The lake "Steinsfjorden". Photo: Bjørn Geirr Harsson
The Hole Municipality has approximately 5000 inhabitants and is located in
the southern part of Norway 50 km north of Oslo.
The Historical Society of Hole was founded in 1995 and has about 200 members.
Society meetings are normally held on the last Wednesday each month.
The aim of the society is to encourage the interest in local history of the
region, arrange meetings and excursions and promote historical activities in
all parts of the municipality.
The society is located in ideal surroundings since Hole and the neighbor
municipality Ringerike are interesting places concerning local and Norwegian
national history.
The logo of Hole contains four royal crowns which symbolizes kings who in the
Viking and early medieval age lived in Hole.
The first royal crown represents Halvdan Svarte (Halvdan the Black). According
to the saga he lived at the estate Stein in Hole, and was buried there in the
famous grave mound Halvdans-haugen (haug=mound). Halvdan lived in the ninth
century and was the king of the counties Vestfold and Vest-Opplandene.
The second royal crown represents the king Sigurd Syr who died in 1018.
According to the saga he too had a farm in Hole. Sigurd Syr is probably best
known as the stepfather of St. Olav (995 - 1030). He also was the father of
Harald Hardråde (hard-råde=hard-ruler, 1015 - 1066). Both Olav and
Harald became kings of Norway and both grew up in Hole, and consequently our
municipality can justify having four royal crowns in the logo and brag about
having fostered four of the ancient Norwegian kings.
The above is a translation of our main page.
The other pages are for the time beeing only available in Norwegian. (They can
be translated for particular interested visitors on request):
The most exciting historical coming event in Hole is the publication of the
result of the recent investigation of the Halvdanshaugen grave mound. Society
members did assist the archeologists work at the mound.
06.01.2004 M. Harson / H. Viktil