A Norwegian Couple Lifted Up Their Floorboards – And Found A Chilling Secret Lurking Underfoot

Back in 1914, Mariann Kristiansen’s great-grandfather built the property in Bodø, a surprisingly bustling town located north of the Arctic Circle. But it seems as if he was totally oblivious to what was lurking beneath the foundations. Finally, in May 2020 renovations revealed what the house has been hiding all these years.

Hoping to improve the insulation in the century-old property, Kristiansen and her partner lifted the floorboards on the ground level. As they did so, they might have expected to find dust, garbage, even a mouse or two – the typical stuff that gathers under an old house. But what they actually uncovered was something that neither of them were expecting.

In this coastal town on the edge of the Norwegian Sea, the couple unearthed a fascinating secret – a relic buried long before the house was built. Plus it had been lurking in the ground for centuries before the dramatic discovery. But what was it? And how did it wind up beneath a fairly unremarkable family home?

Located more than 700 miles north of the Norwegian capital at Oslo, Bodø is part of the county known as Nordland. Along with Troms og Finnmark, the two regions make up northern Norway – around a third of the country’s total landmass. And even today, it remains one of the remotest parts of mainland Europe.

Known as the Land of the Midnight Sun, northern Norway is possibly one of the weirdest places on Earth. From May until the end of July, the sun remains in the sky for 24 hours every day – creating a land without twilight or night. Meanwhile, the countryside is littered with countless lakes and fjords, creating a haunting landscape that has given birth to many strange stories.

According to experts, humans have lived in Nordland for at least 10,500 years, drawn to the region by the rich array of resources provided by the sea. First, it’s believed that Stone Age people settled here, followed by the establishment of Bronze Age communities. But today the region is probably best known for its connections to the Vikings.

Emerging in Scandinavia in the ninth century A.D., the Vikings were a seafaring people known for their prowess in battle. Across much of Europe, they were regarded as fearsome conquerors, raiding and pillaging coastal communities far and wide. But back home in Nordland, they lived a much more sedate lifestyle in agricultural communities.

By the end of the 11th century, though, the Viking Age was over, and places such as Nordland had been converted into Christian kingdoms. And as the years passed, modern cities and towns sprang up across the county. But beneath the surface, a rich history still lurked just waiting to be discovered.

Many hundreds of years after the Vikings thrived in Nordland, Kristiansen unearthed a historic treasure beneath her Bodø home. But was it a relic left behind by these fearsome warriors, perhaps a stash of valuables hidden away for safe-keeping? Or was it something else altogether? After all, it was not just the Norsemen who left their mark on the region.

Towards the beginning of World War II, for example, the Luftwaffe bombed Bodø, razing many of its buildings to the ground. And out of the 6,000 people living in the town at the time, more than half of them saw their homes destroyed. Over the next two decades, the town was slowly pieced back together.

Maybe, then, Kristiansen and her partner had stumbled across an artifact from this tumultuous period in time? Or from the early 19th century, when the town of Bodø became embroiled in an infamous smuggling affair? In an area so rich with history, there are likely a great number of fascinating artifacts waiting to be discovered.

And this is not the first time that something incredible has been unearthed as a result of home renovations. In the English city of Plymouth, for example, civil servant Colin Steer had long been troubled by a sunken area in his sitting room floor. Then one day, determined to get to the root of the mystery, he began to dig.

To Steer’s surprise, the depression turned out to be a medieval well, believed to have been built in the 16th century. And that wasn’t all. While excavating the area, he discovered a metal sword hidden within its depths. But while he was fascinated by the finds, he had no idea how they came to be beneath his late 19th-century home.

Meanwhile, in 2017 a man filmed himself making a startling discovery while carrying out work on a Florida home. In the video he can be seen pushing against a section of wall – only to have it give way. On the other side, he found a secret room complete with carpets, electrical outlets, ventilation and more.

After sharing the video, the worker was contacted by someone who claimed that the house had once belonged to an infamous individual. Might the secret room have borne witness to some terrible events? Although there has been no official confirmation of this sinister link, this is the sort of discovery that most people would rather not make inside their homes.

So did Kristiansen and her partner fair any better when they unearthed a secret beneath their Bodø property? According to reports, the house had been in the family for more than 100 years before the couple decided to embark on some renovations. And in May 2020 they got to work.

The goal, apparently, was to install some new insulation underneath the floor. But after lifting the boards and removing a layer of sand, Kristiansen spotted a number of stones in the cavity beneath. As it turned out, that was just the beginning of what would turn out to be an incredible discovery.

Beneath the stones, the couple saw something else – an object that glittered as it caught the light. But even then, they remained clueless as to what was in store. According to the Norwegian television channel TV2, Kristiansen and her partner initially believed that they had uncovered a wheel belonging to a toy car.

Soon, though, the couple realized that could not be the case. After all, the floorboards had been in place since the house was first built in 1914. So what else could it be? On closer inspection, they realized that the object was actually a bead made from glass – the first clue that something unusual was lurking beneath their Bodø home.

As they peered down into the cavity under the house, Kristiansen and her partner spotted another strange artifact. This time, it was a sizable axehead crafted from iron. Alongside it, they also found a number of additional objects made from the same metal. By this point, they were sure that they had stumbled across something more interesting than typical household debris.

So the couple reached out to the Nordland county authority for further clarification. And the next day, a team of Tromsø Museum experts arrived in Bodø to investigate the historic find. After inspecting the site, they concluded that the relics were likely part of a grave some 1,000 years old. Yikes!

“We assume it dates back to the ninth century, probably a grave from the Viking Age,” Martinus Hauglig, an archeologist working for the Nordland authorities, told Forbes in May 2020. Plus experts were able to establish that the ax head and bead were probably forged sometime between 950 and 1050 A.D.

During that period, according to Hauglid, Christianity had begun to spread out across Norway and the country was on its way towards becoming a united kingdom. At the same time, the Vikings were still a force to be reckoned with across much of Europe. So who exactly was buried here? Was it a great warrior, or perhaps someone connected with the burgeoning church?

At the moment, experts are unsure exactly who might have been laid to rest in the grave beneath Kristiansen’s family home. But they appear to be confident that it is a burial site of some kind. Speaking to the English-language Norwegian news network the Local in May 2020, Hauglid explained, “It was found under stones that probably represent a cairn.”

Today cairns made up of stones piled on top of one another often serve as landmarks on hillsides and mountains around the world. But back in prehistoric times, they were typically built to mark burial places and graves. Although Kristiansen and her partner only discovered a few rocks beneath their home, experts believe they may have once formed part of a larger stack.

According to experts, it is not particularly unusual for relics dating back to the Viking era to be unearthed in Norway. After all, it is still possible to see traces of these bold seafarers scattered across the landscape even today. But archaeologists suspect that the Bodø grave is probably the first ever discovered beneath a private home.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that and I’ve been in business for nearly 30 years,” Hauglid told the Local. “They did a magnificent job, they reported it to us as soon as they got the suspicion that it actually was something quite old.” Plus the archaeologist believes that Kristiansen and her partner could do well off the back of their remarkable find.

“I guess, they will get some reward, that is normal in Norway, that people that find old artifacts get a reward from the state.” But first, experts will need to confirm that the artifacts really are from the Viking era. So, the bead and axehead have been carefully removed from the site and shipped to Tromsø University for closer examination.

There, experts hope to officially determine the age of the items – and the grave they were found within. If their origin can be proven, they will automatically be protected by law. In Norway, this is the case with any artifacts connected to human activity that date from before 1537.

Yet that means that Kristiansen probably won’t be putting the treasures on display in her renovated home any time soon. But did she ever have an inkling that there was a thousand-year-old secret lurking beneath the foundations? Apparently not. According to the Local, her family had never mentioned anything to her about the ancient grave.

Today Vikings are enjoying something of a renaissance, thanks in part to the popular History Channel drama of the same name. And all around the world, relics left behind by these seafarers are still being unearthed, almost a thousand years after their culture faded away. With each discovery, we learn more about the people who set out from Scandinavia to conquer the world.

Take the recent finds made on the English island of Lindisfarne, for example. Located just off the coast of Northumberland in the north of the country, this remote place was where the Vikings first got a foothold on the British Isles in 793 A.D. More than 1,200 years later, artifacts from this fascinating time are still being discovered.

For years a team of excavators from the crowdfunded archaeology project DigVentures have been digging on Lindisfarne. According to the company’s website, they have managed to pinpoint the original location of the monastery where the Viking raids took place. And there, they have unearthed a treasure trove of relics from the distant past.

Among them are a number of coins and artifacts made from copper, as well as evidence of a cemetery that once stood on the site. But perhaps most fascinating of all is the piece of patterned glass that was discovered in 2019. Believed to date back to the eighth or ninth centuries, it would have been used to play a Viking game known as hnefatafl.

While discoveries such as this can shed light on how the Vikings lived, recent discoveries have illuminated the rituals surrounding their deaths. In April 2018 for example a team from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research found something incredible hiding in a field near the southeastern town of Halden.

According to a paper published in the academic journal Antiquity, the team were first alerted to the site at Gjellestad by the local authorities. Because the farmer who owned the land wished to dig a ditch, necessitating a survey of the area. So the researchers arrived on site and used radar technology to scan the ground – revealing a Viking ship buried beneath the field.

But that wasn’t all. As they continued their survey, the team also found evidence of an area once used for feasts and another structure, possibly some kind of religious building. Altogether, these discoveries appear to support current theories that Viking Norway was divided into small autonomous regions, each with their own leader.

Today, experts believe that ship burials were typically only granted to high-status individuals within Viking society. But why discard a valuable resource, such as a vessel, beneath the ground? According to experts, the Norsemen believed that this ritual would protect the dead and ensure their safe arrival in the afterlife.

Back in Bodø, there is no evidence to suggest that a burial as grand as the one at Gjellestad ever took place here. But while it might be a humbler sort of grave, it is no less fascinating. And as experts at Tromsø University try to unravel the secrets of this ancient site, the scientific community waits with bated breath.