The Genre of Trolls
The Genre of Trolls
The Genre of Trolls
Akademisk avhandling
I have greatly enjoyed writing this thesis, not least because of the many sti-
mulating discussions I have had with colleagues and friends along the way.
Naturally, I have also incurred many debts of gratitude, the creditors of
which I hope I have faithfully listed below. I sincerely apologize for any
omissions or oversights.
The first set of thanks goes to my supervisor, Professor Ulrika Wolf-
Knuts, who has encouraged me from the very start. Her unfailing devotion
to her students is remarkable, and I am grateful that I have been able to
benefit from it. She has read every draft of my dissertation, quite regardless
of what condition it was in, with speed and acumen, and with many an-
noying questions as a result, but I do not doubt that these have made the
manuscript more easily legible and the arguments more convincing. Her
knowledge of Finland-Swedish folk belief and the religious situation in
19th-century Ostrobothnia has been particularly valuable in the preparation
of the thesis, and she has liberally shared her insights with me during the
years.
I also owe Dr Lena Marander-Eklund many thanks. When I worked on
my M. A. thesis she functioned as my supervisor for a term, and during this
time she managed to introduce me to no less than two of the theories I am
utilizing in this book: Lotte Tarkka’s theory of intertextuality, and Charles
Briggs and Richard Bauman’s theory of genre. I guess neither of us realized
in what direction these theories would take my work, but that is the charm
of doing research, after all. During the years she has also readily supplied
me with whatever archive material I have needed, and I am grateful for this
as well.
Moreover, I wish to express my gratitude to those colleagues who have
assisted me during my stays abroad: Professor Inger Lövkrona, the Depart-
ment of Ethnology at Lund University, who took care of me for a term in
Lund; at the School of Celtic and Scottish Studies, Scottish Ethnology
Section at the University of Edinburgh, I benefitted from the generosity of
Dr Margaret Mackay who acted as my supervisor—I am especially grateful
for the advice on finding English translations of internationally well-known
hymns, which posed a real problem for me. I also thank Dr John Shaw
who invited me to give a speech at the seminar of the School of Scottish
vii
Studies, and Dr Neill Martin for his encouragement. Jan Adams and Marie
Hamilton assisted me with many practical matters, for which I am grateful.
My fellow Ph.D students at the School deserve a special mention as well: I
enjoyed our post-seminar pub visits to Sandy Bell’s.
A number of scholars have kindly commented on various stages of the
manuscript. Dr Sven-Erik Klinkmann, Åbo Akademi University, gave
many erudite comments on an early draft of my chapter on intertextual
theory, and I confess I have not been able to follow up on all of them.
Dr Laura Stark, University of Helsinki, made provocative readings of
chapters 4 and 5, and also accepted the task of acting as preliminary exam-
iner of the whole text. Once again, it has not been possible for me to take
all her feed-back into consideration, but the finished product has defin-
itely improved because of it. Dr Martina Björklund, Section for Russian
Language and Literature, Åbo Akademi University, scrutinized my dis-
cussions on Bakhtin with zeal and enthusiasm, and I have heeded much of
her advice on formal matters as well.
Members of the folkloristic seminar at Åbo Akademi University, as well
as of the joint seminar of the science of religion and folklore, have given
many useful contributions during the years, both in terms of the structure
of the text, and of its contents. The discussions have always been character-
ized by knowledge, skill and grace, and the post-seminars afterwards have
been pleasant occasions. I am grateful for the generosity and patience that
have been accorded me.
I also want to thank the members of The Graduate School for Cultural
Interpretations, too numerous to mention individually, who have given
feedback on my presentations at the meetings of the school. It has always
given me food for thought, and I extend my sincerest thanks for the effort
expended in trying to improve my thesis. The social gatherings arranged in
connection with these meetings have given me the opportunity to get to
know colleagues in the whole of Finland better, and this has been a grati-
fying—and indubitably planned—spin-off effect.
A number of people have sent copies of archive material to me when I
needed it most, and for this I thank them: Dr Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch
and Dr Carola Ekrem, both providing me with material from the Folklore
Archives of the Swedish Literature Society in Finland, and M. A. Sofie
Strandén who copied records from the Folklore Archives at Åbo Akademi
University. Living abroad, I have been dependent on the kindness of my
viii
colleagues to obtain much of my research material, and I truly appreciate
the enthusiasm and rapidity with which it has been put at my disposal.
Elizabeth Nyman accepted the task of correcting my English before the
book went to print, and I thank her for this. Dr Pär Sandin kindly took
care of the technical editing of the text, for which I am very grateful. Pro-
fessor Charles Lock, Department of English at the University of Copen-
hagen, acted as my second preliminary examiner, giving important correc-
tions to the text. He is also an inspiration in his extensive and innovative
research on Bakhtin.
This study could not have been carried out without the generous finan-
cial support of the following: The Committee for Folklore of the Swedish
Literature Society in Finland; The Research Institute of Åbo Akademi
University; Waldemar von Frenckell’s Foundation; Chancellor Lars Erik
Taxell’s Fund, Åbo Akademi University; The Swedish-Ostrobothnian
Association; The Åberg Fund, The Swedish Foundation for Culture; The
Graduate School for Cultural Interpretations; and The Victoria Foundation.
I thank Åbo Akademi University Press for accepting my thesis for publi-
cation; Inger Hassel and Kristina Toivonen guided me in the practicalities
of finding a printer, Tove Ahlbäck designed the book cover on the basis of
the excellent drawing made by Emma Rönnholm, and Anne Andersson
took care of the CIP cataloguing of the dissertation. I appreciate the work
of all of you.
Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends. My parents, Bengt and
Kristina Asplund, always encouraged me to read and write, and this is where
it got me. I have greatly enjoyed the journey. My sister, Linda Asplund,
has shared my interest in the bizarre. My grandmother, Birgit Asplund,
came to the rescue when I needed information on the parish of Vörå, her
native parish. My uncle and aunt, Bror Rönnholm and Margareta Willner-
Rönnholm, have invited me to stay in their home every time I have been in
Åbo, and kept me sober and down-to-earth with the voices of experience.
In Finland, Olivia Granholm, Susanna Östman, Viveca Rabb and Anette
Johansson have been agreeable companions. In Sweden, Martina and David
Finnskog, Henrik Gerding and Rebecka Randler, Elisabet and Anders
Göransson, Kristian Göransson and Maria Mellgren, Oskar Hagberg and
Shirley Näslund, Mi Lennhag, Björn Levander, Pär Sandin, Kristiina Savin
and Jonas Hansson, Aron Sjöblad, Claes Schuborg and Karin Staffans,
Joachim Walewski, Per Östborn and others have guided my thoughts to
ix
other things than intertextuality, Bakhtin and folk belief, for which I am
indeed grateful. My in-laws, Ingrid Ingemark, Thomas Dellans, Anna
Ingemark and Peter and David Milos have eased the load with their kind-
ness and great humour.
My husband, Dominic Ingemark, has managed the impossible: to be
supportive, inspiring and a source of many insightful comments, without
being allowed to read the manuscript. I am also grateful for the forbearance
with which he has tolerated my frequently late nights of work, and my trips
to Finland at occasionally very inopportune moments.
x
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Statement of Purpose 1
1.2 Delimitations and Definitions 6
1.3 Trolls in the History of Research 13
1.4 Intertextuality in the History of Research 21
1.4.1 Intertextuality 22
1.4.2 Interdiscursivity 30
1.4.3 Intergenericity 33
1.4.4 Cultural Intertextuality 37
1.4.5 Subjective Intertextuality 38
1.5 Method 42
xi
3.1.3 Men’s Encounter with the Troll 90
3.1.4 Children’s Encounter with the Troll 92
3.2 The Troll and Its World 94
3.2.1 The Troll and Its Abilities 94
3.2.2 The Dwelling and Possessions of the Troll 96
3.3 Interaction between the Realms 98
3.3.1 Conflicts 98
3.3.2 Tension-Filled Tolerance 106
3.3.3 From Tolerance to Conflict 112
3.3.4 Tolerance and Conflict 115
3.3.5 From Conflict to Tolerance 117
3.3.6 The Troll and Christianity 118
3.4 Breaking the Contact 120
3.4.1 Men Dissociate 120
3.4.2 Women, Children and Animals Dissociate 124
3.4.3 Trolls Dissociate 126
3.4.4 Impersonal Phenomena Dissociate 127
3.4.5 Protective and Apotropaic Measures 129
3.4.6 The Fateful Encounter 132
3.5 Encountering the Troll 135
xii
6.4 Novelization 248
6.5 Integrating the Perspectives 250
8 Discussion 280
xiii
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Statement of Purpose
The supernatural tradition that is the object of this study, the Swedish troll
tradition in Finland as documented in archived material collected between
the 1850s and 1925, has previously received little scholarly attention; apart
from a few articles (e.g. Lönnqvist 1996), this is the first monograph pro-
duced on the subject, and I will therefore begin my inquiry with a descrip-
tion of the folklore of trolls for the benefit of readers with a comparative
interest. The troll in the Swedish oral tradition in Finland is a supernatural
creature primarily associated with hills and rocks in the forest, but apart
from that, it is difficult, if not impossible, to give a good definition of the
troll. It is often a solitary being, but it may also live with others of its kind.
Judging by the sources at my disposal, it is not chiefly an empirical being—
I have not been able to find reports of sightings or personal experience
stories, apart from a legend told in the first person singular, but that seems
to be more of a narrative strategy—but this impression may well be false
due to the haphazard nature of collection. Perhaps reports of sightings
never happened to be recorded, even though they existed. Any definite
conclusion cannot be drawn on the basis of the recorded material alone.
My basic research problem can be thus formulated: how do the perform-
ers, of whose narratives we have some form of transcript, construct the im-
age of the troll, and how is the relation between man and troll represented
in the texts? These questions recur in many guises throughout the thesis,
and I find them important because they imply an examination of the world
view of the narrators, and of what it means to be human in a world also
inhabited by extra-human forces. The description of the troll tradition is
divided into the following sections, roughly corresponding to the temporal
frame of encounter: “3.1 The Conditions of Encounter” focuses on the
time and place of the encounter, and on the agent traversing the boundary
between this world and the otherworld. The conditions and distinguishing
characteristics of women’s, men’s and children’s encounters with the troll
are also considered. “3.2 The Troll and Its World” discusses the appear-
ance and abilities of the troll, its world and surroundings. “3.3 Interaction
between the Realms” describes the relations between man and troll, both
hostile and friendly. The attitude of the troll to Christianity is explored as
Statement of Purpose 1
well. Finally, “3.4 Breaking the Contact” contemplates the agent effecting
the dissociation of the human and supranormal sphere, and the means
through which it is achieved, protective and apotropaic measures included.
A special study of a peculiar form of encounter, here called the fateful en-
counter, is appended to this chapter. Individual records will be quoted as
examples. Hence chapter 3 deals with the construction of the image of the
troll, and of the relationship between man and troll, on a descriptive level.
In chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7, the problem of the construction of the image of
the troll and the representation of the relation between man and troll is
approached on three levels. On the first level, explored in chapters 4 and 5,
I examine the texts and discourses out of which the portrait of the troll is
woven. In other words, I am undertaking a study of the web of intertextual
relations between different troll texts, between troll texts and other folklore
texts, and between troll texts and Biblical narratives. Other scholars have
addressed the problem of the relationship between religion and folklore
(see e.g. Bringéus 1997; Granberg 1971; Wolf-Knuts 1991; Wolf-Knuts 2000;
Dundes (1999) is exceptional in that the author discusses the Bible as folk-
lore), and my contribution to this debate centres on the more wide-ranging
implications of my research approach. For example, I will argue that schol-
ars need to pay attention to the ways in which Christianity influences folk
narrative and folk belief beneath the ostensibly pre- or extra-Christian sur-
face of traditional stories, because religion helps to shape these narratives
from within by furnishing intertexts for them, from the Bible for instance.
I will be adapting the theory of intertextuality proposed by Julia Kristeva
and reworked by the Finnish folklorist Lotte Tarkka (for definitions of
terms utilized in this thesis, see also chapter 1.2; for discussions of con-
cepts, see chapter 1.4). In her pioneering essay “Le mot, le dialogue et le
roman”, Kristeva construed any text as “a mosaic of quotations, any text is
the absorption and transformation of another” (Kristeva 1978: 84–85): a
writer constructs his text in relation to an earlier literary corpus. Tarkka
aligns herself with this definition in stating that intertextuality refers to the
idea of the text as a meeting point of different texts, where different points
of view intermingle and collide. By the same token, intertexts are the other
texts giving the individual text its meaning (Tarkka 1993: 171). For this
reason, no text is simple and uncomplicated, it has many layers that a con-
scientious analyst should be aware of and strive to discover. Tarkka does
2 Introduction
not say this explicitly, but it is the logical and methodological consequence
of the theory, and in her own research, she abides by this rule.
I have chosen Tarkka’s theory since it is one of the few extensive elabor-
ations of intertextuality in Nordic folklore research, and because it is partic-
ularly adapted to the needs of folkloristic scholarship. It is also a moderate
approach, respecting the research traditions of folkloristics as well as those
of literary theory. In other words, it is a balanced view of folkloristic inter-
textuality, but nevertheless with some in-built deviations from earlier praxis.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Tarkka’s theory is her conception
of metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor links two separate spheres, likened
because of their similarities and contrasted due to their differences, while
metonymy mediates between the oppositions of the metaphor (Tarkka
1994: 293–294); Tarkka’s use of these terms differs from the conventional
one, even though it does have an affinity with established definitions.
Metaphor usually denotes a word or phrase employed instead of another, as
a comparison intended to achieve a more striking effect, while metonymy
commonly implies the substitution of a word for another that is intimately
connected with it, such as the use of the crown to refer to the monarchy.
Tarkka’s notion of metaphor is an extension of the common usage, but that
of metonymy represents a significant reworking of the concept. The link
to common usage is nevertheless present in a similar stress on the proxi-
mity created between the poles of the metaphor through metonymy.
Through the use of common themes and epithets, a series of metaphors is
created, constituting levels of world view (ibid.). In my analysis, I will ap-
ply the notion of levels of metaphorical relations to two groups of texts on
abduction and the exorcism of trolls, collected in the parish of Vörå in
Ostrobothnia.
In my view, the singular achievement of Tarkka in devising her theory is
that she is able to provide the researcher with a powerful tool for investi-
gating the narrators’ network of mental associations. I will use it to gain
new and exciting insights into Swedish-language folk culture in Finland at
the turn of the last century. Intertextual relations will be examined in terms
of agreement, inversion or reversal, and negation of the intertext.
On the second level, dealt with in chapter 6, I intend to investigate the
generic components out of which the image of the troll might be con-
structed, and how the manipulation of these elements can change the
Statement of Purpose 3
conception of the troll.1 The objects of analysis are two texts from the rep-
ertoire of a single narrator, the carpenter Johan Alén hailing from the vil-
lage of Rejpelt in the parish of Vörå. The definition of genre utilized here
is that presented by Charles Briggs and Richard Bauman in their article
“Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power” (1992). Genres are viewed as
“generalized or abstracted models of discourse production and reception”
mediated through the relationship with prior discourse (Briggs & Bauman
1992: 147). Through genre, narrators may shape speech into ordered, uni-
fied and bounded texts with strong social and historical associations,
though the invocation of genre also renders texts fragmented, heterogen-
eous and open-ended because of the dependence on other discursive form-
ations and contextual factors for the interpretation, production and recep-
tion of discourse (Briggs & Bauman 1992: 147–149). Briggs and Bauman
emphasize the role of the narrator in shaping and reconfiguring genres, and
they introduce the notion of intertextual gaps, which can be minimized or
maximized, to describe the process of connecting an utterance to a generic
model. Minimization of the distance between texts and genres makes the
discourse maximally interpretable through reference to generic precedents,
while maximization is associated with various motives for distancing one-
self from textual precedents (Briggs & Bauman 1992: 149). In contrast to
many earlier contributions to the folkloristic debate on genre,2 Briggs and
Bauman focus on how genres actually work, not on how they should be de-
fined or on their source-critical value, whether they are useful or deplorable
concepts, whether emic or etic categories should be used, or whether gen-
eric designations ought to be employed in the classification of folklore in
tradition archives. This is of particular import in an analysis of the inter-
textual constitution of genre.
The question of genre is also actualized in relation to parody, of which
the two texts are specimens. Parodies are sometimes cited as prime examp-
les of intertextuality (Dentith 2000: 5–6) due to their overt connection to
another, or several other, texts or to a genre. My hypothesis is that these
1 Here I am using the adjective generic to refer to genre, as Charles Briggs and Richard
Bauman have done.
2 See e.g. Abrahams 1976a; Abrahams 1976b; Honko 1968; Honko 1971; Honko 1976;
Honko 1981; Honko 1989; Ben-Amos 1976a; Ben-Amos 1976b; Ben-Amos 1992; Klintberg
1981; Alver 1967; Dégh 1976; Dégh & Vázsonyi 1976; Lüthi 1976; von Sydow 1971a; von
Sydow 1971b; von Sydow 1971c.
4 Introduction
narratives are parodies of the genre of the wondertale, and that this entails
some fundamental changes to their structure, e.g. to the chronotope of the
stories. Mikhail Bakhtin regarded the chronotope, “the intrinsic connected-
ness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in
literature”, as a formally constitutive category of literature with a profound
impact on genre and generic distinctions, and on the image of man
(Bakhtin 1986a: 84–85). In narratives of trolls, the image of the super-
natural is subject to a certain number of restrictions; for example, trolls
should not marry humans and live happily ever after, nor should they be
allowed to live permanently in the human world. A change in these chro-
notopes constituting the image of the troll may influence genre. One form
of change of the chronotope is novelization, a term coined by Bakhtin to
denote the transference of “novelistic” features, such as indeterminacy,
openendedness and contact with the present, to other genres where they
are usually absent (Bakhtin 1986a: 7). I believe these features are also to be
found in folklore, particularly in jocular tales, a genre which was the spe-
ciality of this performer (for a selection of his narratives, see Appendix B).
