{"id":306,"date":"2023-02-13T11:13:45","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T10:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/?p=306"},"modified":"2024-11-19T10:03:08","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T09:03:08","slug":"wayside-shrines-crosses-and-saints-images-in-the-nordic-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/blog\/lived-religion\/wayside-shrines-crosses-and-saints-images-in-the-nordic-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayside Shrines, Crosses, and Saints\u2019 Images in the Nordic Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Terese Zachrisson, University of Gothenburg<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_309\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-309\" class=\"wp-image-309\" src=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494.png 1089w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494-218x300.png 218w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494-745x1024.png 745w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494-768x1056.png 768w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/Vagkors-1494-873x1200.png 873w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-309\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Figure 1. A wayside shrine points out \u2019the narrow path\u2019 towards Heaven to a fool stuck in a swamp in Sebastian Brant\u2019s 1494 Ship of Fools. Image by Project Gutenberg (CC0 1.0 Universal).<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>A phenomenon that usually catches the eye of modern Scandinavians travelling through the Alps or the Southern European countryside, is the multitude of small wayside shrines scattered throughout the landscape. To secularised Scandinavians, this is often a rather exotic view. Few are aware that this aspect of sacred topography was once as common a sight in the North.<\/p>\n<p>Christian wayside shrines come in a variety of shapes and sizes. A type of shrine evident from late medieval illustrations \u2014 that is still common today \u2014 is that of a crucifix or a saints\u2019 image with a gabled \u2018roof\u2019 or enclosed in a small open \u2018house\u2019 (see figures 1 and 2). Shrines can also consist of a larger free-standing cross or crucifix, made of either stone or wood (see figure 3), or a large saints\u2019 sculpture, for instance placed in a grotto or small oratory. Another variant is a painted image on a board or tablet, that according to some 17th-century descriptions seems to have been relatively common in Sweden.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Wayside shrines were the focal points of \u2018devotion on the go\u2019. People working the fields, herding livestock in the woods, travelling along roads or visiting markets would kneel, make the sign of the cross and offer a prayer at such sites. Visiting shrines and crosses could also be a substitute for church attendance, when circumstances made it difficult to travel far. Shrines could also fill other functions. They could function as boundary markers and they could indicate sites where something remarkable had taken place, like a battle, or where someone had met a tragic and untimely end. People dying in riding accidents are especially common in the folklore surrounding many memorial crosses, and this tradition has much in common with <i>offerkast*<\/i>\u00a0and the modern-day tradition of marking the sites of fatal car accidents with candles and flowers (Petersson 2009, 87). Even when a shrine mainly had a memorial function, it still called out for interaction with passers-by. Some of the surviving inscriptions on stone crosses request prayers for the victim\u2019s soul, like the <a href=\"http:\/\/kulturarvsdata.se\/uu\/srdb\/ffc831b7-7c21-45d1-808a-99e79de6946f\">13th-century runic inscription<\/a> on a cross in Guldrupe parish on Gotland that says: <i>Pray for Jakob in Annugan\u00e4nge\u2019s [?] soul, whom Nikulas slaughtered.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Wayside shrines could also mark processional routes, as evidenced from medieval Central Europe, where religious processions ended in the open-air celebration of mass (Timmermann 2012, 393). According to Bishop J\u00f6ran Wallin the Younger (1668\u20131760), the <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/8020\">stone cross in Kr\u00e4klingbo<\/a> had once had an altar at its base, for this very reason (S\u00e4ve 1873, 18\u201319). Other shrines functioned as stations along pilgrimage routes, showing the way to pilgrims both physically and spiritually.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_437\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-437\" class=\"wp-image-437\" src=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1-1024x932.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1-1024x932.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1-300x273.png 300w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1-768x699.png 768w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1-1536x1398.png 1536w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/image-1.png 1554w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-437\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 2. Pilgrims at a wayside shrine. Colourised woodcut from a prayer book by Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg (Augsburg 1510). Image by the British Museum (CC BY-NC- SA 4.0).