First step - and pondering on old viking laws

 April 27th Orkanger - Grillstad marina, Ranheim

There was an editorial some years ago that claimed that Orkanger was the only town in Trøndelag that would be beautified by a rail freight terminal.

Viewing this image of the Elkem Thamshavn smelter from the sea I would say they where correct.

Since I have stored the sails at Maritimt Kompani since during winter I thought it would be easiest to take the boat to them and get help in mounting the sails. Thus the first motor trip of the year was to Grilstad Marina in Trondheim. 

Just as I left the marina in Orkanger MV Rike transporting wings to the wind farm at Geitfjellet met MV Deep Energy that is loading pipes for the oil or gas industry in the Northsea. Whilst wind energy might be a solution that is more suited to the future low energy society I still is fascinated by being able to spool up insulated 30 inch steel pipes pre welded in kilometre long length and go out to sea and unspool them there.

As unventful as motoring on a grey almost windless day can be I still passed close to the skerry that today is called Munkholmen that lies 2 km offshore from Trondheim. Munkholmen or Nidarholm as it was know as earlier has a rich history with its location just outside Trondheim. The earliest written about its use is that the heads of earl Håkon Sigurdson and his slave Karl who killed him when he was hiding from persecution in a pig sty was put on nothing poles in 995.

 Earl Håkon who was the de facto ruler of Norway from about 970 to 995 became a harsh ruler. In the law of Trøndelag it was regulated that nobody was allowed to destroy somebody´s propert, not even the king. If the king, an earl or another nobleman commits this crime a "message" arrow was to be made and sent to all counties inside Agdenes and everybody was to assemble to hunt him down and kill him. To not participate or to stop the message was itself a crime. If the nobleman escaped he would be abolished. 

This law regulated obligation for the people to rebell and overthrow a despotic ruler is not known in any other western European society. Some historians connects this to the old Norwegian law being from the people and up and not as usual from the king and down and thus the final power was to be in the hand of the people and not the ruler.

I was treated to the first pretty sunset from the boat at Grilstad.