Notre Dame

On my say home I’m visiting my old friends Monika (Fellow blipper ”Doggylady”) and Allan, living in the old rural landscape of Skåne, my birthplace in the very south of Sweden. On the way to their home I made a small detour in order to pass the village of ‘Fru Alstad’, where there is an elaborated church, established during the late Middle Ages around 1100 or, likely, earlier. It was a pilgrim-stop because of a well, sacred to Norte dame, Our lady or, in Swedish ’Vår Fru’. Some of the original pillars where the pilgrims put their mark, are still there and a church was gradually built on the spot. It got bigger and bigger with growing importance until it reached its currant stature. The village ”Fru Alstad” got its name from the danes, who controlled this area during this time. They called it ”Vår frue Alsted”. The firs bit was dropped, ‘sted’ means place in danish, I haven’t seen an explanation to the first part of the word ‘Al’. Because of the importance of the place, the church was far larger than any church nearby, today, the village has 72 inhabitants. They would all easily fit in the church.