We mapped Nils Holgersson's route on ExploreMap, stop by stop. He's the hero of Selma Lagerlöf's Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ("The Wonderful Adventures of Nils"), commissioned in 1906 as a geography reader for Swedish schoolchildren and still the country's best-loved fairy tale. A curse shrinks Nils to the size of a thumb for his cruelty to animals; when the family gander Mårten joins a passing flock of wild geese, Nils clings to his neck rather than be left behind, and finds himself airborne, swept into Akka of Kebnekaise's flock on its spring migration north.
The flock leaves Scania in March, crossing the rat war at Glimmingehus and the animals' spring gathering at Kullaberg, past the naval port of Karlskrona and a storm-blown detour to Gotland, where Nils hears the drowned city of Vineta ring its bells. North through Kolmården's forest and the enchanted garden at Stora Djulö, past the iron country of Bergslagen and the copper mine at Falun, the geese reach Uppsala, then Stockholm — where Nils is captured, carried off to Skansen, and frees a chained eagle before catching up with the flock again. By August they're deep in Lapland, and the geese raise their young at Luossajärvi outside Kiruna while summer holds.
October turns them south again — through Jämtland's fog, past Mårbacka in Värmland (Lagerlöf's own manor, tucked into the book as the home of a writer at work on a geography of Sweden), to a buried treasure in the Bohuslän islands, and back to the Scania farm where it all started. Every stop carries its own 1898 date and a note on what happens there, the same way a real trip does in ExploreMap — an eight-month, thumb-sized circuit of an entire country, plotted like any modern itinerary: a line of places, in order, each with something that happened there.
You can explore the full route, in order, here: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils .
Want to map your own journey, real or imagined? Start free on ExploreMap.