ORDINIS HELENUM

 

THE COMPILATION OF SAINT HELENA
Part one 

1:THE NAME OF HELENA: "Elene" signifies the wicker basket in which was carried the sacred utensils etc to the quardrennial feast of Artimis at Brauron near Athens, the Eleneforia. The feast of Goddess Elene was the Elenia. "Elenion" signifies a small such basket, implying the wickerwork on the nether part of the very flower of the plant Inula Helenium. The word Inula is derived from Elenion, so the name is a tautology. This plant was primarily the holy plant which, beside the Plane-tree, belonged to the Cult of Goddess Elene; later, in Norden, Inula has become associated with Saint Helena. The Cult of Goddess Elene and the name of hers are older than Greece and the hellenic culture. In different parts of Europe the name of Elene has been transmuted into local forms: In Sweden "Elin" is prevalent, firstly mentioned in 1237 (Elin Suerchonis, the daughter of king Sverker junior); in Greece "Lenio" is prevalent. "Helena" is found in Sweden firstly in ~1150: a nun at Lund dead 28/1, and a laica in Scania dead 4/9, and a Helena got her name chiselled into a flat stone then of Oreryd Church.

 

2:THE CAPACITY OF ATTRACTION OF HELENA: Helena is the most attractive woman of the world, and the battle of conquering her has set the world afire according to Simon Magus, the hypothetic protognostic. Those of the centres of her cult which are known today are Platanistas and Therapne on Peloponnesos; one in the city of Tyros and one on Rhodos, and, as to Sweden, Gotene and Skovde; as to Denmark, Tisvildeleje. As Goddess she has been worshipped in Iran-Iraq, Samaria and Syria-Lebanon. In the Books of Proverbs, Syrach and Wisdom she is described as wisdom personified. The jews were inspired to these texts during their babylonian imprisonment. The fascination of Helena has never ceased, and she has engaged writers and other artists during some thousand years, and presently there are bitter battles about her rôle in Sweden and Denmark; people are crazy about her and they wish to possess her for their own sake, regardless if we are talking about the Goddess or the human Helen of Homer or Helena of Tyros or the mother of the emperor  -  or about our westgothian Helena. This has developed into a demoniac competition for winning her laurel  -  and all this indicates that she did exist, does exist and will never cease to exist.

 

2.2:At Skovde there is a tradition which describes how building material belonging to a brigittine chapel, which was under construction at Kapplunda during the 15th century, by invisible hands or by the priesthood of Helena was dragged at night-time to the church of Helena in the middle of the town  -  a proof of the attraction of Helena and of her need to be the only one on the scene.

 

3:AN EVER-GROWING FLORA of pieces of information on Saint Helena keeps removing us further away from the basic brynolphian text  -  the only written source of information on herself; witnesses of her cult are her letters of indulgence, her reliques, her water-sources and her churches. One gets the impression of that individuals have received information on her through dreams, which the "rediscoveries" of her positions in Medelplana and Ranneslov indicate: these have subsequently been presented in scientific terms, and since the dreamers own the appropriate titles and reverence, these pieces of desinformation will in the future be regarded as facts. One must of course respect dreams that people have, but the danger is when dreams stealthily are transformed into truths. And of course musicals, plays, essays and books on Saint Helena are praiseworthy, her "Secret Notebook" inclusive, since they maintain her remembrance within peoples minds, but don't comprehend the innovations as medieval facts!

 

4:THE PREMONSTRATION OF HELENA'S MOTHER: In the newpaper 'Skaraborgs Lans Annonsblad" Yngve Wilhelmson wrote the Saturday the 19th of July 1947: ...and according to the legends Helena's mother supposedly, the night before the birth of Helena, had a revelation, when an angel said concerning the expected child: "She is going to wear the golden crown of saints". They say that the intendant IO Fridell, Skovde (GL p.92) had furnished Wilhelmson with this information, which can be traced nowhere else. The closest one can get to it is the laurel which Helena received in Heaven after her martyrdom in the brynolfian text.

 

5:WHEN WAS HELENA BORN?: According to the two oldest reports on the year of her death, it came to pass in 1140. Since Brynolf Algotsson tells us that she, when she had become a widow some few years before her martyrdom, had been in a fertile age and attractive on the marriage market, the year of her birth ought to be in around 1100. She was born according to Brynolf when the winter of disbelief had passed; when the christian belief had become known within the borders of our fatherland, id est in around 1100. According to an exaggerative interpretation of Anders Forssenius, who claims that Helena was active 200 years before Mrs Brita, Helena must have been born in ~1102 since Brita was born in ~1302.

 

6:WHERE WAS HELENA BORN?: Brynolf declares in 1288 that the home of Helena was the big, rural farm which is called Gothene, and his authority crushes every piece of resistance. 'Svenska Man Och Kvinnor' by Bonniers tells us in 1944 that she probably was born at the beginning of the 12th century at Gotene. Brynolf does define what Gotene was at the actual time; the system of parishes was not accomplished until at the end of the 14th century. From the text one can deduce that the farm owned a church-building. During the 19th and the 20th centuries it has been taken for granted that Helena came from Skovde or Vamb. All lies irregardless Helena came from, and was active in, Westgothia.

 

7:SKOVDE: During the 20th century one has, out of local patriotism at Skovde, claimed that Helena was born where Skovde later was built. Those who name this hypothetic place 'Elene' regard this name and not a woman's name as the origine to the cult of Helena. Other people mean that a great farm belonging to the clan of Sverker had existed where Skovde now is, and that Helena had been born within the local aristocracy there.

 

7.2:[Skovde is a part of Kakynd's Harad, firstly mentioned in 1225. Skovde was firstly mentioned "i Skodwe" in 1281, and the name might mean Holy Camp; two letters changed place in the 16th century  -  Skodwe became Skovde. King Olof Skotkonung might have been named after the Skot-syllable, and Elinemark's Kulle (Hill, Collis) is mentioned by the text on some of his notorious coins, proving they were minted here (Olofa Rex Un Col). At Skovde more and greater finds of gold have been made than anywhere else in Sweden, proving that this was the town of king Olof. Or else the richness witnesses of the status that the hypothetic ancestors of Saint Helena owned here. There are two more Skovdes: Ale-Skovde, firstly mentioned in 1401 as Skodhwe, and Kullings-Skovde, firstly mentioned in 1402 as Skotwe].  

 

8:VAMB: This place didn't enter the scene of Helena until in 1790 when a plate was nailed on the church, as it was described in 1861, with a text that bound Helena to Vamb both as an owner of land and as foundress of the church. In modern times one has invented that Helena had gotten married at Gotene and moved to Vamb when she was 20 years old; she lived where later Backgarden was built; her servants lived in Hovmansgarden; the son-in-law was killed at Skrikhult, a cottage in Vamb not mentioned before 1825 in reality. [Vamb might mean 'corner', and some people believe that a large pagan temple has existed there. Of course it is wrong to claim that Vamb is derived from Varfruhem (the home of our Lady). Varfruhem would never have alluded at Helena, even if the name would have existed ever, but at Mary. A monastery might have existed on Hanahogen at a stone's cast south of the church].

 

9:HELENA GUTHORMSDOTTER: Swedes and danes have during 400 years tried hard to trace the descent of Helena, which naturally is an impossible mission. One of the Helenas with whom she has been identified is the daughter of Guthorm Jarl, her namesake. Guthorm worked for king Sverker; in 1164 he received a letter from pope Alexander III, who was exiled to the french town Sens; he owned parts of Dadesjo parish. People claim that one of his daughters had been the abbess of a monastery at Skovde (Skedevig, Skodbek). One of his daughters had been named after Saint Helena of Westgothia in the 1160:ies. Without any scientific bases one has taken for granted that Saint Helena, already then, was celebrated in Sjalland. Guthorm died after 1171, and 14/4 is connected to his funeral; his escutcheon is hanging in Soro Monastery. His daughter Helena married the threefold widower Esbern Snare of the clan of Hvide (he lived 1127-1204), and their only child in common, Ingeborg, lived until 1267. [An invisible hand, pushing Esbern backwards down the stairs in their Saeby Castle, ended his life. In 1204 Helena Guthormsdotter bore a son in Denmark, Knud of Reval (dead in 1260), whose father was king Valdemar Sejr. Knud grew up at Linkoping, where he and Helena founded a Chapel of Mary. Svantopolk (dead in 1310), the son of Knud, became one of the greatest men of Norden. In Mars 1288 his daughter was kidnapped from Vreta Monastery by a brother of bishop Brynolf Algotsson  -  this stealth caused the exile of the latter man in Eastern Gothia and other problems which our bishop had to go through, see below. Helena Guthormsdotter died a natural death in the 1230:ies at Linkoping; her grave is overbuilt by the present cathedral.

 

9.2:[As often happenes when one doesn't have much to go base one's research on, people have lowered themselves to phantasies about Guthorm Jarl and his family: They claim that he had liaisons to Halsingland and Helsinki, whereas the actual place is Helsinge and is situated in Sjalland. His daughter Helena has not "built all of the church of Skovde". Bishop Absalon (1128-1201), brother-in-law of daughter Helena, has not as far as can be proved caused the name Axtorp in Valora (Varola) near Skovde. Knudstorp in Flisby, they claim, is named after Knud av Reval, the illegitimate of Helena, and this farm was a gift from Valdemar, the father of Knud. Esbern Snare, the husband of daughter Helena, was never the son-in-law of Saint Helena, etc...].

 

10:THE ANCESTRY OF HELENA: Her family had a noble origine; it belonged to the upper class. (It is sad that saints often are described as coming from the nobility, because it contradicts the word of the Bible, see 1.Cor.1:26  -  it were no merit but a burdon to come from a rich family). According to one variant the father of Helena was rich, not both her parents. Helena is unique among the saints who were worshipped at an early stage in Sweden by not coming from the British Islands; nor is she connected to any of these saints, whereof the most of them never has existed in real life. No, Helena is explicitly Westgothian  -  a statement which perhaps is severely contrasted by the women whom Brynolf compares her with: without exception they are from the Middle-East, mentioned by the Bible and the Apocrypha. Joseph Dunney claims that she had had to learn swedish!

 

10.2:[In 1932 the floor was broken up under the tower of the church of Vamb due to works with wires or tubes, and down there they found a coffin having stoney sides and two(?) lids of stone. Two skeletons were found. They restored the grave without making notes or drawings. It has been proposed that it belongs to the Leijonbalk-clan, which a long time ago owned large portions of Vamb. In 1185, when the tower was founded next to the older church, one laid the foundations around this grave. (Helena Philippi was widowed in 1282 when her husband Holmger Karlsson-Leijonbalk died)].

 

11:WHERE HELENA GREW UP: Although it is unlikely since parishes didn't exist at the time, they claim that parts of Vamb were added to the possessions of Helena thanks to heritage from her father, and that she inherited Vasterby near Gotene (a farm not mentioned before 1397) from her mother. One of the newest suggestions is that Assgarde north of Husaby Church was Helena's farm, but this farm didn't exist until after the reformation (firstly mentioned in 1546, Eskiegierde); they say that she'd been one of the first christians of the tract of Husaby.

 

11.2:Older and more inspiring are the informations of that Helena stemmed from Kullen in Scania, born "when the oak of Farhult was 137 years old": She grew up on a big farm close to Arild with her mother Ingrid, who was a widow, and with some siblings, see below. Then Ingrid married David, who owned much land, but he turned out to be a malicious stepfather to Ingrid's children. He sent them away on a burning ship... Others say that the siblings got a malicious stepmother after their real father had become a widower, and that, when Helena sailed towards Palestine with her father's approval, her ship was wrecked north of Sjalland and she drowned.

 

12:THE SIBLINGS OF HELENA: They were brother ARILD and sister Thora, or else the sisters Thora and Karen. Arild as a man's name was mentioned firstly in 1419. Arild might have meant, originally, the female saint Arild of Thornsbury, who is celebrated 20/7, and the name of this fishermen's village and its chapel has survived with a forgotten bond to its origine. "Arrild" was fixed by writing in 1743 as a brother of Helena. In this village the tradition is still alive of the siblings, though in different combinations. Down the slope north of the copy of the chapel there is Arild's Source, and on the waterfront there are reddish rocks and a stone marked with a cross indicating where the body of Arild, who had drowned, had reached the shore. In order to blur the information, one tradition has: "Mrs Helena of Stubbarp was the mother of Arild".

 

12.2:KAREN in this holy family (unknown before 1743?) sometimes occupies Helena's place, sometimes Thora's. The one of Karen's sources which is due here is found in Hojby parish, Ods Herred in Sjalland, between Nykoping and Egebjaerg by the forest of Annebjaerg Gard, between the road and Isse Fjord. Her grave and one of her sources are found at Kildehusene in Asminderup's parish. Sankt Karens Skov existed until some hundred years ago closely south of Helene Kilde at Tisvilde. But "originally" "Karen" must have been identical to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, whose day is 25/11.

 

12.3:Is THORA a distortion of Thorsten, or vice versa? Some things indicate that Thorsten could be the right name. The woman's name Thora was mentioned as early as by scanian runes. The source and the chapel-ruin of Saint Thorsten exist not far from the source and the church of Saint Helena at Gotene, and a Thorsten's source and the ruin of his chapel exist not far from the Helenic monuments of Halland and Scania. [The worship of Thorsten in Grevie parish was documented on the order of king Christian IV. At a bow-shot from Thorsten's kiercke og capell there was his source by Kvindebyske, and its water healed a blind man's sight. The chapell was turned into a ruin during the 17th century]. In Denamrk there is Thorstens Kilde by Bronshoj in Kobenhavn Amt (county). But on the other hand the Thorsten of the tract of Gotene might have been invented during the 17th century, formed after the natural, huge pit there called Torsgraven.

 

12.4:Thora, who had drowned and floated ashore, was carried towards the church of Grevie to be interred, when she made the carriers return and instead bury her body where it had been found. The church which was built next to this place, became the large church of Torekov village. Under the rounded boulder on the waterfront there is her source. Thora was regarded as the patroness of pregnant women and of sailors. In Denmark there is Thoras Kilde on the northmost promontory of Ods Herred in Sjalland; on the other hand there is Thores Kilde on the grounds of Thor by the deserted village Torup near Nykoping in Holbaek Amt.

 

12.5:Helena, or Helene in this context, could be a distortion of, or an explanation of, the name Hellebaek in Sjalland. A hypothetic girl called Helle got identified with Helene, in Denmark called Sanct Leene. Her source at Tisvildeleje was written Helle Lene Kilde, although there seems to be a confusion concerning the original position of her source there; some claim that it broke forth from her grave; others that the oratory was built next to the source (the present twin-source by the sea); that the oratory was built next to the grave (her present grave is found several hundred yards from the sea); that Tibirke Kirke was built next to Helene Kilde and/or the grave; that the grave and the oratory existed next to eachother (nowadays one presumes that the oratory-ruin is the grave); etc. The noun Helle means "refuge" and "flat, nude rock"; as a verb it means to "join" bricks; "Helle mig" means "Fains I batting first". It is frustrating to realize that the sources of Lyngsjo and Tibirke, which nowadays bear Helena's name furnished with "Saint", were called Sankt Ellenis Kalla and Helle Lene Kilde the first times they were mentioned  -  in the days of king Christian IV  -  since they are words lacking liaisons to the woman's name Helena.

