Narrative Non-fiction2019 · 344 pp
Thirty-three Norwegian Trees
Ole Mathismoen
There are ten billion trees growing in Norway. All producing oxygen, absorbing carbon, purifying the air and providing homes for thousands of insects, birds and other animals. From a cultural perspective, they have also provided food storage, building materials, hiding places, housing, something for us humans to climb – and in the past, a continual source of myth and superstition. With infectious enthusiasm, Ole Mathismoen, an award-winning journalist (and lumberjack) takes us on a cultural nature trail to 33 of the oldest and biggest trees in Norway. Several of these giants have witnessed and survived the Viking Age, the Black Death, witch-burnings, Danish kings and two world wars.There are proud old trees all over Norway, and in this glorious book you will find beautiful photographs, along with wellknown and less-well-known stories about 33 of them, and the roles they have played throughout Norway’s history.Mathismoen and photographer Stig B. Hansen introduces us to hollow oak trees that are homes to hundreds of different insect species. An old Pine where lawbreakers would be hung. A hollow tree that was used as a hiding place for both robbers and priests. On the border between Sigdal and Numedal we find a spruce that is 539 years old. That means that is started sprouting three years before Marthin Luther was born. But this spruce is far from the oldest or biggest tree in Norway. Brukeika - The Brides Oak - is almost eleven meters around the base, and in the municipality of Birknes in Aust-Agder we find Mollestadeika - The Mollestad Oak tree - that planted its roots when Olav the Holy was still ruling the lands. Around the country we find these proud old trees towering, and in this picture book we find beautiful pictures as well as known and unknown stories about thirty-three of the trees and the role they have played through history.
