Experts Blown Away After Age 8 Girl Pulls 1500-Year-Old Sword from Lake
An 8-year-old girl has been locally dubbed the “Queen of Sweden,” after pulling an ancient sword out of a lake while vacationing with her family over the summer.
Swedish-American Saga Vanecek was playing in Lake Vidösten in July with her family. She recalled throwing sticks and stones into the water when her hand pulled out something very long and rusty.
“I picked it up and was going to drop it back in the water, but it had a handle, and I saw that it was a little bit pointy at the end and all rusty,” Saga told Swedish news site The Local.
“I held it up in the air and I said ‘Daddy, I found a sword!’ When he saw that it bent and was rusty, he came running up and took it,” she said.
Saga’s father, Andy Vanecek, is from Minnesota, but he moved with his family to Sweden last year to be closer to his wife’s family.
As a Minnesota Viking’s football fan, Vanecek was thrilled with his daughter’s once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
“I’m a huge Minnesota Vikings fan, and this looks just like a Viking sword!” Vanecek said.
The Jonkopings Lans Museum released a statement about the sword, noting that it was “exceptionally well-preserved.”
“It has tentatively been considered from the Iron Age, that is at least 1,000 years, perhaps even 1,500 years old,” the museum statement said.
Organizations like the Jonkoping County Museum plan to investigate the area to try and shed a little light on how or why the sword may have ended up in the lake.
The Vanecek family has enjoyed coming up with their own stories on what happened in Vidösten lake a thousand years ago.
“Now, questions are many, and fantasies abound as we wonder what happened so long ago which led to a sword, in its scabbard, being lost to the bottom of the lake,” Vanacek wrote on Facebook.
“Did someone fall overboard, or through the ice during a winter trek? Was a wealthy noble buried in the lake, as from a scene in Game of Thrones? The mystery will forever be known only to Lake Vidösten.”
Saga said she’d be keen to dive back into the lake and look for more treasure, but not until next summer when the waters have warmed up once again.
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