Berle is a village on the west coast of

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 ...

. It is located on the eastern coast of Bremangerlandet island in the municipality of Bremanger in

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, whe ...

county. The village lies along the Berlepollen

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icela ...

, a small inlet off the Frøysjøen strait which separates it from the mainland. The village of Berle lies about west of the Hornelen cliff and about a drive west from the village of Bremanger. Berle Church is located in the village, serving the people in this part of the municipality. The population (2001) of the village is 135.

Name

The name of the village comes from the name of the small river nearby ( non, Berðla). The small Berlepollen fjord nearby is similarly named. The name ''Berðla'' comes from the Old Norse word ''barð'', meaning "edge", possibly since it is on the edge of the island. The village's name is mentioned as early as in the

Egils saga ''Egill's Saga'' or ''Egil's saga'' ( non, Egils saga ; ) is an Icelandic saga (family saga) on the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson (Anglicised as Egill Skallagrimsson), an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The saga spans the years ...

History

The history of Berle goes back to the 8th century. The best known

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

who lived there at the time was '' Berle Kåre''.

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

, the

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

ic historian, writes about ''Berle Kåre'', and his sons were a central subject in the histories of

Harald Fairhair Harald Fairhair no, Harald hårfagreModern Icelandic: ( – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first King of N ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, German soldiers built a defence station there to prevent the Allies from entering the Frøysjøen strait, as part of

Festung Norwegen {{Norway during World War II Festung Norwegen (Fortress Norway) was the German term for the heavy defence and fortification system of Norway during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany in World War II. Some, including ''Reichskommissar'' Jose ...

References

Villages in Vestland Bremanger {{Vestland-geo-stub