Novelization might illuminate the process of the reconfiguration of genres
spoken of by Briggs and Bauman. One aspect of the novel stressed by
Bakhtin in his book on Dostoevsky is the introduction of the unfinalizable
hero into the novel. Unfinalizability refers to the indeterminacy and open-
endedness of a character, to a character who is evolving, outgrowing his
former bounds. In the case of Johan Alén’s tales, this indeterminacy is a
positive value.
On the third level, discussed in chapter 7, the relationship between man
and troll is scrutinized with the aid of two of Bakhtin’s favourite concepts,
unfinalizability and dialogue. This constitutes a reconsideration of Bakhtin’s
notion of unfinalizability in the context of narratives of the supernatural,
viewed as a genre. Hence I am broadening the scope of the inquiry into
generic concerns by reviewing the texts included in my material in the light
of the concept of unfinalizability, which I think might be useful in expli-
cating the construction of texts depicting encounters with the supernatural.
Stories of such encounters appear to rely on the indeterminacy and unfinal-
izability of the supranormal beings for suspense and for the efficacy of the
narrative; from the perspective of the characters, though, unfinalizability is
not necessarily an unequivocal blessing. Therefore, there is a conflict bet-
ween the demands of the story/genre and those of the characters, and it is
Statement of Purpose 5
the tension and interplay between these points of view that I wish to eluci-
date. In his early works (Bakhtine 1984; Bakhtin 1993), Bakhtin pondered
the relation between self and other in terms of finalization, the bestowal of
form, rather than unfinalizability, which he regarded as the consequence of
poor art. These early formulations of the problem of intersubjectivity are a
fair complement to the later theories of polyphony and dialogue with their
unbridled celebration of indeterminacy. Thus I will analyze the role of un-
finalizability on the one hand and finalization on the other in the construc-
tion of the relationship between man and troll, taking the differing require-
ments of the genre and of the characters into account.
An important aspect of Bakhtin’s conception of unfinalizability is the as-
sumption of a dialogical position in relation to the hero on the part of the
author. Such a position entails the adoption of a very open attitude to the
characters which allows them to develop freely within the narrative. Hence
dialogue is employed in a restricted sense, as it implies a willingness to lis-
ten unconditionally to the other. The performer of a narrative of trolls may
be presumed to exhibit such an attitude to his supranormal characters by
permitting them “to be themselves”, and this hypothesis needs to be veri-
fied, but I also want to examine whether the human characters in the text
engage in dialogue with the troll in this specific sense, and what it might
suggest for the interpretation of the relationship between humans and
supernatural creatures.
To summarize, I hope to demonstrate how theories of intertextuality and
genre taken together may serve to highlight the creation of images of the
supernatural in narrative. Finally, I want to stress that the interpretations
presented in this thesis are my own, based on my individual store of know-
ledge, and that others, including the narrators I am studying, might well
see, or have seen, other connections than I am able to perceive. Similarly,
the conclusions I draw on the basis of these interpretations are my own,
and they are custom-made for the material I am utilizing. Hence, even
though I believe they have some degree of general applicability, I also think
they have to be tested in each individual case.
6 Introduction
Finland and Ostrobothnia, as well as the Åland Islands, in other words, on
those areas in Finland with Swedish-speaking inhabitants.3 This is because
it is the Swedish-language tradition of trolls in Finland I am examining. In
terms of time the investigation spans some seventy years, from the 1850s to
1925 (for the methodological implications of this fact, see chapter 1.5).
So how is a troll to be defined? The best answer to that question might
be that it cannot be defined (cf. Stattin 1992: 18–19), but this has not stopped
scholars from trying. Elisabeth Hartmann makes a distinction between the
Eastern Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) and the Western Scandinavian
(Norwegian) conceptions of trolls. She characterizes the Norwegian trolls
as solitary and fictitious beings, basically synonymous with the riese (she
uses the German spelling and not the Norwegian rise), which she regards
as a purely aetiological being. The Scandinavian forms of riesen—the
Norwegian jutul (sing.), jötnar (plural), gygr (fem.), the Swedish jättar
(plural) and the Danish kjæmper (plural) sharply distinguish themselves
from empirical beings, according to Hartmann. She divides the conception
of the riese into two parts, one based on faith, the other entirely fictive, and
these intermingle in actual practice (Hartmann 1936: 47–49, 51). The
Norwegian legend troll is generally of great stature and grotesquely ugly
(Hartmann 1936: 52). The Eastern Scandinavian trolls, on the other hand,
are social, empirical beings corresponding to the huldrefolk in Norwegian
folk belief. This is especially true of the Danish and South Swedish con-
ception of trolls. In the former case, the term trold is rarely utilized, since
bjærgfolk is preferred to indicate a group of beings taking an intermediate
position between Swedish trolls on the one hand, and Norwegian huldrefolk
and Swedish vättar on the other. Hartmann likens the trolls of Southern
Sweden to those of Danish tradition, and identifies them with vättar. In
the north of Sweden, from Dalecarlia and Hälsingland northward, the
Eastern Scandinavian tradition reigns, and the limits of this tradition area
3 Swedish-speakers have been living in modern-day Finland at least since the 12th–14th
centuries when the land was incorporated into the kingdom of Sweden (for the latest dis-
cussion of this issue, see Ivars & Huldén 2002). In the following I will be using Swedish
place-names when referring to areas inhabited by Swedish-speaking people, or to places
with a Finnish-speaking population but having Swedish names as well. It may also be
noted that the extent to which Finland-Swedish narrators were fluent in, or even knew,
Finnish should not be overestimated. Therefore a concentration on Swedish-language tra-
ditions is in order.
8 Introduction
human heroes; the troll is the typical image of evil in Norwegian narratives.
Since the Christianization of Norway it has been related to the Devil. The
troll is a symbol of not only the power of evil, but also of the forces of
nature. The distinction between the troll and the jutul rests on the latter’s
mythical association: the jutul is linked to the past, connoting a temporal
reference, and its importance in legends springs from this fact. The tusse
makes rare appearances in folk narratives. Originally a creature of cosmo-
gonic significance, the Old Norse thurs, the race to which Ymer belonged,
turned into an evil and naive personage, often depicted as a short man with
a white beard. The rise has preserved its link to giant dimensions. In con-
tradistinction to Hartmann, Amilien argues that the rise has progressively
distinguished itself from other supranormal beings, but unfortunately she
does not expand on the subject. In later Norwegian tradition the gyger may
be the wife of the troll, playing the part of a secondary opponent, or she
may be the principal opponent, great and terrible. Employed synonym-
ously with gyger, the hulder in one sense of the word is a man-eating, hor-
rible giantess. The term may also designate a creature haunting the hills
and woods, or the family of the subterranean people, the huldrefolk, which
are viewed more positively, although the latter can function as both helpers
and opponents (Amilien 1996: 35–42). Since Amilien restricts herself to
folktales, the relation between trolls and huldra and huldrefolk remains
indistinct, and it is difficult to compare her opinion on the subject with
Hartmann’s.
If we juxtapose these accounts of the idiosyncrasies and mores of the
trolls to what can be gathered from my own material, the following obser-
vations can be made. Very little can be said of the size of the troll (cf. chap-
ter 3.2.1): only rarely is it described as “terribly large” (SLS 31, 141: 111) or
something to that effect (SLS 65: 45). Most of the time its physique is not
mentioned at all. Thus, one cannot claim with certainty that trolls are huge
and ugly. They might be humanlike as in Central Sweden, the traditional
area to which Swedish-speaking Finland also belongs, in which case there
might be no need to specify their appearance. The trolls usually live in hills
in the woods; in that respect the definitions agree with my material. They
can be social as well as solitary beings, one of the few traits demarcating
them from the rå, which is generally solitary. The forest is the home of
both the troll and the rå, and both are equally notorious for abducting
humans or their cattle. However, the rå is not commonly associated with
4He and his will be employed to denote any anonymous person, and both men and wom-
en are included.
10 Introduction
(cf. Rimmon-Keenan 2001: 2). Story, and to some extent text, are em-
ployed synonymously with narrative. Text is also understood to be charac-
terized by the connectedness of its components and the concepts under-
lying them (cohesion and coherence). It is constructed by the performer,
on conscious as well as unconscious levels, and its production is related to
the surrounding situational, social and cultural context. The text is a sys-
tem in which each component is vital for the functioning of the system (cf.
Björklund 1993: 21), and in addition, it is an intertextual phenomenon
connecting communicative speech to other types of anterior or synchronic
utterances. The text is therefore a productivity, implying that: 1) it redis-
tributes language, i.e., it changes and transgresses both linguistic and logical
categories; 2) it is an intertextuality, i.e., a permutation of texts: within the
space of the text several utterances drawn from other texts cross and neut-
ralize one another (Kristeva 1978: 52). The intertexts are consequently the
utterances absorbed into and transformed in the text (Kristeva 1978: 84–85).
One detail in the explication of intertextuality above is objectionable,
however, and that is the notion of intertexts neutralizing each other. Then
the tension, the dialogue between the utterances constituting the text would
disappear, and a significant component of its productivity would vanish.
Kristeva’s inspiration in devising the concept of intertextuality, Mikhail
Bakhtin, used the word dialogue in a number of different, but related
senses; I will only refer to those relevant to my own study (see also chapter
1.4.1). Firstly, dialogue exists within the word, as any word we utter has
been pronounced by others before us, imbuing it with the views, shared
thoughts, value judgements and accents of others. Our own appropriation
of the word enters into complex interrelationships of association, dissoci-
ation and intersection with those alien elements, which influences the actu-
alization of the word (Bakhtin 1986a: 276). Secondly, there is dialogue
between points of view or discourses within the same utterance, hybrid-
ization. By this Bakhtin meant the fusion of the discourse of the author
with the discourse of the narrator, the implicit author or the characters
within a single proposition, so that the person from whose point of view
the text is structured cannot be pin-pointed (Bakhtin 1986a: 301–308). The
conception of perspectives or discourses in dialogue has been assimilated
into folkloristic research (see e.g. Tarkka 1994: 251, 263–265, 295). Third-
ly, Bakhtin construed the relation between speaker and listener as a dia-
logue. He calls this form of dialogue addressivity, which he defined as the
12 Introduction
fined by its context of occurrence, for example the discourse of religion that
will be spoken of in chapters 4 and 5 (cf. Mills 2002: 9). In structuralist and
post-structuralist research, the word has connoted a move away from the
reflectionist view of language as an unproblematic vehicle of communi-
cation and representation, to a conception emphasizing language as a sys-
tem governed by its own rules and constraints influencing the thoughts and
expressions of individual subjects (Mills 2002: 8). All these associations
have influenced my use of the word.
Thus, the heterogeneity of the current usage of the term is visible in my
own employment of it, and even though this might lead to some confusion,
I have not found it meaningful to substitute it with other labels of my own
invention, since that would only contribute to an unnecessary multiplic-
ation of technical terms. Nevertheless, I believe the different senses of the
word will be fairly easy to determine when interpreted in relation to the
context of use.
14 Introduction
not to be found in Danish folklore, and the distribution pattern of the rec-
orded oral variants is different from the common one (Holbek 1991: 180–
182). Once the literary derivation of the text has been established, Holbek
contemplates what the folk narrators have done with the story, how they
have turned it into folklore, and why they have chosen to integrate that
specific narrative into their repertoires. All chapbooks did not enter folk-
lore, after all. As for the first two questions, people retained those features
that were compatible with tradition, while transforming those that were
not. Examples of the latter are the figures of St. Peter and the Virgin Mary
who might be replaced by representatives of the church, as well as the
drummer who has been combined with the image of St. Peter or God him-
self, which is more in accord with tradition (Holbek 1991: 183–186). The
third question does not receive much treatment.
Holbek then moves on to the topic of genre, and asserts that both tale
and legend, the genres to which the story might belong, serve as instruction
in right and proper conduct, but the tale creates a fictional world in which
interpersonal relations on the family level are treated, and the legend deter-
mines the order and the boundaries of the human world in opposition to
the chaotic world outside it. However, the narrative of the old Hoburg
man does not fit squarely into either category. The chapbook, a rationalist
and rather tiresome creation according to Holbek, is supposed to be ficti-
tious, but there are elements in it with their roots in legend tradition. Thus,
the status of the printed source is ambiguous, and the oral versions have
followed suit. Some of the latter have not been completely faithful to the
literary text, and two distinct tendencies can be discerned in the develop-
ment of the stories. Some stress the narrative’s identity as a tale, often
linking it with tales of the stupid ogre. It is viewed as entertainment, and
the troll is thought to deserve the treatment it gets. Nevertheless, the troll
is duped by reference to powers associated with the legend and the beliefs
of the community.
Others add further legend motifs to the text, frequently connecting it
with real barrows or hills in the landscape. The peculiarity of the other-
world is prominent, and man becomes the defender of his community
against alien intrusion. The happy end of the story brings it closer to
the tale in this respect, and Holbek’s conclusion is that the narrative is
permanently poised on the borderline between legend and tale (Holbek
1991: 187–191).
16 Introduction
In her doctoral dissertation Le troll et autres créatures surnaturelles dans les
contes populaires norvégiens (1996), Virginie Amilien ponders the construc-
tion of the image of the troll and its world through the ages, and the sym-
bolism and associations of the figure. In exploring what one might call the
metaphorical association between the domain of the troll and the world of
the dead, Amilien focuses on the traits common to both realms. One such
characteristic is the location of these worlds, in the mountains. The dead
were thought to inhabit specific mountains in the landscape, whereas trolls
dwelt in the mountains of the imagination. Timelessness and the absence
of spatial specificity define both realms. The Christian division of the world
of the dead into Paradise, Purgatory and Hell recurs in the description of
the otherworld of the troll in which these three categories intermingle. Ac-
cording to Amilien, the image of Paradise is present in the fertility of the
earth in the domain of the troll, as well as in the arduousness of the passage
to that realm (cf. the narrow path), visited by an elect few, but since the
world of the troll is often reached through a descent involving physical
mortification, it may also be linked to the image of Hell or to Purgatory.
The brilliant light encountered at the end of the journey, however, once
again associates it with Paradise (Amilien 1996: 108–117). In this study I
consider the paradisical associations of the otherworld as well, but I will
point to other reasons for doing so, and the conclusions are somewhat
different.
Amilien employs a longue-durée perspective on her material, tracing the
evolution of the troll from the Old Norse sagas to modern folktales and
contemporary popular culture. In Old Norse literature the troll was con-
nected with combat, and female trolls in particular were regarded as power-
ful and vicious. With the introduction of Christianity all supernatural crea-
tures were denigrated, but only the troll was assimilated into the image of
the Devil. Amilien illustrates the influence of the Bible on folk narratives
with one, lucid example, tale types AT 300–303, The Dragon Slayer. The
attributes of the dragon, beast, troll or rise acting as opponent in these
types are drawn from the Revelation of St. John the Divine. The many
heads of the troll, the horns it is occasionally endowed with and the crowns
adorning its heads are to be found in the description of the beast in Revel-
ation 13: 1, and the ability of the troll to regenerate when not all of its heads
have been lopped off in one stroke parallels the wondrous resuscitation of
the beast in Revelation 13: 3 (Amilien 1996: 135, 142–144, 146). I intend to
18 Introduction
beauty. Fourthly and fifthly, it is associated with two specific ways of dy-
ing, either at the sight of the rising sun, or in an explosion because of
anger—it literally bursts into pieces (Amilien 1996: 255).
Amilien also considers whether there is anything typically Norwegian in
the folktales, and she concludes that the attributes of supranormal creatures
in the texts are not exclusively Norwegian; rather the national character lies
in the combination of wondrous attributes and the rigorous functions im-
posed by the narrative. The omnipresence of the supernatural and its close
liaison with the everyday is the true mark of Norwegianness, according to
Amilien (Amilien 1996: 258).
The principal fascination of Amilien’s work is her manner of blending
the research problems posed in contemporary folkloristics with the old
question of survivals of ancient cultural conceptions in 19th- and early
20th-century folklore. In contrast to the representatives of the survivalist
approach, however, she does not view the historical evolution of this relic
as a degeneration of ancient forms, but as an adaptation to an existing his-
torical context producing a culturally viable tradition. Each stage of evol-
ution is given its due, and the Old Norse conceptions are not valorized
simply because they are the oldest. Similarly, she does not stoop to reduc-
tionism, confining the world of the troll to a feeble reflection of the ancient
kingdom of the dead, for instance, but emphasizing their connotative and
associative resemblances.
The implications of her analysis are interesting to deliberate. Why did
these ancient concepts survive, i.e., what function did they fill in later peri-
ods? Were they considered functional in wonder tales only, or did they per-
sist in other contexts as well? How did they fit into the overall culture of
each era? These questions might be difficult to answer, but they certainly
deserve to be posed.
Knut Aukrust has studied the relationship between trolls, churches and
St. Olaf in an article with that title, “Troll, kirker og St. Olav” (1997).
St. Olaf occupied a special place in Norwegian folklore, something occa-
sionally frowned upon by the ecclesiastical authorities. The saint also re-
presented law and order for the peasantry which referred to him in disputes
with the authorities (Aukrust 1997: 235–237).
The Christianization of the country effected by St. Olaf was not accom-
plished without opposition, and in the folk tradition the human, pagan
adversaries have been replaced by equally pagan, but supernatural creatures,
20 Introduction
Aukrust scrutinizes the symbolism of the stories of St. Olaf and the trolls,
connecting them with the creation of sacred space and the victory of good
over evil.
In addition to these scientific works, there are a number of books aimed
at the general public which are worth mentioning, for instance Jan-Öjvind
Swahn and Bo Lundwall’s 1984 book Trollen, deras liv, land och legender
(‘The Trolls, Their Life, Land and Legends’), Olav Bø’s Trollmakter og god-
vette (‘Magic Powers and Godvette’, 1987), and Ebbe Schön and Elisabeth
Nyman’s Troll (‘Trolls’, 1997).