<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As with so many other aspects of medieval Christianity in the Swedish realm, the contemporary sources rarely contain references to wayside shrines and we often have to rely on early modern narratives in order to identify sites that had these types of shrines. While shrines were likely an important part of the lived religion of the laity, as long as they weren\u2019t part of saints\u2019 legends or renowned enough to be objects of substantial donations, there was probably little motivation to mention them in writing. Many small shrines were likely also initiated and maintained by the laity, and as such not part of the formal ecclesiastical framework of buildings and other official structures.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But there is little reason to doubt that wayside shrines were indeed a part of the religious repertoire of the Nordic region in the Middle Ages. From Norway and Iceland there are some early examples of wayside crosses in the sagas. St Olaf himself is said to have erected a cross in Sunnm\u00f8re in 1029 and Bishop Gud\u00f0mundr the Good (1161\u20131237) is said to have had several crosses consecrated along the Icelandic coast (Gardell 1930, 2\u20133).<\/p>\n<p>In the last will and testament of Queen Margaret, the architect of the Kalmar Union, five different crosses in her vast realm were mentioned (DD 1405. Sor\u00f8 12. April.). For the sake of the queen\u2019s soul, pilgrims were to be dispatched to the holy crosses in <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/6374\">Solna<\/a> in Sweden, in Borre in Norway, in <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/8016\">Hattula<\/a> in Finland and Randers and Kliplev in Denmark.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>Margaret&#8217;s will doesn\u2019t clarify whether these crosses were free-standing shrines or part of the churches\u2019 furnishings. \u00a0In the case of Hattula, the cross in question has been identified with the 14th-Century crucifix still in place in the parish church (Hagen 2021, 113\u2013114), but no crucifix has been preserved from Solna, and it is possible that it was indeed a free-standing object.<\/p>\n<p>The terminology used in the sources presents a challenge to its categorisation and analysis. For example, the Swedish word for cross \u2014 <i>kors \u2014 <\/i>had a much wider application in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period than it has today. It could refer to both \u00a0the \u2018naked\u2019 cross and the crucifix, and it was used for both smaller objects and large, free standing ones. Sometimes it seems to have been used to refer to a shrine or holy object in general \u2014 that in itself could have had any iconographic content.<\/p>\n<p>In the <i>Mapping Saints <\/i>database we have currently collected around thirty such sites. Crosses and sculptures placed by holy wells aren\u2019t included among these, since we view them as part of the wells rather than their own separate sites. Neither are the crosses mentioned in the will of Queen Margaret categorised as wayside shrines.\u00a0Due to the uncertainty mentioned above, we haven chosen to categorise them as connected to the parish churches of Solna and Hattula.<\/p>\n<p>Several wayside crosses were associated with the saints. At St Olaf\u2019s Harbour in Medelpad, the staring point of the northern pilgrims\u2019 way to Nidaros, a <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/239\">large copper-clad cross<\/a> was in place up to the middle of the 17th century. In \u00c5lem in Sm\u00e5land, <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/453\">St Birgitta\u2019s Cross<\/a>\u00a0marked the site where the ship carrying St Birgitta\u2019s relics back to Sweden from Rome is said to have docked in 1374. In Nousiainen, Finland, a <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/1630\">cross in remembrance of St Henrik<\/a> was still standing in a field by 1674.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_313\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-313\" class=\"wp-image-313\" src=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-scaled.jpg 1628w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-191x300.jpg 191w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-651x1024.jpg 651w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-768x1208.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-977x1536.jpg 977w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-1302x2048.jpg 1302w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-763x1200.jpg 763w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/IMG_4554-1526x2400.jpg 1526w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-313\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Figure 3. 13th-Century stone cross on Kapelludden, \u00d6land, later associated with St. Birgitta. Photograph by the author (CC0 1.0 Universal).<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The saints could also be present at wayside shrines through their images. For example, a highly unusual object has been preserved in Liden Church in Medelpad: a simple <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/79\">wooden cross<\/a> with a painting of St Martin on one side, and St Margaret on the other, dated to the first quarter of the 16th century (Figure 4). According to local tradition, as mediated by the parish\u2019s pastor in 1776, the cross had been placed at a site in the woods &#8220;during the papacy&#8221; (HLA H\u00e4rn\u00f6sands domkapitel EIII:69). This shrine was visited by those who were unable to travel to the church, and who left <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/8018\">offerings<\/a>\u00a0at the site. The cross itself is covered in grafitti, initials, and house-marks, which lends<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>additional credence to the story.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>One aspect that likely contributed to the popularity of wayside shrines was their accessibility. As indicated above, such sites were accessible to people who due to age, ill health or remote living conditions had a difficult time attending church on a regular basis. Not only could these sites be found close at hand, they were also always open. Even when crosses and saints\u2019 images were enclosed in some kind of small structure, there were no \u2018opening hours\u2019 to take into account. A clear example of the importance of availability is seen in the instructions by Bishop Eystein of Oslo (c. 1337\u20131407) regarding a wayside cross raised in honour of St Olaf in Eidskog:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Thus, we let it be so, that this cross is maintained and that there be made a small prayer-house in honour of St Olaf, with an altar and a door without a lock, so that it is always open and ready for the pilgrims to have mass there, as we have promised, when they cannot enter the church (DN I:545, Vinger, February 18, 1394).<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He further specifies that half the income from offerings left at the site is to belong to the church, and the other half to the shrine itself, which is probably one of the reasons that his stipulations for the small shrine were put into writing.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 17th-century antiquarian reports, written by local clergy and magistrates and sent to the Swedish College of Antiquities, speak of several wayside shrines which still existed in living memory, and some that were still in use. One example is from Fun\u00e4sdalen, located in the mountainous border region between present-day Sweden and Norway, where remnants of an &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/242\">offering cross<\/a>&#8221; [sv. <i>offerkors<\/i>] were still visible, as well as the evidence of an offering practice in the form of scattered coins on the ground (Ranns. I, 245). Another <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/185\">cross<\/a> is mentioned from S\u00f6dra \u00c5sarp in V\u00e4sterg\u00f6tland. It stood in a field, and according to two different reports from 1668, people would visit the cross to <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/2419\">pray with their rosaries<\/a> (Ranns. I, 195 &amp; 202). Crosses from the Finnish part of the realm are also mentioned in the early modern sources. When Dutch diplomat Andries van Wouw visited Finland in 1616 he commented on the <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/8031\">tall crosses<\/a> with an altar-like foundation he encountered in Savonia (Wikman 1947, 114) and the same tradition was reported <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/8033\">from Karelia<\/a> (Arffman 2016, 259).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_311\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-311\" class=\"wp-image-311\" src=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-scaled.jpeg 1733w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-203x300.jpeg 203w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-693x1024.jpeg 693w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-768x1135.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-1040x1536.jpeg 1040w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-1386x2048.jpeg 1386w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-812x1200.jpeg 812w, https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/mapping-saints\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/216\/files\/sites\/216\/2023\/02\/4157-121-1625x2400.jpeg 1625w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-311\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Figure 4. A cross with saints\u2019 images and grafitti from Indals-Liden, 1500\u20131525. Photograph by the Swedish National Heritage Board (CC0 1.0 Universal).<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>A particularly interesting case is found in a rather unlikely source \u2014 a scientific treatise<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0from 1698\u00a0<\/span>on the midnight sun by Mathematician Johan Bilberg. When travelling through V\u00e4sterbotten in 1694, he visited Bygde\u00e5 Parish Church, where he was shown a <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/74\">saint\u2019s sculpture<\/a>\u00a0that had functioned as a woodland shrine where parishioners living far from the church had met together for worship. After &#8220;the most happy Times of Religion being purged from the Heresies of Papists&#8221;, the image had been brought back to the church and laid aside &#8220;in detestation of the Memory of that Matter&#8221; (Bilberg 1698, 86). A very similar case is found in L\u00f6v\u00e5nger, about 45 kilometres to the north of Bygde\u00e5, where parishioners born in the late 19th century still remembered a sculpture (CM #73) by the name of \u2019<a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/cult\/73\">God in Vebomark<\/a>&#8216; (figure 6), that had previously been placed in the Vebomark forest (SND LUKA 1, 1 *113302).