In Viking times our ancestors considered Bivrost to be the bridge between Midgard and Asgard. Today we consider Bivrost to be a link to Arctic Culture and Stories.
Here are some of these stories, gathered and written by different authors:
The Legend of Norse Scotland
According to ancient Norse tales, the first meeting between Norwegians and Scots took place in the Viking-Age, at the time when the legendary king Harald hårfagre (“fairhair”) sent a fleet against North-Sea pirates. Back then, in the late 9th-century, numerous Vikings...
Links Between World
Bivrost, the Northern Lights bridge has been known to connects the land of men with the land of the Gods in Old Norse myth. Few, however, known that others bridges and paths connect the remaining lands of the mythical Viking world. According to the Norse poem...
The Giants, Destructors of Bivrost
In Old Norse myths, one major recurring theme is the opposition between the Gods, together with their human progenies, against the Jötnar, Þursar, Rísar and Trolls, the giant-kind. Throughout the numerous Pagan poems of the Poetic Edda as well as in quite a few...
Bivrost: The Way to Valhalla
It is time for me to ride along the blood-red roads, to set the pale horse treading the path through the sky; I must cross the wind-vault's bridge in the West, before Salgofnir awakens the victorious people. These rather cryptic words are taken from an Old Norse poem...
When Norwegians Went Dry: Part 1: Ancient Moonshining
While both Viking Age and 21st century Norwegians loved nothing more than a good drink, public and official attitudes towards the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages were not always so relaxed. Indeed, in the 19th and early 20th century the country was...
When Norwegians Went Dry: Part 2: The Prohibition Age
Finally in 1919, following decades of political and cultural battles that bitterly split the country, the Norwegian people voted in majority to uphold a temporary parliament resolution passed in 1916 banning the production and sale of alcohol. The long process of...
Ragnarok, the Burning of the Northern Lights Bridge
Ragnarok, “the doom of the Gods”, is possibly the best-known of all the Norse mythological events described in ancient poetry and prose. First-mentioned in the epic poem Voluspå (“the prophecy of the seeress”), probably composed around the year 1000, the poem...
Heimdall, the Guardian of the Northern Lights Bridge
Sitting atop Bivrost, the Northern Lights bridge, is the mighty Heimdall. The powerful God, whose mission it is to guard both Åsgård, the land of the Gods, and Midgård, the land of men. He was also, according to the Medieval poem Rígsþula, the father of mankind on...
Tromsø: The Arctic City in Which Modern Skiing was Born
A little-known episode in the history of modern skiing took place in the Arctic city of Tromsø when, in 1843, the world's first skiing competition took place... It is known that already in pre-Historic times the peoples of the Arctic used skis for transportation,...
Arctic Spies
A little-known aspect of the worldwide confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States of America was the surprisingly extensive Spying activities going on in the Norwegian Arctic. In this remote corner of the globe the great powers were fighting for...
From Scotland to the Arctic Pt. III: The Scott who fought for Norway
Colin Gubbins, a Scottish soldier who took part in both World Wars played a decisive role in the liberation of both Europe and Norway through his expertly network of secret agents who fought from the beaches of Normandy to the cold shores of Arctic Norway. The young...
From Scotland to the Arctic Pt. II: The Witch Queen of the Orkneys
While she is little-known outside Scandinavia today, Queen Gunnhildr from Arctic Norway was, during her reign in the Viking Age, one of Europe's most powerful woman, almost single-handedly exemplifying the image of the strong-willed Viking woman. According to Old...
The Creepy Trolls of Lofoten
For many, the beautiful landscapes of the Lofoten islands are synonymous with holidays, celebrations, peace and the perfect embodiment of the wild Arctic nature. However, in the Middle-Ages, very different stories were circulating about the beautiful archipelago,...