To summarize, my own work will develop three aspects already touched
upon in prior scholarship: firstly, I will expand Hartmann’s perspectives on
conflict and tolerance between man and troll to include other genres than
fairy tales, and to focus on the ratio between these opposites in the narra-
tives, and how it affects the relationship between man and troll. Secondly,
I will discuss the issue of intergeneric dialogue raised by Holbek in order to
highlight the generic constitution of the image of the troll. Thirdly, I will
launch a more systematic and sustained analysis of the connections between
troll narratives and Biblical stories, a relation briefly considered by Amilien
in her dissertation.
1.4.1 Intertextuality
Most advocates of intertextuality have not confined themselves to the text-
ual level alone, but this level does figure in many investigations as a com-
ponent in the analysis of broader concerns. The concept was introduced by
Julia Kristeva in 1969 in her article “Le mot, le dialogue et le roman”; she
drew her inspiration from Saussurean linguistics and Bakhtinian dialogism,
and I therefore briefly present the thoughts of the latter which substantially
contributed to the innovative aspects of the theory. Nevertheless, in this
context I focus exclusively on those facets of Bakhtin’s work which are
directly relevant for the development of the conception of intertextuality;
the reader wishing to find more information on other features of Bakhtin’s
oeuvre has many valuable commentaries to consult.5 I will also introduce
5 See e.g. Björklund 2000; Clark & Holquist 1984; Dentith 1995; Emerson 2000;
Hirschkop & Shepherd 1989; Hirschkop 1999; Holquist 1990; Lock 2001a; Lock 2001b;
Morson 1986; Morson & Emerson 1990; Vice 1997.
22 Introduction
other concepts elaborated by Bakhtin in the course of this thesis, and dis-
cuss them in their respective contexts.
I have already presented Bakhtin’s understanding of dialogue in some
detail in chapter 1.2, and I will not repeat it here. However, the very no-
tion of intertextuality itself, the conception of the text as a mosaic of quot-
ations, is foreshadowed by Bakhtin’s analyses of the roots of the works of
Rabelais and Dostoevsky in carnival and Menippean satire (Bakhtin 1968;
Bachtin 1991). In other words, texts may absorb the characteristics of other
genres and cultural forms, and be transformed by them as well as re-model
them in their turn. In this respect, Bakhtin is more concerned with inter-
discursivity and intergenericity than with intertextuality, though he would
have employed none of these terms to describe his preoccupations.6
Kristeva produced her work in the intellectual climate of the group in-
volved in the avant-garde journal Tel Quel, which boasted associates such as
Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and other prominent
theorists (Allen 2000: 30–35). Taking the Bakhtinian word as a point of
departure, she described the word not as “un point (un sens fixe), mais un
croisement de surfaces textuelles, un dialogue de plusieurs écritures: de l’écri-
vain, du destinataire (ou du personnage), du contexte culturel actuel ou an-
térieur” (Kristeva 1978: 83).7 Kristeva operates with a fusion of writer and
addressee, and of addressee and cultural context. Through the word, the
text is situated within history and society which are viewed as texts read by
the author and into which he inserts himself by rewriting them. Diachrony
gives way to synchrony as the writer assimilates and reaccentuates anterior
texts (Kristeva 1978: 83). All texts are considered mosaics of quotations,
being the absorption and transformation of other texts. As a consequence,
intersubjectivity disappears and is replaced by intertextuality (Kristeva
1978: 85), signalling the emergence of an entirely textualized universe.
Gérard Genette has devoted much effort to developing the analytical
6 In this context I would like to point out that I do not regard Bakhtin as an intertextual-
ist, though I acknowledge his partial predilection for problems related to the research field
subsequently given that label. Nevertheless, much of his work is difficult to subsume un-
der this heading, and especially the later, psychoanalytical orientation of intertextuality is
hard to reconcile with Bakhtin’s more pragmatic view of things.
7 “… a point (a fixed meaning), but an intersection of textual surfaces, a dialogue of several
writings: of the writer, of the addressee (or the character), of the contemporary or anterior
cultural context” (my translation; cf. Kristeva 1980).
8 “…all that places it [the text] in relation, manifestly or secretly, with other texts” (my
translation).
24 Introduction
lish the common-sense world as a platform for developing other domains
of meaning (Stewart 1979: 16–17). Stewart elaborates an intertextual con-
struct, proceeding from realism, which is most faithful to the everyday,
common-sense world, via myth, science fiction and fantasy transposing it
to another world while still being dependent on it, to irony splitting reality
into two separate spheres, the normal and the ironic, and metafiction stres-
sing the cultural nature of signification and interpretation. The last level of
textuality, metafiction, bears a close resemblance to nonsense since it is em-
bedded in an impossible context, criticizing fiction from within fiction it-
self (Stewart 1979: 19–21). The intertextual construct serves to situate non-
sense in the field of other utterances and textual practices, highlighting its
affinities with other ways of manipulating common-sense assumptions.
Stewart emphasizes the social context of the interpretation of intertext-
ual relationships, citing biography, the traditional stock of knowledge at
hand and the concept of society in general as determining factors (Stewart
1979: 16). However, she does not discuss the genesis and definition of the
term more broadly.
Intertextuality received a significant folkloristic elaboration in 1993 when
the Finnish scholar Lotte Tarkka presented her comprehensive theory on
the subject in the paper “Intertextuality, Rhetorics, and the Interpretation
of Oral Poetry”. Like Kristeva, Tarkka construed the text “as a meeting
point of different texts”. She describes the subject (the writer or perform-
er), the receiver (the reader or listener), and the cultural context, history
and reality as the focal points in the construction of meaning. The subject
is also a receiver, creating the text in relation to already existing texts
(Tarkka 1993: 171). Unlike Kristeva, Tarkka thus regards the receiver (the
addressee) as an empirical being, not as a purely discursive entity; Kristeva’s
textualized notions of history and society are replaced by more folkloristic-
ally oriented definitions. Context and text become different aspects of the
production of meaning, and where one ends and the other begins is not
self-evident (Tarkka 1993: 178). The act of performance links the text to
social and cultural reality, as well as to the performing subject, and it nar-
rows the span of the web of intertextuality.
In a later study, Tarkka examines the relation between texts in terms of
the processes of metaphor and metonymy; here metaphor refers to the dif-
ferences and similarities between a pair of opposites representing distinct
conceptual spheres—for example the human village and the supernatural
26 Introduction
ployed to organize other cultural concepts, symbols and relations. Additio-
nally, the scholar examines relations of opposition and exclusion; the force
of the female genitalia, female väki, should not come into contact with
men’s travel gear, for instance, since that would ruin them or the horse in
some way (Stark-Arola 1998: 67–68, 23–24, 224–230).
The emphasis on an understanding arrived at through the reading of a
corpus of texts in its entirety necessitates a substantial research material, as
a single text or a very small number of texts are deemed inadequate for the
production of a reliable interpretation of cultural thought. Hence a size-
able corpus is primarily needed for the identification of key texts, those
texts which will throw light on all texts involved. Such key texts may be
ones overtly articulating the assumptions remaining tacit in many other
records, as in Stark-Arola’s case (Stark-Arola 1998: 68).
The scholarly interpretation of the semantic systems extracted from the
intertextual universe is worked out through reference to various contextual
frames, consisting of textual context, performance context, social context,
cultural context, folk belief context, genre context and inter-genre context.
Only the last two are labelled intertextual—with a broader conception of
intertext, all but the first, which is rather intratextual, could be regarded as
intertextual (Stark-Arola 1998: 69–70).
Another seminal figure in the history of intertextuality is Michael Riffa-
terre. His version of the concept, presented in Semiotics of Poetry (1978) and
several articles, differs markedly from the ones dealt with thus far. He
defines an intertext as “one or more texts which the reader must know in
order to understand a work of literature in terms of its overall significance
(as opposed to the discrete meanings of its successive words, phrases and
sentences)” (Riffaterre 1990: 56). Intertextuality then becomes the network
of functions forming and regulating the relations between text and inter-
text. Riffaterre distinguishes between theme and intertext: the former is a
variant of a motif, and knowledge of it is not necessary for the interpreta-
tion of a text (Riffaterre 1990: 57, 61); it does not always constitute an in-
tertext, but an intertext can simultaneously be a theme. This delimitation
of intertext is not congruent with the views of many intertextualist research-
ers. Lotte Tarkka, for example, has successfully analyzed themes as inter-
texts, and Ann Helene Bolstad Skjelbred has investigated the articulation
of the same theme in a diachronic body of material (see 1.4.4). In my own
work I have also regarded themes as intertexts, since I do believe the
28 Introduction
Lauri Honko has picked up on Riffaterre’s version of intertextuality in
his Textualising the Siri Epic (1998), though he dispenses with many of
Riffaterre’s assumptions, for example the non-referentiality of poetry; being
an ardent defender of the fundamental importance of context and per-
formance (Honko 1998: 151), Honko has no sympathy for context-free ap-
proaches. What Honko and Riffaterre do share is the emphasis on inter-
textuality at the reception of a text. Riffaterre’s exegesis of French poetry is
ostensibly oriented to the reading to be made by the receiver, and Honko
places special theoretical weight on intertextual interpretation when the
singer is internalizing a specific epic on the one hand, and during the per-
formance of an epic on the other, when the audience is creating coherence
in the text by referring the story to a set of intertexts, which might not be
the same for all participants (Honko 1998: 167, 145, cf. 399).
Other common features are the stress on the individuality of the text,
which Honko seems to feel tends to be downplayed in some accounts of
intertextuality (Honko 1998: 34), and the notion of a shared sociolect
(Riffaterre 1984: 160, n. 2) or pool of tradition (Honko 1998: 69 et passim)
consisting of thematic, poetic, performatory and other traditional models,
elements and rules. The individual performer then selects and adjusts com-
ponents of this collective, intertextual store, and it is this application of the
concept that Honko finds most rewarding. The pool of tradition as organ-
ized through a singer’s personal tradition system becomes less disorderly
than the presumed collective one, and it is possible to discern how the mat-
erial is retained in the mind, namely as prearranged units and orderings of
plot, but remaining open to editing and novel combinations of elements
(Honko 1998: 70–71, 92–93, 154–155). The concept of the pool of tradition is
intimately connected with another notion: for each separate epic present in
the singer’s mind Honko posits a mental text, a pretextual template incor-
porating storylines, textual elements such as episodic patterns, images of
epic situations and multiforms, generic rules and contextual frames, e.g. re-
membrances of earlier performances. However, the term should not be
reduced to mean merely fixed wordings stored in the memory and subse-
quently used in performance, since that would greatly diminish its explana-
tory power. Its force lies in explicating the mechanisms behind the other-
wise rather mysterious composition and performance of extended folklore
forms, like the long oral epic, by providing a distinct but flexible frame-
work within which to develop the narrative. The totality of mental texts
1.4.2 Interdiscursivity
The identification of intertextuality with mere source-hunting within a
paradigm of influence, implying unimaginative dependence on other texts
and authors, in later applications of the theory of intertextuality led Kristeva
to abandon the term intertextuality in favour of transposition, which better
expressed the important point that intertextuality involves a transposition
from one sign system to another, resulting in a rearticulation of the thetic
position, the enunciative and denotative position. As an example Kristeva
refers to her study of the medieval French romance whose sign system
sprang from the redistribution of the sign systems of the carnival, courtly
poetry and scholastic discourse (Kristeva 1985: 59–60). Put in these terms,
intertextuality comes closer to a notion of interdiscursivity or intergeneric
dialogue.
Norman Fairclough has utilized the concept of interdiscursivity or con-
stitutive intertextuality to describe the relation between different discursive
structures. Interdiscursivity denotes “the constitution of texts out of elem-
ents (types of convention) of orders of discourse”, defined as the totality of
30 Introduction
discursive practices within an institution or society (Fairclough 1992: 85, 43).
He regards interdiscursivity as applicable to many levels, e.g. to the societal
order of discourse, the institutional order of discourse, the discourse types
(a term used for any kind of convention) and elements constituting dis-
course types, such as genre and discourse. A discourse is a specific way of
constructing a subject matter or area of knowledge (Fairclough 1992: 124–
128).
The concept draws on both Julia Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality and
Michel Foucault’s and Michel Pêcheux’s work on discourse, with the
crucial addition of the possibility of discursive as well as social change.
Fairclough situates his scholarly preoccupations within the field of critical
linguistics, and his version of it combines a concern for stringent discourse
analysis with questions of power relations and ideologies, the constitution
of social subjects and systems of knowledge and belief (Fairclough 1992: 12).
I will be applying Fairclough’s conception of interdiscursivity in my ex-
amination of the relationship between folklore and religious tradition as
manifested in narratives of trolls, but I will not be addressing all the issues
raised by his standpoint. There is one problem with the notion of inter-
discursivity though, and that is the difficulty of distinguishing the inter-
textual and interdiscursive level. It is often virtually impossible, and any
description of the effects of intertextual and interdiscursive relations on
discourse must take both dimensions into account.
In Ulrika Wolf-Knuts’ investigation of intertextual relations between the
Biblical story of the Creation and Fall of Man and folklore narratives about
women receiving aid from the Devil at the birth of their babies (Wolf-Knuts
2000), the latter is regarded as the inverted version of the former, constit-
uting a return of sorts to a paradisical state in which women can give birth
without pain (Wolf-Knuts 2000: 100–101). Thus, Wolf-Knuts identifies
specific Biblical intertexts—here New Testament texts are mentioned as
well—to the folklore texts which she, referring to the work of Manfred
Geier (Geier 1985), who adopted Gérard Genette’s term (Genette 1992, or-
iginally published in 1982), calls palimpsests or a montage of texts. Following
Lotte Tarkka, she views each text as dependent on other texts to acquire its
meaning. She also considers the link between the Biblical and the folklore
texts as a relation between discourses, ecclesiastical and popular, even
though she does not employ the concept of interdiscursivity. Furthermore,
Wolf-Knuts points to the occasionally very elusive nature of intertexts: all
32 Introduction
wholes bounded by a change of speaking subjects and able to elicit a re-
sponse (Bakhtin 1986b: 71, 76)—uttered by voices in a dialogue, Eriksen an-
alyzes the texts about Erlingsson in the context of national and local hist-
ory. Scholars concentrating on Erlingsson’s position in national history
have adopted various perspectives, but all of them have related their vision
of him to the discourses prevalent within the discipline of history. On the
local level, Erlingsson is associated with sites in both Østfold and Vestfold.
In Østfold local historians have attempted to insert local history into the
larger frame of national history; the material used is comprised of historical
sources. In Vestfold oral tradition is the only available source, as historical
data confirming Erlingsson’s connection to Vestfold do not exist. Hence
historians in Østfold and Vestfold orient their narratives in relation to dif-
ferent discourses, one to scholarly discourses, the other to orally transmit-
ted “folk” discourses. Simultaneously, the inclusion of Mindre-Alv in a
folkloristic scholarly discussion spawns links to yet other professional dis-
courses and creates a dialogue with new intertexts (it might be noted that
the historians of Vestfold practice the intertextual technique of amplifica-
tion as designated by Genette, for they fill in the lacuna of the historical
sources with texts from the oral tradition). Eriksen draws the conclusion
that there is no “tradition” about Mindre-Alv, but rather a network of
voices and utterances in dialogue. The notion of tradition is completely
replaced by the concepts of voice and dialogue (Eriksen 2002: 149–166).
1.4.3 Intergenericity
34 Introduction
reduces the distance between text and genre, while maximization increases
it. The former is associated with traditional renderings, whereas the latter
is more in line with idiosyncratic, “avantgarde” ones (Briggs & Bauman
1992: 147–149). Bakhtin’s secondary genres come to the fore in Briggs and
Bauman’s discussion of tall tales, a genre moving from one type of generic
intertextuality (linked to the personal experience narrative) to another (the
hyperbolic tall tale). The connections to several sets of generic features or
to a mixed genre, or both, enable multiple strategies for the manipulation
of intertextual gaps, as well as an ideological rearticulation of the constitu-
ent genres and their mutual relations (Briggs & Bauman 1992: 154). In my
study of parody in chapter 6, I will be utilizing this point of view. The re-
lationship between generic intertextuality and power pointed out by Briggs
and Bauman (Briggs & Bauman 1992: 159) has also sparked an interest
within Nordic folklore research.
Inger Lövkrona’s study of erotic folklore, “Suktande pigor och finurliga
drängar” (‘Yearning Maids and Clever Farmhands’, 1996) is a meditation on
precisely the power over discourse and genre. She employs Lotte Tarkka’s
theory of intertextuality in order to make comparisons between various
traditional erotic texts and their respective messages concerning women
and their place in society. She views intertextualization as a method for
highlighting the consistency of the text’s message, i.e., the overt meaning
determined by the power relations portrayed in the relationship between
the subject and the object of the text. In contradistinction to message,
meaning is defined as being multiple and not manifested in the structure of
the text (Lövkrona 1996: 122). Briggs and Bauman’s notion of generic inter-
textuality and its link to ideology, politics and power is more vital to
the analysis however, and it is used in conjunction with feminist theories
in an investigation of the construction of gender and cultural identity, as
well as of the creation, reproduction and legitimization of gender hier-
archies (Lövkrona 1996: 112–113, 103–106). Lövkrona argues that traditional
erotica exhibit a male perspective, but stresses that women had the pos-
sibility to contest it by identifying with negative stereotypes in the texts.
These stereotypes were censured socially, yet allowed for female empower-
ment, along with the subversive power of laughter (Lövkrona 1996: 156–158,
162–166; cf. Asplund 2001 for a longer discussion of Lövkrona’s article).
Consequently, women’s reinterpretations of the male message belong to
the realm of meaning.
36 Introduction
korero is a superdiscourse, a marked form of culturally significant discourse
apprehended as an historically established understanding of the social hier-
archy and the power relations within the community. It is a basis and gen-
eric force in the social processes creating and legitimizing the order of a so-
ciety (Siikala 2000a: 366). Due to the status of the korero, the tumu korero
also assumes a specific professional habitus distinguished by respect for the
ancestors and dedication to historical accuracy (Siikala 2000b: 224).
