they have some 30-40 sheep and goats, and probably had a birthing number of some 20-25 per year wherefore which they would kill 50% every fall. Today there is a single woman living there all alone after her brother and sisters passed away. Kjeaasen will hopefully always remain a paradise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arne Fronsdal
• Release date: Feb 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370109739

Book preview

Arne Frønsdal

Sundor Publishing

Snarøya - Norway

KJEAASEN

Smashwords 2018

The story will describe the danger of crossing the Skaw from Denmark to Norway, and then proceed through Norway and settle at the Kjeaasen which is popularly known as Kjeaasen, on a plateau, sitting precipitously 550 meters above the fjord, hidden away from the tax collector and the threat from their Danish pursuers. What possessed people to live in a remote place such as Kjeaasen? A combination of flight, fear, independence, taxes, lack of sustenance elsewhere. There were hardships, silence, winter storms, cold, wet, misty days rising up from the fjord below, heavy clouds, rain, sleet, snow from the mountains above. One of the children was lost off the steep cliffs and they – like the animals - were since then tethered by ropes.

It is thought that the Kjeaasen was lived in from the first man on a single visit around 1300 then the arrival from Bergen from 1347 to 1425 and then it was deserted until the arrival of Herald and Maria around 1625 and deserted 20 years later. And then again populated around 1850’ies until the present. Whenever Kjeaasen was repopulated, new animals had to be brought up which of course must have been very cumbersome; presumably, they brought up calves rather than cows. Typically, they have some 30-40 sheep and goats, and probably had a birthing number of some 20-25 per year wherefore which they would kill 50% every fall. Today there is a single woman living there all alone after her brother and sisters passed away. Kjeaasen will hopefully always remain a Paradise.

Contents

Pre-History

The 14th Century - Bergen

Eidsfjord

The 17th Century- Denmark

The 20th Century

Pre-History

Evidence of human activity can be traced back over 30,000 years ago in Scandinavia, however, serious settlements only began some 5/8000 BC. The early settlers must have been unusual men, leaving Central Europe in search for the betterment of living conditions, leaving the center stage by will and by centrifugal force to settle at the periphery of civilization. They were here to build an existence where none was meant to be, with the main constituents of snow, mountains and the cold sea which gave little grounds for cheer. They were following the birds of passage some of which travel up to 17,000 kilometers from the Southern to the Northern latitudes every spring, and the salmon which returns to the extensive, cool rivers every 2 to 4 years to its spawning grounds.

These men were the ombudsmen of a fresh current; they were questing for a life outside the orthodoxy, away from the civilization of the middle earth as it was known. Little by little they would chisel out their lives by a subsistence hunting by traps which would be steadily improved; and they were to develop fishing methods which would give harvests of salmons in such a plenty that it eventually became less desirable so that workers’ employment contracts would contain a clause requiring salmon only to be served three times a week. Fish is still flourishing in these waters; below the icecap in the Barents Sea the ocean is teeming - feeding off the rich fauna of algae and plankton that is nourishment for the smaller and larger dwellers of the deep. Fishing early became an important industry of the Northern monarchies, with herring, cod and flatfish accounting for most of the catch.

The men became rugged and tenacious by their burdensome existence in the physically abusive environment with brief summers, raw and damp seasons, and harsh, cold winters. They set upon the land in the North, from the 60th to the 80th latitude, further North, and closer to the poles than any man anywhere else on the planet. In later centuries, the same spirit moved their progeny to explore the outer limits of the earth by ship through the Northern Arctic and to ski across the North Pole, ship to Greenland and cross it on skis, through the North-West Passage to the Bering Strait, and eventually the South Pole. The Vikings issued from vika (the huge bay) in Skagerrak, an eastward extension of the North Sea – located between Northern Denmark (Jutland), Western Sweden and Southern Norway. Here the elements inauspiciously assail men and ships when the northwesterly seasonally is gusting from the Atlantic and bounce off the receding coastline of Denmark and the granite crust of Norway and Sweden.

The Vikings were explorers, and in due time evolved into astute builders of ocean going ships and traveled over great distances, navigating by bearings on heavenly bodies and land marks; they settled in Greenland, Iceland and Vineland in the Western hemisphere and voyaged down the Volga to Constantinople in the East. The Vikings also were feared for their barbarous, innumerable plundering over 200/300 years when they would discontinue their raging and instead exact tribute against peace.

Erik the Red's father (Thorvald Asvaldsson) was banished from Norway for the crime of manslaughter when Erik was about 10 years old. He sailed west from Norway with his family and settled in Hornstrandir in northwestern Iceland. After marrying Thjodhild (Þjóðhildr), Erik moved to Haukadal (Hawksdale) where he built a farm called Eiríksstaðir. The initial confrontation occurred when his thralls (slaves) started a landslide on the neighboring farm belonging to Valthjof (Valþjófr). Valthjof's friend, Eyiolf the Foul (Eyjólfrsaurr), killed the thralls. In retaliation, Erik killed Eyjiolf and Holmgang-Hrafn (Hólmgöngu-Hrafn). Eyiolf's kinsmen demanded his banishment from Haukadal. The Icelanders later sentenced Erik to exile for three years for killing Eyiolf the Foul around the year 982.

Erik then moved to the island of Öxney. He asked Thorgest (Þórgestr) to keep his setstokkr – inherited ornamented beams of significant mystical value, which his father had brought from Norway. When he finished his new house, he went back to get them, but they could not be obtained. Erik then went to Breidabolstad and took them. These are likely to have been Thorgest's setstokkr, although the sagas are unclear at this point. Thorgest gave chase, and in the ensuing fight Erik slew both Thorgest's sons and a few other men.

After this, each of them retained a considerable body of men with him at his home. Styr gave Erik his support, as did also Eyiolf of Sviney, Thorbjiorn, Vifil's son, and the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafirth; while Thorgest was backed by the sons of Thord the Yeller, and Thorgeir of Hitardal, Aslak of Langadal and his son Illugi. The dispute was resolved at an assembly, the Thorsnes Thing, with the result that Erik was outlawed for three years.

Even though popular history credits Erik as the first person to discover Greenland, the Icelandic sagas suggest that earlier Norsemen discovered and tried to settle it before him. Tradition credits GunnbjörnUlfsson (also known as Gunnbjörn Ulf-Krakuson) with the first sighting of the land-mass. Nearly a century before Erik, strong winds had driven Gunnbjörn towards a land he called Gunnbjarnarsker (Gunnbjörn's skerries). But the accidental nature of Gunnbjörn's discovery has led to his neglect in the history of Greenland. After Gunnbjörn, SnæbjörnGalti also visited Greenland. According to records from the time, Galti headed the first Norse attempt to colonize Greenland which ended in disaster. Erik the Red was the first permanent European settler.

In this context, about 982, Erik sailed to a somewhat mysterious and little-known land. He rounded the southern tip of the island (later known as Cape Farewell) and sailed up the western coast. He eventually reached a part of the coast that, for the most part, seemed ice-free and