Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
between the church and the churchyard wall, are two impressions reputedly made by two
mountain trolls who were so upset by the encroachment of Christianity that they pum-
melled the site with boulders.
SELMA THE SERPENT
The first evidence of Selma the Serpent's existence dates back to 1750, when Gun-
leik Andersson-Verpe of nearby Bø was 'attacked by a sea horse' while rowing
across the lake. Nearly every summer since (Selma, like Norwegians, comes out of
her shell in summer), witnesses have sighted the fins and humps of this fast-moving
lake creature, which reportedly measures the size of a large log, or slightly bigger.
Some have described it as eel-like, while others have likened it to a snail, a lizard or
a crocodile and have reported lengths of 25m, 30m and even 50m. Amateur videos
filmed in 1988 and 1993 reveal a series of humps in the water, but their grainy nature
renders the evidence deliciously inconclusive. Researchers have suggested that the
lake is too small to support creatures more than about 7m long.
As with Scotland's famous Nessie, Selma has fuelled local folklore and drawn
tourists to search the surface of the deep, pine-rimmed lake Seljordvatn (14km long,
2km wide and 157m deep) for evidence. In 1977 and again in 1988, Swedish freel-
ance journalist Jan-Ove Sundberg scanned the lake with sonar equipment, underwa-
ter cameras and even a mini-submarine and detected several large objects moving in
unison, then separating in several directions. According to Sundberg, 'The serpent
does not fit any species known to humanity. It has several qualities not seen before,
such as travelling on the surface at high speed and moving vertically up and down. It
shows a back or a head or a neck or all three for long periods above the surface and
travels very fast, maybe up to 25 knots.'
When we asked one local whether he believed in Selma's existence, he replied, 'I
have never seen her, but I believe she exists and my children won't swim in the lake.'
We didn't see her either, but…