Siikala provides some examples of the ways in which intertextual gaps are
manipulated by different persons in various contexts. Tumu koreros strive to
minimize the intertextual gap between performance and generic model,
whereas commoners asked to give an account of a korero maximize it, there-
by disclaiming it as a performance. The commoner does not master the
generic models appropriate to the korero, and is reluctant to perform it in
earnest (Siikala 2000b: 240). Another example is the transformation of a
handwritten manuscript, a puka papaanga containing the genealogical in-
formation and epic tradition pertinent to the korero, into an oral perfor-
mance which was then recorded in writing. In the first part of the narra-
tive, the performer minimizes the intertextual gap between his text and its
generic models, which is a strategy for creating textual authority through
adherence to prior, authoritative discourses mediated by the performer’s
father and other experts. Toward the end of the narrative, the narrator
maximizes the intertextual gap as the text turns into a performance of his
own life story. The reproduction of prior discourse becomes less import-
ant, and the personal experiences and evaluations of the narrator take
centre stage. The text is not a conventional korero, but rather a personal
perspective on world history (Siikala 2000a: 354, 359–360, 362). Siikala’s
research points to the potentially immense social significance of the mast-
ery of generic models and of the ability to manipulate intertextual gaps in
the appropriate way.
There is only one entry under this heading, namely Ann Helene Bolstad
Skjelbred’s investigation of diachronic intertextuality in Fortellinger om
huldra – fortellinger om oss (1998). Focusing on emotion and its expression
in narratives, Skjelbred tried to discover relationships of meaning and con-
notation (cf. Tarkka 1993: 171), and a form of thematic continuity in the
38 Introduction
plicitly intertextual terms; therefore some theories of the subject, such as
Lotte Tarkka’s, will not be considered here (but see Asplund 2001: 73).
Julia Kristeva has extended her discussion of intertextuality into the do-
main of the preverbal through her conception of the semiotic and the sym-
bolic, presented in her doctoral dissertation La révolution du langage poétique
(1985). The semiotic is composed of the drives preceding the acquisition of
language and subjectivity as they are inscribed into language, the symbolic.
After the acquisition of language, the semiotic and the symbolic are part of
the same whole, and both constitute subjectivity. Hence all signifying sys-
tems contain elements of both, though art, and especially poetry, is more
open to the energy of the semiotic (Kristeva 1985: 22). The revolution in
poetic language referred to in the title of the thesis is the eruption of the
semiotic into the texts of poets like Mallarmé, and the linguistic and social
revolution caused by it. Kristeva distinguishes between phenotext, which is
symbolic, and genotext, the inscription of the semiotic into the symbolic
(Kristeva 1985: 83–86). Her prime concern is the movement back and forth
from one to the other in a text. The semiotic is associated with a non-
verbal, atemporal and non-spatial receptacle of drives called the chora, ant-
erior to the formation of subjectivity (Kristeva 1985: 22–30), while the break
into language and identity is named the thetic, involving a separation of
subject and object (Kristeva 1985: 41–43).
This aspect of Kristeva’s work has not received much attention within
the field of folkloristics, but it must be included here to do justice to the
notion of intertextuality. For a good introduction to this facet of her work,
see Smith (1998).
Roland Barthes approached the problem of subjectivity from a more pro-
saic angle. In his analysis of Honoré de Balzac’s short story “Sarrasine”,
entitled S/Z (1976), Barthes identified five codes constituting the text and,
by extension, Balzac as a subject. Barthes attempted to demonstrate that
none of the features of the story had its origin in Balzac the Author-God’s
unique, individual mind, imbuing the text with august authorial intention,
but in the “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of cul-
ture” as he put it in “The Death of the Author” (Barthes 1977: 146). Balzac
is transformed from a humanist subject into an intertextualized one in the
process, even though Barthes denies the text itself the status of intertextual;
the classic text, the class to which “Sarrasine” belongs, is limited in its plur-
ality (Barthes 1976: 13), and is connotative rather than truly intertextual, or
40 Introduction
certain nuances to the picture of the workings of this absorption of genres,
emphasizing both the cultural and individual aspects of this process. The
intersubjective, dialogical encounter as an arena for further intertextualiza-
tion of subjects and for the production of knowledge and interpretations is
described as the ground for agency (Blaakilde 1998: 109), since dialogue
cannot be passive; if it is, it degenerates into monologue (cf. Emerson
2000: 229). Therefore it demands some degree of agency to continue.
All scholars presented here have their own conceptions of the subject
and subjectivity, but a number of common features may be discerned. All
seem to agree on the produced and processual nature of the subject, which
is constantly being reassessed and remoulded. Furthermore, subjectivity is
characterized as a relational position, articulated in relation to other people,
objects or phenomena. Subjectivity also creates the point of view from
which the individual observes the world; this is especially prominent in
Barthes’s analysis, where the constitution of the perspective of the author,
Balzac, is determined by the intertextual codes generating his subjectivity
(cf. Björklund 1993: 242; Lövkrona 1996: 160–166).
The choice of material has been guided by a number of practical and meth-
odological considerations. Thus, in my investigation I have restricted my-
self to trolls alone, i.e., to supranormal creatures explicitly designated by
that name, either in the text itself or in the headline supplied by the collec-
tor. This is primarily to keep the corpus manageable; examining the folk-
lore of all supernatural beings is a task of considerable proportions, and
exciting though it might be, I cannot embark on such a project here.
A special problem in selecting the corpus of study, however, has been to
discriminate between trollgumma and trollkäring (‘old troll woman’) in the
sense of witch and the use of the same terms in the sense of troll. My prag-
matic solution to this thorny issue has been to check if these labels alter-
nate with troll or a synonym for witch in the text, and if the former is the
case, I have included the record in my material. This method is not fool-
proof, of course, but there was no other option.
The selection of the period of study has also been dictated by rather
pragmatic concerns: the earliest archival text on trolls to be found in the
Finland-Swedish folklore collections was recorded in the 1850s, while 1925
is the date of the last record—at least as far as I know—to be noted down
manually. All texts were collected using a fairly uniform fieldwork meth-
odology, described in chapter 2.2. A comparison of audiotape recordings
and handwritten documents is a task in itself, which I cannot perform in
the context of this thesis (for such a study on the nightmare, see Danielsson
1992). Besides a consistency in the fieldwork methods used in the collec-
tion of the material, my choice is also conditioned by the scrutiny of inter-
textual relations which I have opted to analyze from a roughly synchronous
perspective in order to achieve some uniformity in the intertexts invoked.
A consideration of intertexts changing over time might have offered an in-
triguing peek at the life of tradition from a diachronic point of view, but
then we would have had to contend with the different nature of the sources
as well.
Regarding chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7, the material has been selected employ-
ing the following criteria. In chapters 4 and 5 I have limited myself to the
tradition of a specific parish, the parish of Vörå, and its immediate neigh-
bours. Lotte Tarkka stresses the importance of working with material from
a single community (Tarkka 1993: 173) to ensure that the intertextual rela-
42 Introduction
tions found spring from the same network of associations, and the parish of
Vörå is exceptionally rich in (recorded) supernatural traditions. Vörå may
also be said to represent the average Ostrobothnian parish in many re-
spects: chiefly rural, socially homogeneous, prone to religious revivals and
emigration. The choice of the parish of Vörå as the object of a case study is
mainly dictated by the availability of material and the existence of other
studies on the folklore and history of the community. For the discussion in
chapters 4 and 5 I wanted a corpus of texts belonging to the same tale or
legend type, and Vörå was the parish with the largest number of such texts.
The selected parish also had to furnish a substantial amount of other folk-
lore material, and once again Vörå was a good choice. In addition, I con-
sidered it important to have other studies on the parish to consult, especi-
ally in the reconstruction of the historical, social and religious context. A
more personal motivation is that my paternal grandmother was born in
Vörå, and therefore it has pleased me to do my research on her native par-
ish. However, if some other community had proven more useful for my
purposes, I would have opted for that instead. Vörå is not a romanticized
and exoticized Finland-Swedish Dalecarlia or Karelia, representing the
home of the genuine, Finland-Swedish folk, at least not to me.
Two groups of texts, both of which consist of narratives of abduction,
though the second adds the motif of the banishment of the trolls, have
been singled out as particularly suitable for an intertextual analysis as they
represent the nearest equivalent to a thick corpus (Honko 2000: 15–17) to be
found in my material. Lauri Honko glosses this term as the activity of
“producing ‘thickness’ of text and context through the multiple documenta-
tion of expressions of folklore in their varying manifestations in perfor-
mance within a ‘biologically’ definable tradition bearer, community or en-
vironment” (Honko 2000: 17). Collected within the same community, the
texts studied in these chapters may indeed be viewed as “part of living tra-
dition systems maintained by individuals and groups having the possibility
of social exchange” (Honko 2000: 16). Nevertheless, the thickness of the
material is mainly restricted to the textual level, while contextual thickness
is lacking; the latter was not a priority during the time of collection.
In chapter 6 I have concentrated on the repertoire of a single narrator,
another form of thick corpus, though with the same reservations as in the
previous case. As for chapter 7, the selection of texts has been guided by
the research problem posed, i.e., what effects the indeterminacy of the troll
Method 43
in stories of the supernatural has on the relationship between man and
troll. A number of records from the entire Swedish-speaking area have
been singled out for analysis on the basis of their illustrative character.
Concerning the choice of material in general terms, I have restricted
myself to prose narrative genres. I have also perused the extant records of
ballads, proverbs and riddles referring to trolls, but these are so scant that
they scarcely contribute anything to the investigation, and I have therefore
decided to exclude them.
The theories I use also constitute my method to a large extent, but a
number of comments on my concrete method of analysis may be made. It
is quite akin to those used by Laura Stark-Arola and Lotte Tarkka; in the
course of my work, I have read approximately 10 000 records9 as published
in certain volumes of Finlands svenska folkdiktning (‘The Swedish Folklore
of Finland’), mainly legends of the supernatural, wonder tales and jocular
tales (Finlands 1917, 1920, 1931)—I have read the cited volumes in their en-
tirety. In addition to these, I have made goal-oriented searches in other
parts of this collection. Taking the troll stories as a point of departure, I
have scanned these three volumes on the basis of two criteria in the case of
texts intended for my intertextual investigations in chapters 4, 5 and 6: 1)
the presence of verbal expressions similar to the ones utilized in troll nar-
ratives (the epithets of Tarkka’s theory), and 2) the employment of similar
themes (the core motifs in Stark-Arola’s method, the common themes in
Tarkka’s). When I have discovered linguistic or thematic similarities using
the method of intertextual abstraction, I have consulted the original re-
cords, as the published versions generally do not reproduce the vernacular.
I have also gone over the narratives in Rancken’s second collection, going
straight to the original records (R II; see chapter 2.2.1).
In assessing the relevance of potential intertexts thus identified, I have
striven to maintain a rather close fit between the verbal expression and/or
theme of the troll text and the intertext. I have rejected intertexts in which
the similarity to the primary material was too tenuous and superficial.
9 The concept of the record, in its capacity as a text in particular, is not wholly unproble-
matic. Where does one record/text end and another begin? Especially in the light of inter-
textual theory, the boundaries of the text become permeable and fuzzy (cf. Tarkka 1993:
171). In this specific context I mean a text demarcated as a single whole in the manuscript,
occupying a page of its own and/or given an individual heading or number, or, in the case
of longer segments, parts dealing with the same topic or theme.
44 Introduction
However, it is difficult to draw an exact line between probable and improb-
able intertexts, and the final decision remains subjective, as indeed all inter-
pretation does (cf. Tarkka 1993: 172–173; Skjelbred 1998: 21–22, referring to
Ingwersen 1995: 77–90; Wolf 2002: 16–28). Nevertheless, I have also tried to
corroborate my interpretations through reference to existing knowledge
about the beliefs, customs and contextual factors prevalent in the parish of
Vörå at the time of collection.
Regarding chapter 7, my method has been somewhat different as the re-
search problem has changed. Michael Holquist has stated that Bakhtin’s
works do not furnish any ready-made methods which can be applied dir-
ectly to a research material, but that “[a]n immersion in Bakhtin’s thought
will indeed transform the way one reads, but only after some time has
elapsed, and in ways that are not predictable (Holquist 1990: 107–108). It
took me three years to see the utility of Bakhtin’s notions of unfinalizability
and finalization in my own work, and the key to this realization was the
same as Ann Helene Bolstad Skjelbred’s in her examination of cultural
intertextuality: emotion. I had noted the sometimes very palpable sense of
fear of the supernatural described in some troll narratives, and I wondered
whether there was any significant reason for this other than the basic
human fear of the unknown. I started studying the situations in which this
fear appeared in the stories, and came to the conclusion that it was the un-
certainty about the intentions and possible actions of the troll that pro-
voked this reaction. Framing it as an instance of unfinalizability was prin-
cipally occasioned by Bakhtin’s glossing of the concept as the unobstructed
unfolding of a character in narrative; this seemed to help to explain the be-
haviour of the troll in the narratives. The position of the author, or, in my
case, the narrator in relation to unfinalizable characters was also important;
narrators of troll texts seemed to strive for the creation of an image of the
troll dominated by its unpredictability which I interpreted as a consequence
of its unfinalizability. Then I began to look for evidence of a potential un-
finalizability of supranormal characters in other texts, and of a possible
promotion of this trait on the part of the narrators in their construction of
their texts.
Method 45
2 MATERIAL AND CONTEXT
2.1 General Considerations
My primary material consists of 123 records made by many different collec-
tors in various parts of those districts in Finland housing Swedish-speaking
inhabitants. In addition to these texts, I have cited 72 other records which
constitute my secondary material. The largest part of the material stems
from the Folk Culture Archives of the Swedish Literature Society in Fin-
land in Helsingfors, some records belong to the Rancken Folklore collec-
tion currently deposited at the Department of Folklore at Åbo Akademi
University. Finally, 26 texts are drawn from printed sources, predominant-
ly publications dealing expressly with folklore and folk culture.
The geographical distribution of records from Nyland (Uusimaa) and
Southwest Finland is almost even, but Ostrobothnia has yielded more than
fifty per cent of the texts. The Åland Islands are poorly represented in my
material, having contributed only two records. The primary corpus con-
sists of prose narratives of trolls, supernatural beings mostly inhabiting for-
ests, hills and rocks.
It is questionable whether it is possible to make any pronouncements on
the actual distribution and vigour of troll traditions in the Swedish-speaking
areas in Finland on the basis of the amount of records alone. Collection
was often guided by the personal interests of each fieldworker, and the
entire scope of traditions in a community was hardly covered by even the
most industrious of collectors. In addition, some parishes received more
attention than others. The politics of collection probably had a profound
influence on the formation of the collections now extant, and the lack of
records from a particular area cannot be equated to a lack of tradition
(Bergman 1981: 22–23; Wolf-Knuts 1991: 34–37; cf. Lilja 1996: 182).
In the following I will give an account of the ideology constructed and
sustained in and through the collection of Swedish folklore in Finland. All
translations from the Swedish are mine unless otherwise stated. I will also
provide a brief description of the context in which the records were made,
focusing on the material from the Ostrobothnian parish of Vörå, which
will be the object of some in-depth studies in chapters 4, 5 and 6.10
10 In this thesis I refer to the sites of collection as parishes, even though this administrative
unit was replaced by the municipality in 1865–1868.
The Sources 47
Rancken tried to entice his pupils into an appreciation of folklore by
giving them essay assignments on local traditions (Andersson 1967: 129–130;
Bergman 1981: 7; Häggman 1992: 75–76; Wolf-Knuts 1997: 43). Three of the
texts I will cite stem from this kind of homework; one such essay was sub-
mitted by Odo Sandelin in January 1887 when he attended the eighth form.
The text is composed in standard Swedish. Sandelin comes across as hos-
tile to folklore and condemns it in no uncertain terms. He connects super-
stition to the spiritual state of different religions; in pagan religions super-
stition prospers most, a bit less in Catholicism, and least of all in his own
faith, Protestantism. He writes:
Ostuderadt och oupplyst folk har en besynnerlig benägenhet att sätta tilltro till en hel
hop underliga, oftast otänkbara och förnuftslösa historier och de i håg komma dem så
beundransvärdt väl. Dessa sitta de sedan om vinterkvällarna vid spiselelden och berätta
åt sina barn, som sedan med sin rika, lifliga fantasi oppfatta dem mycket mer förunder-
liga än de i sjelfva verket berättats. Så fortgår det från generation till generation, alltid
med små förändringar och tillsatser vid berättandet. Vårt folk har länge stått fjettradt i
okunnighetens bojor. På senare tider har likväl en stigande folkbildning börjat lossa
dessa bojor och jemsides med den har vidskepelsen och öftron börjat försvinna eller åt-
minstone minskas. Så t. ex. i Kronoby kommun. Här finns numera högst få tradition-
er från länge sedan svunna dar. Kronoby är också i intellektuellt hänseende en af land-
ets främsta socknar. Endast af gammalt folk får man höra dessa sägner; de unga tro
dem ej och endast göra spe af dem. (R I 86: 1–2)
Unstudied and uneducated people have a peculiar propensity to give credence to an en-
tire host of strange, often unthinkable and senseless stories, and they recall them so ad-
mirably well. In the winter evenings they consequently sit by the fireside and tell these
to their children who, with their lively imagination, interpret them as far more wond-
rous than they really have been told. Thus it continues from generation to generation,
always with small changes and additions in the telling. Our people have long stood fet-
tered in the bonds of ignorance. Recently the rise of education has, however, begun to
undo these bonds and alongside it superstition has begun to disappear or at least dim-
inish. Thus [it is] e.g. in the municipality of Kronoby. Nowadays there are very few
traditions here from times long since past. Kronoby is also intellectually one of the
most prominent parishes in the country. You only get to hear these legends from the
old folk; the young do not believe in them and only ridicule them.
