Skurugata

Småland · Sweden · Natural site

An eight-hundred-metre crack in the mountain where the trolls lived – and where the robber Thief-Jösse hid a rifle nobody has found yet.

North of Eksjö, Skurugata runs straight through the rock: an eight-hundred-metre chasm, seven to twenty-four metres wide, with vertical walls that shut out the light and keep snow lying deep into summer. As early as 1708 it was depicted in Suecia antiqua as a great and strange fissure in a forested mountain. In folk belief, trolls lived in the gorge. One well-known legend tells of Pelle Katt, who cursed the trolls during a hunt and was punished with things not of this world. In the roughest stretch of the chasm lies Thief-Jösse's hole, called the Sacristy in older records, where the robber Tjuva-Jösse – said to be in league with the trolls – is supposed to have hidden his rifle. Whoever finds it will have great fortune. Nobody has.

FAQ

Where is Skurugata located?

Skurugata is in Småland, Sweden.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.

Image: Gotogo · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons