It was the day for lighting the Christmas Tree in the Cathedral today.
The tree is gifted to the congregation of the Cathedral from the congregation of the Fjaere Kirk in Grimstad. Grimstad is in an area of Norway where Earl Rognvald of Orkney, founder of the Cathedral, was brought up, and the tree is cut down in a nearby foreat where it's quite conceivable the Earl ran around and played when a boy. They certainly have at least one tree there that is even older than the Cathedral, and we're ramping up for the 875th anniversary of its founding. So that's one very old tree.
Usually a few people from Orkney travel over to Norway to watch the tree being selected and cut down, and then a party from Grimstad comes over to see it installed. This morning we had a consul from the Norwegian Embassy in London at the service and she read the lessons from our Norwegian Bible. The lights on the tree were switched on by the deputy mayor of Grimstad, and an excellent soprano sang a Norwegian Christmas song and Mozart's Laudate Domine.
The tree is placed at the back, or West End, of the Cathedral and when the time comes to light it, the people sitting near to the front make their way to the back, and all the people sitting near the back turn round so that everyone gets to see what's going on. The picture shows the tree just after the lights were switched on. It's not the best photo, because the building is quite dark, especially at this time of year and more especially when the weather is not good ( and it so wasn't good this morning) but it gives an impression of what was happening. .
And when we came out of the service the Norwegian Flag was flying over the Town Hall. That happens fairly regularly and is a nice symbol of the genuinely close ties the islands have with Norway.
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