The third church
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
This is Skaga stave church. It is the third stave church at this place - and it dates to 2001.
The original, dated to the 12th century, was built close to an old sacred well from (possibly) pagan times. There are a lot of legends surrounding this little church, more than perhaps trustworthy history, including how the founder of the church (a woman named Skaga) was saved as an infant by a dog when her father wanted her dead and placed her in the woods, and that the church fell out of use after the Black Death and the area was abandoned - that is quite possible, but the legend continues that the church was re-discovered 'several hundred years later'. I wonder how much you would find of a abandoned wooden building several centuries later... Be that as it may, the church stood there until 1826 when it was pulled down. A copy of the medieval church was built in 1957–58 and inaugurated in 1960. But the church burnt down in 2000. Just a year later a third incarnation of the church, the one still present, was opened to the public. (Well, it is open if you come at the right time - when we passed by the place was closed.)
The third church
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
This is Skaga stave church. It is the third stave church at this place - and it dates to 2001.
The original, dated to the 12th century, was built close to an old sacred well from (possibly) pagan times. There are a lot of legends surrounding this little church, more than perhaps trustworthy history, including how the founder of the church (a woman named Skaga) was saved as an infant by a dog when her father wanted her dead and placed her in the woods, and that the church fell out of use after the Black Death and the area was abandoned - that is quite possible, but the legend continues that the church was re-discovered 'several hundred years later'. I wonder how much you would find of a abandoned wooden building several centuries later... Be that as it may, the church stood there until 1826 when it was pulled down. A copy of the medieval church was built in 1957–58 and inaugurated in 1960. But the church burnt down in 2000. Just a year later a third incarnation of the church, the one still present, was opened to the public. (Well, it is open if you come at the right time - when we passed by the place was closed.)