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Tablets with painted images of Christ, the saints, or the Cross are also hinted at in several early modern sources that describe shrines as &#8220;votive boards&#8221; or &#8220;offering tablets&#8221; [sv. <i>offertavla<\/i>]. According to Fale A. Burman, who travelled through J\u00e4mtland in the late 18th century, many place-names containing the word <i>tavel<\/i>, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/place\/4828\"><i>Tavellokan <\/i><\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/saints.dh.gu.se\/place\/4827\"><i>Tavelbacken<\/i><\/a>, reflect the memory of such shrines (Burman 1898, 104). Another indication of the past importance of wayside shrines, and how they were preserved in memory, are the sayings that were common in Sweden in the Early Modern period. When describing someone lacking in piety, it was said that that he or she &#8220;went to neither cross nor church&#8221; [sv. <em>gick<\/em><i>\u00a0varken till kors eller kyrka<\/i>], and someone admitting their wrongdoings were often said to &#8220;crawl to the cross&#8221; [sv. <i>krypa till korset<\/i>]. While the former expression is extinct, the latter is still widely used in Swedish.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>* An offerkast [&#8220;offering throw&#8221;] is a heap of pebbles, twigs and branches marking the site of an untimely death. Passers-by would throw a pebble or twig onto the heap while passing.<\/p>\n<p><b>References<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Arffman, Kaarlo, \u201dResistance to the Reformation in 16th-Century Finland\u201d, in Sari Katajala-Peltomaa &amp; Raisa Maria Toivo (eds.), <i>Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe c. 1300-1700<\/i>, Boston 2016.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Burman, Fale A., <i>Fale A. Burmans koncept-dagb\u00f6cker f\u00f6rda under resor i J\u00e4mtland \u00e5ren 1793\u20131802. I utdrag utgifna af Johan Nordlander<\/i>, Stockholm 1894.<\/p>\n<p>Diplomatarium Danicum (DD), Sor\u00f8 12. April, 1405.<\/p>\n<p>Diplomatarium Norvegicum (DN) I:545, Vinger 18 February, 1394.<\/p>\n<p>Gardell, S\u00f6lve, \u201dOm kors och korshus i medeltidens Bohusl\u00e4n\u201d, i <i>G\u00f6teborgs och Bohusl\u00e4ns fornminnesf\u00f6renings tidskrift<\/i>, G\u00f6teborg 1930.<\/p>\n<p>Hagen, Kaja M. H., <em>&#8220;O holy cross, you are all our help and comfort&#8221;: Wonderworking Crosses and Crucifixes in Late Medieval and Early Modern Norway<\/em>, Oslo 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Lund University, Lund University Church History Archive (2014). Questions concerning religious conceptions and church customs, *113302. Swedish National Data Service. Version 1.0. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5878\/001677.<\/p>\n<p>National Archives of Sweden in H\u00e4rn\u00f6sand (HLA), Domkapitlets i H\u00e4rn\u00f6sand arkiv, EIII:69.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Petersson, Anna, \u201dSwedish Offerkast and Recent Roadside Memorials\u201d, in <i>Folklore<\/i>, vol. 120:1, 2009.<\/p>\n<p><i>Rannsakningar efter antikviteter, Vol. 1. <\/i>Stockholm 1969.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>S\u00e4ve, Per-Arvid, \u201dKors p\u00e5 Gotland\u201d, in <i>Svenska fornminnesf\u00f6reningens tidskrift<\/i>, Vol. 2:1, Stockholm 1873.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Timmermann, Achim, \u201dHighways to Heaven (and Hell): Wayside Crosses and the Making of Late Medieval Landscape\u201d, in Celeste Brusati, Karl A. E. Enenkel &amp; Walter Melion (eds), <i>The Authority of the Word: Reflecting on Image and Text in Northern Europe, 1400\u20131700<\/i>, Leiden 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Wikman, K. Rob. V., \u201dG\u00e5rdskors och b\u00f6nkors\u201d, in <i>Fataburen: Nordiska museet och Skansens \u00e5rsbok<\/i>, Stockholm 1947.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Terese Zachrisson, University of Gothenburg A phenomenon that usually catches the eye of modern Scandinavians travelling through the Alps or the Southern European countryside, is the multitude of small wayside shrines scattered throughout the landscape. To secularised Scandinavians, this is often a rather exotic view. Few are aware that this aspect of sacred topography was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6032,"featured_media":310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32748,32128,32130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landscape","category-lived-religion","category-religious-experience"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Wayside Shrines, Crosses, and Saints\u2019 Images in the Nordic Landscape - Mapping Saints<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wayside shrines were the focal points of \u2018devotion on the go\u2019. People working the fields, herding livestock in the woods, travelling along roads or visiting markets would kneel, make the sign of the cross and offer a prayer at such sites. Visiting shrines and crosses could also be a substitute for church attendance, when circumstances made it difficult to travel far.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wayside Shrines, Crosses, and Saints\u2019 Images in the Nordic Landscape - Mapping Saints\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wayside shrines were the focal points of \u2018devotion on the go\u2019. People working the fields, herding livestock in the woods, travelling along roads or visiting markets would kneel, make the sign of the cross and offer a prayer at such sites. 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