Brønnøysund – Norway’s midpoint of myths and mountains

Sitting halfway along the Norwegian coastline, just south of the Arctic Circle, Brønnøysund is a small seaport strung along a narrow peninsula.

Water shapes life here – from the tides that lap its shores to the ancient myths that swirl around nearby Torghatten, the ‘mountain with an eye’.

Stone Age settlements have been uncovered in the limestone caves at Sportsplassen. During the Viking era Torgar, at the foot of the mountain. Torghatten was a nationally powerful chieftain seat and an important commercial centre along the coast.

Duke Skule and his men wiped out the original inhabitants in an outright massacre in the Norwegian civil wars that raged around 1240, in the high medieval era of Norway.

The name of the town comes from the Old Norse Brunney or brunnur, meaning a well – the seafarers of the past knew they could find freshwater here.

Hurtigrutenkai, Havnegata 42, 8900, Brønnøysund