Ghost Story

By any chance have you ever slept in a graveyard? 

I’m guessing no. But wait until you read how I happened to do this in Norway.

          Nicole has some friends from her mission days who are renting a home that overlooks an actual fjord. Seriously, the property is breathtaking. And they invited us to spend the night. 

          Also on the property is the landlord's larger home, a huge barn, an apple orchard, and another house.

Years ago the landlady at that time was told by the government that it needed to appropriate the land to build a road. This is called eminent domain here in the U.S.—the taking of land for the public good—and it happens all over the world.

          So she accepted her fate and the night before demolition she went out to dig in her garden.  Her spade hit a rock, making a clinking sound. So she moved over a bit and dug again. Another clink. Then another, and another.  It turns out she had discovered a huge oval of stones surrounding a 1,000-year-old Viking cemetery!

          Immediately the property became a protected historic site, and that’s how we came to sleep in a Viking graveyard!  When we arrived we asked to see it, but were told it hadn’t been excavated yet. Apparently they don’t have sufficient staff to unearth every exciting location in Norway.

          BUT… are you kidding me?  Do you not own a shovel? I would die of curiosity—and thus join the others—if I couldn’t get out there and dig up all those exciting artifacts!  And if it’s illegal, do you not own a spoon and a flashlight? I would be out there in the dead (no pun intended) of night, working feverishly and carefully to find every sword, shield, and helmet!

          I could hardly sleep. And leaving this work undone the following morning, well, what can I say? It haunts me even now.

          Halloween is coming up-- and that's the perfect time to read my books, while you wait for Trick-or-Treaters to ring your doorbell.