Once, many years after my youthful junkets into the wilds and along the shores of Cape Cod and New England searching for traces of the elusive Tenth Century Vikings - formerly held to have sojourned here - I "took ship" for Russia (well, actually "took ship and plane", but that lacks that nice adventuresome, old timey feel of just plain old "took ship"...) so I'm going to leave it that way..

Whatever.

And we were to eventually traverse the whole of Greater Scandanavia - Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway (after our stay in the Land of the Czars - make that the Land of the Commissars. Russia is like no place I have ever been. Wow) . All along the way, I had sought for markers and sites of the famous Vikings who once trod these lands and shores... but for the most part the moderns here know no more (nor care any more!) about these onetime inhabitants of their lands (their very forbears in many cases!) than most modern Americans know of the onetime inhabitants (Amerinds) of our shores!

True, in Stockholm I had run on to a most delightful anthropology Museum of some kind - whose all-but-deserted halls were made-to-order for wandering (my wife - my partner in this trip - hied her mostly to the local department stores betimes, so you see everyone could do his or her thing...). I remember one room in this Museum where a lot of rusted armor, swords and battle axes hung on display - and all from some actual local battleground not very far away! Best of all, was a mummified body still inside most of its chain-mail armor - head yet intact inside its iron helmet - the latter hacked through with a horrendous slash from a broadsword or battleaxe - which had given the quietus for sure to its inhabitant - whose split skull still peers out through the gash at the curious moderns filing by...

But of purely "Viking sites" or find-spots and monuments, etc. - our guides and the locals were largely unable to tell us. Eventually we arrived in Oslo, Norway, where my importuning of the Tour Guides to "show me some Viking stuff" did elicit one night after dinner, a stroll down to a local department store, where a robot type Viking manikin (!) in the window, tapped his sword on the glass at passersby to come in and inspect his wares. Ar-g-g-g-h-h-h! (Our guide was crestfallen, he had gone out of his way to locate this "Viking" for Mr. Powell, and could not quite understand this was not what I hand in mind...). We did see the Oslo Ship Museum though - spectacular indeed! Here they have the famed "Burial of a Viking Queen" - an early ship burial excavated by archaeologists. And appropriate artifact displays and interpretations, etc. And not to overlook Thor Heyerdahl's raft (or a duplicate since I think the original broke up on the reef...) and other displays and exhibits.

Sigh.

Then one day, our bus turned off the highway into the "back country" and we were to see rural Norway at last.. It seemed at every bridge (Norway is full of them!) we had to stop and hear about the local Troll (trolls all live under each bridge, you see - and there is usually a gift store about where you can buy a replica of the local ogre and all that kind of thing.)

Seemingly alone in the land where the Vikings once held sway, I sat sulkily in back of the bus and grumbled over there being no Vikings about.

And it was then our Tour Guide in the front of the bus let a out a warhoop, as it were (he had been studying his Tour Guide intently) and announced to the entire bus that he had at last found a real honest-to-goodness Viking archaeological site for Mr. Powell (at which a sort of cheer went up in the bus, as I am sure they were tired of hearing my constant query "Any Vikings around here?" day after day...). Furthermore this "site" was only a few miles ahead down the highway we were traveling.

Maybe Loki, the God of Luck (from whom our own word for same comes), had smiled on me at last.

Soon, the guide tapped the driver on the shoulder and he swerved off the highway and down a veritable dirt cart track, to fetch up shortly in a farmer's field - right on the edge of the most splendid fjord you ever saw - far down the cliff below us and glistening in the sunlight. Breathtaking.

In the field - sharing it with all the summertime cabbages now coming on - stood a very large, prominent, flat upright rock. Out from it at different distances could be seen other rocks - most of them barely sticking out of the dirt. It was, our guide told us, an ancient Viking boat burial site. And the large tabular rock bore a lengthy inscription in runes, if any of us were pleased to get out of the bus and walk over to it with him to see.

Most had no curiosity and elected to doze in their overstuffed bus seats. Ahh, the American Tourist: he has no equal! (Sigh...), but there were three or four old maid sort of school teacher ladies traveling together - from Iowa, as I recall - somewhere out there - and nothing would do but they would go with Mr. Powell and the Guide and see to these Runes.

We gathered as a little group in front of the large rock. Actually it had a large, somewhat scratched and stained sheet of plexiglas over the whole front of it - and the Guide Book did say this site had been scientifically investigated long before, and "stabilized" this way (with the farmer's permission) so that tourists might view it.

The runes were interesting indeed, and all the passages had been translated - and were in the book - so our guide was able to read them to us - and proceeded forthwith to do so. I felt we were in for perhaps a titillation or two... as while the old maids and the Guide had been wrapped up in the Tour Book - I had idly inspected the stone and noted that in addition to the runes there were large areas here and there where dozens and dozens of sort of little stick-men figures had been pecked into the stone. I noted further that they seemed to be of two types: one type always wore a conical tipped helmet - often with protruding horns - and in most case another protrusion as well - what could only be seen as erect phalluses on almost every one of them! Some held swords or sticks in their "hands". And in almost all cases they were apparently chasing the other type of stick figure - it too, often had conical headgear, but invariably two long pendant lines, which could only be hair braids, fell down their backs. They also seemed to be mostly running away with outstretched arms, from the first type of stick man...

It was then with some interest that I turned back to the group to pay attention to the translations...

Now, Gentle Reader, I do not have at hand a verbatim here of this early literary achievement. But I do have sort of a general mental recall of it (actually it was rather a simple tale told over and over really - only the players changed, you might say...LOL!). From my own background in this field then, and my own readings, I would like to give you my "impression" of what the Guide read us that sunny morning there, in the high cabbage patch alongside one of the most gorgeous fjords in all of Norway...

It started out somewhat in this vein...

Stuff like that you see. On and on and on. Some folks just know (or once did anyhow) how to live I guess. What I know, anyway? The Old Maids had composed themselves now. One or two had been on the verge of taking pictures, but as the tale unfolded, they put away their cameras. Unsnapped.

I'm pretty sure I have a shot or two tucked away somewhere and got to rummage for same as soon as I can get to my plunder again... Sigh.

We filed back through the cabbages and onto the bus. Someone sang out," How was it? We miss anything?" One of the old teachers, snapped back, "No! You didn't miss a thing! Just an old rock is all!"

Soon we were back on the main highway and all could relax: Mr. Powell had at last connected with his Viking spooks... So now he could shut up already!

Hail Ragnar! Hail Wodin!