Note 1 — Kettil Runske.1

Commissioned by Governor Lindehkelm and Doctor Urban Hiarne, Bailiff Girs, of Tveta, in the province of Jönköping, went to Vising Island in the year 1705, for the purpose of learning whether or no any trace of the Giant’s work yet remained.

Arriving at the island he applied to three aged and trustworthy men, from each of whom he received the same narration that has here been presented. Accompanied by these men he went by sea along the eastern coast of the island until he reached a high bluff, situated between the villages of Näs and Stiby, and about a third of a mile south of Visingborg. Here were actually two holes about fifty feet distant from each other. Into these holes three men crept, Policeman Nils Runske into one, and two peasants into the other. After creeping on hands and knees some feet they found it possible to walk upright for about thirty-four feet when the three met, the two tunnels here continuing in a single passage, which they were not able to penetrate beyond a few feet, because of the foul air. The passage was six feet high and eight feet wide, but said to have been much larger seventy years earlier. Later Girs was shown a sunken place or bog which extended from the aforementioned bluff inland three-eighths of a mile and terminated at the hole in Kumlaby meadow, where it is supposed Gilbertil is imprisoned. As late as the beginning of the eighteenth century the story was so generally credited that few or none could be found who were not entirely convinced that Gilbertil was still, by some devilish power, alive and laboring to free himself from his imprisonment. ↑