Encounter with Harald Hårfagre

Himakånå is a spectacular mountain formation towering over Lysevatnet, near Hinderavåa. 3571 MASL (meters above sea level). It is often called Nedstrand’s answer to Troltunga in Hardanger.

The road to the mythical creature of Himakånå, starts by the main road approximately 750 m east of the church, by a small and red electrical transformation kiosk. Here you will find signs pointing to both Himakånå and Stelanuten.

In the beginning, you wil walk on a tractor road, later, on what remains of an old road and path. After passing a section of the trail, the farm Helland will be to your right. Soon the trail goes out in open terrain, where animals can be seen feeding on the grass. Here it will start opening up with a good view of the south and the Ryfyike Islands.

After passing this place, you will find a new sign pointing westward and towards Himakånå. Here will split. One of the two trails continue upwards towards Stelanuten. The trail towards Himakånå is on the left, and passes through a landscape of scattered birch forest, bushes and heather. At the end of the trail, the mountain rises vertically down towards Lysevatnet.

When finally reaching the top, get rewarded with a magnificent view in spectacular surroundings.

The trip back goes the same way as up. Otherwise, it is possible to continue towards Stelanuten and down to our eroe, Ivou dian on takine tils route dow, kis minerten lu liare all chud wor stationed there as it is somewhat far from Hinderavag.

Route description: 7,0 km round trip to “Presten” (“The Priest”), 213 MASL.

The walk starts at the dam by Eivindsvatn Lake. Follow the road to the right along the lake’s edge and continue on the main road up the valley, “Djupadalen”, at the end of the lake. Walk past “HIL-hytta”, a cabin owned by the orienteering club, and continue straight on across the bridge at the first road fork. At the next fork, keep right and continue upwards to the southern end of Krokavatnet Lake. Cross the little wooden bridge and follow the path upwards. Keep left at both forks in the path to climb to the ridge east of and above the lake.

You will arrive at a tall cairn named “The Priest”, where you will enjoy a marvellous view of large parts of the country around Haugesund. On a clear day you will be able to see “Folgefonna” to the northeast – Norway’s second largest glacier.

The path continues down to “Jetnaheim”, where there is a picnic site with views across the lake. The stone foundations you see are the remains of a cabin built in 1916 by Haugesunds Fjell-lag. It was torn down in 1954, as the lake had been made a drinking water reservoir.

“Jotnaheim” refers to Norse mythology, where a “jotunn” was a kind of troll or ogre. From Jetnaheim the path goes down to the concrete dam at the northern end of Krokavatnet. Cross the dam, and go straight up the rocky slope to “Skaret”, a narrow passage south of the Jotnafjell ridge. The path leads down Skaret to the Djupa-dalen road, taking you back the same way you came, to the Eivindsvatnet dam.

The sagas connect Harald Hårfagre – Harald Fairhair – to a family of chieftains in Vestfold near present-day Oslo. More recently modern historians have claimed that he was a West Country king, hailing from Sogn, Sunnhordaland or Karmey. Harald sought to bring all of Norway under one ruler, most probably driven by the desire to secure the coastal shipping lanes, which were the Vikings’ main trade routes (c. 800-1050 AD). He made allies of the Lade Earls of Trendelag to do battle with the minor kings of West Norway’s fjordland. Harald won the decisive battle in Hafrsfjord, near today’s Stavanger, at the close of the 9th century.

We believe Harald only secured control of Western Norway with his Hafrsfjord fleet. In the sagas we hear of several other royal farms in these parts, such as Avaldsnes on Karmey, and Fitjar in Sunnhordland. In those days the king maintained control by journeying through the realm with his warriors. King Harald died in about 930 AD and is credited with setting in motion the process that led to political and territorial fusion of Norway into one nation, a process that was completed in the 13th century.

Snorre Sturlasson in his saga of Harald Fairhair writes that “King Harald died of disease in Rogaland and is buried in a mound at Haugar overlooking the Karmsund strait. At Haugesund stands a church, and right beside the churchyard to the northwest lies King Harald Fairhair’s burial mound, but to the west of the church lies King Harald’s gravestone, which once covered his grave in the mound.”

When Snorre visited the area in 1220 he was shown a mound with a burial chamber which, tradition had it, contained Harald Fairhair. Historians in the 19th century agreed, placing his grave at Gard Church. Later research sheds doubt whether it was King Harald’s grave that Snorre visited almost three centuries after his death.

In 1872, a 17 metre tall granite obelisk was raised at the Gard Church ruins to commemorate the battle of Hafrsfjord 1000 years earlier. The elegant spike symbolises the unification of Norway and stands in a circle of 29 stones, repre-senting the ancient Norwegian counties that Harald brought together. On the north side, between the obelisk and the county stones, lies a gravestone flag that may be the one described by Snorre.

The commemoration obelisk can be seen as a product of the National Romanticism that raged in the late 1830s. It was a period when the country’s ancient history was being tapped to cultivate a new, national self-esteem. The monument at “Haraldshaugen” was the brainchild of Haugesund’s Ludolf Eide, who put forth the idea in 1863 and won country-wide support. The national monument was unveiled on 18th July 1872 by Crown Prince Oscar, later Oscar II. Representatives from the royal family, the national assembly (Storting), government ministers and county dignitarles attended this “1000 Year Jubilee” which occasioned much popular celebration and merrymaking.

Right beside Haraldshaugen lay the Gard Church. Gard was a royal farm and the largest estate in ancient Skáre district.

Very probably it was Gard Church that Snorre described on his journey to Norway in 1218. The last reference we have is dated 1316. Perhaps the church was left to ruin after the Black Death (AD 1349).

The foundation wall which was visible until well into the 19th century, measured roughly 15 by 6 metres. Also quantities of soapstone have been found on the site, including chiselled and decorated column heads.

The stone cross at Krosshaug is believed to have been erected in early Christian times. Early stone crosses of this kind indicated that the country was Christian, and they were erected to both “christianise” heathen graves and indicate Christian gathering places before churches were built. They may also have been erected as monumental stones. This cross stands directly on the rock, with no burial mound underneath.

Bishop Fridtjov Birkelid, who studied the Norwegian stone crosses closely, suggests that a monument may have been erected to King Harold the Fairhaired’s eldest son, King Eric Bloodaxe, who died in England in the year AD 945.

The cross is almost 3 metres tall. It broke in half in the winter of 1846-47, and was reconstructed in 1869 with the two parts joined by iron rings. Rogaland and Sunnhordland are the regions outside Great Britain with the largest number of stone crosses from early Christian times.