Kiltearn kids witness return of the Vikings at Evanton Community Wood in Easter Ross
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THE arrival of Vikings in an Easter Ross woodland didn't faze local schoolchildren who embraced the encounter.
Kiltearn Primary School has been making good use of Evanton community wood on their doorstep over the past year.
This has included storytelling projects, forest school activities, including pond-dipping, a special Coronation trail and play time in the adventure play area.
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One of the most recent activities were Viking re-enactment days to round off their class projects.
Thorstein ‘The Red’ Olafson and his wife Thurid, along with his mother Aud the Deep-minded, of the great sagas, were joined by Kiltearn Primary 3/4 and 4/5 pupils on separate mornings.
As reported by one participant: "Thorstein first said a saga, then he introduced us to his wife and mother, then we got dressed up in Viking clothes and made up our names.
"We started doing longship races...we went down to the river and went into a boat and got told a story about Loki’s children...then my group fought against Thorstein then against each other, then we were stamping or painting our names in viking runes onto clay and, once we were finished, we stuck into onto the tree.
"(Then) we sat and made up a story then listened to two other ones, then said goodbye and went back to school."
Thorstein was delighted with the behaviour of the young Vikings and most impressed when the P4/5 group spontaneously sang: “My mother told me some day I will buy galleys with good oars, sail to distant shores”.
Meanwhile Dingwall Academy continue to visit each week with successive groups to undertake the John Muir bronze award.
And various other schools are making special outings to the wood and enjoying the recently extended play area.
“It’s great to see schools making such good use of the woods,” says Adrian Clark, the secretary of the community wood. “Some schools organise their own activities, some ask us to run sessions for them – both are fine.”