From Scotland to the Arctic Pt. I: The Political Games of Medieval Dynasties
Arctic Norway and Scotland have more in common than just Fjords and the Aurora Borealis. In Medieval times, immediately following the eventful Viking Age, the lord of Arctic Norway was engaged in a sensitive political controversy which had its origin in the two...
The Fjords of the Gods
High up North along the coast of Arctic Norway lie two long fjords whose names call back memories of ancestral Gods and a civilization that has now become legend. These fjords are the fjords of the ancient Norse Gods. There is a lot we modern people simply...
The First Drop: The Discovery of Alcohol
Most everyone knows that Alcohol has been part of human culture and society for a very, very long time. But when was it exactly that humans drank the first drop of alcohol? Was alcohol invented? Discovered? And how much did our ancient longing for the drink actually...
Jul, a Nordic Christmas pt3: The Arctic Santa War
Where does Santa live? Somewhere up North for sure, but where exactly...It´s this crucial question that the Arctic countries have been waging war against each other over for the last couple decades, a most tragic war, the Arctic Santa War! Any kid who's asked...
Jul, a Nordic Christmas pt 2 : A Miscellany of Remarkable Traditions
The numerous traditions surrounding Jul, the Nordic Christmas, are both unique and colorful. Some of the most remarkable and noteworthy ones are presented today. As we established in the previous post of this series ( Jul, a Nordic Christmas pt 1 : The Ancient...
Jul, a Nordic Christmas pt 1 : The Ancient Sun Feast
In the North, Christmas is celebrated quite differently from the rest of the world. One reason for this is that the modern celebration of Christmas has been strongly influenced by an earlier feast, celebrated even before the Age of the Vikings, Jul ! The origin...
The Shimmering Colors of the Aurora
If the magnificent spectacle of the Northern Lights could be summed up in one single word it would be Colors. The powerful light-show that graces the skies of the Far North indeed takes several forms and many colors, each one even more beautiful than its predecessors....
Arctic Pirates
Most tend to associate Pirates with the Caribbean, warm weather, azure skies and sunny sand-beaches. However, Pirates were also found in many other places, a few of them even laid waste to the Norwegian Arctic some four centuries ago... Thanks to movies,...
Visions of the Northern Lights pt. 4: Moving Lights, Moving Pictures
As Northern Lights photography progressively leapt into the Digital realm in the early two-thousands, it soon became possible not only to take still images of the Aurora but also moving ones, Aurora videos in other words! As shown in the previous installments of this...
The 12th Man: The Escape of Jan Baalsrud
Norway was one of the focal points of both the allies and the axis during the second World War. Numerous battles and other capital events took place on Norwegian soil but none is more harrowing than the Arctic escape of sergeant Jan Baalsrud in 1943. In April 1940,...
Visions of the Northern Lights Pt.3: Pixel Bonanza
For most of the XXth century, photographers who wished to snap a shot of the Aurora had to rely on silver-coated films and darkrooms to obtain any kind of results. Towards the end of the millennium, a new technological breakthrough made it much easier to obtain...
Visions of the Northern Lights Pt.2: The Rise of the Darkroom
In our previous installment of this series, we talked about how the Aurora was traditionally painted or drawn in the Renaissance and the Early Modern period. Today we will look at the way people represented the Aurora through Analog Photography. While analog...
Visions of the Northern Lights Pt.1: The Drawing Board
With the joint development of the Internet and digital photography, pictures of Northern Lights are easy to come by. This wasn't the case in the previous centuries though, and artists of these times had only one way to capture the iridescent beauty of the Aurora...
The Reindeer, an Arctic Symbol
Who doesn't know about Reindeer? The horned animal is considered by many a symbol of the Arctic which can be found all over the Arctic and has become entwined with the way of life of Polar peoples in various fascinating ways. Fifteen-thousand years ago, Scandinavia...
The Return of the Northern Lights
August nights in Arctic Norway don't tend to be particularly dark. During the last days of the month, it can only be truly called night for a few hours around midnight. Still, in this darkness, a new light arises, a light that hasn't been seen in many months, the...
The Lyngen Line: the last barrier against the Soviet Union
During the long Cold War, Norway, as a member of NATO and direct neighbor to the Soviet Union, was in a crucial and critical position. Unwilling to leave their country unprotected in case of a conflict, Generals and other officials decided to establish a formidable...
Galactic Auroras !
We are, as earthlings, lucky to be able to witness the spellbinding beauty of the Auroras. While it is much easier for us to see this fascinating phenomena from our Blue planet, Northern Lights are by no means an exclusively earthly phenomena and can be seen from...
The King in the North
Despite being isolated from mainland Europe, North-Norway has managed to attract a surprisingly large amount of kings, princes and other emperors. So why exactly do royals keep on visiting the Norwegian Arctic? Depends, some come for war, others for love, and a good...
The Crossing of Greenland
More than a century ago, the Norwegian Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen led a group of bold adventurers where, literally, no-one had gone before: across the ice-sheet of Greenland. Greenland was first discovered in the last years of the Xth Century by Norwegians...
The Tale of Pietro Querini
Almost 600 years ago an Venetian vessel sank by the treacherous reefs of North-Norway. After escaping the wreck and coming ashore, the crew discovered a landscape full of drying fish, bone-chilling cold and primitive buildings. This strange encounter would ultimately...
Those who Harvest the Sea
For Millenia the inhabitants of Arctic Norway have lived by and for the sea. In the unforgiving northern landscape where the soil gives only meager means for survival, the men and women of this land lived to harvest the sea. In the Bronze and Iron Age, more...
The Aurora through Medieval Arab Eyes
Intellectuals from the Medieval Islamic world were among the wisest and most knowledgeable of their time and some were extremely well-informed about the mysterious North, the land of the Northern Lights and the Polar Night. In the year 922, the Iraqi dignitary and...
The Triumphant Midnight Sun
The summer in the Arctic Region is dominated by the towering sight of one of the greatest phenomena in the world: The Midnight Sun. The Midnight Sun is an astronomical phenomenon that can be observed in the Arctic and the Antarctic beyond each of the Polar...
The Northern Lights that Cross the Earth
It's hard to understand how huge Northern Lights actually are. The beautiful beams of light can indeed stretch thousands of kilometres across the skies and be simultaneously seen in many different lands. Even after witnessing the beauty of the Polar Aurora, it...
Norway’s National Day – An Arctic Story
The seventeenth of May is Norway's National day, celebrated all over the country and throughout the world wherever there are Norwegians, but the meaning of this day is somewhat different for those living in the Norwegian High North... 1814 was a very special...
What’s up with the Northern Lights?
Some absolutely amazing Auroras illuminated the nights of Arctic Norway this winter, but now that spring is here and summer is coming next, where has the Aurora gone? In Tromsø, in the heart of North Norway, the last Northern Lights of the season appeared in...
The North-Norwegian who saved the King
North-Norwegian heroes are not only found in centuries-old sagas, some accomplished feats of incredible courage in very historical times, just a few generations back. One of them is Colonel Birger Eriksen who saved the king of Norway during the War. Birger Eriksen was...
Odin, the God of Wine Lovers
Óðinn is often described as the chief God of the Norsemen and what’s more fitting for a chief than drinking fine wines? A noble activity that was enthusiastically embraced by his many followers as well. Vikings and other Norsemen loved their alcohol and...
Paul the Deacon Describes the Northern Lights
An Eighth-century scholar from Northern Italy tells the Northern Lights tales of his people. Most people nowadays have never heard about Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon) but back in the days, he was one of the most influential men of letters in Europe. Paul the...
Raud the Strong, the mighty chieftain of Arctic Norway
The ancient sagas are full of heroes, kings and chieftains, fighting for power and glory. Among those champions, the North-Norwegian chieftain Rauðr inn rammi is most famous. Here’s why. The tale of Raud the strong exists in numerous Icelandic sagas. Three slightly...
