Trollasten, the 'Troll Stones' is a small but perfectly formed dolmen. We initially tried to visit earlier in the week, stopping off at the village of Stora Koping to have a look at the carved rune stone in the churchyard.
Parking up at the church and after admiring the runestone we had a wander to the edge of the village to look for the dolmen. One difference you really notice in the Swedish countryside is the lack of hedges dividing up fields, and the dolmen was easily visible in a vast expanse of field stretching away in front of us. However if we wanted to visit it two problems then became apparent. Firstly we would have to dash across a train track with no obvious crossing, and secondly a huge combine harvester type machine was currently working the field. Not wishing to be crushed either by a passing express or some agricultural machinery we decided to try again another day.
Today though we drove through the village, spotted a level crossing on the edge of town, and seeing the crop had now been harvested, we parked up on the correct side of the railway track at the edge of the unfenced field and trekked towards the stones.
The site is in a bucolic paradise, hares played in the sunshine of the field, whilst buzzards circled overhead, and as we neared the dolmen rather than finding Trolls inside we instead disturbed two small deer who were sheltering from the heat of the day, startling us probably more than them as they raced away from the dolmen.
I squeezed inside the chamber, where it's lovely cool and comfortable, I could stay here for ages. Trollasten reminds me of a slightly more diminuative version of the Spinsters Rock, and the airy inner chamber provides similar feelings of warmth and welcome. I'm really pleased we managed to actually get here rather than just viewing it afar from the wrong side of the tracks!
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Posted by Ravenfeather
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