Safely home from Sweden
Published: Sat, 05/30/15
We are back from Sweden and it is going to take me a while to assimilate all that I learned there. It is also going to take a while to sort out the pictures I took and go through the video we shot.
First reactions though. Thanks to Roland and his wife Pia for hosting us so generously for a week. I had not seen Roland since he last came to the UK 12 years ago and it was great to make contact again. It was time for me to visit a Scandinavian country and see where Stav comes from.
Ivar always said that you could not really appreciate Stav until you knew how it related to the Scandinavian landscape. I will develop this theme but I now know what he means. We flew into Skavasta airport which is roughly Stockholm’s equivalent of Stanstead. Except that it really is a big shed with a runway deep in the countryside. Roland collected us in his Volvo, (lots of Volvo’s in Sweden as you might expect, didn’t hear any ABBA while we were there though, never mind can’t have all your stereotypes confirmed.) Then we drove into the Swedish countryside. Roland took an unfamiliar road and suddenly said. “Look, a rune stone I have not seen before.” So we pulled over for a closer look and saw our first rune stone. Standing on a mound about 10 metres from the road. Set on end and about 2.5 metres tall with runes engraved on it. Also a stylised cross and the runes are inscribed within a dragon or snake which circles the side
of the stone and the head meets the tail. The runes are coloured with a red pigment which you see everywhere in Sweden. Next to the stone is a metal plaque with the inscription written in modern letters and some other information. All the stones are known, catalogued, protected and studied by experts on runes from the universities. The runes inscribed are of course the younger Futhork as used in Stav with a couple of slight variations. You can see the pictures here http://iceandfire.org/sweden15.html and I will add others soon.
The second experience was to stop at a roadside cafe for lunch. I had pickled fish on an open sandwich and the view from the back of the cafe was over a lake, you can see that from the link above too. Quite unremarkable for Sweden as we were to discover, yet tranquil and beautiful all the same.
So, within an hour of landing in Sweden we saw the runes in their natural habitat and sat by unspoiled lake, trees and rocks and started to see what Utsette (sitting out) in this landscape might do to you.
Lots more to come about the course itself and the other things we saw.
In the meantime I am having to cancel courses due to lack of support. The Salisbury event won’t be going ahead today. I will definitely teach a self-defence seminar on the 6th in Crewkerne with a cudgel training session in the afternoon. However we are still building up support for the Summer Camp. I really do appreciate the value of a Scandinavian perspective on Stav now, so why not come and get that from Ivar was well as the training you will receive. http://www.stavcamp.org
regards
Graham