Pilgrimage Place-lore

Restorying Landscapes of St Olav and St Sunniva

Abstract

This article details ways in which the development of the Sunniva Route to Selja and the St Olav Ways to Nidaros contribute to the place-lore of landscapes associated with St Sunniva and St Olav. The narratives about the martyrdoms of these saints and the subsequent veneration at their shrines from the eleventh century onwards story these places. As symbols of contemporary pilgrimage routes, the saints are evoked as flexible figures connecting pilgrimages in the past and the present. Sources span from hagiographical legends, Saga literature and Medieval church art to pilgrimage logos, websites and stories told by accommodators and pilgrims at and in reference to the geographical pilgrimage routes and destinations. The aim of the article is to explore how the combination of certain places, stories and figures, that is, historical shrines and routes leading there, legends and saints, contributes to highlighting and adding to pilgrimage place-lore in Norway, and to connect these routes to international pilgrimage developments. Special attention is paid to how St Sunniva and St Olav form a comparative pair both historically and in their rebranding in the context of contemporary pilgrimage.