Just three miles west of the Swedish city of Ronabe stands one of the tallest runestones

in the world.

It's been there for over 1500 years, along with two companion stones, and all of them

have a sort of wavy elongated shape to them, reaching up to the grey sky like broken

fingers.

They are mysterious and ancient and larger than life.

And a few centuries ago, they were also in the way.

Local legend says that a farmer wanted to use the land in that corner of the field, so

he set about trying to remove the stones.

Again, these things are giants, so as you can imagine, no amount of rope and horses could

bring them down.

The desperate to get rid of them, he decided to break them with fire, literally burning

the stones until they crumbled.

They say it was a calm, windless day when he piled the kindling around the base of the

runestone, and then set it all on fire.

At first, it looked as if his plan would work, but as the flames licked higher, a gust

of wind blew in, and an instant later the man's hair was on fire.

He slapped that his head and then fell to the ground, rolling in the grass, but it was

too late.

Minutes later, the farmer was dead.

Had he been able to read the runes, he might have reconsidered his plan to destroy the

monument.

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