The Sources 49
made in the parish of Vörå. One gives as the place of provenance the parish
as a whole (R II 151), while the rest were collected in the villages of Karvsor
(R II 11), Rejpelt (R II 70; R II 120; R II 204) and Kaitsor (R II 178). The
remaining two were recorded in the parish of Gamla Karleby (R II 420)
and the village of Dagsmark in the parish of Lappfjärd (R II 291) respect-
ively. In the parish of Sideby he met Niklas Teir, the son of a lay assessor,
who provided him with one story (R II 394). Similarly, in the village of
Dagsmark he collected two stories, one from Henrik Lilljans (R II 295) and
the other from Karl Gustaf Lång (R II 305), the latter having also been
known as a ballad singer, as were Maria and Sofia Bergström from the vil-
lage of Härkmeri in the same parish. The Bergströms jointly contributed
one story (R II 336), as did E. Granars from the same village (R II 338). In
Skaftung Wefvar came across Robert Emholm, another legend narrator
and ballad singer nick-named Rox-Robert, who gave him one narrative
(R II 339). The painter Peter Ragvals in the parish of Övermark supplied
three stories, one of them in writing, but all texts still in the vernacular
(R II 325; R II 327; R II 328). In the parish of Vörå Wefvar visited Greta
Mårtens who supported herself on life annuity (R II 32; R II 76), Anna
Kull (R II 19; R II 121), Johan Svens (R II 67), Majs Svens, merely eleven
years old (R II 199) and the carpenter Johan Alén in the village of Rejpelt
(R II 27; R II 58; see Appendix A). He also called on Sigfrids in the village
of Kaitsor, said to be supported by life annuity (R II 175), as well as on
Jakob Grönback who narrated one story (R II 133). In the village of Karvsor
Wefvar met the former baker’s apprentice Mickel Bygdén (R II 46), and in
the village of Lotlax he encountered the shoemaker Svendlin (R II 188). In
the village of Karvat in the neighbouring parish of Oravais the carpenter
Erik Kock gave him one story (R II 36), while Maria Holstre from the vil-
lage of Kimo supplied him with one narrative (R II 28a). Finally, Johan
Mattsson Palkis from Wefvar’s home village of Linnusperä in the parish of
Gamla Karleby contributed one text cited here (R II 138). Unfortunately,
one text is illegible toward the end and I have not been able to decipher the
name of the performer (R II 427).
The Sources 51
collection was entrusted to kompetenta fackmän (‘competent professionals’),
a measure leading to an increasing specialization among the collectors, and
also fostering a more critical distance to the material at the collection stage,
which was indeed what Lagus had hoped to achieve (Bergman 1981: 22–23).
The collectors were dissuaded from combining prose texts. Suitable oc-
casions for collection were mentioned in the instructions as festivities and
winter evenings by the hearth in the case of folktales, and normal speech
situations for proverbs. These were considered the natural performance
contexts ensuring authenticity. Present-day folklore research, however,
emphasizes that the collector influences the situation in “natural contexts”
simply by being present; there is no such thing as participant observation
unaffected by the observer. In interview situations the instructions stress
that the interviewee’s personality, the time and the place, and the narrator’s
expressive powers must be taken into account (FU 3: 105) before fixing on a
fieldwork strategy. The interview was, in practice, the most common
method of collection, and interviewers often quoted previously collected
tradition by way of illustrating what they were looking for. They were also
quick to explain why they were roaming the countryside to dispel any su-
spicion harboured by informants (Bergman 1981: 28, 30, 39).
Collectors from the peasant class were probably better equipped to create
a relationship with the locals, as they came from similar cultural and social
backgrounds. It is hard to say to what extent the difference in social status
between the rural population and the many elementary school teachers fun-
ctioning as collectors has moulded the material obtained. Notwithstanding,
not only the social position of collectors and informants influenced their
relationship in the field encounter, but also the dominance of the field-
worker in the interview situation. The unequal power relations in an inter-
view should not be overlooked as an aspect having an impact on the en-
counter (see Vasenkari 1999: 58, 65–66). Nevertheless, many other factors
may affect the state of affairs.
From 1908 onwards the scholarship holders were mostly academics and
the social gap grew even more noticeable, but a small, but diligent band of
local collectors still carried out unpaid fieldwork in the communities where
they lived. Problems in the interaction with the narrator arose partly out of
the insecure political context, people were suspicious of strangers, or strong
religious feelings made people less inclined to pass on sinful things like folk
belief (Bergman 1981: 28–29, 32; Wolf-Knuts 1991: 35–36).
The Sources 53
narrator’s train of thoughts cannot be followed in the manuscripts. The
severe scrutiny to which the records were subjected might have temp-
ted some collectors to edit their material in order to find favour with
their employer (Bergman 1981: 37; Häggman 1992: 90; Wolf-Knuts 1991:
26–27).
In my analysis of the recorded texts, I cite the informant as the narrator
of the given story, in order to avoid confusion. To my mind, there are two
possible ways of approaching the problem of the respective contributions of
collector and informant. The first is through an analogy with unique Old
English manuscripts based on oral traditions, namely regarding the scribe
as a (re)performer (Doane 1991: 80–81, 89). Notwithstanding, it should be
noted that there are several important differences between the Old English
chirographer, a scribe involved in the activity of handwriting (Doane 1991:
106), and the latter-day collector. The text produced by the chirographer,
though deviating from its “original”, whether written or oral, still draws
from the same sources and conforms to the same canon as an oral text; it is
not removed from the oral context, and it is created for an audience capable
of receiving it, or “hearing” it, as an oral text. It is a valid performance in its
own right, concrete and unique (Doane 1991: 81, 83, 89). This is not
necessarily true of the collector’s text. Many fieldworkers, hailing from
another social context, might not have shared the tradition of their inter-
viewees, and their reperformance may not be traditional in Doane’s sense.
Likewise, the audience of the text—the examiners of the Swedish Literature
Society, for instance—was perhaps unable to really “hear” it as an oral text.
Still, there are some common features as well. Doane’s description of the
oral written text is also a fairly accurate definition of the recorded text: “…
it is a product of voice, of a voiced performative situation; its origin is not
text but voice, and its destination is as a visual trace of a material event that
once existed in another register. The record/text that results is the product
of a writer listening to an outer voice—his own or another’s—rather than
an inner one. Thus meaning is intertwined with two intentions, that of the
instigator of the text, the speaker, and that of the designator, the writer, in
a process that is less cooperative than it is mutually interventionist” (Doane
1991: 88). In the case of the folklore record, intervention is more onesided
as it is chiefly exercised in the editing of the text. This scenario is probably
valid for some of the records in which the collector has rephrased the utter-
ance of the performer.
The Sources 55
Vöråbon är förbehållsam, reserverad mot främlingen och ytterst rädd för att kom-
ma i tidningarna. Efter längre bekantskap och förtroligt umgänge blir han något med-
delsammare. Dock berättar han högst ogärna under arbetstid. Söndagseftermiddagen är
den lämpligaste tiden, och man kan då göra en rätt god skörd, om man lyckats ta
honom på rätta sättet. (FU 8: xxvi)
The inhabitant of Vörå is reticent, guarded toward the stranger and extremely afraid of
appearing in the newspapers. After a longer acquaintance and intimate intercourse he
becomes slightly more communicative. Yet he is most reluctant to narrate during work
hours. Sunday afternoon is the most suitable time, and you may get a pretty good har-
vest, provided you have managed to tackle him in the right way.
The collections were praised as good and valuable in the evaluation carried
out by the Literature Society. Thors consistently omitted the names of the
narrators and more specific details of their residence. Ulrika Wolf-Knuts
suggests this might be due to the generality of the narratives, but Thors
could also have had other motives for leaving the provenance of the texts
less meticulously specified (Wolf-Knuts 1991: 28–29). Here I have utilized
sixteen records drawn from Thors’ three collections (SLS 22, 4; SLS 22, 10;
SLS 22, 11; SLS 22: 16–17; SLS 22, 21; SLS 22, 26; SLS 28, 3; SLS 28, 12;
SLS 28, 19; SLS 37, 3; SLS 37, 5; SLS 37, 6; SLS 37, 8; SLS 37, 11; SLS 37,
28; SLS 37, 98).
Karl Petter Pettersson (1857–1912) was the elementary school teacher in
Nagu, later in Iniö, and he also functioned as a parson, the chairman of the
local government committee and as the postmaster of the community. Of
his work as a collector of folklore Anders Allardt writes: “Det vilar en käck
omedelbarhet över hans stil, och en del av hans sagouppteckningar äro syn-
barligen färgade av hans personliga gemyt” (‘A spirited immediacy suffuses
his style, and some of his folktale records are visibly coloured by his per-
sonal disposition’) (Allardt 1920: 364–365). In other words, Allardt thought
that Pettersson directly influenced the language and form of the records he
made. In 1890 Pettersson donated two collections of folklore from Nagu to
the Swedish Literature Society (SLS 21; SLS 31), whence four texts origin-
ate (SLS 21, 8; SLS 21, 29; SLS 31, 141; SLS 31, 146). In 1893, he submitted
another collection containing a record I have utilized (SLS 33: 201–207).
J. A. Nygren submitted a collection of miscellaneous texts recorded in
1892–1894 to the Society. One entry, copied from the songbook of the
singer Jakob Lassus in the village of Kerklax in the parish of Maxmo in
1892, will be quoted in this investigation (SLS 45: 136–137).
Emil Norrback delivered a collection from Sideby, Ostrobothnia, cover-
The Sources 57
Vid antecknandet af traditionen har jag låtit flere personer berätta om samma sak, d.v.s.
samma tradition, hvar efter jag gjort ett “uppkok” på hvad som sålunda serverats. Gen-
om ett dylikt tillvägagående tror jag mig ha vunnit den fördelen, att detaljerna tydligare
framstå än annars hade varit fallet. För öfrigt har jag så samvetsgrant som möjligt för-
sökt återgifva alt, hvad för mig berättats, utan att hvarken tillskarfva eller fråntaga. (FU
14: ii)
In the recording of the tradition I have made several people tell about the same thing,
i.e., the same tradition, and after that I have made a “concoction” of the things thus
served. By such a procedure I believe myself to have gained the advantage of the details
emerging more distinctly than would otherwise have been the case. As for the rest I
have tried to reproduce everything that has been told me as conscientiously as possible,
without either adding or subtracting.
In the record incorporated into my material (SLS 71: 32–34), Finne is true
to his principles in the respect that he has avoided crediting any informants,
but the text is still rendered in the vernacular.
Filip Sundman was also collecting folklore in 1899 (SLS 72). Like many
other collectors, he had no great confidence in the ability of folklore to sur-
vive in the modern age, and in his report to the Swedish Literature Society
he writes:
Af mitt arbete erhöll jag det intrycket, att det är hög tid att samla detta material, om
det icke redan är något för sent. Huru mycket har inte fallit i glömska under de senaste
decennierna? Intresset för allt gammalt har svalnat betänkligt, beroende dels på bild-
ningens framträngande, dels på ökadt arbete vid jordbruket. De unga lär sig icke mera
något sådant, och de gamla lämnas ofta i sticket af minnet. Glädjande var dock att se
den beredvillighet, hvarmed de stodo till min tjänst, samt det vänliga bemötande, som
på ytterst få undantag när, öfveralt kom mig till del. (FU 14: iii)
From my work I have gained the impression that it is high time to collect this material,
if it is not already somewhat too late. How much has not fallen into oblivion during
the last few decades? The interest in everything ancient has precariously cooled, due
partly to the advancement of education, partly to the increased workload in agriculture.
The young no longer learn such things, and the old are often betrayed by their memory.
It was, however, gratifying to see the readiness with which they were at my service, and
the kind reception that, with very few exceptions, was accorded me everywhere.
The record in standard Swedish used here was made in the parish of Pojo
in the beginning of July following the dictation of an informant named
Söderbergskan, whose first name is not given (SLS 72: 36).
Two years later, in 1901, Torsten Stjernschantz (1882–1953), later curator
of the Academy of Arts Ateneum, did some fieldwork for the Literature
Kimito is otherwise a very thankless work environment for the recorder of folklore, be-
cause the numerous works, for instance—Dalsbruk, Björkboda and Skinnarvik—have
introduced the customs and ideas of modern times through the introduction of a multi-
tude of unknown drifter residents and the purchase of large parts of the island. As a
result the old peasant culture has fallen into oblivion.11
11 The English translation is slightly adjusted to make the text more intelligible.
The Sources 59
entitled “En jägares äfventyr” (‘The Adventures of a Hunter’) in the manu-
script (SLS 220: 240–242). The language is normalized and the informant
is not mentioned, unless it is indeed the collector himself. An anonymous
collector has donated an account of changelings under the heading “Vid-
skepelse” (‘Superstition’), and Sideby is acknowledged as the place of recor-
ding (SLS 220: 67–69). The Literature Society has made an addendum,
suggesting that the modest collector might be Emil Norrback. Yet another
text, ostensibly based on a tradition to be found in the parish of Korsholm
(SLS 220: 167–168) is also included in this collection. Likewise, a record
from the parish of Lappfjärd has been utilized (SLS 220: 248).
The poet Jacob Tegengren (1875–1956), too, was interested in folklore,
and he worked as a local collector for the Swedish Literature Society (Wolf-
Knuts 1991: 31). He visited the parish of Korsnäs and the island of Replot in
1912–1913 (SLS 215, 160; SLS 215, 248; SLS 215, 249; SLS 215, 250) and
finished two collections from Vörå in 1922 (SLS 324: 292; SLS 324: 296; SLS
324: 299; SLS 333: 208–210; SLS 333: 220–221; SLS 333: 223); ten entries in
total concern us here. Tegengren used standard Swedish, and did not nor-
mally supply the narrator’s name, although exceptions to this rule do exist.
V. E. V. Wessman (1879–1958) was an unremitting collector of folklore.
His fieldwork methods and biography have been carefully analyzed by Gun
Herranen (Herranen 1986: 213–230). As Wessman’s experience as a collec-
tor grew, he became more sensitive to the importance of the narrator, and
having delivered merely his name in connection with the transcribed text
during his first years as a scholarship holder, he later appended miniature
biographies of the storytellers to the collection (Herranen 1986: 221–222). In
the summer of 1909 this re-orientation was manifest in the brief notes on
the personal character of some of the narrators; two folktales derive from
this collection (SLS 137). Both represent the same taletype and are narrated
by the former tenant crofter Grönholm in Backa (SLS 137 I, 1) and Otto
Nylund, a dependent tenant in Snappertuna (SLS 137 II, 1). Wessman
reports that Grönholm was called GammelDrosi (‘Old Drosi’) after the
name of his croft and that he was over 80 years old, bedridden for many
years. When he was young his repertoire included a large number of tales
and songs, but by the time Wessman visited him he had forgotten most
of them. Otto Nylund is described as a very talkative old man of 78 years.
His memory was said to have been incredible in his younger years.
Wessman wrote: “What he once heard narrated, he remembered without
The Sources 61
the verge of a civil war, he travelled the Ostrobothnian countryside record-
ing narratives, 12 of which are included in my corpus (SLS 280). Karolina
Grannas from Härkmeri in the parish of Lappfjärd, 78 years old at the
time, contributed one story of trolls (SLS 280: 362). Robert Hannus, a 72-
year-old Härkmeri resident, recounted one story (SLS 280: 357), while Olga
Nummelin, 79 years old and hailing from Sideby, told a similar one (SLS
280: 379). Anders Ek from Kärklax in the parish of Maxmo, 82 years old,
narrated a story retelling the supernatural experience of a work mate (SLS
280: 503–504). One text from Vörå lacks information on the informant
(SLS 280: 635–636), which is rather unusual for a collector like Wessman.
In the parish of Solf, Sofia Snåfs, 69 years old (SLS 280: 131) and Isak Snåfs
(SLS 280: 132) from the village of Munsmo, narrated one story each, as did
Johanna Berg, 84 years old, in the village of Rimal (SLS 280: 136), Albertina
Hellman, 86 years old (SLS 280: 129) and Eva Sund, 87 years old, from the
village of Sundom (SLS 280: 130). Johan Grönlund, farmer in Taklax in
the parish of Korsnäs, 69 years old (SLS 280: 295) and Anders Rovhök, 81
years old, living in Fröjnäs in the parish of Övermark (SLS 280: 312) also
told him one story each. A year later, in 1918, he was recording folklore in
the parish of Ekenäs when he met Alma Sundström in Skåldö, who related
a narrative for him (SLS 290: 493).
As a rule, Wessman’s records of folktales are in the vernacular, repro-
duced with painstaking faithfulness, while other texts, such as the ones
extracted from SLS 280, are rendered in normalized language with occasio-
nally inserted dialectal expressions explained in notes at the bottom of the
page, a practice he evidently considered superfluous in the transcripts in the
vernacular, in which the notes mostly relate to other extant versions, in
manuscript or in print. For the longer narratives, the notes are thus re-
cruited for exercises of scholarly comparison, whereas in the case of shorter
ones, the annotations form the running commentary of a linguist, even
though the words selected for annotation seem somewhat puzzling in
hindsight. A possible explanation for Wessman’s divergent transcription
methods is that the texts comprising SLS 280 were something of a by-
product of the collecting trip; the real purpose was to collect single words
in the vernacular, not entire stories (SLS 280, Wessman’s field report).
Axel Olof Freudenthal (1836–1911) was a prominent figure in the Swedish-
speaking circles of the time; he strove for the protection of the Swedish
vernaculars and Swedish culture in Finland (Steinby 1985: 61–66), and he
The Sources 63
och således misstron mot främlingen, som efterforskar folktrons relikter, är synnerligen
stor, följer härav att sådant arbete är svårt i dessa trakter. Jag har därför antecknat tal-
rika materiellt etnografiska notiser, då sådana om folktron icke står att erhålla. En del
allmänt förekommande vidskepelser har jag inte antecknat. (SLS 226:525)
Work here was hard. Already in the 1870s Fagerlund thought himself [able to] estab-
lish the same, [the fact] that superstition has been almost entirely eradicated in Korpo
and Houtskär, and in the 1890s Elmgren said the same of Pargas. Their words should
be thus construed that folk customs in these seafaring parishes have long been in a state
of disintegration, and that merely fragments of folk belief survive. In addition, as adult
education has progressed at only half the rate as in Nyland, and suspicion of the stran-
ger inquiring into the relics of folk belief is therefore particularly great, such work is
consequently difficult in these areas. Therefore I have made notes on numerous mat-
erially oriented ethnographic items, since ones on folk belief are not in my power to
obtain. Some generally circulating superstitions I have not recorded.
