The legend of saint Tora

S:ta Thoras sten. Photo by Yabosid [via Flickr.com]. License: Creative Commons by-sa 2.0

On the pebbled beach in Torekov, you can see this boulder, a glacial erratic. It looks like many other boulder and it's not even impressively big. it does, however, has an interesting story attached to it. It's not a "jättekast" (a name for glacial erratics in general, but boulders said to have been thrown by a giant in particular -- compare with the Hov legend.), but a stone infused with a legend of saints.

Like with my last post on local lore, this is a tad long and requires a break. Be sure to click the "Read more" below for the whole story of the girl who became the symbol for the Bjäre peninsula.

A tale of trolls

Having written about the stones in Hov, the second and most important story I want to tell is the story of the trolls and mounds, which I've alluded to in a couple of blog posts (e.g. here) but never really told the whole story about. As it's a really long post, I've added a break so be sure to click below to read the whole tale of the trolls.

The story of the giant and the church bells in Hov

I thought I was going to write a little about Bjäre and more specifically about the old stories surrounding different places here on the peninsula before the Challenge of Travel reveal. Sort of mention a few things I don't have room to talk about in the reveal post and created a wider picture of some of my inspiration sources. The first legend I wanted to write about is the story of the stones and the church in Hov.

Hov is a village I've often passed by, stopped by or just taken photos of (if you see a photo with a church in the background on this blog, it'll most likely be the church in Hov). It's situated when the road between Torekov and Båstad meets the road from Västra Karup, which in the other direction continues south through Grevie and Förslöv. If you arrive at Hov from the west, from Torekov, the first thing you'll see is  the church on the hill and in front of it the two standing stones (bautastenar, menhirs, liths) just outside the church wall. The two stones are the most visible markers of the old bronze age/iron age gravefield, indicating the ritual importance of the place as a place of worship and counsels long before the arrival of christianity.  People have been buried here continuously for almost 4000 years.

The iconic silhouette dominating the landscape can be seen in the necklace above with the stone setting, standing stones and the burial mound Klockarehögen in the fourground and the church bell tower in the background.

Photo by Guillaume Baviere via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons CC BY 2.0

 
Anyway, of cause there's a story behind these ancient monuments. It's a classic tale, really, about a giant who couldn't stand the sound of the church bells. The giants and trolls inhabited the lands long before the humans came along, but they seemed to be more at peace before christianity arrived. In fact, it seems like the giants emigrated after the churches came as they simply couldn't stand these new intruders. Many were the trolls and giants that suffered in the new times, but the toll was harder on the giants that on the trolls (provided we make a clear difference between the two, which isn't easily done).

After the first church was built in Hov -- the one you see in the pendant is the current 19th century church -- and the church bells began to ring life got hard for the giant woman living on Kullaberg on the neighbouring Kullen peninsula. The bells caused her ears and head to ache, non-christians being especially susceptible to anything christian -- you might even say they were allergic to things like bell ringing, holy water and crosses. Soon she got so mad at this horrible new thing that she picked up a stone and, using her garter as a sling, hurled it at the church across the Skälderviken bay. But, alas, as in all these stories about giants and churches, the stone landed just before hitting the church. Infuriated, she tried again, but this time too, she missed her marks. The magic powers of the church were stronger than her muscle power. In the end, she did like so many of her peers and moved to a more secluded place, untouched by christianity, where she could live her life in peace, far from any ache-inducing church bells.

Hov and Hov's church seen from Svenstad

Drottninghall – traces of the Bronze Age

View of Southern Bjäre and the Kullen peninsula from Drottninghall

Almost two years ago, my sis and I walked down to Drottninghall and I took some pics, thinking of telling you the story of the place, but because this was in August, other things got in between and I never showed the photos or told about Drottninghall. Now a comment on another post made me remember the pics and why not post them now at once so I don't forget about it another two years?

I went to school in Västra Karup and remember how many times made little trips around the village (and also further away on Bjäre, places like the island of Hallands Väderö and the dramatic coastline at Hovs Hallar). One of the places we went once was Drottninghall. Here, while gazing over the village and seeing Kullen peninsula by the horizon, we were told the story of the footprints. According to legend they were the footprint of a queen who passed by. What queen and why she left the prints vary. One version claims it was queen Margareta (or Margaret I of Denmark as she's known in english) and that she either stepped out to admire the view or fell out of her carriage. The cup marks (skålgroparna) are said to be the paw prints of her dogs. This story would explain the name: Drottning means queen and hall or häll a slab of exposed rock.

Other stories claim that the footprints come from a ghost whom the priest "läste fast" ("read stuck") on the rock after he had very loudly haunted the village of Västra Karup. The prints are the only thing remaining of the ghost and the cup marks are the marks of his tears. Of cause, there was also a general belief in southern Sweden that cup marks were fairy mills and that you could perform magic or wish for luck by placing items in the hollows.

You can read more about these stories – in swedish – here. There you'll also find a good photo of the carvings, filled in with red paint which have faded now and is covered in lichen, making it harder to see the carvings. You can also find photos of them here.

We school kids were only told the most child-friendly story, the story of the queen, as far as I can remember. And of cause we were also told about the real history beyond local folklore, about how the cup marks, footprint carvings and grooves (sliprännor) are bronze age petroglyphs carved by people living here a long time ago during the south-scandinavian Bronze Age (1 800 – 500 BC). Some of our oldest ancestors.

(By the way, the little droppings are from the sheep that graze the little wedge of pasture between two of Bjäre's many roads that converge just below Drottninghall. Two of the culprits can be found in the photo below.)

Apart from the carvings there's also a burial mound from the same age nearby – pretty much behind the house in the middle of the picture below. It's named Revhögen och Rävhögen, the latter meaning the Fox Mound. Bjäre in general have many mounds, one of the mound densest places in Sweden, and there are of cause much folklore surrounding them. I'm afraid I don't have a good story about this particular mound, though. No trolls (otherwise very common), no buried viking king (the second most common folklore surrounding mounds), no treasures that can't be salvaged without horrendous punishments from dark powers, no burials over mysterious english princes.

No one knows exactly why the petroglyph sites were situated where they were. They're concentrated to a handful of places on Bjäre and Drottninghall is one of them. One archaeologist have put forward the idea that they were created along roads between settlements where perhaps people met or safety was needed. Most likely they were used in rituals, but we don't know how ritual places were chosen. One thing about this particular place, though, is the view – you know, the reason why the queen stepped out of her carriage here (unless she fell out, that is). Because of the hilly terrain you can get some fab views of the landscapes every here and there on Bjäre and this is one of the good spots. Just see the photos below.

Drottninghall is one of the stops on the Bjäre bronze age trail that was created some years ago. It's two trails, the northern and the southern trail, which you can walk/bike/drive along to experience some of the ancient monuments here on the peninsula. The places along the trails are marked out with signs like the one below. The square symbol is a prehistoric symbol used in Sweden and other countries to mark a noteworthy places (often, but not always, an ancient or historic place/monument/ruin). The petroglyph boat with the stars is a sign for the trail, the star arc reminding us that the trails were created as part of an EU project (cf. the PCL logo).