Christina Victoria’s Birthday

Some time ago, I discussed the birth of the Temple Twelve who travelled to Finland to excavate golden prehistoric statues during the celebration of the 130th birthday of Ior’s auntie Christina Victoria. She had died in the last year of the second World War and thus did not reach that memorable age. Now, I would like to de-mystify another non-fact of a confusing character in the Bock Saga.

Yes, although Christina almost lived until our times, she is still an important player in the Saga. After all, the Bock Saga is the story of the Bock family that ended only when the last Bock died. That was Ior himself who died in the year 2010.

On many occasions, Ior promised to elaborate on Christina’s role and function within the Saga, but he never did. Michel once told me what her big role in it all was, but I will leave that for another moment.

Back to the Temple Twelve. Whatever the definition is of who belonged to this group and who didn’t, it is hard to pinpoint exactly twelve of them at any given moment. Fact is, that a group of Saga aficionados from all over the globe tried to excavate the statues when they came to Finland in 1987. Their efforts were frustrated before they really began by the Bishop of Finland, who proclaimed Finland to be a Christian country where paganism like the Bock Saga had no place. Since the church owned the land where the statues were supposed to be located, this feat was ended before it had a real chance of beginning.

But, according to Ior, there was more to excavate. He first mentioned some ancient piece of wood that was buried exactly a thousand years ago in the back yard of his family estate. Later, this piece of wood was specified as a door. Even later, this door, as Ior told his listeners, became a golden door that led to a temple and the greatest treasure mankind had ever assembled. According to a plan made a long time ago, this door was to be opened on the 24th of July in 1987, during the festivities around the birthday of Christina Victoria.

On this day, 24 hippies from around the planet had gathered to witness the opening of the door of the oldest and largest underground temple in the world. They sat down and watched and waited. Nothing happened.

No ‘Sesame Open’ moment occurred. Half of the group laughed the whole story away. The other half decided that underground temples do not open themselves but need hard labour to do so. This group is later called the Temple Twelve. The book Temporarily Insane is about their life quest to open the temple and all the chaos that this caused.