The Locations that Inspired The Starseed (Part 2)

This is the second part of my breakdown of the real-life locations that inspired Professor Korrigan's three-day adventure through the Norwegian west-coast in my novel; The Starseed.

If you haven't already read Part 1 you can do so here.

Mild spoiler warnings for the plot of The Starseed.

Just in case you haven’t read the novel yet, I have made sure to avoid any major character or plot-driven spoilers in this article, however, the locations themselves, especially the later ones featured here, can be considered plot spoilers in and of themselves.

SKUDENESHAVN & DALE

The small fishing village of Lunvik that I introduce about halfway through the story is the only settlement in the novel that is entirely fictitious, though naturally inspired by real locations. The village is in many ways an amalgamation of several villages that I have visited, but the one place that I drew the most inspiration from—though I only realised this after the fact—was the small port town called Skudeneshavn. 

The name Skudeneshavn is quite fascinating, and is a combination of three words. The first part comes from the Old Norse; Skúta, which literally means “protruding rocks” and refers to the rocky skerries that line the shore around the southern end of the island. Nes and havn, two words that are still in use in modern Norwegian, translates to “headland” and “port.” Due to the archaic nature of the first third of the name, with skude being very similar to modern word skute, I was always under the misconception that it referred to the “ships” that would enter the port at the headland. Ask most Norwegians what the name means and they’ll likely give you the same answer.

As the actual name suggests, it is a very old port town. It lies at the very tip of the large island county of Karmøy, where, a bit further north, you’ll find the historically important site of Avaldnes (more on this later).

Skudeneshavn in 2016.

The one thing that separates Skudeneshavn from the fictional village of Lunvik, however, is its complete lack of mountains. Although mountains were never far away during my upbringing—in fact the backdrop of the nearest grocery store was a mountain range on the opposite side of the Bokna fjord—the landscape where none-the-less relatively flat, consisting mostly of rolling hills and the occasional bump in the landscape that neither qualifies as hill nor mountain. I actually grew up at the foot of one of these bumps, or nut (pronounced “noot”) as they’re called in Norway, a word with no direct English translation. So, I was thankfully spared having to cycle down mountain roads like the two unfortunate boys at the start of the chapter I somewhat dramatically titled Draugen. My great-great-great grandfather on the other hand, did grow up in a place not too dissimilar.

Farmland near the village of Dale photographed by my mother in July 1996.

In the village of Dale (the name literally translates to “valley”) you are quite literally flanked by mountains on all sides, with your only means of exit or entry being a slim, winding road through the mountains, or by water through one of the many veins of the Sunnfjord. Unlike the comparatively large town of Skudeneshavn, this is the type of village that has a single grocery store and a “shopping centre” consisting of four stores, and that’s including the aforementioned grocery store. And in this way, I suppose Dale is actually a much closer approximation to the fictional Lunvik, if only in size rather than its overall aesthetic. Since Dale lies far within the Sunnfjord, unlike Lunvik which lies by the coast at the mouth of a fjord, it is not a port town, but rather a community that once made its living from factories, exporting mainly shoes and barrels.

As I alluded to before, part of my family comes from this village; specifically the Nitter branch on my grandmother’s side. The Nitters were quite well-off and there were quite a few fascinating characters living in Dale in the 19th century, though the one that I have always heard a lot about—thanks in large part to him having kept a very detailed diary—was Adolph Nitter, my great-great-great grandfather. Well educated and well read, Adolph’s writings were both eloquent and insightful, providing a fascinating glimpse into life in Europe two centuries ago. Since he came from an affluent family, and since he was groomed to take over his uncle’s trade, he was able to travel abroad in a way that few others were able to in his days.

His father (i.e. my great-great-great-great grandfather) was a lensmann, which, as I also described in the novel itself, means that he was the police chief. They even had a little cell for prisoners in the house itself. But it was Adolph’s son; Einar, who eventually left Dale behind, moved to Stavanger, and the rest is history.

The village of Dale seen from the old Nitter house atop the hill. Photo taken in July 1996.

BERGEN

The reading room of the University of Bergen Library that I describe at the midpoint of the novel is the only location that isn’t based on any place that I have actually been to, be it directly or indirectly. Granted, I have been to many libraries throughout my life, as well as a few archives, so I suppose you could categorise this location as being based on an educated guess rather than anything related to personal experience. Of course, the library itself does exist, but although I have visited the city of Bergen several times I’ve never had any reason to visit it. I originally had Korrigan visit the Bergen Public Library, a very striking-looking neo-Romanesque building that I have passed by on many occasions due to it being located right next to the railway station, but decided that the university library made much more sense for an academic. The public library does, despite its somewhat mundane name, house many old books in their archives, though largely related to local history. Not quite fitting for the esoteric Icelandic compendium that Korrigan reads through in the novel.

