In the hills above Trondheim, the ruins of Sverresborg whisper stories most people have forgotten. Built by King Sverre in the 1180s, this stone fortress once stood strong through Norway’s brutal civil wars. But one of its oldest secrets wasn’t found in a wall or scroll- it was discovered in a well.
In 1938, archaeologists found a skeleton at the bottom of that well, buried under layers of stones. For decades, no one knew who he was- until DNA testing in 2024 confirmed he likely died during the infamous 1197 raid, just as told in the Sverris Saga. A man thrown into the well, maybe to poison the water, maybe as a final insult.
But his story isn’t the only one buried in these lands.
Nearby, in Bjugn, long before Sverresborg ever rose, another grave was found. A chamber burial beneath a cairn, where an adult woman was laid to rest with a thin-walled ceramic vessel. She was later catalogued as VK523.
She is my ancestor.
A Bronze Age soul whose bones whispered across time and science to let us know she once walked these northern lands. She was here before the castles, before the sagas- part of the landscape itself.
To think: one ancestor beneath a cairn, another life ended in a siege. Two lives. Two eras. One land. And somehow, I’m a part of it.
History lives on- in stones, in stories, and in blood.
Swedish Wanderlust 