 

12.6:Finally it can be clarified that the siblings Helene, Thora and Arild all were found drowned, having floated ashore on flat stones, and that on all three stones there are still marks from their bodies; water-sources are connected to each one of the siblings. The three of them have, as things are now and on the basis of tradition, proffered rise to the territorial names Helene Kilde, Torekov and Arild.

 

12.7:According to gen from 1923 Blot-Sven was Helena's brother. He had been a counter-king of Upland ~1084-87.

 

13:HELENA AS A YOUNG WOMAN: She enjoyed a christian education and learnt the law of God and rigtheousness. What she learnt can be exemplified by a quotation from the brynolfian text: "Despise the present, since it is ugly to be fond of what steadily is under weigh to perish. Love to earthly things must not force you, haughtiness must not bend you inwards, a wealthy life must not bemire you, jealousy must not consume you... we can slaughter our carnal desires mentally with a spiritual sword".

 

14:WHAT HELENA LOOKED LIKE: Who dares claiming that Rachel and Esther in the Bible were blue-eyed blondes? The only source of information there is on Saint Helena is the liturgical text which Brynolf wrote for her during the fall of 1288, and according to it Helena looked very much like Rachel and Esther  -  thus she was brown-eyed and dark-haired!  -  "her beautiful face is not unlike Esther's". Furthermore she is compared to a "lovely rose. She out-paces everybody with her beauty; she expresses herself with taste; one sees clearly that God has blessed her in eternity". "She is like nice-scented lavender".

 

14.2:She became the most beautiful woman of Sweden and was filled with wisdom  -  according to Brynolf and in accordancy with her spiritual bond to Goddess Helena  -  and she owned the gift of prophesy. As a teenager she consented, out of obedience to God and tradition, to marry a man*, who had a high position in Westgothia, and they had "many" children. The matrimony was going on for 20 years between ~1117 and ~1137. After having become a widow, she directed her farm herself.

 

   *King Inge senior has been proposed here, but he lived from ~1033 to 1110 (1118).

 

14.3:"Condemned be anyone who marries a Priestess (SAOB)"  -  yes, because a priestess mustn't have sex nor marry!

 

14.4:All through her lifetime she expanded the honour of her family. She was not a very old widow and her economic status was good, but no-way she wished to remarry on earth. Instead she wished to enter upon a spiritual marriage with God. Her desire was burning for Heaven, and she found her consolation in God. She dedicated heart, speech and manners to chastity. She regarded the earthly life as a jail, as "the war"; she tamed and accustomed her body with fasting, prayers and work.

 

15:MORE TERRITORIAL QUESTIONS: That Gotene is the only sure and correct territorial name concerning the home of Helena is a separate thing. That Skovde, Vamb and Arild make pretensions re this issue is already said, and that Elin in Goteve and Eling do the same will be dealt with later. More proposals: The hypothetic grand farm of Vattlosa, which used to be situated around the church but which has been moved to the present position of Gullhammar, whose name could be a modification of Gunhilds Hammar: Gunhild was Helena's name before she was baptized, and she was a daughter of Sven Estridsen  -  this danish potentate had stayed a period by the king at Husaby. Miracles had occurred on a small hill close the the present Stora Gullhammar, and a stone-ring and a tall cross used to be there and people were baptized in Oxbottnaflyet close by. If this were the truth, our main-character had lived 50, 60 or 70 years earlier. Finally one can mention that the medieval farm Birvm, which used to be situated around the ruin of Bjurum's church, is candidating for being the right Helenic farm. From the same Helena was able to see Mount Billingen, on the east side of which she wanted to build a church. Bjurum is today a part of Vattlosa parish.

 

16:THE MONASTERY ISSUE: According to a new tradition Helena had contact with a monastery at Skovde, but next to nothing indicates that such an institution ever has existed there. Cistercian nuns didn't exist until in 1148/49 (in France), but Premonstratensian nuns had existed since 1121, and Benedictine nuns had existed since long. Since ~100 years from now one has claimed that the daughter of Helena had become a nun after she had become a widow some few years before 1140. Bosjokloster in Scania were by and large the only monastery available at the time. (If a monastery has existed at Skovde, it were most logical to believe that it belonged to the Premonstratensian Order  -  both "canons" and an "abbess" are mentioned in connexion to it  -  and a cellar vault which was destroyed by excavators in 1955 by the gymnastics hall of Helena School is believed to have been a part of the monastery. To match it temporally with the daughter of Guthorm Jarl, the 1180:ies is the decade when the monastery might have existed. The name of "Skovde" might be derivable from Scheda premonstratensian monastery, founded in 1143 in Cologne diocese, brought to Westgothia in the 12th century by the same order). Queen Helena, according to others, was allegedly the abbess of Skovde Cloister  -  she was born in 1040 3/4 at Bankekind; she married in 1071 king Inge senior; was widowed between 1110 and 1118 at Hanger; died at Vreta in 1121 31/12.

 

16.2:As far as saint Helena is concerned, it were not unreasonable to believe that she must have had a spiritual leader, a confessor, in order to be able to develop in a christian way, as claims her liturgical text  -  that were the only acceptible way within the church, but in reality a spiritual individual is guided directly by the Holy Ghost  -  and this would mean that it, during the first four decades of the 12th century, must have existed a monastery within walking-range from Gotene (or "Skovde"). Some claim that Helena lived in a monastery, or that she became the abbess of one at Skovde. A senseless piece of information, found in a catholic dictionary, claims that Sigfrid, whose alleged period of mission in Sweden were 1015-60, had converted and baptized Helena, who wasn't born until ~1100. Apart from this anachronism, Sigfrid has never existed.   

 

16.3:In the different traditions (which nota bene stem from the 20th century; occasionally from late 19th century; few and rare pieces of information stem from the 18th century) there are statements about monks who have been active hereabouts. Monks, they say, carried Helena's body from her farm to Skovde (2/8.1140). Monks guarded carefully her grave (from 1164 and onwards). Monks, they guess, designed her Seal (before 1314). Monks, they report, gave Helena the honour of healing christians and of making them happy, while they implored Helena, pouring healthy water out of her holy source on the shore of Vambobacken (from the 1370:ies and onwards). During the "reformation" in Sweden (the 16th century) monks were accused for having lied about having transferred Helena's Shrine or reliques from Skovde to Denamrk one night.

 

16.4:According to mere tales queen Gunhild founded in 1050, whose husband was king Anund Jacob, a benedictine monastery for nuns at Gudhem, where an ancient temple of 100 demigods used to be. In reality the monastery wasn't mentioned until 1168; in "1161" or 1175 it swapped order and became a cistercian monastery; in 1546 the Royal Farm of Gudhem was created of eight whole ex-cloistral farms. And according to the tales king Emund, the half-brother of Anund Jacob, founded in 1055 the Husaby benedictine monastery for monks, which in 1060 was moved to Skara. Vreta benedictine monastery for nuns started in 1110, 1120 or 1128, and in 1163 it became a cistercian monastery. (A newly found "document" proves that Vreta monastery was the first one in all Sweden). In 1140 king Sverker senior (Suerchonus)  -  the regent of Sweden who can be regarded as the first one who surely has existed   -   financed and founded, together with his queen Ulfhilda Haakonsdotter, a small benedictine monastery for monks near Alvastra, which in 1150 was integrated into the cistercian order. According to cistercian tradition, though, Alvastra and Nydala were inaugurated on the same day  -  6/6.1143. In 1143 or 1145 the same order had founded a colony on Luro in the middle of lake Vanern, and in 1147 these monks lived upon Boo's Meadow on Mount Lugnas. People also tell of nuns who have lived on Luro. During a short period, between ~1151 and 1157, there was a cistercian colony at Varnhem, in a hypothetic fort defending the western entrance of the Billingen Pass  -  the corresponding eastern fort, one supposes, was situated where Saint Helena's Church of Skovde now exists. In 1150 Varnhem was firstly mentioned, so that name is 400 years older than the protestant name of Skarke parish of 1564, ibidem. [It is claimed that it was the wife of a figure of darkness, errik, who expelled the monks in 1157. These, or king Valdemar the Great, then founded Vitskol monastery in the northen part of Jylland; in southern Jylland they founded Om in 1172  -  if not Om is the medieval parish of Om beyond the town of Skovde? These two monasteries were examined in 1958 and 1918 respectively].

 

16.5:There are at least 30 alleged medieval monasteries in Westgothia, but in the most cases they have been dated to an epoch after the lifetime of Helena, or else they can be dispelled as mere phantasies. It is on the tapis nowadays to claim that mission might have been carried out in Sweden from the Eastern Church, from Ireland and from Martin-of-Tours, and that these missionaries might have established colonies for short periods. ERIKSBERG monastery, built in the late 12th century by the anticatholic erik-clan, who stood in competition with the clan of Sverker concerning the regime of Sweden. GUDVALLA monastery close to Ova church, was founded in 1163 by cistercian monks from Nydala. GUM on the southern side of Mount Kinnekulle; its mural cement has been dated to the 10th or 11th century, but the ruins are probably from a fort. GOKHEM and its ruined church are from the first half of the 12th century. HEDARED  -  buildings still existed at the beginning of the 16th century. KARL's monastery, 1000 yards SW of the church of Vaster-Bitterna in Clerical Bosk on a terrace, mentioned in 1489. KALLEGARDEN's monastery, 2000 steps outside Skovde, next to the source of Helena, from the first half of the 12th century; military garages are built over it. SVENEBY monastery for monks; one has preserved a sculpture of Erasmus and a crucifix from 1120 from it. 

 

17:THE SOLUTION OF THE CLOISTRAL QUESTION: Brynolf writes plainly that Helena replaced the matrimonial yoke almost as in a monastery, trying to live the life of pious widows  -  thereby she didn't join a monastery nor did she become an abbess!

 

18:SOBRIETY: Brynolf notified that Helena was sober like Hanna, the mother of Samuel, who wrongfully had been accused by Eli for being drunk infront of God's altar at Silo, whenas she in reality had prayed spiritually without hearable words, see 1Sam.chap.1 och Prov.31:4.

 

19:CHARITY: During the last few years of her life Helena showed in action what true christianity is: She opened her home for the sick and the poor and for the travellers. She was generous. With wool from the sheep of the farm she made clothes for those who needed them. The hungry could have their fill thanks to her. She lived as though she was in a monastery; she prayed and fasted. God made her execute miracles and powerful measures. With her own hands she pulled down temples of demigods, and she chopped down terebinth-bosks  -  (these two absurd statements are not older than ~100 years; they were invented by an author of tales, and soon they were comprehended as facts by a female scientist in her chapter on Helena in her sigfridian book). Helena spread ideas which attached christianity in the tracts around Gotene and Skovde  -  and later everywhere where she was worshipped.

 

19.2:Elene too was able to execute miracles. A woman, who nourished an "ugly" female child, brought several times it with her to the oratory of the Goddess at Therapne in order to pray for the child. Then, once, Elene appeared before them there and she caressed the forehead of the child, and thereafter it developed favourably and she became later the most beautiful woman on Peloponnesos.

 

19.3:In the 20th century someone innovated that Helena at Husaby, "not far from Gotene", built a hospice where the sick were taken care of and where the lawless were given protection. This wild phantasia is caused by the ruin after the episcopal fort in Husaby which existed for a short space just before the "reformation".

 

19.4:Helena loved to see God's temple in a beautiful state, and zealously she supported the employees of the church. In 1130 she financed the building of the church at Vamb for her devotions and to the honour of Mary the Virgin (like I've said: this is an 18th-century innovation which lacks connexion with the brynolfian text).

 

20:THE CHURCH OF GOTENE: Helena financed the building of this church. Often it is said that she paid for a rebuilding of the church from a wooden one to one of stone. (A wooden baulk in Gotene Church is dated to 1128. As a comparison we can tell that the tower of Husaby church was built in 1105 +/- 15 years and its nave of stone in 1120 +/- 20 years having a newer apse, and that wooden details of the church of Skalvum in the neighbourhood are dated to 1136). Then this happened: Sane and sound and on her rural farm, which was called Gothene, she saw in a vision a premonstration of the future having this constitution: It seemed to her, concerning the local church there (the church of her farm), that it, at the same time as she appeared in it, flew away to Skodhwe (Skovde). The divine explanation of the vision revealed that this was how she would interpret the vision: That she was going to die at Gothene but still was going to be buried at Skodhwe  -  thereafter the outcome was going to be the proof of this being true. (One could have interpreted it as though she was going to die just when she stepped into the church of Gotene, but evidently Brynolf didn't comprehend it that way). Churches were built either on holy places, pagan or christian, or as one of the buildings on big farms. Gotene church was surrounded by swamps and open water, and it doesn't give the impression of having been a farmchurch, wherefore the holy source of Helena steps forwards as the more likely motivation of its position. Gotene church and the church on her farm are two different buildings!

 

21:SKOVDE CHURCH: Helena financed a large portion of the construction of this church. She asked the stoners to prepare a funeral chamber in a connexion leading between the tower and the very church. The stoners wondered: "This interstice, what is it going to be used for?", and she replied: "God is prone to giving you something holy, the body and reliques of which in a suitable way can be put together here" (conf. Gen.22:8). This is the only one of Helena's sentences which is preserved.

 

21.2:The word "portico" is used in the description of the interstice: The basilica of San Chrysogonos, close to Piazza Sant'Appolonia in Rome, and a Sant'Elene church in northern Italy have de facto real porticos at their entrances (the latter one has too, like Skovde's, its tower obliquely positioned): One ought to study these in order to create an understanding for however Saint Helena Church of Skovde looked like during Brynolf's lifetime. It is an arrangement of pillars supporting a roof, having no wall on the frontside, up to which steps are leading. (An original arcade from ~1150 between the tower and the nave sounds interesting, allegedly still existing inside Vastra Salerup church, but two pillars don't make an arcade and don't suffice to create an understanding of the construction of Saint Helena Church inspite of the promising description).

 

21.3:That churches in Sweden have a military tower on the churchyard can be exemplified by: Gothem church, which has had one built in 1180; Benestad, Brunflo, Frojel, Gammelgarn, Harmanger, Larbro, Vallberga and Ojeby. It is though very hard to imagine how a tower at some distance from the church can have had a portico as connexion to the nave  -  and however would the interstice of the grave look like? Maybe a surrealistic painter can visualize it. The tower involved is not a bell-tower but a military device, and this has inspired a local "scientist" to believe that a fort has occupied the site where Saint Helena church of Skovde now is situated, and the tower can have remained standing until the 1370:ies (whereafter the church completely was rebuilt or simply exchanged for a new building). In turn this military fort had been built on top of a place dedicated to Goddess Froja.

 

21.4:People claim that when this church firstly was built, a big sow was walled in along with its seven sucklings because the citizens wanted to be sure that their church was to be kept in peace, and every night the sow dashes around it so you can smell it. Well, the trick hasn't worked, has it, because the church has repeatedly been demolished by danes and fires.

 

21.5:A certain Olof Sundholm notifies: "...that the church was built already before 1140, but after the majestic funeral of holy Helena in 1140 and by her grave many miracles had occurred allegedly, she was canonized in 1161 and worshipped as the Patroness of Westgothia...".

