Oh, I realize the geography of it, but when you live in the US which is capped by Canada, it sounds as wrong as someone from my neck of the woods saying they're going "up" to Los Angeles. Just doesn't compute. I live at 38 degrees N latitude, and my DiL's hometown--Kristiansand--is at 58. Oslo's more north than that, so, yeah, most places are "down" to Norway.
I'm still trying to convince the Danish to take that part of Norway
I've always envisioned our Nordic forfathers and mothers quaffing mead as well, and the romantic in me was very disappointed tfind that modern Norwegians not only don't drink it, but don't even know what it is! I'm glad you're about changing that a bit, Tiwas. My son in Oslo brews, but only beer. Mead takes too long.
If he hadn't gone and found a place in Kristiansand eek I'd might consider visiting him and teach him how to drink and swordfight
But seriously...ever since the Christians came, Asatru, and even norse history, has been kind of politically incorrect. Funny thing is that if you look at the old stave churches, they have runes carved into them all over. Brewing mead was actually outlawed for a few centuries, and so were writing down our history. Even when I was in school, which isn't that long ago, teachers weren't allowed to teach us about our ancestor's culture. We red a little about Eric the Red and how the "evil" vikings were conquered by the "good, christian" vikings, but never the rest.
Did you know that the last known scandinavian killed for being a pagan was in the middle of the 1800s ? The church tried to force a danish farmer to convert, and when he didn't, they killed his whole family. When he still wouldn't, as he no longer had any reason to, they hung him. That's like only 160 years ago...:S The largest written archive about vikings were actually located in Alexandria
So...we're kind of retarded when it comes to our own heritage.