There’s a fun little part of Scandinavian history during which pagan and Christian customs overlapped. Thanks to a town with less architectural suicidal ideation than Dublin, we know quite a bit about this period.
Known as the city between seven mountains, Bergen in Norway has been a trading post for at least a thousand years, probably more. An abundance of fish and warm air from the Gulf Stream made it an attractive setting, filled with bustling trade and men from all places for many a century.
Now in 1916, an enormous fire swallowed part of historic Bergen, destroying 380 stores and the homes of more than 2,700 people. The cause? A worker at a scrap metal shed accidentally lit a ball of tarred fibers known as oakum and used to caulk ships; he opened the door of the shed to throw the flaming ball into the sea, the storm force winds had other ideas and up the shed went, quickly spreading to hundreds of adjacent wooden buildings.
With the loss of well over 1000 jobs, things were pretty …
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Aoife Long's Newsletter is now at spiritandluxury.com to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.