Årsand

Below a south facing, steep rock at Årsand, there is one of the strangest ancient relics in the whole of Hordaland. The jutting rock wall forms a shallow flagstone – Geithilderen. Parts of the rock wall are covered by a light lime crust and on the crust figures have been painted in golden and rusty red colours.

Troldhaugen

Bakko

Everyone knows the famous painting by Tidemand & Gude “Brudeferden i Hardanger” (The Wedding Party in Hardanger) one of the great icons in the National Gallery. Some have, in a humorous lack of respect for this masterpiece linked the concept of “bride’s passage” to another pictorial presentation in Hardanger. This is found on the farm Bakko in Herand, carved in the rock by an unknown artist around 3,000 years ago.

Samnøya

Møvik

In the winter of 1849 the impoverished Fjell municipality was forced to put money into new burial places at Møvik and Bildøydalen, because of the raging cholera epidemic. On 28 March the municipal council decided on a resolution “to apply to His Majesty the King most subserviently to be granted a loan of 500 Speciedaler …”

Tveit

Valestrand

Helgaberget

Helgaberget – the holy hill – is a little rocky crag which thrusts itself a few metres above the terraced surface of Støle. The surface of the rock is strewn with figures inscribed in the rock and it was, as far as one can judge, a cult centre in the Bronze Ages. The name could indicate that the tradition of holiness can have lasted for almost 3,000 years.

Hystad- burial mounds

The biggest collection of prehistoric burial relics in Stord is to be found in Hystadmarka. There are still 16 burial mounds and two stone rings visible here; finds that span from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age in time.

In Memory of Fartein Valen

“Fartein Valen is the key figure within newer Norwegian music. Not by way of being more popular than other younger composers, but because he aims at things higher, which he is fully confident of being able to reach since he commands all techniques. But there is a price to pay for reaching above the ordinary, and there is a price to pay for demanding more than the ordinary from the listeners. This is something Valen has experienced”.