Smitingen / Lökgrottorna, Härnön

The Tunnel Grottoes of Smitingen

Along the outer coast of Härnön, wave and fracture have carved one of Sweden's longest systems of tunnel grottoes. On calm days the openings are merely dark mouths in the granite, but when the sea rises and the swell presses inland, the stone itself begins to groan. Old fishermen called the sound the breathing of the deep, and avoided the caves after dusk. The water remembers what the land has forgotten, and in hard weather it speaks through the rock.