The Wight in the Woods is a fun short story written for a cache, hidden in the same woods in which the story is set.
Scandinavian folklore is rich with nisse. They can, perhaps, best be described as elves. The Scandinavian Christmas tradition is full of nisse – both helpful and mischievous. But nisse can be found throughout the year, and often living in a barn on a farm. If the farmer feeds the nisse, then they can be reasonably assured of a good harvest. Treat them badly, however, and the nisse can wreak havoc upon a crop, and ruin the farmer’s livelihood.
I like nisse. I love the Danish Christmas tradition of nisse saving Christmas, and our house is full of nisse every December. We also have a house nisse who lives with us all year round. We treat him well, of course.
This story, however, is about a wight. There are wights in Scandinavian folklore, and there are burial mounds all over Scandinavia. One of them is just a few kilometres from our house in the forests of Gråsten. While you will definitely find nisse in the forest, when I think of burial mounds, I think of wights. And so, the nisse in this short story is a wight. This story is set around a Bronze Age burial mound and there are caches hidden nearby, just like in the story.
Now, what is a cache? The Geocachers among you know what a cache is, and the Geocachers in our family have spent a significant amount of time looking for them. All over Denmark! I wrote this story to celebrate a cachers’ five-year anniversary of caching. If you’re reading this, and you haven’t found the coordinates to the bonus cache yet, you’ll find them at the end of the story.
If, like me, you haven’t really grasped what caching is all about, then rest assured, you don’t need to know anything to enjoy this story.
No spoilers. Let’s begin!
*Den danske udgave, der er oversat med DeepL, kan downloades gratis som e-bog.
**Die deutsche Ausgabe, übersetzt mit DeepL, kann kostenlos als eBook heruntergeladen werden.
Read Part 1!
Author’s note:
