Søsterkirkene

I dropped Kevin and his coworkers off at the airport on Monday, and on the way back I noticed a sign pointing to "Søsterkirkene." I have seen this sign many times before and always thought that I should check it out one day. Since I'm running out of days here in Norway, I finally made the detour on Monday to see these 12th century churches in Gran. The popular explanation of why the two ancient stone churches were built so close together is that a pair of sisters had a feud and each had her own church built. Who knows if there is any truth to the rumor--it's kind of hard to track down credible 900 year witnesses! The smaller church is called Mariakirke and the larger church is Nikolaikirke. There is a runestone from approximately 1050 A.D. behind Nikolaikirke which reads, "Aun R.'s sons raised (this stone) in memory of Aufi their brother. God help Aufi's soul." (I wonder if rune translation classes are offered at the university in Oslo? If so, that would be a much more interesting way to obtain foreign language credits than taking French or German classes!) There is a little dairy farm right next to the churchyard--the cows didn't seem overly impressed being surrounded by all that history. I can't imagine going about my daily business in the shadow of these medieval churches, but such is life in Norway...there are ancient smelting pits, burial mounds, runestones and church ruins around every corner.