
"When Norway became a part of Denmark in 1450 we too became officially Catholics, but the Danes had to send Danish priests to Norway, because there were no Norwegian Catholics. According to the records of history these Danish priests, and other Danish officials, did not have an easy job. They described the Norwegians as "wild" people, and especially the people living in the mountains were "hostile", "unchristian" and "dangerous". One of our inland counties still carries the name "Hedmark", that translates as "The Land of the Pagans". The Danish sheriffs and priests were regularly beaten to death by the Norwegian peasants, and some men even competed against each other, trying to be the one who had killed the most Danish priests and sheriffs. One story from Telemark ("The Land of Thule", another mostly inland county in Norway) tells us that a young man refused to stop until he had killed "at least as many priests as my father killed". This was in the XVIth century!"