Witches in the Woods

Kashubia is an area in the north of Poland where the Goths landed 2000 years ago and mingled their blood with the resident Slavs, thus giving birth to the Kashubian people. In Gdynia on the north coast, I stayed with a friend who designed a five day adventure through the Kashubian countryside; the first day brought our dusty feet to the cemeteries of Uniradze.

A day of hiking then took us to the small town of Stężyca, after which we witnessed a religious festival that effectively shuts the country down for half a day.

We went kayaking on the lake for a while before hiking onward to the stone circles of Węsiory.

This site is considered by many to be evil and haunted, which is the most enticing invitation imaginable.

The second great site is the Guardian circle - this has been in place for thousands of years, and yet no moss grows. Other such circles have accumulated dirt and moss, growing over to create the appearance of a mound. However inside the core of the Guardian circle, the stones are clean.

Night fell, transforming the forest into an inky, deceptive morass. We left with quickened steps as the juniper bushes moved in the corners of our eyes, shifting between the pine trunks like shadows of the dead. Beneath a blushing, sleepy sky, under the vigil of Venus and Mars, we walked into the village with the company of bats and a serenading chorus of frogs.

After another day of hitch-hiking and walking through countrysides scattered with giant stork nests, we encountered the neolithic circles at Odry. It is uncertain whether the stones were placed to mark locations of strong natural energy and then used as burial grounds by later generations, or if burial of the dead was synonymous with the creation of astronomically aligned stone momuments. 

On two separate days, we spent hours at the beach hunting for pieces of amber. It is not the time of year when violent winter storms dredge up the debris of prehistoric forests from the floor of the Baltic ocean, but there is still treasure to be found.