Skiptvet is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in Viken

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Meieribyen. Skiptvet was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see ''

formannskapsdistrikt () is the name for Norwegian local self-government districts that were legally enacted on 1 January 1838. This system of municipalities was created in a bill approved by the Parliament of Norway and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January ...

'').

General information

Name

The municipality (originally the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

) is named after the old Skiptvet farm (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

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

Coat-of-arms

The

coat-of-arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its w ...

is from modern times. They were granted on 27 November 1981. The arms show a silver

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

on a red background. The dragon is derived from a local

legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...

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

Notable people

* Jens Christian Spidberg (1684 in Skiptvet - 1762) cartographer, theologian, priest and Bishop of the

Diocese of Agder og Telemark The Diocese of Agder og Telemark ( no, Agder og Telemark bispedømme) is a diocese of the Church of Norway, covering all of Agder county and most of Vestfold og Telemark county in Norway. The cathedral city is Kristiansand, Norway's fifth larges ...

References

External links

* * *
Municipal fact sheet
from

Statistics Norway Statistics Norway ( no, Statistisk sentralbyrå, abbreviated to ''SSB'') 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 yea ...

{{authority control Municipalities of Østfold Municipalities of Viken (county) Villages in Østfold