This carving is a decoration of the portal of at the stave church located at Urnes in Norway. Staves are wedge-shaped timbers that are placed vertically. This portal is almost the only thing that has been preserved from the entire church. The interlacing patterns along the sides are meant to show monsters intertwining with plants. The tendrils are meant to look as if they are growing organically. Though by this time, most of Scandinavia had been Christianized, the Vikings did not abandon their artistic traditions. This intricacy is the final product of three centuries of Viking art and is astonishing in its inventive detail.
It is also possible that the tendrils are a representation of Yggdrasil, the enormous mythical tree in Norse mythology that was said to have connected the nine worlds. Nidhogg was a dragon that resided at the base of the tree, and could also be represented here by the monstrous forms moving through the branches.
History of Western Art & Music 