Skiptvet
Encyclopedia
Skiptvet is a municipality
Municipalities of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...

 in Østfold
Østfold
is a county in southeastern Norway, bordering Akershus and southwestern Sweden , while Buskerud and Vestfold is on the other side of the bay. The seat of the county administration is Sarpsborg, and Fredrikstad is the largest city.Many manufacturing facilities are situated here. Moss and...

 county
Counties of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...

, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Meieribyen
Meieribyen
Meieribyen is the administrative center of Skiptvet, Norway....

. Skiptvet was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt
Formannskapsdistrikt
Formannskapsdistrikt was the name for a Norwegian local self-government districts put into force in 1838. This system of municipality was created in a bill approved by the Storting and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January 1837...

).

Name

The municipality (originally the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

) is named after the old Skiptvet farm (Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

: Skipþveit and/or Skygþveit), since the first church was built here. The meaning of the first element(s) is not known and the last element is þveit which means "clearing in the woods". Prior to 1889, the name was written "Skibtvet".

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 is from modern times. They were granted on 27 November 1981. The arms show a silver dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

 on a red background. The dragon is derived from a local legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

, in which a dragon went to sleep in the local churchyard every morning. In the evening the dragon went back to the forest, where it had its lair. A tarn
Tarn (lake)
A tarn is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn. A corrie may be called a cirque.The word is derived from the Old Norse word tjörn meaning pond...

 near the church is still called Dragehullet meaning "the dragon's pit".

External links

  • Municipal fact sheet from Statistics Norway
    Statistics Norway
    Statistics Norway is the Norwegian statistics bureau. It was established in 1876.Relying on a staff of about 1,000, Statistics Norway publish about 1,000 new statistical releases every year on its web site. All releases are published both in Norwegian and English...

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