The Stone Stuga

A living tradition of Northern ways of knowing.

Welcome !

Step inside a world of Gotland stories, Northern folklore, ancient songs, runes, labyrinths, wool, and seasonal traditions. Together we'll explore a way of life rooted in beauty, belonging, and the wisdom of place.

What is a Stone Stuga?

On Gotland, Stenstugu is an old name for a stone dwelling or farmstead, with roots reaching back to the Middle Ages. The Stone Stuga is my own English rendering of those words—but for me, it is much more than a name.

Stone houses have been part of my family for generations. Many of the things I know were learned inside them.

These were places where knowledge wasn't separated from everyday life. Songs and stories were remembered and passed along. Knitting patterns traveled from one pair of hands to another. Wool was worked, fishing nets were mended, food was prepared for holidays and gatherings, and there was, of course, fika.

It was inside these family spaces that I learned runes from the women in my family, along with herbs, healing traditions, sauna traditions, handwork, stories, songs, and the many small ways knowledge moves from one generation to the next.

Even when my family came to America, the stone stuga came with us. My grandmother lived in one here, tending its stone walls and re-liming them each year.

This is the spirit of The Stone Stuga: a house where knowledge lives.

Not a museum for preserving traditions behind glass, but a place where living knowledge can be practiced. We sing the songs. Work with the wool and linen. Walk the labyrinths. Learn the runes. Tell the stories. Make things with our hands. And we ask what this old knowledge still has to offer our lives today.

And perhaps, by stepping into the traditions of one family and one place, you will begin to notice the threads leading toward your own.

Come in. There is room at the table.

Enter the Living Tradition

  • Stories & Old Ways

    Knowledge carried through story, song, symbol, rune and custom.

  • Hand & Hearth

    Knowledge carried through wool, flax, linen, making, mending, food and everyday life.

  • Ritual & Place

    Knowledge experienced through labyrinth, ceremony, season, landscape and relationship with the unseen.

  • Follow the Thread

    Discovering the traditions and lineage that belong to you.

The Woman Tending the Stuga

I am Valarie—a musician, maker, storyteller, tradition keeper, and Knowing Woman with deep family roots on the island of Gotland.

Much of what I carry was first learned in ordinary ways, inside the homes and lives of the people who came before me: runes and songs, stories and herbs, wool and linen, knitting and mending, seasonal traditions, healing practices, and always fika. The practical and the sacred were never very far apart.

For many years I have returned to Gotland to continue learning—walking its ancient labyrinths, singing its songs, studying its symbols and traditions, and learning from the people who continue to carry this knowledge. My studies have also taken me across the wider Northern and Baltic world, learning alongside local tradition keepers in Karelia and Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Latvia, and Estonia.

The Stone Stuga is where I bring this knowledge into living practice. Here we sing the songs, walk the labyrinths, work with our hands, tell the stories, and explore what old knowledge still has to offer us today—while noticing the threads that may lead each of us toward our own people, places, and traditions.

This is how I tend the Stuga: keeping the knowledge in use and carrying forward what still has life in it.