I’ve known for years that Birgitta journeyed to Trondheim in Norway on pilgrimage to Nidaros Cathedral to venerate the bones of St Olav, before she embarked on her more famous pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago. It’s been ten years since I visited Sweden where over the course of a summer I found myself on various segments of the St Olavsleden, the pilgrim road that leads across Sweden and into Norway. I learned to search for the distinctive trail side insignia long before I started following the yellow arrows of the camino in Spain; I’ve followed bits of the path by foot, bicycle, and car, touching the land where the road starts on mainland Sweden before heading north and west into Norway. For years, those memories have bubbled inside me, a bit overshadowed by other stories from both my life and Birgitta’s.

I’ve known for years that Birgitta journeyed to Trondheim in Norway on pilgrimage to Nidaros Cathedral to venerate the bones of St Olav, before she embarked on her more famous pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago. It’s been ten years since I visited Sweden where over the course of a summer I found myself on various segments of the St Olavsleden, the pilgrim road that leads across Sweden and into Norway. I learned to search for the distinctive trail side insignia long before I started following the yellow arrows of the camino in Spain; I’ve followed bits of the path by foot, bicycle, and car, touching the land where the road starts on mainland Sweden before heading north and west into Norway. For years, those memories have bubbled inside me, a bit overshadowed by other stories from both my life and Birgitta’s.

As I’ve gone deeper into the medieval rabbit hole of Birgitta’s life and times, I’ve come across a few clues that Birgitta’s pilgrimage to Norway might have been more important to her story than most biographers realise. It was a prelude, a time of deep emotion for her, and not an experience we should gloss over.

I know that grief can be taken on pilgrimage, that the empty road becomes a place for re-entering one’s own life. It was on the road through the Norwegian forests that Birgitta’s life changed direction forever.

Jeff and I will be travelling to Trondheim in a few months, to visit the shrine of St Olav. I want to learn about this saint and the pilgrims who have travelled to honour and beseech him for centuries. As much as anything, I want to follow in their footsteps and particularly in Birgitta’s wake. We won’t travel the the entire road, and won’t actually go by foot anywhere but the approach to the cathedral itself – but we will visit Trondheim to get a sense of the people, the culture, the cathedral. My pilgrimage will be as much academic as spiritual, although I suspect those pathways will mingle together to a point at which they seem indistinguishable.

For us, it marks a return to the travel that we love. Our preparation for this journey, which will be. by plane, train, and foot, will be part of our pilgrimage as we learn about St Olav and what he meant to Birgitta in the 14th century, as well as what he might mean to us in the 21st century. I am posting this on St Olav’s feast day, the 29th of July, less than a week after Birgitta’s feast day. I don’t yet know enough about him, but the whispers of invitation are getting louder.

The photos are from my 2016 explorations of the St Olavsleden in Sweden, with thanks to Jill Geoffrion for the photos of me.