The Sources 65
There are four narratives in these volumes that I have quoted in my re-
search (Bygdeminnen 1909: 33–34; 1910: 41–42; 1912: 56–57). The first one was
collected by Alfred Lassfolk in the village of Yttermark in the parish of
Närpes, the second by K. J. Valsberg in Övermark, the third by Else
Tegengren from Lena Stenlund, farm mistress in Yttermark, and the
fourth by John Ahlbäck in Korsholm.
L. W. Fagerlund’s “Anteckningar om Korpo och Houtskärs socknar”
(‘Notes on the Parishes of Korpo and Houtskär’) alluded to by Nikander
was printed in 1878 in the periodical Bidrag till kännedom af Finlands natur
och folk (‘Contributions to the Knowledge of the Nature and People of
Finland’). It is an extensive examination touching on many aspects of the
history and culture of the parishes in question. Included therein is a tale
from Houtskär, “Trollgobbin’ och vallgöutin’” (‘The Old Troll and the
Shepherd Boy’) (Fagerlund 1878: 169–178). Axel Olof Freudenthal appen-
ded a story “åm in tjärng, som vast bjärgteji” (‘On a Woman Who Was
Abducted’) as a linguistic sample in his monograph on the Vörå vernacular,
Vöråmålet (Freudenthal 1889: 197). Both Freudenthal and Fagerlund em-
ployed phonetic script and the language of their samples evokes vernacular
speech patterns, but most other printed texts are in standard Swedish, and
they have been edited to suit the tastes of a reading educated public. This
is obvious in some texts, as the collectors have “polished” the material into
a finely honed piece of romantic poetic description (see e.g. Hembygden
1912: 120).
Budkavlen’s predecessor Hembygden is a rich source of folklore as well.
Rafael Karsten published an essay on “Kvarlevor av hednisk tro bland
Finlands svenskar” (‘Relics of Heathen Folk Belief Among the Swedes
of Finland’) in 1910, where he quoted a story of trolls (Hembygden 1910:
145). In his conclusion, the author stresses the importance of collecting
beliefs and exhorts the journal’s readership to engage in this work. He
exemplifies:
De företeelser som vanligen gå under benämningen “skrock och vidskepelse” bör han ej
håna och bele såsom betydelselöst nonsens, utan att han bör söka att förstå dem. De
utgöra som vi sett fullt naturliga yttringar av primitivt tankeliv, och nutidsmänniskan
har anledning att tillvarataga och bedöma dem med samma pietet som övriga minnes-
märken av en förgången tid. (Hembygden 1910:149)
13The Swedish words skrock and vidskepelse both translate as superstition, and it seems un-
necessary to replicate the English equivalent for the sake of accuracy in translation.
The Sources 67
Edvard Wefvar, who collected in Nyland as well, and in the parish of Karis
he recorded the tale of “Kárin Trätjóla” (‘Catherine with the Wooden
Skirt’) from the lips of Edla Theilenius from Mangårdsby, born in 1846
(Nyland 1887, 19: 15–17). Another Karis resident, Johan Bäckström, was also
visited by Wefvar (Nyland 1887, 26: 26–27). G. E. Lindström conducted
fieldwork in Svartbäck in the parish of Sjundeå, where he recorded a narra-
tive from Lindholm, whose first name he does not mention (Nyland 1887,
77: 90–93). All these texts are published in the vernacular utilizing phonet-
ic script, which is not the case with Gustav Åberg’s record from Lappom in
the parish of Strömfors (Nyland 1887, 180: 209–211). Isak Eriksson Smeds,
who was later lecturer in Swedish in Joensuu, has contributed one record,
made in the vernacular, to the investigation (Allardt 1920: 363; Nyland 1887,
114: 137–138). Adolf Backman, an editor, collected two stories of Hobergs-
gubben (‘The Old Man of Hoberg’), one from Övitsböle in the parish of
Mörskom, the other from Lomböle in Borgå (Nyland 1896, 25: 19; Nyland
1896, 26: 20–21). Both of the texts are in the vernacular. In Embom in the
parish of Liljendal Isak Alexius Björkström, a freeholder, interviewed the
dependent tenant Vilhelm Vilhelmsson, “a younger man”, whom he con-
sidered so noteworthy a narrator that he merited being mentioned by name
in the travel report (Allardt 1920: 316; FU 9: xxxiv; Nyland 1896, 129: 151–154).
L. W. Öholm, who was the headmaster of a folk high school, recorded a
tale of trolls in the parish of Tenala in 1893 (Nyland 1896, 141: 179–182).
The conception of folklore entertained by the Division is aptly illustrated
by G. A. Åberg’s introduction to the second volume of Nyland:
Publikationens syfte är icke i första hand att söka åstadkomma en samling roande för-
täljningar, utan dess uppgift är att åt fäderneslandet rädda återstoden af den rika folk-
diktning, som under årtusenden lefvat hos vår folkstam, som följt den släkte ifrån släkte
och i skiftande bilder afspeglar hela dess forna världsåskådning, att med ett ord rikta
den kulturhistoriska vetenskapen med nytt material. Mycket är nämligen utur dem att
hämta för den, som vill studera historien i dess innersta grund, som vill lära känna fol-
kets anda och skaplynne, och följa hela gången af dess inre utveckling. Ty folksagan
tillåter oss mången blick in i längst hänsvunna tider, den ger en trogen och lefvande
bild af våra förfäders seder och levnadssätt, och sprider öfver forntiden ett ljus, hvilket
icke alltid står att vinna ifrån skriftliga urkunder … våra folksagor förtjäna ett bättre
öde än att för alltid begrafvas i glömskans natt. Men skola de räddas undan förstörel-
sen, bör detta ske snart. De äro nämligen på väg att dö ut eller fördärfvas under inflyt-
ande af en ny tid och nya förhållanden, och endast i aflägsnare bygder lyssnar man ännu
med begärlighet till dessa förklingande ljud, hvilka en gång voro hela folkets egendom
och den första näringen för våra fäders bildning. (Nyland 1887: vii–viii)
Den som önskar höra prof på allmogens urgamla folkdiktning och vill rädda hvad som
numera räddas kan, han måste begifva sig till civilisationens utmarker, till trakter,
hvarest ånghvisslans gälla ljud ej ännu bortdrifvit sjö- och skogsjungfrun, gastar och
andra spöken. På sådana ställen är man ännu i tillfälle att få höra våra från hedenhös
bevarade vallåtar skalla genom dalen och att se folket samladt på söndagseftermiddagen
till vitter sagoskämtan. Lyckas man tillvinna sig allmogemannens förtroende, kan man
få taga plats i hans krets och anteckna mången åldrig sägen, som täljes vid dylika tillfäl-
len. Men det är svårt att öfvervinna folkets misstroende. Äfven i de mest aflägsna byg-
der drager det sig för att åt en främling gifva sina sagor, gåtor och sin gudatro. Det tror
nämligen, att de bildade anse dessa sagor och sånger barnsliga, och att de skratta åt dess
uppfattning af djävulen och många af företeelserna i naturen – Afsikten med denna
uppsats är ingalunda att nedsätta den allmoge, ur hvars sköte jag samlat nedanstående;
långt därifrån, jag vill blott visa, huru i vår folkdiktning finnas många äkta fornnordiska
The Sources 69
pärlor, värda att hopsamlas och bevaras. De hafva visserligen under århundradenas lopp
filats af och slitits, men det oaktadt äro de för oss, såsom alla minnen från vår folkstams
barndom och ungdom, dyrbara och kära. (Thurman 1891: 104–105)
He who wishes to hear specimens of the ancient folk poetry of the peasantry and wants
to rescue what nowadays may be rescued, he must go to the outskirts of civilization, to
places where the shrill call of the steam whistle has not yet banished the mermaid and
maiden of the forest, ghosts and other spectres. In such places you are still in a position
to hear our herdsman’s songs preserved from times immemorial echo through the valley
and to see the people assembled to a learned jest of tales on Sunday afternoon. If you
manage to earn the farmer’s confidence, you can take your place in his circle and record
many an ancient legend told on such occasions. But it is hard to conquer the suspicion
of the folk. Even in the remotest districts they hesitate to give their tales, riddles and
faith to a stranger. For they believe that the literati deem these tales and songs child-
ish, and that they laugh at their conception of the Devil and many other phenomena in
nature. — The purpose of this essay is absolutely not to disparage the folk in whose
midst I have collected the following; far from it, I only wish to show how many genu-
ine treasures from the Old Norse, worthy of being collected and preserved, [still] exist
in our folk poetry. In the course of the centuries they have certainly become eroded and
hackneyed, but regardless of that they are, like all monuments of our tribe’s childhood
and youth, precious and dear to us.
This excerpt spans almost all the themes occupying the minds of the col-
lectors and researchers of the period; ideology and conceptions of folklore
intermingle with the practical problems facing a fieldworker. Folklore is
treasures from the Old Norse, eroded and hackneyed of course, but still
evidence of a glorious past, “our tribe’s childhood and youth”. The gaze
was turned toward times immemorial, and it is the historical dimension
that legitimizes collection, which is obstructed by the tendency of the folk
to distrust the collector’s intentions. This is not wholly astonishing, as the
upper classes did not have too high an opinion of peasant culture earlier on
(Andersson 1967: 120). Old Norse culture was important as an ideological
point of reference in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and furnished a
uniting factor in the rallying of Finland-Swedish resources (Lönnqvist
2001: 235–244).
2.3 Context
In this section I will give an account of the historical, social and religious
context in which the texts analyzed in three of the main chapters were
narrated. The focus lies on the South Ostrobothnian parish of Vörå where
these narratives were collected.
Context 71
villages: the villages of Rejpelt, Jörala, Andiala, Lomby, Bergby, Koskeby,
Miemois, Mäkipää, Rökiö, Lålax and Tuckur in the south and east, the
villages of Lotlax, Palvis, Bertby, Kovik, Karvsor and Kaitsor in the north
and west. In addition, two groups of outlying villages are situated in the
west and in the east; the former, comprising the villages Kalapää, Röukas-
Komossa and Kaurjärv-Aknus, is Swedish-speaking, whereas the latter, con-
stituted by the villages of Pettersbacka, Murto, Vesiluoma and Ruthsland,
is Finnish-speaking (Lönnqvist 1972: 53–54).14 The neighbouring Swedish-
speaking parishes of Oravais and Maxmo belonged to the parish of Vörå
until 1859 and 1872 respectively, when they were officially separated from
Vörå. Contacts have been especially lively between the villages of Kaitsor
in Vörå and Karvat in Oravais, and between Palvis and Lotlax in Vörå and
Kärklax in Maxmo (Lönnqvist 1972: 53–54; Åkerblom 1963: 145–146).
The parish has been connected by roads to Vähäkyrö, Isokyrö, Maxmo
and the gulf of Bothnia since the 17th century—in the north Vörå stretches
out to the sea. In the 1850s and 1860s a main road to Ylihärmä was built,
but the present road to Vasa, the county capital, was not finished until the
1940s. During the time of collection, the parishioners travelled to Vasa via
Vähäkyrö, often to sell their produce at the market—mostly butter, meat,
pork and tallow; in 1821 the parish, like many others, lost the right to ar-
range fairs of its own (Lönnqvist 1972: 54, 57; Talve 1997: 116; Åkerblom
1963: 119–120).
From the 1860s to the 1910s the population amounted to 7000–8000 per-
sons, most of whom were occupied with farming. In 1876 there were 624
landowners in the parish, and 802 tenants. Four years later 73% were occu-
pied in farming, and the corresponding ratio in 1901 was 66%. The rest
supported themselves through pensions, life annuity, public office, the poor
rota of the parish (a form of poor relief), social benefits (not specified),
trade, hunting and fishing, shipping, industry and handicraft, or communi-
cations (not specified). In 1901, tenants, cottars and dependent lodgers still
constituted a large group (Lönnqvist 1972: 62). Some parishioners found
temporary work in Sweden, a situation which became increasingly common
from the 1860s onward. The period was also characterized by accelerating
emigration, first to Sweden in the 1870s and later to North America from
14The form and spelling of the names of these villages vary considerably in the records
and the research literature, and in quotations I have retained the spelling of the original.
Context 73
331; Åkerblom 1963: 301); as mentioned earlier (chapter 2.2.3), its pupils
donated a collection of folklore to the Swedish Literature Society in 1922.
Apart from the schools, the parishioners’ desire for learning could be sat-
isfied by the libraries and papers as well, and various non-profit organiza-
tions. The first library was housed in the vestry of the parish church fol-
lowing a petition by the dean in 1852. The collection consisted of religious
and other useful and educational writings. Children were frequent users of
the facilities, but their enthusiasm was not entirely appreciated, since they
failed to keep the books whole and clean. The library was later split in two
and moved to the elementary schools in the villages of Koskeby and Kovik.
Donations of books were received in 1882 and 1892, and in 1888 a large pur-
chase of works by Zacharias Topelius was made. From the 1880s onwards,
six libraries were created in other parts of the parish with the financial aid
of Svenska folkskolans vänner (‘Friends of the Swedish elementary school’).
By the turn of the century some 900 tomes were available in the libraries of
the parish.
Newpaper subscriptions became increasingly common in the 1880s: in
1882 the parishioners of Vörå had taken out 50 subscriptions, two years later
the number had doubled to 117. The Ostrobothnian student nation in
Helsingfors promoted public reading cottages in the beginning of the 1890s,
and Vörå received its own reading cottage in 1891. Being a large parish, the
situation was different in various parts of Vörå. In 1892, reading was said to
be quite common a pastime in the southern and middle parts, but in the
north no such intellectual interests could be discerned. In the villages of
Tuckur, Kovik and Karvsor the act of subscribing to a newspaper was
thought to be such an enterprise that it required collective action, and the
inhabitants founded an association, constituted by half of the population,
for the purpose. No papers other than a religious one were read in Lotlax
and Palvis, but in Bertby and Kaitsor not even that was available. Data
from 1893 state that the most popular papers were Weckobladet (80 subscrip-
tions), Wasa tidning (30 subscriptions) and Wasabladet (14 subscriptions).
Twenty other journals and papers were in circulation as well, in one to four
copies per issue. In 1900 Wasa Posten had 301 subscribers, and 444 in 1910,
when Wasabladet was ordered in 58 copies (Lönnqvist 1972: 64; Dahlbacka
1987: 137–138, n. 22; Åkerblom 1963: 308–310).
The promotion of decency and enlightenment among the youth was a
prime motive in the establishment of an association for young men in 1881.
Context 75
2.3.2 Religious context
One of my principal arguments in the following chapters is that folklore
and religious traditions are not as separate as we are sometimes led to be-
lieve, and I attempt to demonstrate that narratives of trolls and Biblical
texts are part of the same network of associations. In order to substantiate
this claim, however, it is imperative to elucidate the ways in which the
Bible and other religious writings reached the rural population. The Bible
itself was an expensive article until the beginning of the 19th century, when
the Evangelical Association in Sweden, financially supported by the British
and Foreign Bible Society, started publishing cheap editions of the Bible
(Pleijel 1967a: 37–39). These Bibles also found their way to the Swedish-
speaking areas in Finland, and other editions were utilized as well. The
version of the Bible in use during much of the period under study was the
Bible of Charles XII, sanctioned in 1703, which is a very slightly altered
variant of the Reformation Bible of 1541 commissioned by Gustavus Vasa
Rex; this explains the archaic language of the translation, which was archaic
even in the 16th century (Olsson 2001: 58–59, 40). Toward the end of the
period, the translation of 1917 came into circulation, but it is uncertain
whether it had any real impact on the adult population: people tend to be
reluctant to abandon their old, beloved translation.15
The Bible of 1703 in its 19th-century form has been called Sweden’s first
Bible for individual reading; previous versions were mainly intended for use
in service. A number of factors contributed to this development, in Sweden
as well as in Finland: new forms of production were introduced, distribu-
tion was intensified, the economy of the masses changed, literacy increased,
and religious revivalism encouraged reading of the Bible (Olsson 2001: 62–
65).
Apart from individual reading, the message of the Bible was disseminated
in other ways: the Gospels and Epistles were read in church during service,
and as long as regular attendance was still a custom, these were commonly
15 It should be noted that the Swedish-speakers in Finland have always employed the
Swedish translations of the Bible; while Finland belonged to Sweden this procedure was a
matter of course, but even after the incorporation into the Russian realm and the Declara-
tion of Independence, it remained the case. Most of these Bibles were also printed in
Sweden, although a limited number of printings in Swedish were produced in Finland
(Huldén 1991: 344–345). Other translations than those authorized by the Church might
have been used as well (see Lindström 1991:208–210 on unauthorized translations).
Context 77
started giving Bible classes in the villages, and laymen organized edifying
meetings (Åkerblom 1963: 158).
The knowledge of religious matters exhibited by the parishioners, both
young and old, was praised by the ecclesiastical inspector in 1804. His prot-
ocol states that the catechetical meetings arranged in the parish had attrac-
ted many visitors, children and youths in particular. The reading skills of
the parishioners were likewise deemed good and admirable in general, and
the dean expressed his satisfaction with the fact that the youth had begun
studying Svebilius’ exposition of the catechism. By the 1850s the population
increase turned the holding of catechetical meetings into a burden for the
clergy, and in 1877 the dean found the situation untenable. Literacy had
declined drastically, and he proposed an introduction of elementary schools,
but the parishioners rejected the idea.
Confirmation classes were organized annually in the autumn and in the
spring, and only those who had attended it during both terms were admit-
ted to the Communion, the protocol of 1804 reports. In 1856 the terms
were specified as two weeks in the autumn and two weeks in the spring.
The vicar and the curate alternated with the assistant vicar so that both
boys and girls received instruction from them in turn. In addition, the
parish clerk taught them hymns one hour each day. The same year the
dean put forward the idea of creating Sunday schools, and the parishioners
accepted his suggestion. In the summer months the children tended to
forget what they had learned during the winter, and the autumn was most-
ly spent recovering the knowledge lost. The dean also thought the youth
idled the Sundays away by practising indecency, and considered Sunday
school a more edifying pastime. He exhorted the teachers to base their in-
struction in reading on correct spelling and to ensure that no additions,
omissions or transpositions were made when reading by rote, and that the
children understood what they had read. The best way of examining their
apprehension of the meaning of a text was to ask them to render it in their
own words (Åkerblom 1963: 262–266). To what extent his injunction was
heeded, and if it was, how well it worked is difficult to tell.
Notwithstanding, the authority of the church dwindled in the 19th cent-
ury, and the church was no longer capable of supervising the celebration of
Communion and participation in catechetical meetings (Raittila 1969: 106).
Simultaneously the clergy lost much of its worldly power in the separation
of ecclesiastical and municipal administration ordained in 1865 and effected
Context 79
be made in this context; firstly, the nature of interpretation in general is
such that it is always influenced by individual and situational factors, and
the correspondence or not of the folk’s readings of religious writings to
interpretations sanctioned by theology becomes less important (cf. Wolf-
Knuts 1991: 44). As a folklorist, it is my task to focus on popular interpre-
tations, using the methods appropriate to my discipline. Secondly, these
folk readings are not generated in a social vacuum. The 19th and early 20th
century was the age of revivals, and despite the fact that individual religi-
osity came to the fore in this period, the revivals were highly social pheno-
mena. Social networks of like-minded people were created, and forums—
official and unofficial—for the discussion of faith and religion were estab-
lished. The interpretation of religious works might have been a group
activity, effected either in private conversation with one’s peers, or at more
organized, collective meetings, perhaps involving preaching or exposition
of a text. In other words, I assume both a private and a collective inter-
pretation of religious texts, the former influenced by the needs of the indi-
vidual, the latter conforming to collective patterns. However, even individ-
ual interpretations do not escape the touch of the collective, as everybody
craves to be accepted by a peer group. In the following, I will therefore
outline the religious life of the parish.
Pietism found its first advocate in Jonas Lagus, curate of Vörå in 1817–
1828, and when he moved to the Finnish-speaking parish of Ylivieska in
1828, the revival did not abate. The movement stressed individual salvation
attained through a person’s benevolent actions, and the significance of re-
pentance. The revival has been regarded as legalistic, since it focused so
much on the law of the Bible. In the 1830s Vörå emerged as a centre for
the Pietist revival as some of the influential families joined the movement,
including the sons of the parson. One of them, Johan Mikael Stenbäck,
continued to promote Pietism as the curate of the parish in the beginning
of the 1840s; his temporary replacement on the post, Josef Reinhold
Hedberg, did likewise. During these decades the religious meetings ar-
ranged by the movement attracted large audiences, and speakers from other
communities were regularly enlisted. Many Pietists donned the old 18th-
century folk costume, the long-tailed jacket (skörtdräkt) for men and the
kirtle for women. It was commonly worn in Vörå in the 1840s and 1850s,
but subsequently disappeared in the 1860s. The old-fashioned dress func-
tioned as a social marker, differentiating the pious from the rest of the pop-
Context 81
for shorter periods. He represented the ultraevangelical branch of the
movement, and is rumoured to have claimed that even a person commit-
ting serious crimes could be saved in the very act of violence if he simulta-
neously confessed his status as God’s saved child (Dahlbacka 1987: 110).
Through Julin’s activities, the ultraevangelical branch was firmly estab-
lished in Vörå. He frequently arranged Bible classes and created a revival in
the parish (Dahlbacka 1987: 110, 130; Åkerblom 1963: 159).
In the 1880s the parish applied for a permanent colporteur, and the pet-
ition was granted in 1892, when Karl August Sjöberg was stationed in Vörå
(Dahlbacka 1987: 147, 236; Åkerblom 1963: 159). Prior to Sjöberg’s appoint-
ment, Jakob Edvard Wefvar had replaced Julin in 1886. Wefvar’s main
concern was the Ostrobothnian parishes, but he conscientiously conducted
a tour of all Swedish-speaking areas in Finland each year (Dahlbacka 1987:
155; Dahlbacka 1984: 20–21). Unlike many other lay preachers, Wefvar also
included more remote villages in his itinerary, and the meetings at which
he spoke were remarkably well attended. In 1888 he reported that he could
hold as many as ten Bible classes in the same village without any diminution
of interest. Wefvar was particularly pleased with the reception his message
got in Vörå: in 1891 the parish is portrayed as a place where the wind of
grace has blown for many years, and Wefvar liked to linger in such dis-
tricts. He seems to have been a born speaker, and he was more successful
in this task than in his capacity as bookseller. Nevertheless, he is common-
ly credited with the introduction of Sionsharpan to a wider audience in the
Ostrobothnian parishes—thanks to his efforts, the songbook gained a cur-
rency that would otherwise have been denied it (Dahlbacka 1984: 12, 20, 24–
26; Dahlbacka 1987: 165–166, 168–169). Due to his status as folklore collec-
tor as well as preacher, Wefvar is interesting in this context, and the im-
plications of his dual status deserve investigation.
Wefvar conducted fieldwork in the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland
between 1868 and 1886, and by the mid-1870s he appears to have started
preaching. These activities were therefore simultaneous, at least in part.
Few manuscripts of sermons have survived, and most date to 1875–1880, i.e.,
to the beginning of his career as a preacher (Dahlbacka 1984: 17, 28). One
of these early sermons was delivered in the village of Rejpelt on December
5, 1875 (IF 111: 74; Dahlbacka 1984: 58 n. 43). According to Ingvar Dahlbacka,
it is probable that Wefvar did not need a manuscript for his sermons when
he acquired more experience; the early ones have a simple structure and are
Context 83
in Russia is said to presage the outbreak of war (SLS 290, 17: 493). A wide-
spread folk tradition has also attributed hymn 359 in the old hymnal, “Wake
up, my soul, give praise” to a boy or girl delivered from the clutches of the
Devil, to whom he or she has been promised as an unborn foetus (SLS
228: 89–93; R II 291; SLS 33: 201–207; R II 151; Bygdeminnen 1909: 33–34).
But let us return to the parish of Vörå. By the turn of the century, Vörå
was firmly established as an Evangelical centre. Evangelical festivals were
arranged nearly every year, and sewing circles for the benefit of the Associ-
ation’s mission in Japan were set up in four villages between 1901 and 1910.
Vörå’s position as an Evangelical area was further strengthened by the
acquisition of a chapel in Koskeby in 1904, which was part of an incipient
organization on the local level. Two years later a branch of the Evangelical
Youth Organization was founded on the initiative of the new vicar, Alfred
Johannes Bäck, the son of one of the early leaders of the movement. Bäck
supported the building of three other chapels, two in the parish of Vörå, in
Bertby and Murto, and the remaining one in Keskis in the parish of
Oravais. The latter was also frequented by the inhabitants of Vörå. These
chapels were used for catechetical meetings, Bible studies and meetings,
not to mention the debates hosted by the Youth Organization (Dahlbacka
1987: 175–206, 215, 218, 223, 231, 233–234, 240, 242–243; Näsman 1979: 100;
Åkerblom 1963: 160–162).
The parishioners were influenced by various Free Church movements as
well. A Baptist community was founded in the village of Kovik in 1873 with
Mats Barkar as its first leader. Before this, the preachers Anders Niss and
Erik Nygård had familiarized the parishioners with the Baptist faith. The
community was very small at first, its membership amounting to a mere
four persons. In 1880, Frans Oskar Durchman sent his son and three mem-
bers of the church council to inspect a Baptist meeting where Mårten
Mårtensson Granberg was engaged as speaker. After a longer stay in Swe-
den Granberg had converted to Baptism and begun preaching in several of
the villages in Vörå, to the dismay of the vicar. The inspectors demanded
that Granberg cease preaching, but he refused. A chapel was built in the
village of Kovik in 1903 (Dahlbacka 1987: 134; Näsman 1979: 86; Åkerblom
1963: 158–159). The Free Church proper similarly formed a community in
the parish; the chapel is located in the village of Bergby. The movement
was not as successful in Vörå as it has been in many other Ostrobothnian
parishes during this period, a fact attributed to the prejudices of the inhabi-
Context 85
3 DESCRIPTION OF THE TROLL TRADITION
Before we begin, it might be appropriate to briefly rehearse the tentative
definition of troll utilized in this thesis—although it ought to be stressed
that no definitive definition can be given. By this term I mean a super-
natural creature inhabiting the forest and bearing this specific name. The
importance of studying the troll tradition, and supranormal traditions in
general, lies in the function of the otherworld, as depicted in folklore, as a
mirror to the human world, enabling a discussion of human society and the
conditions influencing the life of the narrators. In other words, the troll
and the supranormal sphere may be viewed as instruments for thinking
about one’s identity and place in the world, and for orienting oneself in a
larger, complex reality. Simultaneously, the otherworld may represent an
idealized version of the human community if it possesses qualities human
society lacks but nevertheless needs (cf. Stark 2002: 133). By treating the
supernatural world as an embodiment of an ideal society, people could re-
define themselves through the relation of the human community with this
wondrous sphere (cf. Stark 2002: 137).
16 Freudenthal 1889:197; Hembygden 1910:145; Nyland 1887, 19; R I 86; R II 70; R II 295;
R II 325; SLS 28, 3; SLS 37, 6; SLS 56:153; SLS 65:45; SLS 71:32–34; SLS 80:60; SLS 202
Sagor I, 8; SLS 202 Sagor II, 66; SLS 213, 184; SLS 220:240–242; SLS 280:129; SLS 280:132.
17 Nyland 1887, 77; Nyland 1896, 129; R II 175; R II 427; SLS 22, 4; SLS 22, 11; SLS 31, 141;
SLS 31, 146; SLS 65:49; SLS 137 I, 1; SLS 137 II, 1; SLS 202 Sagor II, 28; SLS 280:635–636;
SLS 299:33–34; SLS 338:21–22.
18 Nyland 1887, 77; R II 11; R II 70; R II 76; R II 336; R II 338; SLS 22, 21; SLS 31, 146; SLS
137 II, 1; SLS 202 Sagor II, 8; SLS 215, 250; SLS 280:357; SLS 280:362; SLS 280:375.
19 Nyland 1887, 77; Nyland 1896, 129; R I 86; R II 328; SLS 22, 4; SLS 31, 141; SLS 56:152;
SLS 65:49; SLS 71:32–34; SLS 80:46–47; SLS 202 Sagor II, 8; SLS 280:362; SLS 374:10–12.
20 Nyland 1887, 19; R II 70; R II 325; R II 336; R II 338; SLS 1, 3; SLS 1, 11; SLS 22, 11; SLS
28, 3; SLS 28, 12; SLS 31, 146; SLS 37, 6; SLS 37, 9; SLS 56:153; SLS 65:45, 47; SLS 137 I, 1;
SLS 137 II, 1; SLS 202 Sagor II, 28; SLS 202 Sagor II, 66; SLS 213, 184; SLS 280:132; SLS
280:312; SLS 280:357; SLS 280:635–636; SLS 299:33; SLS 338:21–22.
21 The name of this character is usually rendered as Smörbock (‘Butter Ram’), but in this
record it is evident from the notation of the vernacular that Smörbuk (‘Butterbelly’) is the
name used by the narrator. The u is underlined in the manuscript, and in the phonetic
script an underlined vowel denotes a long vowel, making it buk, not bock, which would
have a short vowel in the vernacular.
He va eingang in konung som fånga eit bärgtrull o to bygd an eit (?) hus i trägåln sin o
tid lá an trölli. Konunjin sá to åt all, att an som sku släpp ut hede trulli vem he o sku
vara så sku an döden dö. O nån tíd baket fór konungen bort på ein reisu. Men so hadd
konunjin o drottninjin hans en pojk o hande leikt ein da i trägåln o kasta bolln sín åt
hede (?) tatje tär trölli va, för he va så brant o passlit ti ta lyru. To titta trulli út jinon
gallre o byrja tala me konunjinas pojtjin o bá att án sku släpp út an. Men pojtjin svara
att an omöjlit int trössa göra he, fö pappa ha sakt att han som släpper ut trölli ska döden
dö. Men trölli huld på me pojtjin å lova att om an sku släpp an so sku an stå an allti bi.
(SLS 1, 3:14–15)
Once upon a time there was a king who captured a hill troll, and then he built a house
in his garden, and in this [house] he placed the troll. The king told everyone that any-
one who released the troll, whoever he might be, would die. But the king and his queen
had a boy, and one day he was playing in the garden and threw his ball toward the roof
under which the troll was, because it was so steep and suitable for catching [the ball].
Then the troll peered out through the bars and started talking with the king’s boy and
begging him to release him. But the boy answered that he could not possibly dare do
it, for dad has said that he who releases the troll will die. But the troll tried to persuade
the boy and promised that it would always assist him if he released it.
The site of encounter is the royal garden, where the troll is imprisoned in a
cottage. As the little prince decides to play a ball game precisely on this
spot, the troll seizes the opportunity to persuade him to let it free. The
prince is reluctant at first, since he is well aware that the penalty for allow-
ing the king’s hunting trophy to escape is death, but eventually he gives in,
as the troll pledges to reward his kindness, which it indeed does later on in
the narrative. The real traverser of boundaries is the king who has brought
One day they finally came to a large castle in the forest, and it was hewn out of the liv-
ing rock. The gates were open and the soldier went in and the bird accompanied him.
First they came to a room which was entirely of silver, but as the doors were open
they continued, and came to a room which was entirely of gold, what was in it; they
continued, and came to a room in which all just glittered of gem stones along the walls.
Two other trolls also inhabited ancient castles (Nyland 1896, 129; SLS 31,
141). The gates can be made of silver and gold (SLS 137 I, 1). Some human
observers have compared the dwelling of the troll to a well-stocked shop
(Budkavlen 1924: 85), or to a manorhouse or a posh building decorated with
silver and gold (R II 175; SLS 22, 4). However, certain trolls are content
with a moss-covered hut (SLS 202 Sagor II, 28). For the curious, one rec-
ord reveals the trick to be employed in identifying the haunt of the troll:
when on rocky ground, you should stamp your feet to see whether a hollow
sound, like that produced by pounding on an empty barrel, can be heard. If
so, a troll castle is definitely situated underneath (SLS 56: 151–152).
It happened one day that a he-goat fell into the hill. At once the old man beheaded it
and threw it in the cellar. Then the girl started crying and said: “You should’ve let it
live, so that I’d have someone to play with as well.” “Oh, that’s no bother,” the old troll
man said, “I can make him live, to be sure.” He took a jar with some kind of ointment
and rubbed into the neck of the he-goat and put the head in the same place, and the
he-goat was resurrected. “Oh,” the girl thought, “now I know what to do with my sis-
ters, after all.” Then the troll was away one day, and the girl took up her siblings from
the cellar and rubbed on the ointment and put the heads on them, and they were re-
surrected.
tå tar trulli inar å fört un nedst et in stega, såm hadd tri hundra trappsteg dom kåm til
en grann byggning tå fråga truli av flikkun “vill du bliva min ven?” – nej, sa un tå hugd
truli huvu av flikkun. (SLS 37, 6: 23)
Then the troll took her down a ladder which had 300 steps. They came to a splendid
building. The troll asked the girl: “Will you be my friend?” —[“]No[”], the girl said.
Because of this the troll beheaded her.
Another troll takes revenge for the spurning of its amorous advances by
transforming the hapless girl into a rat, along with everything she owns:
It is said that it was a troll prince that courted her first, and she did not accept him, and
then he transformed her to a rat and her carriage to a silver plate, and her horses and
everything she owned to rats.
Yet the troll does not always succeed in its stratagems. Trying to abduct
the fiancée of a boy endowed with thrice the strength of a bear, swiftness of
a dog and minuscule frame of an ant, the troll finds itself beaten at its own
game, lying defeated on the floor (R II 11). Even more luckless is an old
troll living in a cairn in the village of Panike in the Ostrobothnian archi-
pelago: it commissioned one of those “strange things” called women by the
other trolls, as it desired to have such an object for its pleasure, but the
bride would ever remain a virgin until it managed to find a priest able to
reverse her inaccessible condition. The troll was willing to do this, and left
its bride in the care of a fellow troll which had undertaken to search for
such a priest, but the woman was turned into a fox by a jealous female troll,
and was lost to the old troll, although she still visits it in the shape of a fox
(Hembygden 1917–18: 122–123).
In the village of Mäkipää in the parish of Vörå a troll abducted a girl
herding her cows close to its dwelling (SLS 28, 3; SLS 213, 184). The troll
in the Troll Hill, situated in the village of Koskeby in the same parish, did
the same (SLS 280: 635). An old woman looking for her cows on Midsum-
mer’s Eve was detained by revelling trolls until the church bells tolled; she
was bereft of her sense, continually talking of her experience, but she was
incapable of articulating it clearly and coherently (R I 86). On Midsum-
mer’s Eve the supernatural creatures were abroad, and it was dangerous for
humans to encounter them (Stattin 1992: 53). To be drawn into their
dance—the motif is best-known in connection with the fairies—often
resulted in madness (cf. Klintberg 2002: 178–179).
