Sweden is trying to scare tourists into visiting
There is substance in the superstition. Anyone who just wants to hike tree-lined paths can do so with ease (Swedish law establishes the concept the all-man steering wheel; the freedom to roam). But the idea of fantastic creatures lurking outside the ranks is more than a fairy tale; not least in Småland, where such stories have been woven into the fabric of society for centuries.
Crowded, unassuming and overwhelmingly rural, the region shrinks from your gaze, even as your eyes scan the Swedish map in search of it. It exists elusively in the lower tip of the country, scattered between the metropolitan trio of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, but thanks to none of them. Its largest city, Jönköping, is hardly large at all.
While it is located next to Lake Vättern, Sweden’s second largest lake, it only has 145,000 inhabitants. However, Småland has come into focus this year. A direct flight with Ryanair twice a week between Stansted and the even smaller city of Växjö was already launched in March.
It wears its mythology proudly. In 2018, the dedicated preservation of these hair-raising stories in the Kronoberg region – one of the three counties within Småland – was added to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, praised for linking “storytelling to other forms of living heritage – helping to revitalize it and promote it as a living art”.
These words take shape at the Sagomuseet in Ljungby. Designed in a child-friendly way – and around the works of Gunnar Olaf Hylten-Cavallius, a Swedish author of folktales – the building presents the various stars of the supernatural rogues gallery: huldra, the neck (a malevolent pipe-playing sprite who likes to lure the careless in the lakes with his music), the Troll, linden worm (a snake-dragon hybrid). In each case, the purpose beyond superstition is detailed; Nekken a warning to children not to play in the water’s edge, huldran a warning to unfaithful men.
The connection with real life continues outside. Earlier this month, a new adventure playground for children, unlikely but entertaining in the form of a gloss – a vicious ghostly boar, with a back armed with knives designed to cut a man in two – was inaugurated in the center of the city.