 

22:THE MURKY CAVE UNDER THE CHOIR: It is really amazing how Brynolf's porticus inter turrim et ecclesiam possibly can have been comprehended as positioned in the north-east corner between the choiral area and the northern nave and how the portico can be visible on the picture of the church on the map of 1758; still more amazing it is how they can teach that the newish and partly collapsed grave-cave under the floor of the choir has been Helena's grave. Other proposals have been that the grave was a choir or a vault or positioned under the floor of the tower. One must interpret it in such a way that the brynolfian device existed when he visited the church 14-15/8 in 1288, but it cannot have survived the rebuilding of the church in 1400 +/- 30 years. Here are some different speculations on Helena's Grave:

 

22.2:"Her grave was under the floor of the vestibule, and a stepway led down there inside of the wall"  -  this is a combination of three phenomena: 1)The position of a grave under the floor of the westmost part of the church, as in Vamb church. The original doorways of churches were not via the towers. 2)Grave-chambers and tunnels inside of walls as in Bankekind church. 3)The pillared vestibule as of Dalby church.

 

22.3:"This grave must not be mistaken for the vaulted niche in the eastern part of the church, which was built when Helena, a long time after her martyrdom, was elevated and canonized". The different descriptions of this niche, the Grave of Helena, don't agree. It has been claimed that it was positioned in the northern wall of the choir and in the eastern wall of the northern transept.

 

22.4:"Evidently the stepway down under the lid of the choir floor is something very different". Yes, in deed  -  the lid is ~30 years old. The steps lead to a couple of demolished and private crypts, not older than some hundred years.

 

22.5:"The unplastered, vaulted area outdoors, on the north choir wall, marks the vaulted ex-ceiling of the nether room of a 17th century sacristy"  -  compare it to the corresponding appendix of Vattlosa church.

 

22.6:"A S:t Helena's Mausoleum predated the first real church of Skovde, and there is an almost circular, subterranean basement left of it" off the corner closest to the unplastered area. But this basement must have to do with the sacristy, or, alternatively, be a remnant of the hypothetic fortress.

 

22.7:"The gate or grating (crates) from the 15th century, which today is hanging underneath the pulpit in Helena's church, has hung in front of Helena's Grave". In eg. Gumlosa church iron gates were mounted for to ward off the nave from the choir, and in Helena's church of Skovde too the choir was a few steps higher than the nave. (S:t John de Craticula, 1098-1163, 1/2, has been given his epithet thanks to the iron bars which surround his shrine). In 2001 pamphlet-writers reminded tourists of the old saying that, in days of yore, people tied threads from the clothes of sick children around the bars of Helena's Grating believing this would heal the sick, and people abraded fragments of the iron for to use medically.

 

22.8:"Helena was given a grave in the Skovde church in a portal which was walled up, between the tower and the nave, according to the medieval custom of burying prominent persons in a wall or a pillar of a church, frequently practised in Denmark". "She was buried there in that way, but I would prefer believing that this in an allegory of the danish custom, a custom which is unknown in Sweden".

 

23:THE STONY BREADS: One day Helena was heading for Skovde church which was under construction, bringing three round breads to give to the stoners, when a danish patrol deprived her of them. She prayed to God that he would help her, and he transmogrified the breads into three gray stones  -  confer Luk.4:3. Today these constitute the oldest treasures of the church. One and a half of these lens-shaped stoney breads are exhibited in Skovde museum; they measure a foot each. This event would have been, if it had belonged to Helena, the earliest known miracle of hers, and the only one known today which occurred during her lifetime  -  although the Brynolfian text doesn't mention this event.

 

23.2:There are many varieties of this event: Sometimes Helena's husband is described as a good christian and a spititual man, sometimes as a child of the world, and sometimes as a really cruel person: He was angry at Helena's generosity towards the poor. One day, when she carried bread to them, she was afraid that he'd catch sight of the breads, and she prayed to God that they were to become stones  -  and they did.

 

23.3:The breads, others tell, became stones when she was killed, carrying them in her apron, by Vambo Rivulet where her spring thereby emerged.

 

23.4:Yet others tell that, at Eastertide, the priest used to set consacrate bread and wine upon the stony breads  -  but in this connexion these are two and square. Or else they were shewbread on the altar, but in this case they ought to have been 12 and made of real bread; such "shewbread of stone was used exclusively in high-rate churches", and considering this aspect Skovde church fits well in. Otherwise the three stony breads, some claim, were thrown, in a redhot condition, into the cold water of the baptismal font for to warm the water: This is a splendid physical experiment  -  test it to see what happens. The stones will explode (a shame on the oldest treasures of the church); the water will get sooty, and there will no longer be any room in the font for the child, and the water will overflow the brims.

 

23.5:In one of the chambers of the tower of Husaby church one more stony bread is preserved. Is it the third one of Helena's three ones?

 

24:THE DAUGHTER: Brynolf mentions only one child born by Helena  -  a daughter. She grew up and became just as beautiful and good as her mother. Another source claims that Helena was the mother of more daughters, but no sons are mentioned anywhere. [Was Helena married? Brynolf might have contrived his liturgical text as such a text ought to be formed, without heed to or knowledge of the real circumstances. A pneumatic mustn't be progenitive, so purely religiously it were unlikely that she didn't stay a virgin. But when Upsala Cathedral mentions Helena Virgo in its reliquary roll, Helena of S:t Amator of Auxerres' Acts is meant; she died after 418, and in Sweden her day, 22/5, was the Helena Day of the almanac for a long time].

 

24.2:The only known child who Helena bore to her earthly husband, id est the daughter who Dunney by intuition calls Cecilia, finds analogies in 1)the winged entity, Euphorion, who Elena of Mykene bore to Achilles on White Island in the Black Sea; 2)the boy who the power of Simon Magus shaped through thickening air to water, water to blood, and blood to flesh; 3)Homunculus, who Goethe produced in his laboratory; and 4) the child Euphorion who he made Elene bear in his Faustian book.

 

25:WHERE DID THE DAUGHTER LIVE?: She lived at Westreby (a farm first mentioned 10/2.1397), at a short distance to the west from Gotene church, when she was married according to tradition, but Brynolf doesn't mention this. Brynolf mentions nothing of whether she had any children either. It is claimed that Helena's son-in-law came from Gotene; that Helena had been born at Gotene; and she and her husband "owned a farm in Gotene"; that she inherited a farm there, etc, but Gotene was no parish, because such didn't exist, but it was a big farm. (Wapentakes existed provably in 1104, though). If the son-in-law was neither from this big farm nor from Westreby which doesn't seem to have existed yet, and if he still really came from Gotene and from a fine family, then he must have been the son of the preacher.

 

26:THE SON-IN-LAW: Brynolf seems to have known the identity of the son-in-law, but he durst not divulge it. Somebody has entitled him a "knight", but the task of a knight was to defend his country, christianity and women  -  this bloke saw as his mission on earth to do the opposite. Regardless if he was eminent and stemming from a posh family  -  he hated bittery these five items: 1)That their old demigod religion was broken down. 2)That churches and saints' chapels were built up. 3)That christianity was propagated successfully. 4)His wife (Helena's daughter)  -  he tormented her without ceasing with hard words and beating. 5)His mother-in-law (Helena herself) because she spent all her money on building churches and on charity, and because she had her mind directed towards Heaven (Rom.8:5; Kol.3:2) in stead of having it directed towards his wallet (he saw his heritage peter out).

 

27:SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SCARA DIOCESE DURING HELENA'S LIFETIME 1102-1140: They become requested thanks to asking "Who were the saints whom Helena knew of, and to whom were the mentioned chapels of saints dedicated?" One can reconstruct her hagiological calendar by means of art, breviaries, books of prayer, fragments of calendars and missals, inscriptions on vessels and bells, by datings of documents, and thanks to reliquaries. It is said that in 1072 all East- and West Gothia were christianized, and parts of Sodermanland; otherwise that all Sweden was christianized in 1100 by king Inge senior and queen Helena; or that all our country was turned to Christ exactly on the 15:th of February in 1108  -  according to the franciscans of Stockholm. Forsby church is dedicated to hagiolatric offers, it is said, and according to a superficial engravement in the plaster in it this church would have been inaugurated 13/8.1135  -  if this date hadn't been a falsification, it would have been plausible that Helena had visited this inauguration. There were images of saints in her own oratory outside Skovde  -  these saints are likely to occur amongst the following ones:

 

27.2:Alban 20/6. Albinus 1/3. Alphege 19/4. Alexander I 3/5. Alexius 17/7. Amandus 6/2. Anatolia 9/7. Anna 9/12. Antony, abbot 4/5. Apollonia* 9/2. Bede the Venerable 31/5. Benedict 11/7. Bertinus 5/9. Bobinus 31/1. Boniface 5/6. Botulph* 17/6. Brigida of Ireland 1/2. Callistus 16/4. Catherine of Alexandria 25/11. Cecilia 22/11. Christina 24/7. Cuthbert 20/3. Cyriacus 7/4. Donatus 7/8. Dunstan 19/5. Edward 18/3. Ethelbert 19/5. Etheldreda 23/6. Eufemia 13/4. Eugenia 25/12. Eusebius 14/8. Eventius 3/5. Felicitas (two different) 7/3 and 23/11. Felix of Nola 14/1. Felix II 29/7. Fortunatus 21/4. George* 23/4. Germanus 1/10. Gildard 8/6. Giles 1/9. Guthlac 11/4. John of Beverley 7/5. Julian 12/2. Julius I 12/4. Laurence 10/8. Leo IX 11/4. Linus 26/11. Lioba 28/9. Margaret of Antioch 13/7. Mary the Virgin 15/8. Mary of Egypt 2/4. Mary-Magdalen 22/7. Medard 8/6. Melan 15/6. Michael* on Mons Aureus 8/5; Michael (a number of days at the shift of September-October). Oswald 5/8. Pancras 3/4. Pantaleon 28/7. Paulinus of Trier 31/8. Peregrinus 17/5. Perpetua 7/3. Petronilla 31/5. Processus-&-Martinian 2/7. Remigius 1/10. Romanus 21/5. Rufinus of Capua 27/8. Rufus of Melitene 19/4. Scholastica 10/2. Seven Brethren 10/7. Seventytwo Apostles 11/6. Stephen the Protomartyr 26/12. Stephen I 2/8. Swithun 2/7. Theodulus 3/5. Urban 24/4. Urban I 25/5. Ursula* 21/10. Valentine 14/2. Vedast 6/2. Victor the Moor 8/5. Victor in Xanten 20/4. Vitalis-&-Valeria 28/4. Willibrord 7/11.

 

27.3:It is more doubtful whether these are to be included: Agnes 21/1. Ambrose 4/4. Eustace 20/9. Halward 15/5. Olav* 29/7. Maurice 22/9, and Sunniva* 11/7.

 

27.4:*Apollonia: She and Helena share nowadays the church of Medelplana insofar as that it has since the 1970:ies been dedicated to both of them; both have altars in/next to the church, och in the parish they own one source each. In reality Apollonia has no sources named after her; the one in Jylland and the one in Medelplana have been given rise to through misinterpretation of Leonis respectively of Apollonia-Christina Ljungqvist. The latter source has been named after a daughter of the family who inhabited Bestorp for to honour the memory of her death: Either she who lived 22/7.1765-26/10.1773 or her namesake sister who lived 24/2.1776-26/3.1813. PE Lindskog achieved a pioneer deed by publishing the existence of the source between 1812 and 1816, positioned in the Lesser Meadow. But the present source is positioned on the bottom of a shallow quarry, which is a circumstance which renders it impossible that the source could have been medieval. For to complete the confusion BJ wrote 23/7.1971 that the Apollonian source of Medelplana were identical with the Priest's Source in the ditch close to the pastoral farm. During the entire catholic era of Sweden there was no documented Apollonia in all swedish Gotaland; the saint was added to a manual of Scara in ~1450 and that of Hemsjo in 1475. But, on the contrary, around Lake Malaren and north of it the name was popular and was used in many different forms.

 

*Botuph: Before 1150 his reliques were laid into the altar of Broddetorp church. Falkoping was his cult-centre of Scara diocese, granted by bishop Brynolf in 1281. Apparently is the ruin, which one today calls Laurentii Capel on Visingso, really the ruin after the chapel of St. Botulph.

 

*Brigida: She was one of the most important saints in Scara cathedral; one used a writ from 1137 which includes her name. In 1325 her source at Husaby was mentioned: the first christian westgothian king, Olof, had been baptized in it. Her cult-centre on Oland existed in the 12th century; in the 1320:ies her prebend of Scara cathedral was founded. The churches of Mo and Radene were dedicated to her. Her cult was diminished during the 15th century, but during the 19th century a bricky church in Gothenburg was dedicated to her.

 

*George: He and his dragon were depicted on the southern wall in S:ta Helena Church of Skovde from ~1400 to 1759. In Scara diocese he belonged to the original saints, celebrated during ~600 years.

 

*Michael: His cult was together with the cult of Mary the first one to enter Norden. He is mentioned by 2 swedish and 5 danish rune-stones from the Viking Age. (He isn't dead, but at Vamblingbo there is his grave). The very italian cult of 8/5, which started in the 490:ies there, was prevalent in Scara diocese before the 1260:ies.

 

*Olav: He and Helena were the two first saints of Nordic origin who were included by the calenders of Scara diocese  -  several hundred years before the others  -  but his only contribution to the cult of Helena was that his cult menacingly collided with her holy feast days. In reality it is out of the question that he could have been celebrated here until after the decree of 1396, which enforced the worship of him. Scara diocese owned a unique Mass of Olav.

 

*Sunniva: She is frequently mentioned together with Helena liturgically. She is a specific saint of Scara diocese, reflecting the regular contacts between Norway and West Gothia, and she stayed so throughout the entire Middle ages.

 

*Ursula: Her reliques were worshipped in Scara diocese before 1150. Apart from these she shared reliquary (from the 15th century) with Helena in the altartop of Molltorp church, and the reliquary is since 1938 preserved by Scara County Museum.

 

27.5:There are no traces from the Eastern Church in the medieval calendars of Sweden. In the dioceses around Lake Malaren there are traces of Irish influence. As to Scara diocese, it was closely related to northern France during the first christian epoch.

 

28:THE ASSAULT ON HELENA'S SON-IN-LAW: Finally the workers of the farm no longer could endure the violence which Helena's daughter was subjected to by her husband, and they lurked in the forest and liquidated him. They threw such a large amount of stones over the corpse that they produced a miniature mountain. Male and female servants accomplished thus a planned action; according to varieties of the story servants had enticed him to the place and beaten him to death. Or otherwise it was one of the servants who couldn't bear that his mistress got so badly treated by her husband, and he lurked on him and sent him into a hotter place. Or else it was during a revolt, caused by his tyranny towards his staff, that the woman-beater was killed, but the fact that Helena became suspected for having planned the revolt was caused by that people took it for granted that she wanted to get rid of him since he was cruel to her daughter. But elsewhere it is claimed that the revengers (of the murder of the son-in-law) executed the servants of the daughter just before Helena's departure for Palestine.

 

28.2:Yes, the relatives of the son-in-law accused Helena for being the engineer of the drama in the background, and they decided to attack her and not the servants. They commenced persecuting her in many a way, and the daughter fled to a monastery. [By and large there was only one available: Bosjö benedictine nunnery. It had been functioning for 60 years on a islet in present Lake Ring. Their 1000 years old Oak was 144 years old when she arrived, 84 years older than the monastery. S:ta Apollonia is painted in the triumphal vault in its minster].