Trolls may also exhibit considerable long-term planning in their politics
of abduction. In Peter Ragvalls’ story, recorded by Jakob Edvard Wefvar,
some trolls stole a one-year-old girl in order to be able to marry her off to
one of their own fourteen years later; their superb planning failed them,
however, as the girl’s father, prompted by an old beggar woman, managed
He va’ ingang i bundfolk, som hág en gröbb, som va 1 år gámbel o so föla märren e
grott hästföl, som dom lova’ at gröbbun sku’ få om e sku’ vál stórt. Men gröbbun för-
svann so int dom hitta un, o va bot i 14 år. To va e in kvéld en böjsartjelg, som kom o
böjst ligg’ der o he lova’ dom un. To dom sku’ gá ligg so byrja hästin stamp’ o dunder i
stalle, men böjsartjeljin sa’ åt bundin at an sku’ kle’ op sé, o ta liyxen op armin o gá ut o
säss’ op hästryddjin o lét hästin gá hvart an vil utan tömar. Han júl som tjeljen vila. To
an kóm op ryddjin so strekt hästin ti skogs tér di kom åt en skogsbast. Tér höt an spelas
o dansas men to hästin vrenstja, so fleög dören upp. In i stugun va brölop o gobbin
kasta yxen sin uvi hóve óv brúden so un fasna i väddjen, o to fór dem óv allihóp, so brú-
den lömna ömsand in me altihóp. Bruden va gobbinas dóter, som sku’ jift se me e berg-
troll, ter hág dom bo gull o silvertjeril, som dom to’ allihóp o so säis dom op hästin, o
so bar e óv me sama fart hajm tebák. (R II 328; cf. Klintberg 2002:174)
Once there was a peasant couple who had a girl who was one year old, and then the
mare foaled a grey foal which they promised the girl would get, if it grew up. But the
girl disappeared so that they didn’t find her, and was missing for 14 years. Then one
evening there was a beggar woman who came and asked to sleep there, and they prom-
ised her that. When they were going to sleep, the horse started pawing the ground and
making a racket in the stable, but the beggar woman told the peasant to dress up and
take the scythe-axe on his arm, and go outside and mount the horse and let it roam
wherever it wanted without reins. He did as the woman wanted. When he had moun-
ted, the horse ran into the forest where they came near a forest bath-house. There he
heard music and dancing, but when the horse was restive the door flew up. There was
a wedding in the cottage, and the old man threw his axe over the bride’s head so that it
was stuck in the wall, and then all of them disappeared, leaving the bride alone inside
with everything. The bride was the old man’s daughter who was going to marry a hill
troll; there they had both gold and silver vessels, all of which they took, and they
mounted the horse, and they returned back home with the same speed.
The family became wealthy overnight after rescuing the gold and silver
vessels left behind by the trolls. The axe, being made of steel, is a classic
protection against supranormal beings (Raudvere 1993: 194).
The distress caused by supernatural abductions is illustrated in another
story in which a woman has brought her child along as she goes to work in
the forest. The child disappears, and the mother falls into despair and starts
searching for it, but fails to find it. When she catches sight of two foot-
prints in the sand on a hill, she realizes that the troll has been about, and
makes the parson retrieve the child by preaching outside the troll’s dwelling
(R II 325).
För sex år sedan kom en fyra års gosse en sommar bort i Töjby. Hela socknen var upp-
bådad att söka, men man hittade an inte. Till slut hade man ringaren att ringa i kyrk-
klockorna, emedan man trodde att barnet var bergtaget. Prästen sa nog att det inte
finns bergtroll, men lät nu dem ringa ändå, när de så ville. Först året efteråt hittade
man det vid en buske vid en ängslada. Och där låg det dött, och man hade inte sett det
förut, fast man flera gånger hade gått förbi. (SLS 280:295)
Six years ago a four-year-old boy disappeared in [the village of] Töjby one summer.
The whole parish was mobilized to search [for him], but they did not find him. Finally
they made the bell-ringer ring the church bells, since they thought the child was ab-
ducted. The parson did say that hill trolls do not exist, but let them ring [the bells]
anyway, when they so wished. Not until the next year did they find it by a bush close to
a barn in the meadows. And there it lay dead, and they had not seen it before, even
though they had passed by several times.
A young man was likewise detained by two young female trolls, and no
matter how much he howled and shrieked and pleaded and scratched, they
refused to let him free. Not until the hour of midnight had passed was he
able to get away, and he was sweating profusely, and felt limp and tired
(SLS 80: 46–47). The witching hour between midnight and one o’clock
was especially dangerous, and anyone walking about at that time of night
could encounter all sorts of horrors. Another man was returning home
from courting early in the morning, and as he was tired he lay down to
sleep on the road. He slept for three days, and it was generally believed
that some local trolls had taken him, but that they had to let him go when
he did not want to eat their food. The man himself thought he had been
sleeping only for a few hours, and had noticed nothing of the villagers’
search for him (Hembygden 1912: 120). The motif of a three-day sojourn in
the otherworld recurs here. Adult men could thus be abducted as well; one
man who was taken by a female troll was forced to marry it, and he also
sired many children. Nevertheless, he yearned for his human wife, and
I skogen nära Heiden bodde ett torparfolk, som hade en okristnad flicka. Modern var i
nötset eller var hon på arbete, och så kom bergtrollet in och bytte bort on, och gav sitt i
stället. Hon växte inte alls på längden utan bara på bredden. (SLS 280:379; cf. SLS 280:
357; SLS 220: 67–69)
A crofter family that had an unbaptized girl was living in the forest close to Heiden.
The mother was in the cow-shed, or she was doing work, and the hill troll came and
changed her, and gave its own [child] instead. She did not grow at all in length, only in
weight.
There are examples of more moderate differences between the human and
the supernatural child. On those occasions when the mother gets to keep
both her own child and the changeling—by unwittingly blessing the latter,
for example—the human child is slightly taller than the troll child, but
otherwise the two of them are impossible to differentiate. Both are bap-
tized, and consequently brought within the sphere of Christianity (R II 76).
The abduction may also function as a prelude to another course of events;
nu va an glad å sku hav fremmand. så leng an sku va bårt åsta bjud sku trullis dåutrun
slakt sm., men un kunna int. så sku sm. vis inar å la inar pu benktjin. sm. skar huvu åv
inar å kåuka såpun pu in. men tärtil tr. kåm heim, la sm. dåutrus huvu under feldin, så
ansikte ståu åp. sm. öyst åp såpun å laga färdit pu båuli, men jömd se sölv me dören. tr.
kåm heim me fremand set å bjöud dem ti båule tå e va färdit. dåutrun tråud dem lå å
såvd. dem åt duktit å sm. [sic] sat bara å smaka å sa “smöbuks såppa smaka bra” men
smöbuk sat innan-fö dörin o sa “dåutrus såpun smaka bra” tr. vart arg å sku ta livi åv
sm. men sm. tåu ståbban å kasta ihäl truli å tå va e slut me he. (SLS 37, 9: 21–22)
Now he [the troll] was happy and was going to have guests. While he was away giving
invitations, the troll’s daughter would slaughter Butterbelly, but she didn’t know how to
The troll can be vengeful if it considers itself to have been badly treated.
Six brothers going on a wooing trip come across a forest troll, and it asks
them to find a wife for it as well. The boys agree to try, but when they fail
the troll is so disappointed that it turns them and their spouses, with the
exception of the youngest girl, into stone (Nyland 1896, 129: 151).
The troll may also have other frightful functions. In a tale of a queen
desperate to have a girl, the troll takes all her children born to date, twelve
boys, in return for giving her the one girl, and transforms the wretched
boys into wild ducks by day, while allowing them to retain their human
form by night (SLS 202 Sagor II, 66: 908). The queen has violated a norm,
and her sons have to pay for it.
The association of the troll to a prohibition is prominent in some texts.
Its status as a moral guardian can be combined with its role as the protector
of the forest, as in the story of a princess running away on the back of a
blue bull, her only confidant. The bull forbids her to touch anything in the
forests they are passing, but each time she ends up with a leaf in her hand,
and the troll guarding the forest appears and challenges the bull to a duel.
The latter wins eventually, but it is so sore after the battle that it can hardly
stand upright (Nyland 1887, 19: 15).
The three trolls acting as house squatters in the dwelling of three prin-
cesses in the White Country seem to be driven by pure malice, or possibly
by pure greed. In order to eliminate the rightful owners they have buried
the princesses to the neck in the ground, and they cannot escape until some
valiant man allows himself to be spanked by the trolls three nights in a row
(SLS 202 Sagor II, 8: 377). Such altruism is a rare quality indeed, or so the
trolls appear to think. Being plagued by trolls might form part of a test of a
suitor, as in a text about a boy seeking to earn himself a wife. The condi-
tion for acceptance of his suit is that he can endure a night of harassment
Kvinnor bland trollen hafva stundom också velat locka män bland människorna att lig-
ga när sig för att få barn af mänsklig säd. Mårtis Joss på Svarvarsbacken i Pörtom råk-
ade en gång i skogen ett kvinnligt troll, som på allt vis försökte förmå honom att ligga
när sig och lofvade gifva honom så mycket penningar han ville hafva, bara han gjorde
henne till viljes. Men han hade hört, att manslemmen skulle förtäras liksom af hetta
vid ett sådant samlag, och därför vågade han icke villfara hennes önskan. (SLS 65: 44)
Women among the trolls have sometimes also wanted to entice men among humans to
lie with them in order to get children of human seed. Mårtis Joss on Turner Hill in
Pörtom once happened to meet a female troll in the woods; she tried to make him sleep
with her in every way and promised to give him as much money as he wanted, if he just
humoured her. But he had heard that the penis would be consumed as if by heat dur-
ing such intercourse, and therefore he dared not grant her wish.
Arstu Juckas farfar plägade berätta, att en handelsman i Gamla Vasa vid namn Thölberg
blef bjuden till underbyggarena en julkväll. Då han kom ut på gården, fördes han till en
trappa, som ledde under jorden, hvilken han inte märkt förut. Det var fint i deras
boning och där bjöds han på mat och åt också. Men då hästarna i stallet kastade sitt
vatten, rann det ned på trollens bord; rummet var nämligen midt under stallen.
Trollen bådo då Thölberg, att han skulle flytta stallet och lofvade, att han skulle få så
mycket penningar han orkade bära, om [han] lofvade att göra det. Han lofvade och fick
pengarna. (SLS 65: 49)
Arstu Jucka’s grandfather used to tell that a merchant in Gamla Vasa named Thölberg
was invited to the earthdwellers on Christmas Eve. When he came out into the yard,
he was brought to a stair leading down into the earth that he had not noticed before. It
was elegant in their dwelling and he was offered food there, and he ate too. But when
the horses in the stable urinated it dripped down on the trolls’ table; for the room was
precisely underneath the stables.
The trolls asked Thölberg to move the stable and promised that he would get as
much money as he could carry, if [he] promised to do this. He promised and got the
money.
This migratory legend has been linked to a real-life personage, the wealthy
merchant Thölberg who lived in Gamla Vasa. This was before the disas-
trous fire in 1852 when much of the town was ravaged, and the city subse-
quently moved to its present-day location closer to the sea. Earthdwellers
and trolls are used interchangeably in this text; the former are the supranor-
mal creatures usually associated with this legend type, as they live under-
ground (cf. Klintberg 2002: 170–171). Christmas Eve was, like Midsummer’s
Eve, a time of great supernatural import, and the habitations of the trolls
could become visible, as in this text. To eat the food of the trolls is gener-
ally a risky business, but here the offer of victuals is an element in a context
of hospitality and mutual trust in the other’s goodwill (cf. Tangherlini 1998
I have heard a story of hill trolls from old folks. There was a midwife bringing her cows
into the forest. Then a hill troll came up to her and asked for her help, but she did not
want to go with the troll, before she got a promise to be brought back to the same place.
The troll led her through a number of subterranean tunnels and chambers. When she
had done her work, she received a shirt and a silver spoon, and then she was brought to
the same place in which she had been. The shirt had such a quality that it did not
change, if only she did not say whence it had come. But her husband began to wonder
when the shirt never got worn out … and forced his wife to confess where she had
taken it. Then the shirt became like any other shirt: it got worn out and was finished.
Up here in Nurmo there is a large hill, and inside the hill are sort of rooms, where the
trolls are supposed to have lived in the past, and doors are still visible in the rock. Once
a dragoon from Helsinge is reputed to have ridden past it on the morning of Christmas
Day and seen candles burning in every window. He rides in to look and sees that trolls
are living there. He asks for something to drink, and they fetch it for him with cow
horns and such things. Then he asks if they have no better drinking-vessels in hell, and
they fetch it for him in a cup, but he didn’t drink, he just threw it over his left shoulder,
and it was so strong that when it fell down onto the horse’s back, it singed off the hairs.
He had turned around and brought the cup with him. And he had ridden for all the
horse could manage for its life, but still the trolls were gaining on him. Then [a voice]
had shouted from the heavens that he should ride on blessed ground, on farm-land,
and then they couldn’t pursue him. But they had been so close already that they had
made the cup melt at one end. Later he rode to the church of Helsinge and went into
the church with the same speed and gave the cup to the parson, who was standing by
the altar, and when he blessed it, the trolls had no power any more.
“Were you too in church yesterday, ma’am?” he asked. “No, I wasn’t”, the old woman
said, [“]but why do you ask that?” “I was”, the boy answered, “and it was stated that a
princess had been abducted a year ago, and the one who could find her and bring her to
the king would get a big reward”. “Well, you could find her”, the old woman thought,
“if you just give me the best sheep you have”. “Well, do you know where she is?” the
boy asked. “Yes, I do know”, the old woman answered. “Well, in that case I don’t care
if I give them all, ’cause I won’t go home any more”, he thought. The old woman said:
“Look, you’ll get a sword, and you can keep it, I don’t want it any more, and go down
into the cellar, and there the old man is sitting and he has the princess, and keep the
sword under your jacket and make the pretext of an errand, and while you’re talking to
him, lop his head off.” “Do you want to kill your husband?” the boy asked. “It doesn’t
matter”, the old woman answered, “I’ve no use for him anyway[”].
22 “The extreme sensibility of the troll to the scent of human blood might be perceived as
a diminution of an old form of cannibalism.”
Platsen för Vörå första kyrka förlägges av folktraditionen oftast till Kirksalbacken i
Lomby. Dock angives även ett par andra ställen. Det ena av dessa är Hiideso eller
Hidersö, en kulle i Tuckur. En gammal gumma berättade, att när man här började
med kyrkbygget, hörde man trollen ropa och jämra sig:
“Gud nåde oss i detta år,
de bygger kyrka på Hiideso!”
(SLS 333: 223)
The site of the first church in Vörå is most often placed by the folk tradition on the
Kirksal Hill in Lomby. Nevertheless some other sites are mentioned as well. One of
these is Hiideso or Hidersö, a hill in Tuckur. An old woman told that when they start-
ed with the church-building here, the trolls were heard to cry and lament:
“God have mercy on us in this year,
they are building a church on Hiideso!”
To dom kóm ti slotti, ter prinsessun bodd, sá gobbin åt pojtjin: “når du nu jissar kva
prinsessun tänker: så séj at un tänker op skoan sin, men vál it rädd, för hun förvandlar
se jinast ti viljúr o ormar o maskar, anna gå o rist i kors op bröste henars, so vál un ti in
menisk tibák!” Når mönin va’ o prinsessun kóm úr kamarin sen o froga kva’ un tänker
op, svara’ pojtjin: “et tänker op skoan dín” Som an ha sakt kva’ un tänker åp, vór un
straxt sen en gród o fall nér op golve. Sedan förvandlast un ti all slags júr o maskar; ti
sist vór un in häst. To jí pojtjin til un o dro’ i kors op bröste henars o straxt vár un in
prinses tibák. Pojtjin ji to in i kamarin me’ un o tom ålika kvaráder o vór jift. (R II 305)
när trolle sen va borta, for flikkan sjelv bort o im ti modron. so va flikkan redd för trolle,
o gomman mä. o so stoppa dom opp alm o klädär kringom spisståndarn so en e likna
gomman. när trolle kom, so sparka e til e tär o sa: “är är ti eta, o dotron din lidär injin
nöd!” som an sparka til almgomman, so rykt almn o klädren opp i tatji, o trolle börja on-
dersöka e tär an o drögd so lengi, en solen rann opp, o so sprakk an (SLS 202 Sagor I, 8)
A cat similarly leaves the final execution of the troll to the sun in K. P.
Pettersson’s record, a variant of AT 545 The Cat as Helper:
Tå e blej mörkt sän, så gaf se kattn åf i väg ti slotte, för han visst än trolle brúka va bort
om nättena, men huld se i slotte om dagana; för si han vá, som all troll pa vá, rädd för
dagsljúse. Tå kattn kåm ti slotte, så vá e som’n hadd trott: trolle va bort o hadd, tå int e
ansåg se behöf va rädd föri än ná’n sku koma di, lämna dörar o pórtar ypy på vid gáf-
vel. Kattn gick så in o stängd pórtana fast ett ’se inifrån, o stoppa en limpo, som’n hitta
i slotte, i nykylhole, o så sästist’n sjölf innanför pórtn vänt tärt trolle sku koma heim.
Kattn visst nó han än inga trolle sku tola solen o fundéra bara på ti få trolle drögt utan-
föri tärt solen sku stick opp, so sku e nó vá slút mé’n tå.
Alldejlis riktit! Som kattn hadd biräkna så gick e å. Om moron i gråningen så kåm
trollkárn, en ryslit stóran gubb, hejm o sku in fórt, för han hadd vari o försinka se lite
för längi bort: men så va pórtn faststängd o i lås, så än’n blej stá utanföri. Trolle burja
sen sök i fickona sin, om’n sku há ná’n nykyl ti ypn mé. Han lyckast há å, som’n hitta
tislút, men så va nykylhole faststoppa, så än int nykyln gick in, o i bråskon o ífvern sán
ti få ypy o slipp in, so blej’n drögd bara mejr o märkt int sjölf – arg som’n vá – än sólen
just stack se opp o génast som un skejn på’n så to hejla troll-fán o sprack “tvärsåf midti-
klyf ”, som Háfri Ville sá tå byxorna sprack, o tär blej’n. (SLS 31, 141: 1 1 0–111)
When it became dark, the cat went off to the castle, for he knew that the troll used to
be away at night, but stayed in the castle during the day; ’cause it was, as all trolls tend
to be, afraid of daylight. When the cat came to the castle, it was as he had thought: the
troll was away and had, as it didn’t think it needed to be afraid that someone would
come there, left the doors and gates wide open. The cat went in and closed the gates
behind himself from the inside, and put a loaf he found in the castle in the key hole,
and then he sat himself inside the gate to wait ’till the troll would come home. The cat,
he knew that the troll wouldn’t stand the sun and just pondered getting the troll
detained outside ’till the sun rose, and then it would certainly be finished.
Quite right! