Rocks and stones

It's a week and a day since one single person in Norway decided his political views was more important than others, and that it needed a 'sacrifice' of more than 70 young people. I still don't understand his justifications, nor am I sure I want to.

It takes a while before you feel you can focus on everyday life again. It all feels so unimportant. But, we Norwegians are pragmatic, if nothing else, and life has to go on. With a slightly more grey lining for a while yet, but still.

The week before I had my first of two weeks of summer vacation, and spent it on Öland, a small island off the coast of Sweden.

It has a lot of old history - like Norway. And a lot of them are connected to stones...
In the background, you see the ruins of a chapel, Saint Birgitte Chapel, from 1200 or so... The cross is from the same era. And the little tower between the two, is a lighthouse made of iron! For some reason...
I was fascinated by the one wall remaining, and the view from 'within'. On the other side of the wall, birds were nesting on the rock wall high up. I like that:) Still in use.
As most of Viking related areas, the burial sites were marked either by mounds or stone circles, or both. This one was different though, shaped like a ship.

These, though, were different from what I have seen before. They are called King's stones, and were big, flat and thin stones. The stories are that the bones of the kings were burned and the ashes buried beneath the stone. Oh, and this one has another story to it. You can't really see it on this one, but almost at the bottom of the stones are two slits, or holes, in the rock.

Like this. And that was called 'Odin's axe'. I guess only the axe of a Norse god could make holes in a stone slab like this....