Following on from Part 2 of our article, Part 3 is entitled the Discovery Phase. With preparations made and confirmation from our various contacts in museums in Mariehamn, Åland Islands and Turku, Finland, that we would get off-season access to critical aspects of their facilities, we were prepared for the fact gathering we had pre-planned for each centre.

This Part 2 of our article on our sailing ship pilgrimage to Scandinavia takes up the story as we commenced our Swedish/Finnish itinerary in southern Sweden. Sweden is a very maritime nation and everywhere we travelled - in Gothenburg, in Stockholm and in the Swedish speaking Baltic islands – there is the evidence of this background.

The story of the mass suicide has been regarded as potentially factual since the late 1700s, when three tunnels were bored into the burial mound, revealing nails, animal bones, a bronze cauldron and a seated skeleton with a sword.