Olavshaugen

Olavshaugen, a couple of hundred meters east of Stiklestad church, is one of Norway's oldest and most important memorial sites. Throughout history, a number of different monuments have adorned the mound.

According to tradition, Olavshaugen's history began on the night of 30 July 1030 with a wooden shed that served as a hiding place for Olav Haraldsson's body. Here the famous miracle of the blind man who regained his sight after touching the king's blood is supposed to have happened.

The first monument we know of on the mound was of wood with an iron cross on top. This was removed in 1710 and replaced with the so-called Lemfort buttress erected by Colonel Johan von Lemfort. In connection with the replacement, it was said that a cross in memory of Olav had stood on the site "for many hundreds of years". There may therefore have been a memorial on Olavshaugen already in the Middle Ages.

The current monument, known as Olavsstøtten, was erected in 1807 by Stiftamtman Fredrik Adler. Until the 1880s, this and the Lemfort support stood side by side. However, the oldest support fell into disrepair and was eventually removed. In 1856, the Historical Society took over responsibility for Olavsstøtten and in 1879 they also bought the land it stands on. The association still owns Olavshaugen.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the National Collection's strong connection to the olive heritage and Stiklestad had dramatic consequences. For Olsok 1944, Olavshaugen got a new monument designed by Wilhelm Rassmusen. At the end of the war, the monument was destroyed. The exception was a nine-metre-high log that was knocked over in a ditch on the spot and covered over. Until Olsok 1945, the old Olavsstøtten was back on the mound.

At the same time, the story of Olavshaugen is much more than the various monuments. Generation after generation has sought out the mound to remember the saintly king. Often they have also used Olavshaugen as an arena for using the Olav story in a political context. The stories about Olavshaugen are therefore a story about Norway and the great national issues, about Bjørnsson and his glowing speech "Selvstendighetens æresfølling" in 1882, about 40 gathered for an outdoor church service during the 000th anniversary in 900, about the National Assembly's Olympic rallies in the decade that followed and about continued debates about the use of history and what today's Stiklestad should be.