For those of you who know me by now, you probably know that my last name is Digre, after my mother. When I was little, I didn’t really care for this name a lot as it means huge in Norwegian. As I grew older and got interested in history, I started wondering where the name came from.

The name is actually quite old and comes from the Old Norse word digrinn. Digrinn is composed by the word ‘digr’, meaning big, and the word ‘vin’, meaning farm, area or field.

Our name comes from the farm Digre located at Bratsberg close to the city of Trondheim. This is where we have our family name from. The Digre farm, or Digrinn farm as it was called then, is actually mentioned in King Sverre’s saga. In the saga, King Sverre is sending his men to the farm to get some food and some rest after a battle. To host the king or his men was something that was required of the farmers at the time. All farms was required to have enough food and drink at all time to feed the King and his men. The Digrinn farm must have been a farm of a certain size, considering the name.

Very close to the farm houses that stands there today, there are known burial mounds. There are at least nine rounded mounds, one elongated mound and even one erected stone. The burial field is not excavated as far as I know, but it has been estimated to be from the Iron Age.

Also, there have been found some stray finds at the farm property. An stone axe from the Stone age is one of the oldest findings. Finds from the Viking age or the early Medieval period has also been found. A whetstone, a spinning whorl, several weave weights, some burnt clay and a flywheel from a pump drill has also been found.

There is no doubt that this farm has its roots way back in history. The mentioning in King Sverre’s saga shows that the place is at least 800 years old, and the burial mounds may indicate that the farm is even older than 800 years. The objects from the Viking age may indicate that they were productive people living here. The fact that they’ve found a stone axe from the Stone age shows that this place have been populated in some way for a very long time.

I think it is so interesting and amazing to be able to track my name to at least 800 years back in time, and they the place itself is such a historical and cultural place. I am very curious about the burial mounds, the area and the landscape in this area. This is something I will definitely do more research on.