Has anyone seen the Scottish TV series 'Outlander'? It's about a woman who travels back in time after a ceremony at a burial ground in Scotland and is thrown straight into the battles against England in the 18th century.
Text and photo: Caroline Alesmark
Nowadays, every time I drive past Smedstorp and see the majestic stones on top of the hill Alnabjär, I mutter to myself "Graig Na Dun", the name of the fictional burial ground.
The stones stand high up on the ridge of Gårdlösaåsen in a landscape similar to that of the TV series. They are shadowed by large deciduous trees and share their space with grazing cows. From the height, you look out over a soft agricultural landscape with the meandering Tommarp River in the background.
According to local legends, the ship was built after the warrior King Alne, who also gave his name to the hill Alnabjär, Alne's mountain. On the southern slope of the mountain there are said to have been four stones marking the grave of Alne's wife, Queen Gya. The slope is called Gya's hill by the local people.
Once, some boys in the village decided to dig at Alnabjär - of course there must be precious things in the grave of a king. The artist Frans Lindberg, born in the neighbourhood in 1857, recounted the event for a folklore researcher in 1940:
"The digging was to be done in silence; no one was to utter a word or make a sound. After digging for some time, they were disturbed by visions, but continued digging for a while longer. At last an unusually large black hen appeared. At this point the courage of the stout-hearted men was lost, and they fled headlong, for they knew that the black hen was the most dangerous of all ghostly visions."
When a house was being built in the village, stones were taken from the burial ground, and the next morning, according to the story, they were not left there but stood in the same place as before. After this, the stones were considered taboo and left untouched - until the incident was forgotten and stones began to be used again for construction of various kinds.
When gravel was dug up on the ridge in the 1920s, a limestone coffin was uncovered in 1928. Archaeologists came here from Lund University and found human bones, fragments of an iron knife and shards of an earthenware vessel whose decoration placed it in the Roman Iron Age.
When mining continued in the 1940s, more finds were made in the quarry. In 1949, a more thorough archaeological excavation was carried out, during which two graves from the Roman Iron Age were found. In the mid-1960s, a major survey of Gårdlösaåsen began, which was to last for fourteen summers. Findings in 1972 showed that people had lived on the ridge for virtually the entire Iron Age.
Archaeologists found graves, stone circles and the remains of a ship's settlement dating from 550-800 AD. Today, only four stones of the latter remain at Alnabjär. Outside the ship, there is a group of smaller, round and oval stone circles from the Iron Age.
About a kilometre further north on the Gårdlösaleden trail, you will come to two sets of ships consisting of fifteen and sixteen stones respectively. A short distance away is a judgement ring with ten stones. The site was excavated as part of the so-called Gårdlösa project, which began in 1963. During the investigations, graves were found both inside and outside the rings.
In 1949, in a grove on the other side of a field, a few hundred metres north of the ship-settings, the remains of a woman were found in a grave covered by two large limestone slabs. However, as the land around the site is cultivated, you are not allowed to enter it without the landowner's permission.
The woman's grave contained various grave goods, including decorated earthenware vessels, bronze and silver dress pins - fibulae - a bronze pin, glass beads, a bone comb and a needle storage box - a needle house. Archaeologists also managed to recover fragments of cloth and thread from the woman's costume.
A silver fibula placed on her chest bears the runic inscription 'ekunwodr', which could mean 'I unwodr', so perhaps her name was Unwodr. Unwodr, in turn, is supposed to mean 'the peaceful, calm and not angry'. As the fibula dates from the 2nd century, this runic inscription is one of the oldest in Sweden.
The woman was of high birth, as evidenced by her lavish jewellery and the fact that her teeth and bones were in good condition. She probably lived a comfortable life with good food and the care of slaves. In Skåne, she was given the name Silverflickan (Silver Girl), but to be accurate, she is more of a Silver Woman. At the Historical Museum in Stockholm, she is called the Woman from Gårdlösa and is part of the permanent exhibition "Ancient Times".
Alnabjär, the ship saddles and the judge's ring are on the Gårdlösaleden trail, which starts and ends at the station in Smedstorp. The trail is 12 kilometres long and runs through Listarumsåsen and Ljungavången nature reserves. The walk is very beautiful and takes you through deciduous forests and past meadows. Along the route there are several other interesting environments, including some quarries, a lime kiln, a peat extraction site, a flax processing centre and a frog reserve. You will also pass the Tommarpsån river, home to the endangered thick-shelled mussel.
The text is taken from Caroline Alesmark's book "Trollskog och älvdans - vandra till gåtfulla platser", published in 2019.
Click here to buy the book "Troll forest and fairy dance - hike to mysterious places"!
