Hov, Faroe Islands

• 1. Introduction

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  Hov is a village on the east coast of Suðuroy, the southernmost island of the Faroe Islands, and its name may trace back to a pagan hof, a Norse sacrificial site, planted here by the very first settler on the island. That first settler was a Viking chieftain. His grave still sits in the hills above the village. His burial plot is the only chieftain burial site ever found in the entire Faroe Islands.

  For a small village, Hov carries an outsized weight of history. A church was promised to its residents and that promise took twenty-five years to keep. A tunnel bored through the mountain finally ended a dangerous mountain crossing. A harbour building that once dried fish on flat stones and raised a white flag to summon workers has been transformed into a museum, gallery, and cafe.

  What kind of place holds a Viking chieftain's grave, a transplanted wooden church, and a hydropower dam that silenced a waterfall? The village of Hov holds all of these, and the story of each one reaches far beyond the island's eastern shore.

• 2. The Viking Chieftain

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  Havgrímur, chief of half the Faroe Islands, lived in Hov in the 10th century. According to the Faroese Sagas and local tradition, he was the first Viking settler on Suðuroy, and the farm he established gave the village its name, derived from his pagan hof.

  Hov sits in the middle of Suðuroy in a flat, wide area with a clear view out to sea. For a Viking settler watching for approaching ships or rivals, that unobstructed sightline was not incidental. It was a strategic choice. The first settlers could follow exactly what was happening on the water around them.

  Havgrímur's burial plot lies in the hills above the village. It is the only chieftain burial site identified anywhere in the Faroe Islands, which makes it extraordinary by any measure. That distinction was not preserved intact: amateur archaeologists opened the grave in 1834 and largely destroyed it. What remains is still the most significant burial site on the archipelago.

• 3. A Church Kept Waiting

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  In 1862, a wooden church was built in Vágur on a site called Kirkjukletti. For eighty years it served that community, but its future had been decided long before it was dismantled. In 1914, a promise was made that the old church would one day be moved to Hov.

  The promise depended on a replacement. A new church was built in Vágur, and when it was ready in 1939, the old building could finally be taken down. The move to Hov happened in 1942, a full twenty-five years after the commitment was first made.

  The wooden church now standing in Hov is not new construction. It is the same structure raised in Vágur in 1862, relocated plank by plank to fulfill a quarter-century-old pledge to a village that had waited long enough.

• 4. Hovstunnilin

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  Before 2007, driving between the villages of Hov and Øravík meant going over the mountain. In winter, that crossing was difficult and unreliable. Then the road tunnel called Hovstunnilin opened.

  The tunnel is 2.5 kilometres long, or 1.55 miles. It does not only link Hov and Øravík to each other; it connects the southern and northern parts of Suðuroy as a whole. The journey from Tvøroyri to Vágur, once a mountain road crossing, now takes only 20 minutes.

  North of Hov, along the old road to Øravík that the tunnel made less necessary, basalt columns march along the hills. Those columns are among the area's notable natural features, remnants of the volcanic geology that shaped the island long before any Viking stepped ashore.

• 5. Water, Falls, and Power

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  West of Hov, the river Hovsá runs down from Vatnsnes and forms the boundary between the villages of Porkeri and Hov. At Foldarshamri, where the river runs over the edge, it creates a waterfall called Foldarafossur. A mountain pass nearby is named Foldarsskarð, and a valley shares a related name. Linguists trace all three place names to the same root, the Faroese word for soil, foldin.

  The waterfall once ran with full force, but approximately thirty years ago the electricity company SEV began construction in the valley of Hovsdal. A dam was built roughly half a kilometre west of Foldarafoss to harness the river for hydropower. The construction reduced the waterfall's flow.

  The waterfall does not run at full strength today. When heavy rain overtops the dam, water spills beyond it and Foldarafossur briefly shows some of its former power. Salmon sea farming has been practiced in Hov since the 1980s, and the sea and its resources have shaped the village as surely as the river above it has.

• 6. The Harbour Museum

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  Down in the harbour of Hov stands an old building that has been many things: a shop, a fish-processing site, and now a museum, art gallery, and cafe. The eastern part of the house is called Fiskastovan. The western part operated as a shop until sometime in the 1980s.

  The flat stones outside the building were used to dry clip fish, a traditional preserved fish product. When work was available, someone raised a white flag to let villagers know they were needed. That system predated the telephone.

  The building had fallen into poor condition before it was restored. Inside, old books record workers' names and their earnings. Like the church before it, the building was originally located in Vágur and was moved to Hov. Today Fiskastovan a Myri hosts art exhibitions, small concerts, lectures, and dinners for groups, carrying on a connection to the harbour that goes back well before any of its current uses.