About Borgund Stave Church

Borgund Stave Church was built as the parish church of Borgund, in the Diocese of Bjørgvin, sometime between 1180 and 1250, with later additions and restorations, and dedicated to the Apostle Andrew. Its construction follows the traditional stave-building method, using vertical wooden boards, or staves, connected by ground sills resting on stone foundations, with interlocking tongued-and-grooved joints and an internal “cube within a cube” structural system in which inner columns support the roof independently of the outer stave walls — techniques drawing directly on Viking-era shipbuilding methods, entirely without the use of nails. On each of its four gables, stylised dragon heads swoop from the carved roof ridge crests, closely resembling the carved dragon-head prows of Norse longships; the church’s west portal is further framed by carvings of dragons biting each other’s necks and tails, their imagery interpreted by medieval Christian authorities as a symbolic struggle between good and evil, the dragon forms themselves believed to carry a protective function despite their pagan origins. Inside, medieval graffiti includes both an “Ave Maria” inscription and a runic carving by a man named Þórir, who blamed the pagan Norse Norns — goddesses of fate — for his misfortunes, evidence of how thoroughly older Norse beliefs continued to coexist with Christian worship centuries after the country’s formal conversion. The church also preserves Norway’s sole surviving stave-built freestanding bell tower. Religious functions were transferred to a newly built Borgund Church nearby in 1868, after which the original stave church was restored and converted into a museum; the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments purchased it in 1877 and has maintained it ever since. Today, Borgund is widely regarded as the best-preserved of Norway’s surviving stave churches, retaining most of its original medieval timber.