Of course, Korrigan visits more than just the library in Bergen, though I can thankfully say that I have never needed to visit the police station.

The main square in downtown Bergen on a rainy August day in 2018.

The hotel that I usually stay in when visiting the city was not converted to a hotel until the late 90s, and was as such of no use to me while writing about Korrigan’s brief overnight stay in 1975.

After researching the history of well-established hotels in Bergen—a task that proved far more complex than I had imagined it would be—I finally concluded that the Hordaheimen Hotel would suit my purposes for the story. Although I have never been to this hotel, and I could easily have just made up a name for it seeing as not much happens at this location other than Korrigan finally getting a relatively good night's sleep, it did prove to be something of a fascinating rabbit hole. Not only did the hotel once house a famous (and quite huge) painting of St. Olav Haraldsson (King of Norway from 1015 to 1028) by Nils Bergslien (1853-1928) in the dining room, but it has also a fascinating connection to one of the most well-known unsolved crimes in Norwegian history; the so-called “Isdal Woman.” In November 1970 an unidentified woman was found dead in Isdalen (“The Ice Valley”) near the city. The last time she was seen alive she had checked out of Room 407 at the Hordaheimen hotel where she had stayed under one of what later turned out to be several false identities. It is generally believed that she was a spy, though I’m not going to delve into all the details of this case here. But if you're fascinated by real-life cold war mysteries, then this one is definitely worth your time.

Lastly, I’d like to point out that contrary to my somewhat gloomy description of the city in the novel, I do actually think Bergen is a really nice place. So, in order to make up for it, here’s a nice sunny photo to give you a more cheerful impression.

Photo taken in 2014 from the viewing platform atop Fløyfjellet which can be easily accessed via the Fløybanen funicular railway with the lower terminus down in the city.

STOPLESTEINAN

You might have thought that the stone circle Korrigan finds hidden within the small patch of trees at the terminus of the Heimrinn fjord had to be a purely fictitious place, but when Hagen casually stated that there must be thousands of stone circles all around the country it was no exaggeration. Norway really is littered with standing stones to the point where most of them remain largely ignored by all but the most committed history buffs. It is not uncommon to still find lone marker stones in the middle of some field with no sign or trail to indicate that there is anything of historical value. Of course, they are protected by the state, but unless there is something particularly unusual about them, or if there’s more than one, then there is rarely any effort made to make them easily accessible—something which I have experienced on more than one occasion.

One unusual collection of standing stones that do have both signs and a path to follow, though only barely, are Stoplesteinan in Egersund. 

Egersund is a port town a little less than an hour by train south of Stavanger (and about 30 minutes from where I live now). It is a city I am quite familiar with for multiple reasons, the first being that my late grandfather had a summer house on an island close to the city, and the second being that it is something of a local tradition to visit the city during the Christmas season as Egersund is famous for “Julebyen,” an elaborate Christmas market that have been held there every year for as long as I can remember. However, I have never ventured past the city centre, and in order to access Stoplesteinan you have to walk through the city, into the suburbs, and up a very steep hill that at first seems to lead you right up into someone’s driveway—which you do—until you spot a tiny bridge—a plank of wood really—over a small stream that leads to a downtrodden path. As is quite typical with Norwegian forest trails, apart from a few rudimentary means to help you cross the occasional stream and fence, there is not much to go by other than a simple trail. And when I say trail, I mean a trail in the true sense. I’m not talking about a gravel road, I mean a thin, irregular line of downtrodden grass that indicates that at least some other human beings have walked there before. Eventually you make your way up to the top of a plateau nestled in between two “bumps” in the landscape and there you will find a circle of 16 stones. The tallest ones are roughly waist-high compared to your average adult male. There are no visible carvings of any kinds on these stones, and their original purpose can only be guessed at.

Standing at the centre of Stoplestenan in 2023.

