THE KENSINGTON RUNE-STONE

Discovery of the stone

According to the story, the Kensington stone was found on the farm of Olof Ohman near Kensington Minnesota. In early November, 1898, farmer Ohman, a forty-four-year-old Swedish-American farmer, discovered a stone wrapped around the roots of an aspen or poplar tree. The stone was an irregular rectangular slab of graywacke shaped somewhat like a tombstone weighing 202 pounds, about 2 1/2 feet high, 3 to 6 inches thick, and 15 inches wide. Farmer Ohman and his son exhumed the stone and noticed strange inscriptions placed on the part which presumably had been intended to stand above ground (Blegen 6-7).

The stone's inscription

Upon removal the stone was cleaned and washed. A Norwegian neighbor, Nils Flaten, was asked to examine the stone, also unable to decipher the inscriptions. After a few days, Ohman claims that he took it to Kensington where it was placed in a bank. The find was announced and given to newspapers early in the year 1899. It was soon ascertained that the symbols on the stone were of runic origin, and quickly translated into Swedish, Norwegian, and English. When translated, the inscription reads:

Eight Swedes and Twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by 2 rocky islets one day's journey north of this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we came home we found ten men red with blood and dead. AVM save us from evil. We have ten men by the sea to look after our ships, fourteen days' journey from this island. Year 1362.

Obviously this inscription was startling and created a great deal of controversy. Professor O.J. Breda of the University of Minnesota was sent a copy and quickly dismissed the inscription as being a hoax. Several other professors at Scandinavian and American universities also claimed that the stone was a forgery. Consequently, little attention was paid to the stone and it was soon returned to farmer Ohman where he used it as a door step before it was rediscovered.

Who is Hjalmar Holand?

One of the first adherents to the stones authenticity was a writer of Norwegian decent named Hjalmar Rued Holand of Ephraim, Wisconsin. In 1907, Holand journeyed to the Ohlman farm and acquired the stone, having it sent to his home. It was Holand who began the drive to prove the stone's authenticity. With virtually no other support from the academic community, Holand started a campaign to prove that the Kensington stone demonstrated that Vikings made it to Minnesota in the 14th century. Holand claimed that there was an expedition led by a Paul Knutson to Christianize the Vikings of the West and that this story correlates with the dates given on the stone. According to Holand, the Vikings expedition led them through Hudson Bay, Lake Winnipeg, and up the Red River to a place near present day Kensington, Minnesota. It is his belief that the stone is a remnant of the Knutson expedition. This theory gained popularity among the Scandinavian communities of Minnesota and helped perpetuate the tale's validity even after it had been denounced by numerous academic figures. Today the stone remains a fascination among the Scandinavian descendants living in Minnesota and the stone is now on display at the Rune-Stone Museum of Alexandria, Minnesota ( Blegen 16).