Swedish Folktales: Öland

The Bridge over Kalmar Strait

In Källa township there's a fairly large stone north of the village of Wi called Sekiel’s Stone after the giantess who once lived in Borgehaga. Sekiel had a sister who was married to a giant named Skägge, and she lived in Ryssby on the other side of the water over in Småland. One day the two sisters decided to build a stone bridge across the Kalmar Strait so that they could more easily visit each other, and they agreed that Sekiel would start from the Öland side, and her sister from the Småland side.

The giantess who lived in Småland began working first. Every day she came with big loads of stone which she dumped in the water, and after some time she had her bridge abutment finished. Of course, by this I mean the peninsula of Skägganäs, which stretches a quarter of a Swedish mile out into the sound. Sekiel from Öland was also going to start building, but when she came down to the shore with her first load of rocks in her apron, a farmhand shot her in the belly with a crossbow! Overcome with pain she sat down on Sekiel’s Stone, which ever since has had a slight concavity to its top.

After she had rested a while she got back to work, but she didn’t get any farther than Persnäs, because a storm blew in and she was killed by lightning. When the bolt struck her she fell, dropping all the stones in her apron, which today form the great cairn on the slopes of Persnäs.