It’s a peculiar little site really. When standing at the centre of the stone circle, in all directions but west (where the suburbs are quite visible in the gap between the two “bumps”) you can hardly see any signs of civilisation apart from the occasional power lines on the far horizon. It is almost like you have stepped back in time to the ancient past and you begin to wonder what the purpose of this place originally was. Even though Google Maps reveal that the stones are nestled in between the Egersund suburbs and a cluster of farms, it is still very much on the edge of the modern world. To the east lies nothing but 250 km (150 miles) of mountainous wilderness that stretches all the way to the east coast. Even in the 21st century, much like in the Viking age, people generally live along the coast and the centre of the bulbous shaped bottom half of the country is—apart from the occasional rarely traversed road—the same today as it would have been a thousand years ago, or ten thousand years for that matter.

At this point in the text, I would normally have included a translation of the name of this place, but I must confess that I haven’t the faintest idea what a stople is supposed to be, and all my attempts at Googling it haven't turned up any satisfactory answers either. What I can say, however, and without having to look up any Norse translations, is that “steinan” simply means “stones,” so there’s that.

And finally, I’d also like to point out that I visited Stoplesteinan quite far into the process of writing The Starseed, so I can’t truly claim this to be the primary source of inspiration of the mysterious magnetic stone circle described in the novel, rather I visited it for the purpose of photographing it for my book trailer. If you haven’t already seen it, you can do so here.

THE LNG TANKER SHIP AT AVALDSNES

You never know when inspiration will hit you, and hit me it did during a visit to Avaldsnes on the island of Karmøy some two-hours by bus and ferry north of Stavanger. Avaldsnes is in many ways the birthplace of Professor Korrigan, as it was there I got the inspiration for both The Starseed and the upcoming follow-up novel; The Highland Incident. I will detail the origins of the latter story some other time, but it was during a visit in 2021 that I spotted something odd that once more spurred on my imagination.

For those who are interested in history there are three main attractions to visit at Karmøy; St. Olav's Church at Avaldsnes, the Nordvegen History Centre right “next door” to the church, and The Viking Farm on Bukkøya—a recreated Viking age village not too dissimilar to The Iron Age Farm in Stavanger. After having paid a visit to the church and the museum during the summer of 2021 I stopped in the cafeteria for a lunch break and looked out a window over the grassy hills that lead to Bukkøya, where the Viking village lies hidden within a forest. My eyes swept the rocky hills and I spotted the occasional sheep munching on the grass before coming to a stop at the channel of ocean water that separates Karmøy from the city of Haugesund on the mainland, and there I saw a large anchored tanker ship. As someone who grew up in a port town with strong ties to the oil industry I thought little of it other than noting the somewhat unusual look of the bulbous gas tanks and continued with my lunch.

The LNG tanker 'Gulf Energy' was, according to a marine traffic website I found, built in 1978 and is currently (as of 2024) not in service. Photo taken in 2021.

Once I finished my lunch I left the museum and started the short trek over to the Viking village. I casually noted that the tanker was still there, but my mind was more focused on all things Vikings since this was less than a month after the shoot of my fantasy short film in Stavanger. A little over an hour later, once I had seen everything the Viking village had to offer, I crossed this open patch of land once more and again the tanker was just sitting there on the water. Now it drew my full attention, and I found myself attaching my zoom lens to my camera and I began taking pictures of it. Although I could see the city in the distance, the tanker was mostly framed against forested hills in addition to being partially covered by the northern tip of Bukkøya, creating a strange contrast of nature and modern engineering. In my mind I began erasing the city in the distance, I removed the nearby houses, the bridge, and I imagined it all alone, surrounded only by nature. There were no people onboard that I could see, even with my zoom lens. Why was it there? Who had brought it here? What was hiding within its steel hull? For whatever reason I imagined that there was some kind of alien hidden within, and thus the first seed of an idea for a novel had been planted in my head. 

Mysterious tanker ships aside, Avaldsnes is a very fascinating place and one of the most historically rich places in all of Norway. It served as the capital of Norway during the Viking age and was the seat of power for the aforementioned king Harald Fairhair who united all of Norway at the battle of Hafrsfjord just downhill from the Iron Age Farm at Ullandhaug. And as I alluded to before, my next Korrigan novel; The Highland Incident, has its roots in an apocalyptic legend connected to the church that rests atop the hill looking down at the strange ghost ship resting in the Karmsund strait.

The church at Avaldsnes in 2021. The small building just to the left of the church was a temporary structure built around an archaeological excavation. The museum can be seen between the trees on the far left.

A special thanks to my mother for letting me scour through her photo albums for a lot of these pictures, and for helping me find some that I didn’t even know existed.