 

29:THE FLOWER OF HELENA: But whenas the revengers increasingly caused sorrow and suffering in Helena's life, her love of God was equally increased and her strong yearning to His Realm too. When her tears fell on the ground a new herb came to be, the flowers of which grew up looking like small suns. It is called Sankta Helena's Tear Herb, Sankta Elin's Root, and it is identical with Inula Helenium. Her suffering had been foreseen by Pline ~1060 years earlier when he drew the conclusion that "Helenium e lacrimis Helenae dicitur natum". [The american group of flowers called Helenium is not related to the Inula but to the daisies; 'twas named after Helios, the sun, at the beginning of the 17th century. Inspite of this fact, it is vended as "Helena's own flowers"].

 

30:A-PONDERING: Helena sat by a window of her corps de logis one clear sundown thinking about how to end the difficulties that she had been entangled by. She saw towards the sky a vision reminding her of Jerusalem (flat-top houses etc), and she thanked God for this guidance  -  that she must go there. She "filled her female heart with male courage" and didn't shrink before such a dangerous and long expedition. She wished too, crossing the Continent, to visit more places where reliques of saints were venerated, and, in Jerusalem, to visit the Holy Sepulchre and Golgatha; perhaps other places too in the holy land of which she had heard. (There was then a church there named after the mother of Constantine, Helena's namesake). But hadn't she misunderstood the tip or sign? In her holy Spirit a wish had been woken to revisit the pre-christian places of her own cult in the Middle East! Were not the roofs of Tyre flat?

 

30.2:She desired that this expedition was going to give her much comfort after the countless attacks that she had been subjected to, and that the cups of wrath of her enemies were going to boil dry while she was abroad. Brynolf has been inspired by Rom.12:19 when he speaks of letting the circumstance act out its wrath: Do not exact vengeance for yourselves, but leave room for the doom of wrath of God, and this was the motive of Helena's pilgrimage.

 

31:THE WAY THITHER: She fared alone because she didn't want to have a finger in the Pie of Crusades. Maybe she passed the district of Tibirke (where the church had been inaugurated in 1125), where later her great danish cult-centre was going to be created. According to Dunney, Helena communicated with the bishop of Hamburg. His name was Adalbero, and he had this title 1123-48. Pilgrims going to the north or the south used Maastricht as a halt, although the hypothetical visit of Helena there occurred 23 years before Servaas, the local saint, had been enshrined. In 1138 Helena kissed the slipper (shoe) of pope Innocentius II, people claim, and this happened, if not in Rome, in Saint-Gilles in Languedoc, whither the pope was exiled. She made the pope again let Lund become an archdiocese of its own  -  it had been this 1104-33  -  instead of lying under the thumb of Hamburg-Bremen. Like, or at the same time as, Henry Zdick Helena could have had contact with the Premonstratensian Order in Jerusalem.

 

31.2:A version: In 1135 Helena walked all the way to the Holy Sepulchre, where she promised God that if she was to come back home safely, she was going to build a church in Skedevi  -  (Skovde of course, confer the note below concerning Vastra Skedvi).

 

32:TWO VISITS TO JERUSALEM?: A late innovation is that Helena carried out two journeys to Palestine during the 1130:ies. She was grateful to God for the first one, which comprised many years, and this motivated her to initiate the building of Skovde church. Thereafter the persecution of her began, and she went abroad again to escape the enemies.

 

33:GOALS OF PILGRIMAGES IN NORDEN: Helena visited possibly holy places within Norden too: Today it is claimed that Forshem church is dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and the thought was that people who couldn't reach Jerusalem, instead could go to Forshem and still gain indulgency. It is claimed too that Martin of Tours was venerated at Forshem, but the problem is that nobody knows from where the famous stone relievos of the church originally have been transferred from  -  the present church building is newish.

 

33.2:In course of time places like Mosjo church, Munkatorp, Nidaros and Tisvildeleje (see below) developed into goals for pilgrims due to an ex-heathen Madonna, David, Olav and Helena respectively. One must be aware of that holy or important places completely can have been erased from the surface of the earth and from tradition, places that never got documented, so Helena might have visited places that are totally unknown to people of today. Three such items could be Gum, Heligstad of Valstad, and a hilly area in Vamb  -  ghosts have divulged themselves to certain supernaturally sensible agents concerning these three.

 

34:LIKENESSES TO OTHER GODDESSES: In the same way that goddess Froja (and goddess Isis) left West Gothia (and Egypt) alone and sorrowful and entered upon long journeys among foreign people, looking for her husband, who had disappeared, Helena entered upon a chase after the pre-existant  -  after herself (Prov.8:22f). Brynolf didn't know that she knew that Jerusalem not is the right place to worship God  -  God is worshipped in Truth and Spirit (John 4:20-24)! If she actually reached Jerusalem she could not have been able to find anything there except for dusty fallaciousnesses. Likeness exists too to Brynolf himself insofar as he, after the catastrophe that his relatives had caused (a murder and an elopement), sailed to his exile at Alvastra. And there, and at the highest degree during his return in the middle of the stormy Lake Vattern, he found the Dear Treasure  -  Saint Helena, our westgothian saint. (It is said concerning Isis that she who is looking for a dead corpse is not worthy of the eternal life, meantime, on the contrary, Helena is looking for the shadow of a hypostasis of the living God himself).

 

35:THE RETURN: Helena returned to her big and deserted mansion after this odyssey, wholly relying on God and without fear for anyone, and also bringing with her a ring from Palestine. It has been interpreted as a ring which Christ gives his choosen Bride; others see it as a sort of pilgrim's badge. The formulization "whereon her finger, hallowed by the ring from the holy land" tries to explain the coming miracles that the finger was going to bring about, stressing the ground on which Jesus supposedly has walked instead of stressing Helena herself  -  a wrongful formulization since the bodily existence of Jesus is vague* compared to the fact that Helena is the First Thought of God (see eg. Proverbs): Helena, id est Visdom personified, herself is the healing and redeeming agent, Prima Salvanda. If the ring owned supernatural powers, these stemmed from Helena, not from any "holy land". According to Matt.23:16-19 the temple hallows the gold, not vice versa like hypocrites and certain sectarians claim, so there is a basis in the Bible for that it was Helena, the Living Temple of the Spirit, who hallowed the ring.

 

   *Jesus must have lived before 110 BC, since the Book of Henoch describes him at that time. Jesus as a spiritual reality proved his existence when he made Saul his missionary  -  S:t Paul.

 

36:THE INAUGURATION OF THE CHURCH AT GOTENE: One intended to inaugurate Gotene church 1/8.1140, and of course Helena intended to be present there then. Meanwhile she prepared herself for the mass, a bird flew into the chamber, and it laid itself down on her lap. It refused to move, and we suppose that the bird tried to hinder Helena from rising and from going away. But she couldn't risk being late in church, and she arranged a nest for the bird and began walking towards the church.

 

36.2:The year is 1140, which is told by the two oldest documents that mention a year for Helena's martyrdom  -  a document from Scara diocese and a breviary of Linkoping diocese, both from the beginning of the 15th century. Maybe Brynolf himself mentioned this year too in one of his instructions re Helena.

 

   (A westgothian newspaper notified 9/7.1982 that "Elin" became a martyr in Gotene in the 1150:ies).

 

36.3:The year of 1160, which one encounters almost everywhere, is false and non-original; it was invented in the 17th century by Vastovius, whereafter the Vatican absorbed it when they were collecting information on saints. The original acts for the period when Helena was canonized have burned. One has, too, invented a physical manifestation of the year: A white-plastered wall of Vattlosa church has been dated to 1160 thanks to a mystic inscription, and this is supposed to prove in which year Helena had died.

 

37:THE MARTYRDOM: In her life Helena followed the words of Jesus: She did good things to people who hated her (Matt.5:44), and she prayed for her enemies  -  but they just continued to be evil. (It has been said that Helena had had her martyrdom foreboded; had it been presaged, her death had been classed as suicide. This is a misunderstanding of Helena's gift of prophecy and of her flight vision. According to Dunney had Helena had a dream which showed her that she was going to die at Gotene, where the sister of her ex-son-in-law and her father lived, and that she was going to be buried at Skovde, but she herself denied that there was any actual threat). Now, when she came wandering along the path to the church  -  (it was not bigger than its present choir)  -  some of her enemies threw himself over her with swords and killed her. The ring and her ring-finger landed under a bramble (Rubus Fruticosus is the most likely interpretation of Brynolf's frutex, dumus and rubus. Otherwise it has been claimed that it was a bush of the same species that the one which Moses saw burning in Exodus 3.2. Neither brambles nor roses grow in swamps. Facts are that the spot where one today claims is where Helena was martyred not far from Gotene church was a swamp or open water in the 12th century, wherefore the right martyrdom spot ought to be found between Bjurum/Vattlosa and Gotene).

 

37.2:It seems like Brynolf was aware of the identity of the killer, but that he durst not revealing it. Helena was ~38 years old whenas she thus was enrolled in the concourse of holy martyrs, rejecting the heaviness of the body, climbing up to Heaven. "In the rosary of Heaven is the rose laid, which our martyr, rich in honour, has deserved through martyrdom"; "a spirit who seeks God no-one can destroy". We know of only 11 or 12 christians who before this date (1/8.1140) had become martyrs within the borders of our country, and all of them had been men. 

 

   37.3:[These martyrs are 1)chaplain Nithard +845 on Birka, 4/2. 2)king Oluf +950 where Stockholm was founded in ~1252, 30/7. 3-5)missionaries and churchfounders Unaman, Sunaman and Winaman +980:ies where Vaxio is, 21/6 & 15/2. 6)missionary Ulfrid (Wilfrid) +1028, 18/1. 7)missionary Eric dead a few years before 1068 in Norrland. 8)missionary bishop Stephen of Sachsen +1075 in "Nora", 2/6. 9)missionary Escillus +1086 at Strangnas, 12/6. 10)herdsman Thorsten +~1100 in Bjurum/Vattlosa. 11)convert Botvid +1100/1123 on Rago, 28/7. The twelfth is the norwegian martyr Hallward, +1043, 14-15/5].

 

38:VARIETIES OF THE MARTYRDOM: A)Helena came walking all the way from Skovde to Gotene, a stretch of road which measures 38 km on the modern roads. B)She was heading for the inauguration of "a church in Gotene". C)She was heading for the church of Gothem for gaining indulgency, and this occurred after the return from her hypothetic second mission to Palestine. This can yield the blasphemous impression of that she went to church only to amass indulgency. In reality it isn't hard to understand that she wanted to be present when the church, which she has financed, was to be inaugurated. D)She was murdered inside of her Skovde Castle ("im ihren Schlosse Skofde ermordet..."). E)After the murder she was dragged into the forest.

 

38.2:"Gothem" has, despite that it has been "known" not for more than ~100 years, had an astonishing effect and it has caused follies. One of the most famous "researchers on Helena" claims that Gothem is an older name of Kallegarden  -  the post-medieval farm which is the closest one to S:ta Helena's Source outside Skovde. Notwithstanding that Kallegarden is the name of a single farm, he calls Kallegarden a medieval village  -  it was firstly mentioned in 1540 as Hargustorp (3/4 tax-free farm) and then in 1611 as Kellegardenn. Gothem is a corrupt form of Gotene, Goteve or Gokhem  -  the latter church owned parts of Horsas near Skovde until 1356.

 

38.3:Furthermore: Close to Gotene, where the meadows of Vasterby widen infront of the big forest, Helena met a group of men including relatives of her ex-son-in-law; one of them stabbed his sword into her chest.

 

38.4:This is the correct version according to the Brynolfian text from the fall of 1288: Because on a certain day, while she, on behalf of Goodness (or: "in exchange for Indulgency"), wanted to attend the inauguration of Gotene Church, a certain one among her antagonists devastatingly cast himself with revenge on Helena, wounding her cruelly in the ambush, sating his sword with righteous blood, and Helena's Spirit, delivered by the stabbing, fared towards the Heights. She lay fallen like an innocent sheep on the first of August in 1140, and now she'd transmigrated from the War to the Peace, which overwhelms all consciousness (Fil.4:7).

 

38.5:According to Dunney Helena started her last riding 1/8.1147 from Skovde heading for the inauguration of Gotene church. She was attacked by three men after a short chase north-west of the lake district of Valle, maybe near Bjurum (in present Vattlosa). Two of them were from Sjalland; the third was from Scara or Gotene and he owned a quarry on Kinnekulle. The martyrdom took place on the riding-path among young birches. Steaming gold shone in the bush already before her holy finger had landed there.

 

38.6:Miscellany: A)Folk conjecture that Helena was beheaded on the slope to Vambo Rivulet, close to her source, and a constantly bare spot on the ground shows exactly where. B)Near Kallegarden, folk conjecture, that Helena was victimized by her revengers, and it was one of the smallest digits that she lost  -  otherwise one takes it for granted that she lost her ringfinger, naturally. In Scania, though, they claim it was a thumb. C)On her farm they discovered that Helena's body missed a finger when she was going to lie on lit-de-parad. They walked back to the place of her martyrdom, and there they found the finger glistening like gold in a thorny bush. D)After Helena's return from the holy land she received a christian status in West Gothia and this annoyed the heathens, wherefore they convinced someone to kill her. E)She, folk conjecture, beat her to death by Vambo Rivulet exactly where the source broke forth out of a granite rock.

 

39:HELENA'S FEAST DAY: In Scara diocese her feast day was 30/7 from 1498, while the rest of the world maintained the original date 31/7. (At Vaxjo one calendar points out 30/7, another 31/7). Nowadays she is supposed to be celebrated 30/7 universally. A new german book of saints points out four feast-days for our Helena: 31/12, they claim, is the most important one, and the others are 30/12, 24/6 and 1/8. 30/12 and 31/12 must simply be mistakes for 30/7 and 31/7. One mustn't forget, though, that a swedish queen, Helena, daughter of Sverker senior, died 31/12 before 1172. 24/6 may allude at that Helena's sources are considered to be the most active during Midsummer Night, mainly at Tisvildeleje. 1/8 is her right martyrdom day according to the Brynolfian Office, and the only date which occurs in her early liturgical texts.

 

40:HELENA'S SOURCE AT GOTENE: The first posthumous miracle which is attributed to Helena took place on the spot of her martyrdom, halfway between Vasterby farm and Gotene church: A fountain broke forth here! That it owns Helena's name is a 540 years old belief, but that it came to be thanks to a miracle was invented not more than ~100 years ago. The source exists today among the buildings of Gotene Dairy. It is a piece of art, since the original source has been moved twice and finally been overbuilt (less than 100 yards to the south of the present source). It is believed that Lawrence Michaelson, the bishop of Vaxjo, in 1462 issued a 40-days indulgency letter for those who visited the source  -  the problem here is that this letter seems to have been invented by Benzelius in his commentary of his edition of Vastovius' "Vitis Aquilonia" in 1708, and he is the only one who ever mentioned this letter, and it has never been rediscovered among the swedish medieval letters. The present fountain gets its water from the communal pipes, since the ground water level has sunk 10 yards.

 

40.2:In the 18th century it was written concerning this source that first it was found on the outskirts of the fields of Backgarden near Vasterby; it was half a yard deep and contained old offered coins. A wooden cross, almost two yards tall, stood next to the source. The owners of the field filled the source with earth because it was a hinderance to their agricultural work, but immediately it was resurrected  -  now it had become a fountain on the grassy slope beyond the fields. But in the 1950:ies it had been reduced to a dried out pit.

