Today's adventure was traveling to the ruins of a monastery on the island of Selja. This is very possibly where Christianity begin in Norway. It is a natural cathedral with the ruins in between. The story of the patron of Norway, St. Sunniva, starts here. It is told that the beautiful and Irish princess Sunniva who fled her kingdom and she and her entourage ended up landing on the island of Selja where they settled. In an attempt to hide from an oncoming attack, they fled into the caves only to have a rock slide entomb them. Years later the Christian King Olaf visited the island after hearing stories of "gleaming lights" from local merchants. In 996 Sunniva's body was found intact and a church was built on the site. Selja became a place to pilgrimage. In 1080 a Catholic bishop came here to build a Benedictine monastery which was used for many years. Even though the monastery later fell into ruins and was plundered during the 1500's following the Reformation, many today still pilgrimage here for worship services and to drink water from the spring.
Following our tour up into the Sanctuary cave, we returned to the monastery ruins and ate our sack lunches while being serenaded by Lisbeths's coronet playing of some familiar hymns. Then we hopped back into our tour boat for Selje. Here we saw the church where Jorgen Våge was baptized. There wasn't a bridge or church in Måløy at that time so his parents had to take a boat to row over to this church to have him baptized.
After a roller-coaster like drive back to Vågsvåg around the picturesque fjords and mountainsides, we arrived just before they closed the road for some rock-fall prevention work. Good idea. I don't think we want to suffer from the same fate as St. Sunniva! Also, we had to get back in time for the big fishing expedition on this sunny warm afternoon. It was so much fun for the boys and they all came home with at least one catch - Chris even caught a mackerel!!
After a quick clean-up we were off to our dinner invitation at the home of another Våge cousin, Inger and her husband Rune. They have a lovely home located up a bit higher in Vågsvåg with a beautiful view overlooking the fjord. We were served a wonderful meal of salmon, Norwegian meatballs and boiled potatoes. It was so much fun getting to know these Norwegian cousins, looking at old pictures and comparing physical similarities (i.e., the Våge nose). It is very obvious that our Våge cousins are very musical. They even have their own Våge family band! Several of them are conductors and many of them play various instruments, the coronet being most prominent, and they love singing too. Before each meal we have had the pleasure of hearing them sing their table grace to a familiar tune. I hope we can learn to sing it with them before we leave. We also spent the evening looking at some pictures and watching several videos of their band! I can hardly wait to hear them at the concert they have promised for us tomorrow night! It is getting late and after hearing a few excerpts of their musical talents, we need to get back and do a little rehearsing ourselves since we will be part to the program too!
P.S. The kids had so much fun fishing that they all went out again!! Holy makerel!
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