Käringsjön, or Lake Käring, in the parish of Övraby in Halland was the site of great sacrifices during the late Roman Iron Age in Geatland. The bog, which is actually not a lake but a bog, measures about 120 meters in diameter and had an arrangement of logs, twigs and stones as well as earthen vessels, with a majority of them being coarse and undecorated and a few which had carved patterns.

The pier formation mentioned above was used to offer sacrificial items in the lake. Among the earthen and wooden containers a sort of black (blood) pudding containing some entrails was also found, alongside farming tools such as rakes, tethers and the like and cooking fires around the site as well.



Other items found were bones, of man and animal, flint axes, bronze pots and horns, jewelery, hair braids, small wooden statuettes representing people, which is yet another sign for fertility culture rituals taking place here.

Oddly enough no skulls have been found, which is unusual for a place of offering. The fires do however reveal the fact that butchery was a normal occurrence here.

Most of these finds were dated to the fourth century A.D. and are also set in connection with earthen vessels founds in bogs in both Denmark and Norway, the main difference between this and other bogs however, is that this place was used as a place for sacrifices that were not war related. The finds actually speak more for a fertility cult than a war related site.

This was in other words a place for gathering.



Another interesting detail about the site is that decorative plants had been placed around the lake, making Käringsjön Sweden’s oldest garden.