 

41:THE CHURCH OF GOTENE: 19/11.1436 Swen, the bishop of Scara, issued at Vattlosa an indulgency-letter for those who contributed to the reconstruction of the church of Gotene, which by this time had been dedicated to S:ta Helena, and on the first Advent Sunday in 1480 bishop Brynolf III issued an indulgency-letter for those who carried out a number of specified actions there, like walking around the church praying for the dead.

 

42:ARE WE DEALING WITH TWO DIFFERENT HELENAS?: Amateur archaeologists and fantastic glossologists today and during the past 400 years have created an illusion of that we're dealing with at least two different saints here: Helena in the Gotene district and Elin in the Skovde district. The hypothetic "Elene" is supposed to have been formed during the pre-christian 7th century about where Helena's church of Skovde now is, and the name "Elin" is supposed to have crystallized out of Elene, but Elin as a form of Helena didn't exist in the 12th century. According to a relatively new tale Helena's source at Gotene supposedly emerged in 1140, and by that time Helena as a name was provably used in Sweden. In 1281 bishop Brynolf reinforced the value of Elin's Mass at Skovde, and in 1288 he wrote liturgical texts for Helena's yearly feast, and it is impossible that he could have comprehended Elin as the name of a place. Helena's source at Gotene was mentioned(?) in the 15th century. Otherwise one has claimed that a verb which means "pour water" and which resembles Gotene has caused the name of this place thanks to that people have poured water out of the source. When one analyses names of farms and suchlike objects which resemble Elin/Helena, one will always find that either the farm's name has another origin and thus doesn't stem from Elin/Helena, or that the farm's name has occurred after the founding of the hagiological monuments and thus it cannot have caused these. It is claimed too that Helena has caused that farms are given names which contain her name in the parishes where the churches own images of her. Yet another situation is exemplified by Helenedal and Helenevik in Fassberg, since those farm-names are provably given in honour of women called Helena (Elin) of the families who built those farms. No cult of Helena can be traced in any of the tracts, which names resemble Helena/Elin. All the farms called Helde, eg., seem to stem from "hird" (a functionary of a king), who may have owned these farms: Helena's source at Gotene is 300 years older than the farm there called Helde.

 

43:ATTRIBUTES: Since Helena died in the way that she did on her way to church, she is depicted holding a wanderer's staff in one hand (which much later was exchanged for a sword) and a book with a finger on in the other.

 

43.2:The book: A smart observation has been done showing that the only book which is mentioned by Helena's liturgical text is the one wherein the saints are enrolled. Watching Helena in art, noticing the book she squeezes, one easily takes it for a Bible  -  the conclusion that she carried any book on her way to the church inauguration is drawn from art and not from Brynolf's text. A hand-made copy of the Gospels would be a more plausible book for Helena to carry than a complete Bible at this time. Those Gospel-copies were produced by the monasteries, and Dunney tells that this was done at Scara. They were very costly, richly decorated with multicolour patterns and illustrations. The Royal Library of Copenhagen owns one such copy made in Ireland, used at the end of the 12th century by Dalby monastery. But did Helena know latin?

 

44:THE DIGITAL WONDER: After sunset the same day (1/8.1140) the following occurred according to the text of 1288: Already on the day of her Suffering a certain blind man walked down the road after the sun had laid itself fallen. Meanwhile approaching the position of her Suffering, the lad, who was steering the blind man's walk, saw a light (lumen) nearly like a burning candle (candele ardentis) in a bramble (frutex). Whenas the lad, on the blind man's order, carefully investigated whence that flashing (fulgor) was emitted, he found in the bramble (dumus) the finger of beatific Helena, abscinded with that ring on, which she'd brought along from the holy land. Whenas the mentioned blind man touched this finger, and lifted his hand, stained by her blood, to his eyes, the former mist did dissolve and the light did come back. ...in a miraculous way a light (lux) did flash forth from Heaven into the bramble, making it clear where on earth the finger was resting. The blind man touched the abscinded finger of the martyr, and soon he regained his sight thanks to her merits. This was the third and the most famous of the known miracles of Helena.

 

45:DIFFERENT IDEAS ON HELENA'S BLOOD AND ON THE SWORD: A)Blood from the sword, which had killed Helena, healed a blind man, wherefore a sword was added to Helena's attributes. B)A man, who had been blind for many years, prayed to God that he could become able to see Helena's famous finger  -  he had never seen her in person  -  and meantime he prayed this, he regained his sight. [Neither had Achilles ever seen Helena, but yet he was seized by a burning desire to meet her, and when they met he was immediately struck by an overwhelming passion for her]. C)Some lads who herded sheep were confabulating about a light, as from a candle, which shone amongst the bushes. A blind man, who came walking along the road, heard what they said and demanded that they must look after from what this phenomenon was emitted. They found one of Helena's thumbs and also her ring lying apart. Then: The blind man elevated the thumb, which still was bleeding, towards his eyes, whereon the curtain of mist was dissolved and he again was able to see. D)Helena's finger retained its shine for some time  -  and in the bramble it had shone so strongly that it had been visible from afar. It sufficed that someone for a short moment held the finger infront of blind persons for to restore the sight of them.

 

46:A GNOSTIC FINGER?: Helena, the First Thought of God, held out a finger against Demiourgos, and her finger became the Light of the material world, and she followed it down here  -  compare that to the light phenomenon of S:ta Helena at Gotene 1/8.1140: she did indeed bring the light here, and the light healed a blind man, which can be interpreted gnomically.

 

47:LYCHWAKE AND LYCHWALK: The same day Helena's body had been carried by her relatives to her mansion, where they waked all night around her. The following day monks began conveying her from her mansion, around Mount Billingen towards Skovde for the funeral. The choice of paths and of directions was dictated by hindrances, which one wanted to avoid, and by hallowed places, which one wanted to visit  -  neither the former nor the latter are we today able to have a hunch of.

 

47.2:Conjectures: Hindrances might have been farms and land belonging to the relatives of Helena's son-in-law or to the killers. Places in request might have been such objects like the crypt of Scara Cathedral (founded in 1020?), the benedictine monastery for monks of Scara (moved thither in 1060?), the benedictine nunnery of Gudhem (founded in 1050?); some holy well such as Roskilde (Ruskella) in Segerstad?, the circle of stones with portals at Haggum (with 12th-century graves having wooden gables predating the church), Radene church which was dedicated to Brigida of Ireland, and Regumatorp church, dedicated to Baltasar, Gaspar & Melkior. A southerly route around Billingen must have comprised 50-60 kilometres. In 1997 there were plans for arranging a pilgrim's path between Gotene and Skovde following the footprints of Helena, or a marathon race.

 

48:FONS BEATE HELENE: In the morning of the fourth day of the lychwalk the carriers crossed the shallow ford of Vombo Rivulet. They halted on the road at thanksgiving-tide, whereon immediately a new fountain bubbled forth, which up to the present day is called Beatific Helena's Source. This was the fourth miracle, This kind of explanation to the origin of sources of saints is rife, but in Sweden it is the oldest one and therefore 'tis the original while the other legends are copies.

 

48.2:Not long thereafter an oratory (this term is the correct one according to medieval documents, and it applies to chapels of saints being extra churches in a parish) was built over the fountain for to protect the same. Herein travellers could effectuate their devotions, and local ceremonies were carried out in or close to it. It owned several altars, images of saints, mural paintings, niches and vaults. In the 1280:ies oratories were comprehended as houses wherein saints were oracles and where God or these talked and gave revelations. The bishops of Scara diocese Nikolaos (12/7.1373) and Sigge (23/10.1425) issued letters of indulgency for the visitors of the oratory. The one from 1373 tells you that the oratory had been renovated; one believes that it was built during the same era as were the seven 12th century churches in the neighbourhood: Forsby, Hene, North Kyrketorp (not identical with Hene), Ryd, Skovde, Suntetorp and Vamb. A lot of small crosses used to the erected around the fountain after the oratory was gone (between 1759 and ~1880).

 

48.3:One has believed that in 1759 the stones from the oratory were used to build the juxtaposing bridge with, but when the bridge was dismantled in 2001 and 2002 (because of restauration) no stones were found which can be taken for reused material. Thus one believes it more plausible that it was for the rebuilding of S:ta Helena's church of Skovde that the oratory stones were reused after the city fire of Eleventh of September in 1759. In 1954 the subterranean masonry of the basement was uncovered, and in 1955 the steps were built which lead down into the present source, and draining pipes were dug down. In 1956 the memorial stone was erected one yard to the north of the source, west of the oratory ruin, and a sign by the path to the site and another by the source used to inform visitors of the saint and the place. These two signs were in 2001 replaced by a new one along the path crossing the site. Even if the oratory nowadays is invisible, still its greatness and power can be experienced by people who have the right inclination. The stones set like a foundation partly on the ground above the mentioned masonry have nought to do with the oratory; "maybe they have some connexion with the house which stood there recently".

 

49:MIXTURE OF DIFFERENT IDEAS ON FONS B. HELENE AND THE ORATORY, Pansar Road 541 52 Skovde: A)According to Brynolf the source came into existence 5/8.1140, but others believe that they know that the source had been used by heathens in the 5th and 6th centuries; that the place had owned a central significance for the Westgothians. Evidences are missing, though.

 

B)Others claim that the source broke forth there as a result of that the revengers had buried Helena's body there.

 

C)The same source, people claim, would be the position of both Helena's monastery and her oratory.

 

49.2: D)The lesser one of the two churches which Helena financed, some claim has been situated next to this source and therefore not at Gotene  -  a scaringly corrupt idea, caused by the farm's name Hargustorp in 1540: It has led one person into believing that the name indicates that one of the most worshipped Asa-gods has had his cult-site there, and into believing that the site also was called Gotene and that Brynolf not would have been aware of this whenas he in Helena's Office points out Gotene near Kinnekulle as the right place of her martyrdom; one mustn't forget then that the oratory wasn't built until after Helena's earthly death. (Hargustorp, mentioned uniquely in 1540, alias Kellegardenn, mentioned firstly in 1611, was situated southwest of the ford within the present military garage area, west of and close by the earlier trunk-road).

 

E)The oratory was marked as a Deserted Chapel on a map of 1816 and the source as an Offering Source, both marked north-east of the ford. As recently as during the 19th century coins and metal pieces were offered into the source  -  yes, during the 1990:ies too. The present source is probably situated a few yards from the original position on the level surface between the brink and the rivulet  -  explained as a result of the filling it, by the protestants, with earth and stones, forcing it to resurrect pouring forth from under a boulder: the south-east cornerstone of the oratory, one believes. The brinks were higher in days of yore  -  they were reduced when the trunk-road was built across the rivulet recess.

 

49.3: F)The source, as it appears today, was incorporated into the garden around the cottage which stood there from the 1880:ies to the 1980:ies. In September 1999 one believed that one had discovered the original source within a ring of small stones; its width was but 29 x 44 cm; the depth was 33 cm. This hypothetical source has lain right under the middle of the kitchen of the cottage. One also discovered that the oratory underground masonry had traces of plaster (calx).

 

G)The husband and wife who lived in the cottage on the source 1953-68 witness saying that they had experienced that a protectrice dwelled in it, and sometimes they heard how an invisible entity turned the doorknob and entered  -  they and their dog got used to the phenomenon.

 

49.4: H)East of the source site there is the quagmire of offering, whereinto one offered leaving Skovde as an insurance for a happy and undelayed return. The surroundings of the source site used to be bright and beautiful with its blooming and huge trees.

 

I)Originally the water of the source was cold, fresh and health-producing; in 1757 the fine water poured out by a stone under the gravel from the corroding walls. Today none can drink the green and slimy water.

 

49.5: J)The floor of the oratory was either 40 square yards or 9.6 x 5.4 yards. Apart from what has been said above on the oratory, it was furnished to the east with an apse (having a centrally placed, round fenestration?); the entrance was on the north side, on the brink side. (Altars of saints in niches can be studied by the triumphal vault of the 12th century church of Borrie; the altars of Helena's oratory were movable, they say). The source was indoors  -  the water was gathered in a natural cauldron before it poured out under the west gable through a broad but low slot on ground-level (Hes.47:1ff). One singular fenestration, shaped as an Ace of Clubs, was on the south side. On the outside, above the waterslot of the west gable, were two decorative lists of stone, two yards tall, and above these there was a fenestration shaped like a flying bird seen frontally. The water of the source pours  -  in the past meanderingly to the rivulet; nowadays via pipes  -  to Vambo Rivulet and further to Osan and Tidan to Lake Vanern; further via Gota Canal and River, wherefrom it is pumped up to the system of lakes of Delsjo, where it is purified into drinking-water for Molndal and Goteborg. The amount of water which escapes the pump, continues to the salt sea, where it promotes the marine life. 021123

 

49.6: K)This oratory wasn't unique in having an indoor source  -  confer Sanga church near Skelleftea which source was "turned off" in 1534 and now is covered by concrete; and Vange church near Brunna/Upsala  -  it was detectable under the floor until the 19th century. And Aseda church-source has been known since the 12th century. The source of the crypt of Lund cathedral was the cause to that the cathedral was built just there. And the pillared hall of Dalby church from 1120 was originally a baptismal chapel, and still offerings are done in the source in the north-east corner.

 

49.7: L)Happily, during the 1750:ies, a drawing was made of Helena's oratory by an artist and historian  -  it was roofless, but walls and gables were still standing. A model of the ruin has been made and is shown in Skovde museum  -  a crucifix is set on the altar.

 

49.8: M)More than 2000 years ago the mandaeans started practising water-rituals, and along running rivers or rivulets they built small, simple oratories like Helena's one here by Vambo Rivulet. Vilhelm Bang describes water-ritualism in Scandinavia before 1000, and this owns broad conformities with the mandaean one.

 

49.9: N)"Many generations of Swedes and people from other Nordic countries made pilgrimages to the chapel by S:ta Elin's source". In 2001, 31/7 (one of her feast days) a great homage was effectuated to her there, which seriously was meant to be an acknowledgement of her divine work in the 12th century. In 2002 it was decided in Skovde that on this day they are going to carry out a yearly Helena manifestation.

 

49.10: O)There are actually only three documented Saint Helena's Sources in Sweden, videlicet the one at Gotene, the one at Skovde and the one at Lyngsjo  -  all others are uncertain for different suspect reasons. In Denmark her source at Tisvildeleje is the only one which has had and still has significence.

 

49.11: P)There are two other women who supposedly were the causes of the source: One of them is Elena Tunadaughter, who had two relatives who were high priests at Scara. 8/4.1380 she gave some farms in Hene to S:ta Helena's church in exchange for getting her coming grave inside this church and for having prayers for her soul pronounced during masses by the clergy. She stemmed from Hallstad (see below) and she constitutes perhaps the missing link between Hallstad and Skovde. She fared to Rome as a pilgrim, and after her return to Hene she financed the building of the oratory by the actual source. The other one is queen Katarina Sunesdaughter, daughter of Helena Sverkersdaughter: between 1241 and 1250 she supposedly founded the same oratory.

 

49.12: Q)By this Helena's source people would gather yearly on 31/7 to listen to a few words about our saint. Thereafter they walked to her church in central Skovde (the Elin-march) to attend a service during which they used a lifting-device to elevate the lid of the choir-floor and exhibited the stepway down to some destroyed and not very old crypts.

 

50:WHAT IS "OF THE WIDOW"?: ('widow' isolate in genitive form) The ruin of a cellar on the "exercise ground" (evidently along Pansar Road) opposite to the regiment of P:4 is supposedly the basement of a chapel in which Helena was venerated  -  we wonder whether the oratory and this chapel were identical?  -  300 yards north of her source. They possibly mean the dug out, big pit, were stony ancient monuments lie on the brim, east of the present military restaurant.

 

51:SPIRITUAL PREDECESSORS: Brigida of Kildare (1/2) had a mythological predecessor and namesake from whom the saint inherited a lot of qualities and attributes including her feast day. Valborg (Walburgis; 25/2 & 1/5) had a supernatural and heathen entity in north-west Europe as a predecessor and namesake from whom the saint has taken on some qualities  -  the saint was invented after the 1060:ies, but her lifetime has been retrodated to 710-779 AD. (Helena's namesake, the mother of Constantine, inherited lots of things from the Helen of Homer and from the Helena of Simon Magus: the latter and the mother were both found in inns, eg.). Someone has posed the question whether Helena not too, for us who live in the Gotene-Skovde-district, has become a replacement for Goddess Froja; haven't pilgrimages and indulgencies superseded earlier religious measures in our country? The actions of a practitioner of religion are not really a reminder of what was done nor of what happened a long time ago, but they are rather a renewal: whatever happens happens here and now. There are christians who compare committing the Holy Supper with refilling a car with petrol.

 

52:FANTASIES COMMIXING ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY AND HELENA'S CULT: Every spring Helena got to be woken from her long hibernation. We who love her want her to come back here again from afar. I ride in the night across wet mountains (Billingen is a very wet mountain) in order to fetch her. She says: "Listen, it is my most highly valued one who rides here over mountains and hills. Lookit, now he's standing there behind our wall and tries to see me through the windows, gazing through the grating..."; I say: "Up, beautiful Helena, my beloved. Come. Winter is gone. The rain has ceased and is now distant. One sees the meadows flaming with flowers. 'Tis the tide of everything singing...". In order to accomplish the deliverance of Helena her dominator must succumb. I, who wake Helena up, is rewarded through being crowned by the holy source, and thereby I'm united with her in a genuine and supernatural wedding.

 

52.2:This was thought in the 1950:ies unawares of that the fantasy coincides with deep truths on the conditions of mankind: The Messenger from God descends through the zones of the archons for to deliver me, you, her or him, enlightening us and rendering it possible for us to return to God's real realm. At the same time the man behind the fantasy reproduces (yet fully unconsciously) the gnostic tale on Simon Magus and Helena of Tyre and how they constitute the first, perfect, spiritual couple...

 

52.3:Further: The basis of faith is not a heritage, but contrariwise it is life together with God and with his angels and saints (and with co-believers, if any exist). The life of faith got to prove its power through re-executing the actions of christian or gnostic or eg. manichaean predecessors over and over.

 

53:A FOREIGN ORATORY: An ecclesiastical document of 1425 mentions another oratory in the neighbourhood  -  Mrs Brita's  -  76 years after her earth-life visit of the district and 34 years after her canonization. Its basement is today literally under Valle Street 37. Its special day of indulgency was the Wednesday before Ascension-day. After a pulling contest concerning the government of Skovde, which must have gone on from before 1425 to after 1495, our saint won over the foreign one, whose territory is on the eastern side of lake Vattern: "Brita has duly retired to Wadstena  -  hail Helena, westgothian Queen!" (Well  -  one of the modern cemeteries of Skovde and its chapel has compensatorily been named after Mrs Brita; another cemetery is named after Elin).

 

54: S:CONVIVII S:ELENE IN SKODVE: From the Middle Ages to and partly including the 19th century a Saint Helena's Guild (fraternity/sorority) alias Convivium (party society) existed  -  a half-secret union of, originally, entrepreneurs. Later it became a club setting up outdoor feasts on Elinemark (-ground)  -  the present parking by the radio house and the arena  -  on Helena's feast-days. Monday after Pentecost is also mentioned in the context. Oaken baulks from the ancient Guild House have been found in a field east of the oratory- and source-site, where the outdoor activities originally were carried out... and nearby there are eight ancient stone-rings erected between 600 and 800 AD. A modern Sankta Helena Gille has popped up for arranging the yearly Elin's Market in August among the cottages of Helén's Garden  -  the Helén's Garden itself is, apart from the context here, the only house which survived the city fire of 1759; it is partly from the 17th century. It wasn't a guild's house that lay in the south-east corner of Skovde cemetery  -  on the map from 1687 the site is empty. In 1759 there was a store-house of stone there, which evidently had been demolished before 1862.

 

54.2:A copy of the Guild Badge was preserved by the priest of Hedemora, Nikolaus Rabenius, and its inscription is the headline of this section. Its genuineness is proven by its ancient spelling of Skovde. On the badge Helena looks like a man of Dalarna, sitting on a log with crossed legs swung to the left. She holds her left arm akimbo, while her right hand grips a "one yard tall" staff, which looks like a thin candle with a flame at the top (Helena's fire?). Underneath there is a bigger flat stone resting upon a lesser one. Her clothes and hair-do are of a 19th century stile. This Rabenius was born 27/10.1648 at Raby/Tortuna; was ordained 9/2.1673, and worked 1676-91 at David's Munktorp; got married 3/9.1676 with Christina Buskagrius; became the royal priest 29/8.1690 in Stockholm; died 7/9.1717.

 

55:THE FIFTH MIRACLE: If 1/8 were a Sunday, this occurred on Thursday 5/8.1140: The holy body of Helena was washed over the big, whole stone on the Resting Site (showing that there already existed a cemetery there, id est the present Church Park/ Skovde) for the funeral. This stone (called 'magnam petram' and 'lapis' by Brynolf) used to be the heathen outdoor altar centrally placed in a circular, holy site belonging to goddess Froja  -  our Nordic collateral of Elene of Peloponnesos  -  marked by a low stone wall (confer the similar contraption of Thorsten in Vattlosa parish). 'Skovde' as a name might mean a Holy Camp and may refer to the ground where S:ta Helena Church now is. After the body of Helena had been rinsed, the stone divided itself in such a way that the part over which her holy blood had dripped raised itself up, rendering it impossible for anyone to step over it  -  while the other part remained lying. Another interpretation: This ex-heathen Frojan altar (yclept a "hargh") didn't endure the holiness of Helena, and its division marked the breaking down of heathendom and simultaneously the victory of christianity hereabouts. Whenas Helena was carried inside the holy stone circle (yclept a "vi"), where the church of the growing city of Skovde was under construction, the altar was cracked because Helena is holy, and hence the power of superstition was broken. The body of Helena was lifeless, but she herself was transformed into the powerful saint of Westgothia. The greatest bishop of all, Brynolf, swore that God Zebaoth through this miracle announced that Helena's faith had been that huge during her lifetime that the miracle realized the words of Matthew 17:20. We said that the stone remained as described for a maximum of 111 years, and that a number of miracles and auspices occurred there as long as the place was kept in due reverence.

 

55.2:Some might raise the objection that it wasn't anything to holler about that christianity won  -  'tis a religion which rests on very diffuse foundations but which has survived by means of violence and wars, and by razing the texts and images of other religions. The liturgical texts of Helena were composed within the church organization and evidently without any comprehension of or insight into truly spiritual things and without knowledge of whosoever Helena really is. But in this compilation it were absurd to change the amassed pieces so as to make it agree with reality, and thus it is unavoidable that it looks like catholic propaganda.

 

55.3:There was a custom of carrying a defunct relative to a holy bosket which was reserved for non-earthly activities, and it seems like the transport of Helena from Gotene to Froja's ex-bosket in the raising city of Skovde was a remnant of this custom. According to another custom one must dip a defunct into a holy source before the funeral, and in Helena's case one source had broken forth where she was killed and another one where her holy body was set down.

 

56:A FEW WORDS ON THE RINSING-STONE: A danish version has misunderstood a latin word rendering the text distorted: When Helena's holy body was conveyed into Skovde cemetery and was carried above a stone, the stone cleft itself in two halves. And one of the halves, above which the blood from her wounds did coagulate ("stillaverat sanguis" of stilla=drop) was raised by an invisible hand, while the other half, which didn't stop the blood to flow, remained lying on the ground. The first half seems to have been honoured by this elevation while the other half was condemned, like the serpent of Eden, to crawling in the dust. Or else the first half of the stone represented the gnostic Hestos conception.

 

56.2:Re "petra": This is one of the words which Brynolf uses concerning the raised stone here. The different versions of this word go back to the oldest gods and to the interpreters of mysteries. The word was used during the greek and roman eras about the most important gods. 'Peter' was applied to the god, its priest, its temple and to the holy stone or pole of the temple. Helena possessed petras at Skovde, Mone-Hallstad and Tisvilde. Brynolf says that the oratories are the oracular positions of saints, and these always have a connexion to a petra-stone, and this indicates that Skovde and Tisvilde were the central sanctuaries of Sweden and Denmark, comparable to Peter's Dome at Rome. Helena's Oratory outside of Skovde was furnished with niches; in the oratory at Akropolis at Athens the niches which housed images of gods were called petrae (935 BC, 2260 years before the first written mention of Helena's dittoes).

 

56.3:The rinsing-stone was not cloven before this miracle, but in one piece. After the miracle it still wasn't transformed into a cloven stone  -  why, bishop Brynolf describes clearly in his text how the stone behaved. Cloven stones (which lie on the ground but are divided in the middle by an interstice between the halves) in Sweden were used by women for superstitious purposes concerning fertility. Although the rinsing-stone never was such a stone, it was used, during the eleven decades when it was standing like it's described, by pregnant women in such a way that they walked around it thrice for insuring themselves of having healthy and many children. During the second half of 19th century it was said in Denmark that the stone on Helene Grave was a "whole stone which has been knocked into two halves".

 

56.4:The rinsing-stone was gone already when Brynolf was a child (in the 1240:ies or the 1250:ies) in spite of what is said in N:r One below  -  GL claims that if the reliques of Helena had still been there when Brynolf in "1289" visited her church at Skovde, he, in that case, ought to have mentioned it (but he didn't do that), and if GL is right this supports the theory of that Helena's cult and its holy objects already had been destroyed by the erikan enemies at this time. The behaviour of the rinsing-stone has been compared to Matthew 27:51: "The earth shivered, the rocks were broken asunder...". There are at least three additions to relate on its further destiny: 1)The standing part of the stone fell by itself when abraham angermannus and his superheroes approached it in 1596  -  no wonder it fell!. 2)The same he-man  moved the rinsing-stone to the market square, 100 yards to the west in central Skovde, and set it in a sort of ring of stones, and in 1661 it was blooded again  -  this time by an execution. 3)The rinsing-stone (or a couple of flat stones which a journalist happened to invent in the 1960:ies) was/were maybe moved to the Ahlanderian site (ex-Strokirkian site), where it/they was/were overbuilt in 1850 by a shack or a stable (demolished nowadays). In February 2003 new attempts were carried out to find this "flat stone with inscription". This measure took its rise during the 1970:ies when a floor in the Strokirk House was dismantled, whereon one found a smooth flat stone.

 

57:WHY THE CULT OF HELENA DID COOL OFF SO QUICKLY; POLITICS: Pope Alexander III forbid worship of the drunkard and terrorist leader erik of Upland, and this heretical worship caused the pope to thereafter take full control of canonizations. The first papal canonization had been effected though as early as in 993 when Ulric was subjected to this ritual. The mentioned erik had a son of his own ilk, karl erikson, who murdered honourable king Karl Sverkersson at Nas Castle on Visingso 12/4.1167. Karl Sverkerson was a promoter and disseminator of Helena's cult. After the murder archbishop Stephanus of Alvastra started having difficulties in executing his ecclesiastical function at Upsala. He did not ordain bengt "the good one" (read: "the evil one") to be the bishop of Scara, but this gink was choosen by erik without consulting the people of Westgothia. This false bishop worked counteractively against the Sverker Party and Helena's cult, which he succeeded in wiping out from Westgothia. Of course it is totally out of the question that bengt would have dedicated Medelplana church to "Elin"  -  this is but a foul idea sprung from a local preacher at the end of the 20th century. The evil but by the winners praised bishop sponsored the anticatholic party of erik, and they retro-constructed an invented liaison between erik and the parish of Eriksberg. God be praised that Helena's cult survived in Eastgothia, the county of the Sverker clan, and in Scania and in Denmark. The cistercian monastery of Varnhem cajoled the winners, and their minster was crammed with snide royal graves.

 

57.2:Eskil the legislator, married to a grandchild of erik, did of course not promote Helena's cult either. The 'Folkungar' including Birger Jarl (1216-66) were detrimental too. Alvastra was an indispensable milieu though for Helena's cult  -  that monastery functioned as an exile and a hothouse for it; gratifyingly the birgittine order venerated and disseminated it in course of time. The bishop of Scara 1358-86, Nicolaus of Kolland, and king Magnus Erikson stood on the same right side. Magnus was strongly interested in Helena, and during his government Skovde expanded into a new centre of Helena. In 1396 he and his beautiful belgian queen Blanche gave money for garments for Sanctae Aelinu Kyrkiu in Skovde. God bless the sponsors of Helena!

 

58:THE FUNERAL: We arranged a magnifical funeral, and Helena's body was buried in her first grave, the one which she herself had designed in the mentioned portico  -  until further notice. (As a result of a misconception it is claimed that her coffin was set on a "broken, flat stone" in the grave interstice, and recently there was a rumour of that these stone pieces lay under a shed in a yard in central Skovde. The shed was torn down and nought was found). Her church at Skovde was by far not finished at this time (1140)  -  not even its walls of stone cubes  -  and all around the building of the city was under weigh.

 

58.2:The first church building was small and simple: rectangular but having an apse at the eastern end; it lacked a bell-tower. This church stood, according to wise men, in the ruin of a fortress, a tower of which was retained  -  and all these things existed within the circular, heathen cult site. After 1164/65, when Helena had been canonized, the church was dedicated to her, and it was rebuilt completely: now much bigger, owning exactly the same architecture as did her contemporary sister-churches of Vreta and Linkoping (there is not a single vestige left of any one of these three today above ground level). The real heydays of Skovde did not arrive until 300 years later. All descriptions of Helena's church at Skovde concern the building which was built in around 1400 and yet later buildings: "The very old church, which is dedicated to Helena, distinguishes itself as much thanks to its precious architecture as thanks to its size. One regards Helena as its foundress, and it is built all by stone cubes except for the lower part of the tower  -  the tower was built at the end of the 15th century or at the early 16th. In 1530 the authorities confiscated its largest bell...". As things are now the walls constitute of bricks too and of layers of flat limestone. The oldest fragments of the present building are found, maybe, inside the sides of the nave, to the west and where the transepts meet the nave.

 

59:THE TITLE OF HELENA: Firstly she was entitled the Saint of Westgothia, and then the Patroness of Sweden, but never the saint of Scara diocese. (This diocese had been created in ~1050 and included maybe Linkoping diocese until ~1120 and Vaxjo diocese until the 1160:ies, and Karlstad diocese until 1557 and Goteborg diocese until 1620).  

