Valfart II

During the after-performance conversation, someone mentioned having driven past the "Her trefte Per Gynt Bøygen" (Per Gynt met the Bøyg here) memorial stone on their drive up to Venabu from the north east. I had read about the stone in Mørkhagen's book, and have been dying to see it, so I made a spontaneous decision to try to find it myself, despite not having a map of the area with me. In the morning I checked out the maps in the hotel reception to get a rough idea, but could find no concrete indication of where the stone lies.

I took off in a northeasterly direction across the Rondane mountains any way, and was richly rewarded with spectacular views and almost no other vehicles on the roads. It was so beautiful and desolate crossing the plateau, and then the drive down into what becomes Østerdalen was steep and windy and beautiful in its own way. I drove to Enden and then into Atanbrua, where I stopped at a store to get directions. Unfortunately none of the staff there had ever heard of the stone, and the woman I spoke with the most seemed a little offended that I would be asking about Peer Gynt, since he "belongs" over in Gudbrandsdalen. Apparently Knut Hamsun did some writing in Atnabru, and of course it's also where the painter Harald Sohlberg did his famous painting, Vinternatt i fjellene.

With no more guidance than that I decided to make my way northward toward Folldal, figuring that the stone had to be somewhere along that stretch of road. Again, it was a beautiful drive along Atnasjøen, a long, riverlike lake with a marsh area at the northern end. The first thing I came upon was the Sohlberg viewpoint, which was apparently where he did the painting. It was, predictably, spectacular:

 What I hadn't expected, though, was how cool the viewpoint structure itself was. It's a very modern but organic and sinewy design in concrete that snakes around the trees:

The architect is Karl-Viggo Hølmebakk. There's an article about it in Norwegian with more pictures here.

Encouraged by how cool this spot was, I forged on, still not knowing whethere the memorial stone was going to show up. After a few kilometers I pulled off into a roadside stop with a sign and map, but again there wasn't any information. About to give up and in need of a bathroom break, I thought I'd just go a couple more kilometers and see. Much to my delight, I came upon another supermodern rest stop with a very elegant set of bathrooms and big maps and information posters on the local trails:

I went to the bathroom, looked around but didn't find any info on the memorial stone. The area along the river looked really pretty though, so I decided to take a little walk along the river up to the bridge across to the trailhead. It was so much like parts of western Washington, along the Nooksack river of my childhood. The river bank combined sand and round stones, and the colors of the forest, water and sky all felt just right. When I got to the bridge I noticed a standing stone, but it didn't have an inscription, so I turned onto the bridge and walked across. It was pretty muddy on the other side (duh, it's a marsh), so I didn't do much more than turn around and walk back across. As I was walking across I noticed a really cool looking farm on the hill on the other side, so I walked past the standing stone to get a better angle for a picture:

I snapped this picture then turned back around to head back to the car, and what do you know, this cultural wonder appeared right in front of me:

 I can't explain  how elated I was to have finally located it, or how hilarious I find it. Think about it; it's a memorial sign erected to commemorate the (fictional) meeting between the (fictional) "historical" Per Gynt (the legendary figure upon whom Henrik Ibsen based his fictional Peer Gynt) and the (equally fictional) supernatural figure of the Bøyg. It's even funnier that the marker had apparently been moved here from another site that was presumed to be less authentic. Oh brother!

Unfortunately, the stone has taken some pretty bad damage, and is no longer totally legible. Bummer, as it really is one of the quirkiest and coolest things I've ever seen.