The name Aurora Borealis
In 1618 three comets were seen in passage, leading to a heated debate as to their origin amongst learned scholars in southern and central Europe. Galileo Galilei was one of these and here he refers to the northern lights with the Latin term Aurora Borealis or the red...
The Proud Vikings of Lofoten
During the glorious Viking-Age of Scandinavia, Norse warriors raided, explored, fought and discovered new lands with their courage and wits as their only help. The Northern parts of Norway and especially the Lofoten islands produced quite a lot of those mighty...
When the Aurora Appears
Only a tiny percentage of people on Earth have ever had the chance of seeing the magnificent Northern Lights. However, with the aid of modern digital photography and the internet, many have been able to look at pictures of the phenomenon. Still the experience...
An Introduction to the Lofoten Islands
What is Lofoten? In short, Lofoten or the Lofoten is an archipelago situated above the Arctic Circle in North Norway within the limits of the county (fylke) of Nordland. Lofoten is a regional union (Interkommunale regionråd) comprising six municipalities (kommune)...
Drinking Customs of the Vikings
For the ancient Norsemen, drinking was much more than just consuming alcoholic beverages. Drinking ale and mead was instead part of their ancestral lifestyle and had deep cultural and religious significance. Why do people tend to associate Vikings and drinking? In our...
Northern Lights Tales from the Far North
In our science-dominated XXIst century just about everyone with access to the internet or a library can learn everything there is to know about the Northern Lights. Like so many once mysterious natural phenomena like the rainbow or thunder, the Northern Lights are now...
Arctic Vikings
More than a millennium ago, within the barren wastes of the cold Arctic North, lived a people of great courage and strength whose remarkable feats have been recorded in countless tomes of ancient Sagas. Prepare to meet the hardiest Northmen of the Medieval ages, the...
Mørketid: The North-Norwegian Polar Night
If you thought that winter in Arctic Norway was all doom and gloom, think again! There may be no sun at all for many weeks up beyond the Polar Circle, but the night shines instead with much more than just one light. It is pretty safe to say that the huge...
The gentle country of the northern lights
The northern lights are a magnificent sight; they become visible in a star studded heaven for those travelling in polarregions during the darkest time of the year - breaking forth at this time as a kind of consolation, for those who will allow the opening of their...
The Aurora Otherworld of North-America
North-America has traditionally been inhabited by countless indigenous peoples, each of them with their own homelands, languages or dialects and of course also mythologies. As a result of this impressive diversity, tales and legends of the Northern Lights tend...
The Inuits and the Aurora Spirits
Among the peoples of the Arctic, the Inuits are by far the Northernmost. Originating from the Bering Strait a thousand years ago, the first Inuits spread across the North-American Arctic and established their homelands in what later became known as Greenland, Northern...
The Vikings and the Northern Lights Bridge
What did the Viking believe about the Northern Lights? Do the tales of the God-Bridge Bivröst reflect the Norsemen's visions of the Aurora Borealis? The Vikings never wrote books, but their descendants produced thousands of manuscripts during the middle-ages....
Arctic weather accidents
Bad arctic weather can cause horrible accidents.
Rich Paul and the Stallo.
What are Stallos?
The story of Bivrost
Explaining the Bivrost
Bivrost is our link to arctic myths and stories
What kind of people live under the northern lights?
Myths and stories of the northern light
Why do we not wave at the northern light?
The northern light in history
The Bivrost is not something new…
Don’t tease the Bivrost
Bad things happen to those…
Umberto Nobile’s flight into the arctic
An italian arctic explorer…
Ohthere (Ottar) – the first arctic traveller
This is a sample story excerpt that was created manually.
Someone is watching over the boat
Something mysterious happened at this boat.
The legend of Bonki
The last heathen in Lyngen