The Trolls of Skurugata.[1]
It is generally understood that Trolls, when their territory is encroached upon by mankind, withdraw to some more secluded place. So when Eksjö was built, those that dwelt in that vicinity moved to Skurugata, a defile between two high mountains whose perpendicular sides rise so near to each other as to leave the bottom in continual semi-darkness and gloom.
Here, it may be supposed, they were left in peace and tranquility. Not so, however, for it is related that upon the occasion of the annual meeting of troops at Ränneslätt, a whole battalion of Småland grenadiers repeatedly marched through, with beating drums and blowing horns, and that sometimes they fired a volley from their guns, which so alarmed the Trolls that it is now a question whether any are still remaining there.
In the neighborhood of the same mountain gulch is a very sacred fountain where those living thereabouts, in former times are said to have offered sacrifices to their patron saint. Whether this custom is now [[43]]continued is not known. As intelligence increases this and all other peculiar customs will soon belong entirely to the province of tradition. A few decades ago this was not so; then one could, according to the narrations of old men and women, have had the pleasure of both seeing and talking with the Trolls.
There was once a hunter named Pelle Katt, who, one day, went to Skurugata for the purpose of shooting woodcock, but though it was the mating season, when birds are ordinarily plenty and tame, the hunt was unsuccessful. It was as though ordained. The puffy woodcock and his hens kept out of the way of the murderous shot. Pelle was angry, and suspecting that the Trolls had bewitched his gun, he swore and cursed the Trolls generally, and especially those that lived in Skurugata, whose mouth he was just passing, when a woman stepped out, small in stature and peculiar in feature, bearing a little poodle dog in her arms.
“I bring you greeting from my mistress; she says you are to shoot this dog,” said she, approaching Pelle.
“Tie it there to that tree and it shall be done before it can get upon its feet,” answered Pelle.
This was done, and the little woman disappeared between the mountains. Pelle raised his gun and sent a charge of shot through the dog’s head. But what a sight met his gaze when the smoke had disappeared! There lay his own little child wrapped in a dog’s hide.
Pelle Katt’s habits were not the best. He was fond of drink, quarrelsome and boisterous, and often in his drunken fits declared that he feared neither God nor the devil. [[44]]