 

60:WHAT IS HELENA DOING TODAY?: She is on the throne in Heaven; she has her dwelling infront of the eyne of King of Honour. Brynolf lets us know that she prays for us who honour her and her anniversary, that God forgives us all of our sins. She can steer us on the road of righteousness so we shall not go astray. She can lead us up to the World of Light from the Valley of Sorrow, so that we shall be able to live with her for ever in refreshingness. Thereto she is a mild-minded lawyer for Sweden, a mediator.

 

61:A SURVIVOR: As recently as in the 1730:ies there was a catholic incensory still in S:ta Helena's church at Skovde.

 

THE MIRACLES OF HELENA

 

62:Somebody has wrongfully mumbled that Helena never was able to provoke miracles during her lifetime but that suchlike things didn't occur until after her death. Alas those of her miracles which hadn't been written down, had already during Brynolf's lifetime been forgotten. Still he claims that there were more known miracles than he had included in his Helena Office. Her healing speciality according to almost all scanian and danish (westgothian too) pieces of information is to give the blind their sight back  -  literally and spiritually. The things told of her water-sources witness about this, even if the list below doesn't reflect this so much; even at Skovde a number of blind have been healed thanks to Helena, people claim. Then again, both Elene of Mykene and our Helena were able to render their enemies blind, proved by the Stesichorus case and the scornful priest of Sjalland case.

 

62.2:The phenomenon of incubation means that one obtains power and health through touching holy things, such as the churches of Helena; one can, for instance at Tisvildeleje even in modern times, sleep the whole night on top of her oratory ruin (called Helene Grave) or next to her water-sources (especially during Midsummer Night?). The holiness is contagious as it were.

 

62.3: I:The appearance of the Angel before Helena's mother revealing that Helena was going to become a martyr (1102). Not mentioned by Brynolf.

 

II:The transmogrification of Helena's three breads into stones (1136). Not mentioned by Brynolf, but has been added rather recently. It can be concluded from versions of the story that she was not yet a widow when the building of a church at Skovde had commenced and the breads became stones.

 

III:The vision in which Helena saw herself fly in Gotene church to Skovde, which she dreamt on the rural mansion of Gotene in 1137 and which resulted in her grave-design and which also predicted her martyrdom. Brynolf means that she was not unbalanced when she was given this vision, and that it hadn't redounded at nighttime.

 

IV:The dream-picture which God sent into Helena's mind that it were good for her to visit holy places abroad, resulting in her journey of 1138-40.

 

V:Just when Helena was ready to leave for the inauguration of Gotene church, a tiny bird flew in through the open widows and landed on her lap. With surprise she considered that the bird tried to stop her from leaving (1/8.1140; a Sunday?). Not mentioned by Brynolf.

 

VI:The source which broke forth on the spot where Helena was martyred (forenoon 1/8.1140). Not mentioned by Brynolf. At the beginning of the 18th century it was claimed that this source had been documented by an indulgency letter of 1462, but this letter doesn't seem to have existed.

 

VII-VIII:The light phenomenon which attracted attention to Helena's finger and ring; Helena's blood healed a blind man so that he once again became seeing (evening 1/8.1140).

 

IX:The source which broke forth close to be ford of Vambo Rivulet when Helena's lych-litter was set down (in the morning of Thursday? 5/8.1140). "When they set down her litter the first time" is perhaps the most used expression here, but either the monks who carried it would have been supermen able to carry without cease for several days, or else it would have strengthened the idea that Helena was murdered closer to the ford  -  but no, and the right circumstances are told by Brynolf, see the text above. 

 

X:One half of the rinsing-boulder which raised itself (or by Helena's mustard-seed-faith) in order to protect her blood (afternoon 5/8.1140). 456 years later it fell by itself, or, which is the truth, a few decades after it had stood up it was destroyed by the enemies of Helena's cult.

 

N:rs XI-XIV occurred from Saturday? 7/8.1140 and during a short space of time. Miracles namely occurred after Helena's funeral as a result of the prayers, pleas and tears of visitors by her grave in the portico. Conference is born with the arcade of Bethesdas: here (Skovde) we too had and have a pond  -  south of the choir (id est of the ex-apse). The grave was intact during Brynolf's lifetime, but it was demolished when the tower of the church was built in the 15th century.

 

XI:When a certain person, who had been mute since his birth, had prayed (Joh.4:24) and cried by the grave of the Martyr perseveringly, he was on a sudden given the service of speech by God, and the prior silence freed new words.

 

XII:Furthermore there was a certain deaf, who had had to endure much inconvenience because of his deafness, that, unless someone didn't shout up his ears, he couldn't get any sound. He thus implored the Martyr, who turned her ears to the clamour of his calls, and she restored the hearing of his deaf ears.

 

XIII:Furthermore a certain leper was led to the grave of the Martyr, where he persevered a long time in tears, and, thanks to the merits of Helena, he was spotlessly mundified from the leprosy.

 

XIV:A certain person who halted, had begged the Martyr for help  -  he enjoyed becoming able to return home gladly with stretched senews, straightened shins and strengthened feet. 

 

XV:It also occurred that a certain weaponless and innocent stoner (lathomus) at beatific Helena's church (at Skovde), was forced to dodge to enemies with drawn swords. Except for damaging his clothes they were unable to wound him since he asked Helena for help. Some traces of the stabs, looking like scarlet threads, were seen on his skin, as if tip and tail of their swords had been blunt. When the same enemies realized that they couldn't do any harm, they turned away into different directions from the stoner. With their swords they thereafter killed a man who was approaching them. Consequently they turned around towards the mentioned stoner, but thereby they were struck by blindness in such a way that even if they had been in the same house they couldn't have seen him. [First the stoner became immune from being hurt and then invisible to the enemies. Brynolf does probably not mean that these had become selectively blinded, because he confers to 2Kon.6:18 (cf 1Mos.19:11). John 20:14-16 exemplifies selective blindness when Mary at first doesn't recognize Jesus].

 

62.4: XVI:Bishop Brynolf Algotsson was under weigh crossing lake Vattern 14/8.1288 (1289?) returning from his exile at Alvastra to Westgothia, when the waves became tall and wild and the wind hindered him from sailing westwardly. He was frightened by the alternatives of either drowning or of being blown back to the eastgothian shores where the king's men were ready to arrest him. Six years earlier Brynolf had started renewing and re-actualizing the holy cult of Helena, but his work had derailed (because others had deprived him of his good idea; they had verbally made him discouraged as to the project)  -  now there existed for him but one choice: To beseech Helena! He did just that and asked for forgiveness for the cessation of the holy work, and he promised to start working on it again: to write her a Mass  -  if only she would save him from the roaring sea. ("He surrendered then before saint Helena's efforts to make him promote her cult again"). She forgave him, and all of a sudden the weather became optimal, and he arrived happily at Westgothia, and he partook in the evening in 'Vigilia in pane et aqua et soluj non potest' before 'Assumpcio sancte Marie  -  solemne' in S:ta Helena's church at Skovde. His promise resulted e.g. in his Office of Helena. One has guessed that Brynolf at Alvastra monastery had found documents concerning Helena's canonization and other texts or music belonging to her cult. The cult itself was by this time almost wiped out in Scara diacese.

 

62.5: XVII:Carl R. af Ugglas tells in Svenska Dagbladet 9/7.1927 about his personal Helena miracle: One would very much like to pray to the holy one, that she now, when it was intended to glorify her after so many centuries of neglect, gracefully wanted to appear and show herself in her proper feature. But it was, like I've said, no great hope of that she was going to be that graceful. Then  -  then it happened, just a few days after the confession of the resigned discourage of the subscriber, as how the miracle came true and he stood face to face with the since a long time looked for one! Not in any small country church forgotten by God, not in the romantic dusk in any remote chapel, but simply here in Stockholm, in a room along a banal street of Ostermalm. More exactly in the workshop of a conserver of old art, whereto a small gothic retable recently had been delivered, having the taking down (of Jesus) from the cross in relievo centrally and having two holy women painted on the shutters... But the other one, wearing a green skirt, lac-red mantle and a white veil tied around her cheeks  -  who was she? In her right hand she held a sword, in her left a book with red covers. But upon the book  -  what kind of thing was resting there curiously? A finger! A cut off finger! Holy Elin's miracle-effectuating finger  -  she was thus rediscovered! She stood there with the memories of her evil sudden death, the sword and the finger. Just as she ought to act! In the very moment when she was implored, she had divulged herself!.. Now one therefore knows what she looks like, this good saint, who has belonged to the most revered ones of Norden. (Af Ugglas had been nominated to designing a Saint Helena's Monument, and he had engaged the artist Harriet Sundstrom for accomplishing the task).

 

HELENA'S MIRACLES IN SCANIA AND DENMARK

 

62.6: XVIII:Helena was conveyed to the coast off the Tibirke area floating on a stone, which has impressions of her body and which still is visible at ebb-tide. Its weight is ~7 tons, it's said.

 

XIX:Helena, the pious daughter of a swedish king, came alternatively to Tibirke alive after having survived a jump from Kullaberg into the sea escaping a swedish but dejected wooer who had chased after her. Or else she was a widow; she lived since a long time in the meadow by her source (at Tisvildeleje, that is) and was visited because of her wisdom's sake; she gave alms and carried out charity.

 

XX:A cleavage of the steep brink of the shore was opened supernaturally, so that they could bring her body ashore and carry it up  -  they carried her on a flat stone or a litter.

 

XXI:A source, Helene Kilde, broke forth when the carriers set down her body the first time for to rest. The healing water of the source is still active and attracts pilgrims. It is a (nay, two) rectangular pits with stoneclad sides on the southern side of the mentioned cleavage.

 

XXII:One had the intention of burying her body in consecrate earth by Tibirke church (kirke), but when pious peasants carried her body thither, it suddenly became that heavy that it sunk into the ground on the spot where Helene Grave now is situated. The site is really the ruin of Helena's 15th century oratory according to the investigation in 1923 (a grassy lozenge in the village of Tisvildeleje).

 

XXIII:When Helena's source broke forth at Assens (38 km from Odense) on the west side of Fyn on Lilla Balt, it pushed a boulder away from it.

 

XXIV:During the protestant era: A blind and poor man had his sight restored thanks to asking Helena for it, and at the same time he offered a coin to her, but the preacher Jens of Helsinge, who had scorned the ritual and Helene, turned blind instead.

 

XXV:4/8.1636 a girl of Graested, who had been bitten by a viper, drank water off Helene Kilde and was cured.

 

63:THE ALLEGED CONNEXION BETWEEN HELENA AND MIDSUMMER: It must be regarded as superstition to believe that Helena's water-sources were the most powerful during Midsummer Night 23-24/6, eh? In a way 'tis obvious that the days around summer solstice are supernaturally loaded to religious and non-religious human beings and to plants and animals, but Helena isn't subjected to the sun but is active around the year. John the Baptist cannot be thanked for this charge of Midsummer Tide  -  rather, if he must be involved, the John the Baptist figure of the mandaeans whom they regard as the founder of their water-rite-religion  -  no, the thing is that 21/6 is the acme of the year, comprising its longest day and shortest night, soon followed by days growing shorter and nights growing longer again.

 

64:THE TYRE-TYR LINK: Messenius claimed, I hope he wasn't serious, that the old Asa-gods of Norden had immigrated from Middle East. One might wonder if there is a link between the gnostic Simon and his Helena, who he found standing on a roof in Tyre (now Sour) in Lebanon, and Tibirke of Sjalland, whose name is derived from the Asa-god Tyr. One believes that Helene Kilde of Tibirke originally was dedicated to Tyr, and in Tyre a few centuries before Simon's days a Helena's temple was known in the city.

 

65:TISVILDELEJE: (Ole Worm, 1647, re Helle Lenes offering-well, Tisvilde) "Within the papacy it has thus occurred that there had arrived from Sweden a holy woman named Sanct Leene, who had been beaten to death, floating on a stone, si credere fas est, to the country, and when it was impossible to get this corpse up, since the cliff was so high and steep that no-one could creep or walk up there, the miracle befell there that the cliff was cleft and such a cleavage was created, which still is seen, that through the same she was brought up in order to be conveyed to the nearest church, which is Tybele (Tibirke) church, to be buried. When they now arrived to the place where these water-sources are, and had some rest there, these sources broke forth, which have helped many to get rid of several diseases.../ while they there were coming further with the corpse about a gun-shot towards the forest, they noway were able to advance, and no horses were capable to get her corpse off the spot, wherefore they were forced to inhume her corpse there and to build a board over her funeral (sic), whereto there was a major refuge of sick people and a yearly market was held there and it became the goal for great pilgrimage, and as a token there are two boulders on the spot, which are said to be placed onto her grave, and today there are still those who take earth from under these stones and hang it (in small bags?) around the neck counter several diseases. As further confirmation, that one will believe thus to be, a big, rough, brown stone on the shore at a stone's cast from land is still demonstrated, whereupon it is said that there are lines where her hair lay, and impressions of her thighs, hands and feet".

 

65.2:(Mr Rasch 13/7.1743) "Holy Helene was allegedly a danish princess, who together with her brother Arrild were severely maltreated by their stepmother, wherefore they with their father's hard-won approval parted on a ship heading for the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, but during the voyage the ship sank in a great storm in Kattegat. Arrild floated ashore at Halland (Kullen in Scania?), where still allegedly a chapel is called Arild's chapel, but Helene floated ashore on a boulder at this place where now Helene Kilde is, on which one allegedly is able to recognize marks of her thighs and buttocks. At her arrival the two sources allegedly broke forth, and the brink where they are was divided in two. When the local population wanted to convey her corpse to get buried, they allegedly weren't able to come longer than to the spot which now is called Helenae Grave."

 

65.3:(Verbal tradition written down in the district of Tisvilde by Just Mathias Thiele; published in 1843) "Helene was a scanian princess and very famous for her beauty. A king fell in love with her, and, whenas he couldn't win her love, he intended to take her with violence. But she fled in despair and fared through the entire country, and the king chased after her all the way to the tall shore, and when he wanted to seize her, she cast herself into the sea. She didn't die, though. A big stone raised itself from the bottom of the sea and received her, and on this stone she sailed to Sjalland. Where she first set her foot on the ground, when she stepped ashore, the source broke forth which has her name, and she lived for a long time in the meadow and was honoured and visited like a holy Woman".

 

65.4:(Thiele noted the following text at Odsherred) "Three holy sisters were together about to sail across the sea, but they succumbed during the voyage, and the waves separated their corpses into three different directions. The first one was named Helene. Her corpse came to Tisvilde Village, where a source broke forth from her grave. The second one was named Karen. Her corpse came to the country of Oddsherred where one now demonstrates St. Karen's Kilde. The third sister came too to the country and there a source in the same way broke forth from her grave. On a tor, situated at the northmost point of Oddsherred, there is a source, which was called Thore's Kilde. Perhaps the tale, which hasn't preserved the name of the third sister, named this source after her in days of yore".

 

65.5:According to a completely different tradition monks allegedly transferred Helena's reliques from Skovde to Sjalland, probably in order to save them from the havoc of the erikian anticatholic party, or from the devastation of the reformation. It is unlikely, though, that her reliques hadn't been at Skovde during the 15th century.

 

   According to yet different sources, Helena Guthormsdaughter was buried in non-consecrate soil (Helene Grave) because she in 1205, 44 years old, born an illegitimate (Knud, thanks to Valdemar Sejr, ~34 years old). Before that, she had tried to drown herself, but her holiness made a stone (Helene Steen) raise itself from the bottom of the sea, rescuing her.

 

65.6:Tisvilde including its monuments of Helenekilde, Helene Grave and Helene Kildeblok became a popular goal for pilgrims, one of three greatest in Norden after Nidaros and Skovde; the three monuments are still used religiously, superstitiously, for tourists and for the excitement. According to a new printed tract, issued by Sankt Helene Centret, one must fetch water off the Kilde in Midsummer Eve and then drink it when one stays all Midsummer Night onto the Grave: this has a miraculous effect. A tall wooden cross and votive gifts used to be by the Grave. Around the Kilde there used to be a lot of small crosses. Apart from Midsummer Night the Kilde is very active too at Candlemass 2/2, on the feastdays of Helena 30-31/7 and on those of Michael 29-30/9, and on some of Virgin Mary's ones too. The Grave is found on a grassy site as a rectangular elevation; there are a few standing stones there. On one of them a woman used to sit, who cashed in on giving each sick pilgrim, who was heading for Helene Kilde for to get healed, a spoonful of earth from under the stone.

 

65.7:Tisvildeleje didn't exist during the Middle Ages; Helene Kilde was situated 800 yards north of the fisher's haven  of Saltbodleje (before 1560) along the shore. The hypothetical oratory there of Helene, which ruin is the same object as Helene Grave, was allegedly built a few yars after the 1230:ies (maybe in 1250) by Ingeborg of Kalundborg and Knud of Reval for the sake of the memorial of Saint Helena and/or of the mother of the half-siblings Helena Guthormsdaughter, who had been named after the saint (according to what one believed long ago). During her matrimony she had lived at Saeby/Soeby Castle  -  close to the modern farm there, the ruin of the medieval castle is hid in a knoll. Thanks to her and to her children's promotion of the cult of Helena, the same survived in the regions where Helena Guthormsdaughter was active  -  Sjalland, Scania and Linkoping  -  while it had been forgotten in Westgothia. In 1650 Erik Hansen wrote an itinerary of Tisvildeleje (Fontinalia Sacra, Copenhagen), and in 1924 a railway was drawn to the village: The monuments of Helena have here been kept holy since the 1190:ies, when they maybe firstly were mentioned(?), through the reformation and into the third millennium.

 

65.8:Tibirke church existed in the days of saint Helena, but the neighbourhood got dramatically changed from the time when she perhaps passed it in person until the time when her monuments there were documented, because in the middle of the 12th century the carthusian order founded one of its monasteries there, Asserbo, and the Call of the Desert was practised that thoroughly that sand drifted in and buried the whole area. They had to dig the church out of the dunes. Forest plantations later hindered Sjalland from becoming a new Sahara.

 

66:CHURCHES AND CHAPELS HAVING ONE OR ANOTHER CONNEXION TO HELENA: On Peloponnesos there used to be many sanctuaries dedicated to Elene, and one was dedicated to her sandals! According to Math.23:16-19 it is the temple which hallows the gold and the altar hallows the offer, not vice versa. Holy Helena hallows the buildings, sources, reliques and graves of her cult since she is glorified by God. Protestants of Sweden have said that churches are not holy  -  they are merely houses wherein God is implored. The church of Sweden is namely planning to tear down a number of churches for economical reasons. If now the church is not holy it means that it has never been hallowed and therefore no-one has ever been entitled to celebrate the Mass in it. Jesus, though, says that the temple is holy! and thus the swedish church jeopardizes itself gravely when it denies the holiness of churches and altars. The local population, contrariwise, owns a deep and warm feeling for its parish church, since it maintains a bond to God  -  a bond which the official church wishes to cut.

 

67: I - VATTLOSA CHURCH: The church owns one single relique, and it is a chip of one of S:ta Helena's fingers. The church site (firstly mentioned in 1366) antedates 1100, but the building was at least partly wooden in Helena's days. One has found pieces of wood from a predecessor of the stony church, which was built in the 1180:ies and which largely is intact; originally there were an apse and stone relievos. In 1908 the paintings were described: The oldest fragments comprised rough black ornaments on the walls. In the vaults some saint legend was depicted. E.g. on the middle vault, to the right (south), there was an oven with fiery flames; bread was baked in it. In the field facing it, on the same side, there was a ready made table, and guests were sitting all around. Behind the table there was a women standing, dividing a bread. Everything was painted in different colours. On the vault of the north side near the balcony there was a lion. On the wall behind the pulpit there was the face and halo of Christ. The vaults of the choir were decorated with very beautiful paintings of e.g. trees, deer... Everything was whitened, and the walled up choir fenestration was completely covered. The altar, which in its stone top houses "a finger-bone etc", was panelled. Under the floor infront of the pulpit they found a woman's grave.

 

68: II - GOTENE: The church was inaugurated 1/8.1140  -  that wooden details have been dated to some decades before this date merely indicates when their tree was felled. If one believes that it was as a stone church (at least the choir) that it was inaugurated in 1140, one can believe that a wooden church antedated this and thus existed during Helena's lifetime. That her farm had a church can be deduced from the brynolfian text  -  in 1137 she stood in ecclesia illius loci. According to an indulgency letter Gotene church must have been dedicated to Helena before 1480. Gothene as a farm's name was mentioned the first times in 1288 and 1304. [According to J. Dunney Helena and a female relative attended a service in this church before it had been inaugurated 22/7.1147. It had a stone portal and was built by cistercian monks, and there was a hospice close by. Otherwise the church is regarded as being built by englishmen].

 

69: III - In 1130 Helena built VAMB CHURCH, dedicating it to Virgin Mary. Vamb was firstly mentioned in 1282. [According to Dunney this church was built after the 1140:ies on an outdoor sanctuary dedicated to Mary, where a wooden sculpture of her had been mounted on a plinth or a dolmen. Mary had in Vamb taken over the rôle of an older local goddess, it is furthermore conjectured tendentiously and apedly].

 

70: 'ORACULA SANCTORUM' were built during the first third of the 12th century in the region of Gotene-Skovde according to Brynolf, a fact which made Helena's son-in-law feel ill.

 

71: IV - In 1136 the building of SKOVDE CHURH was under weigh, partly financed by Helena. 6/8.1140 she was buried there in porticus illa que est inter turrim et ecclesiam Skodhwe before the church was completed. (6/8 used to be Octaua sancte Helene/simplex in Scara diocese). This architectonic design of hers was intact until after 1317. Before Helena's martyrdom there had been a circulating rumour (in 1147 according to Dunney) that her reliques were going to wind up at Skovde church. The oldest proof of that the church had been dedicated to her is from 1346.

 

72: V  -  the building of the ORATORY along Vambo Rivulet was commenced a short time after the source-miracle there in August 1140, during the same era when 6 apsidal churches in the neighbourhood were constructed. Already in 1288 the source was dedicated to Helena, and in 1373 (the second time the oratory was mentioned) this building had recently been renovated. In 1425 it was notified that the Monday before Ascension Day was its yearly feast-day.

 

73: VI - [an oratory, dedicated to S. Elena, had been founded in the 12th or 13th century on LUNDY island, and 1325-55 it functioned as a parish church. Lundy got the Atlantic Sea to the west and Bristol Channel to the east].

 

74: VII & VIII: ELIN (pronounced Ilum) in Vilske and ELING (pronounced Ilis) in Barne  -  it is the likeness of the names which has resulted in that people have taken it for granted since the early 17th century that both Elin and Eling have been named after saint Helena. It cannot be proven that this were the case, but it is not unlikely etymologically and re Helena's cultus. ELIN (firstly mentioned as Elina Sokn/parish in 1403) was a parish of its own until 1546, when it was incorporated with Goteve (Gotiwe 1393) and before 1600 the church was torn down to stop the saint cult. The pastoral abode, Elin-Stommen, was retained until 1725 though. Other spellings of the name have been Aeline sokn 1405, Eline kyrkia 1520-25, Elene church 1540, Elinis s. 1545, Elyne s.1546, Elim 1548 and the unbelievable Jlium of 1627! ELING was firstly mentioned as Elinesokn 1/6.1371. Varieties of the name have been Elyne Sokn and Elina s. 1546, Elins S.1577, Elingz 1612. If there has existed a Helena's Cult at Goteve, it had replaced the local Disa cult there.

 

74.2:Both parish names, people claim beyond sense, are formed by al=hog's ridge or beech or alhs=sanctuary plus by vini=pasture ground  -  the meadow has belonged to or has been situated next to a temple or an offering site. Elin village is situated on and by two low long moraine ridges, and Eling church is situated on a long rock ridge, but almost all ancient farms and churches are! so this explanation of the names is ridiculous. [A fragment, 7 x 3 dm, of Elin's font still remains; some flat slabs of stone too; the memorial stone, 2.5 m tall, on top of the ruin was erected in 1943, and the knoll, 15 x 20 m, is surrounded by a heavy chain resting on plinths, 100 yards SSW of Marbofarm. Local tradition maintains that Elin's church was built to the memory of the sad event when Helena was killed in the neighbourhood, or just where she was killed. The territorial name of Elin might have influenced the local popular tradition on Helena's bonds to the district, inspiring people to dedicate their existent church to her and to make images of her and invent stories about her which fill the holes of the original tradition. In the case of Elin the year of Helena's martyrdom is the correct one: 1140].

 

74.3:[Eling, a parish which Brynolf had visited on his way to Stavanger, is allegedly (cf Ullenius) named after some noble lady, Elin, who saw to that the church was built; otherwise it is not unbelievable, people claim, that the church and thereafter the parish had been named after holy S:ta Elin of Skovde, who had been elevated to the level of saints. People of Eling (and of Elin) have preserved memories of Helena alias Elin and have kept them alive].

 

75: IX  -  HELENE KIRKE existed at Lund city; a county of this church too. This church hasn't been rediscovered in the ground yet; maybe this is the name of the minster of the Salvator monastery (O.Praem) or of the minster of the Holy Saint establishment.

 

76: X: The hypothetical oratory on Vram River on the opposite side of S:ta Helena's source of LYNGSJO. [The well-preserved parish church was built in the 1180:ies by premonstratensian monks, and its font has a series of relievos showing the martyrdom of Thomas Becket].

 

77: XI:The oratory called 'HELENE GRAV/E' in Tibirke parish/Sjalland, actually not built until the 15th century. It was retroactively and supposedly named after S:ta Helena of Westgothia. Maybe it lay "close to and east of the Grave", and it was built to house the reliques of Helena according to one informer; according to another a church "by Helene Kilde" was built by the carthusians of Asserbo monastery, which soon became one of the most frequently visited sites of Denmark. Dunney tells us that a sculpture of Virgin Mary used to stand in a holy bosket either next to the Grave or next to the Kilde. The augustinians owned the ground and the Kilde long before the carthusians had settled in the neighbourhood, though. The oratory was demolished during the lifetime of king Christian III (1503-59).

 

78: XII  -  MOLLTORP: One of the three reliques of the altar of this church, lain into it in the 15th century, belong according to the letters of its tab, to the finger of Helena. This fact has since 1938 caused people to claim that Molltorp church would be dedicated to Helena. This cannot be proven anywhere though, and the church isn't older than from the 1250:ies; firstly mentioned in 1388.

 

79: XIII - HALLSTAD: One of the bells of this church, some folks claimed in the 1950:ies, is dedicated to Helena, but behind this conjecture there must be a onomatopoeic reason. The oldest bell of the church is from the 15th century, but a real connexion between Helena and this parish fails to be proven. Though, there is a modern farm there called Heleneborg.

 

80: XIV  - MONE (Morene): Following the notorious scheme of conjectures one could propose that this church has been dedicated to Helena, since within the parish there is, since some hundred years, a source called Elie kalla, whose position is unknown today, alas. The only source of Mone known today is situated in the middle of the pasture ground beneath the church mountain. Elie is a form of Eliah and not of Helena, irregardless all circumstances. This "offering church" received in the 1470:ies a 40 days indulgency letter by Hans Marquardi; the present church building was inaugurated 9/12.1951.

 

81: XV: That MEDELPLANA church were dedicated to Helena and Apollonia was not "proven" until in 1971/1974. The guess is based on that Helena's source in the parish was mentioned 7/12.1955 (indirectly in 1898) and that Apollonia's source was mentioned at the beginning of the 19th century. This source, though, is situated at the bottom of a quarry, so the statement that it were medieval is redued to a shameless lie. Hallekis, the name of a castle, has supposedly caused the naming of this source for the onomatopoeic reason.

 

82: XVI & XVII: The Helenic connexion to the RANNESLOV and YSBY churches has a very unclear story of detection during the second half of the 20th century. The shortlived common Commune Escutcheon of the two parishes had an obscure allusion to Helena, it is claimed: An X with two crosses and two hearts.

 

83: XVIII: ELIN'S HOUSE OF VARKUMLA, an oratory notified in July in 1993 at East Tunhem. Its alleged position was on a hill west of Varkumla church.

 

84: XIX & XX: How SKUMMESLOV and STROVELSTORP churches came to gain Helenic connexion 28/6.1994 constitute a yet more dreamy story of detection, notified in one of the tower chambers of Husaby church by two Laholmers. (That's all right  -  we wish that all churches were dedicated to Helena!).

 

85: XXI: The chapel of Gertrude at UPPGRANNA was factually to a fourth dedicated to Helena 2/2 in a year after 1466, which is proven by documents: Helena's feastday 30(31)/7 was one of four such days to be celebrated there according to the bishop's letter.

 

86: XXII: During the second half of the 20th century the Mary's Chapel of Gotene parish was invented. They claim that it was built by Helena within Vasterby premises on Gotene Rivulet. (This farm wasn't mentioned until in 1397). They created this chapel as a counterpoise to the habit of some Skovde citizens to reject Gotene in connexion to Helena and to completely take her over, and two elements are included: A)The tale about Vamb church which tells that Helena had founded it for her devotions and to the honour of Mary. Since some Gotene citizens claim that Vasterby was her farm, her private Mary-chapel must have been built next to it. B)Helena's oratory on Vambo Rivulet, and the belief that its stones had been re-used in building the juxtaposing bridge with. The Gotene citizens say that their Mary-chapel was situated by Gotene Rivulet and, too, that its stones had been re-used in building the juxtaposing bridge with. In 1998 workers were busy moving the very rivulet just where this chapel and this bridge were supposed to have lain, because a store-house was going to be built there. When the digging had started the navvies found foundations from the Viking Age on the spot of the mentioned items.

 

87:From the declaration that "Vilhelm Bang has four scanian churches dedicated to S:ta Helena of Skovde, while he doesn't have any church dedicated to her west of Oresund" one can draw the conclusion that there never has existed any S:ta Helena's church or chapel in Denmark  -  not even the oratory of Tisvildeleje would in this case originally have been dedicated to her, thus; the reason for believing that it is, is caused by the fact that the ruin has been called Helene Grave since the early 17th century.

 

88:GUMLOSA church cannot be considered to be dedicated to Helena, because even if the church between 1192 and 1720 owned two different Helenic reliques, these stem from Helena of Auxerre (22/5) and from Helena of Bruxelles (18/6). The church was built by relatives of Helena Guthorsdaughter. Toni Schmid claims that the Helena in the Gumlosa case is one of the company of Ursula. Others claim that the Helena of all Scania-Denmark-region is another Helena than our westgothian saint.