Category page: history

10 July is the feast day of Saint Knut – Knutsok – and marks the beginning of the haymaking season – høyonna – in the old Norwegian farming calendar.

On the historical Norwegian farm, the skoklefallsday is the last day of planting in the spring. Literally, it means the day that the shafts attached to the workhorse’s harness come off.

In olden Norway, the farm-animals were sent off to the mountains and forests all summer. With them came a herder to guard them, and a maid to turn their milk into cheese and butter.

In Scandinavia, agriculture first appeared in the Stone age – around 2400 BC. The early farmers cleared their land by using simple tools and fire.

When the industrial revolution brought machinery to the Norwegian farms, it didn’t just change the old working methods, it also changed the layout and look of the farmland.

Our foremothers were hardworking and inventive. Here you can read more about how the laundry was done on a Norwegian mountain farm in the late 1800s.

In the old Norwegian farming society, a husmann was a man who was allowed to build his home on a small section of a farm’s land, and pay with his labour instead of rent.

In the coastal districts of the old Norway, a strandsitter was a beach dweller – who rented a small piece of land – but owned the house he built on it. His livelihood was usually connected to the sea.

On the historical Norwegian farm, winter feed for the domesticated animals was a precious resource. Sometimes it was harvested and temporarily stored far away from the farm.

Do you have trouble sleeping? Here are some examples of how the old Norwegians used Mother Nature’s very own remedies to cure their ailments.

To make sure he could tide the animals over the long and cold winter, the historical Norwegian farmer utilised all available resources.

In 1935, Aslaug Engnæs published a guidance book on how to milk the cow.

Langfjordbotn – in Norway’s northernmost region Finnmark – was the birthplace of Oluf Røde, born in 1889.

The wild ocean world of Værøy in Lofoten, Norway, was the birthplace of Mimmi Benjaminsen – born in 1894. Here are some of her childhood memories.

For the old Norwegians, making butter was simply a way of preserving the fresh summer milk – turning it into a type of food that could be stored.

The old Norwegian farm needed hundreds of litres of water every single day: for food-making, cleaning, and human and animal consumption.

With this old photograph in my hand I have set myself a task: how much information can I find in Norwegian online archives based on what the photo tells me?

The first half of the 1900s came with a momentous change to Norwegian society. The old ways of the ancient hunting and farming culture were rapidly dying.

The first half of the 1900s was a time of enormous change in Norwegian society. It was then that a young boy experienced a peculiar family custom.

In 1942, Hans Hyldbakk wrote the history of the local cotter’s holdings in Surnadal, Nordmøre, Norway. The book was updated in 1966.

Skodje sogelag and Louis Giske wrote the history of the two Sortehaug farms and its inhabitants back in 1986.

In this post, we take a look at the layout of the Norwegian farm and its surroundings – and how the land and its resources were utilised.

The hour of twilight is when the daylight starts to disappear – before it is completely dark. In the old Norwegian farming society, this was a time for rest.

Per O. Rød wrote the history of the Stornæve farm and its inhabitants back in 1968. Decades earlier, several children of Stornæve had emigrated to the US.

Once you start taking an interest in the old Norwegian farming and family history, then the people of the past start coming to the fore.

Like all buildings on the old Norwegian farm, the stabbur had a clear purpose: it was a building designed for the storage of food.

For more than a thousand years, Norwegian farmers sent their livestock to feed in the forests and the mountains. Today, this way of life has almost disappeared.