Viking fever hits North County

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I went to the Viking Festival at Norway Hall in Vista last month. Although I belong to the Daughters of Norway (DON), I am still getting my feet wet when it comes to experiencing all things Norse, and even though I am only one-quarter Norwegian, I much prefer cool weather over hot. Of course, it turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year, but that didn’t stop the truly serious Viking enthusiasts from showing up.

The festival is put on by the Norwegian Fish Club Odin and Sons of Norway (SON) Norge Lodge No. 60. Several members of the lodge live in the Fallbrook area and a few are also members of the DON. However, just as visitors came from all over, so did many of those who were part of the festival program.

To my surprise, there were several groups of re-enactors there, wearing traditional Viking garb (long sleeves and skirts, layers, furs and helmets not suitable for a heat wave in Southern California), and demonstrating the Viking way of life. A few were baking bread in period bread ovens while others were showing visitors how to throw axes at a wooden target. Despite the heat, one enterprising Viking was melting pewter over a fire, and then casting it into molds to make pendant souvenirs.

Although Vikings are historically known for pillaging and destroying, these latter-day Vikings were very friendly and generous in sharing their knowledge. One vendor whose wares included a wide assortment of both wooden and metal weapons, from knives to swords, told me the items were “for defense only.” Still, two different units of enactors engaged in mock combat, wearing armored gear, to educate and entertain the crowd.

Because Vikings were traders as well as raiders, there were a good number of vendor booths at the festival. A majority of them displayed jewelry of all sorts, while a few of the more unusual items for sale were feather headdresses, woven wheat wall decorations, tarot cards, rabbits’ feet and fur animal tails. A selection of Viking themed t-shirts and bumper stickers were also available as more conventional souvenirs while two DON lodges sold Norwegian and Viking themed handicrafts inside the hall.

Besides shopping, there was something for Viking lovers of all ages to do. Adults had their choice of axe throwing, fish flinging and battle cry contests, visiting the Viking encampment or just sitting in the Meading Place (beer garden) enjoying the musical entertainment. The kid zone contained a castle jumper, sword and shield painting, and accordion lessons.

Educational aspects of the festival included displays of the phonetic pronunciation of the Norwegian alphabet, maps detailing the history and travel routes of the Vikings over half the world, members of the San Diego Creative Weavers Guild spinning wool into thread, and exhibits of arms and armor as well as wood carving tools used by Vikings.

For the hungry, food offerings included Viking meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, and barbequed Polish sausage (similar to Norwegian sausage). Dessert choices included lefse (a Norwegian potato tortilla) served with cinnamon and sugar or brown sugar, and krumkake, a wafer cookie curled into a cone, both of which were made on site while you waited.

One of the lefse makers happened to be Patti Stoll, who I hadn’t seen since we graduated from Fallbrook High School. She is now the lefse diva and was busy rolling out the lefse dough and cooking it right there in Norway Hall not far from where I spent part of my day at the DON Turid Jespersen (Mission Viejo) and Hulda Garborg (Rainbow) lodges’ booths.

One visitor, who stopped to buy some plastic needlepoint coasters with the Norwegian flag on them, told me that his cousin lives in Minneapolis and is an officer in the brand new DON lodge there. Many other visitors were also part Norwegian, but many were not. Despite the heat, all seemed to enjoy learning about the Vikings and the world they lived in, just as I did.

Although the original Vikings did not travel farther east than our east coast, their descendents have settled all over our country, and many of them can be found in Southern California. For more information on SON Norge Lodge, (760) 757-7441, and Fish Club Odin, (760) 630-4428, see

http://www.norwayhall.org; for information on Hulda Garborg Lodge, call (760) 645-3344 or see http://www.daughtersofnorway.org.

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