GULØY, FLOLID and the Gulating

Jan Kidøy is a local historian and communicator with roots in Flolid in Gulen — the landscape where the ancient Gulating assembly once gathered. Drawing on local oral traditions, archaeological observations, and historical sources, he has over many years collected and systematised material that sheds new light on Norway’s oldest legal and assembly traditions.
His work is characterised by a deep respect for the memory of earlier generations and a strong ability to connect landscape, language, and living tradition. In Guløy, Flolid and the Gulating, he revisits a debate that has continued for more than two centuries: the search for the earliest assembly site of the Gulating.

Bringing together saga literature, historical scholarship, place-name studies, and local knowledge, the book reconstructs the cultural landscape in which one of Norway’s oldest institutions took shape.
The Gulating was never merely an abstract institution. It was rooted in terrain — in stone, shoreline, and spoken word.

This book invites the reader to rediscover the landscape where Norway’s early traditions of law, community, and assembly once flourished.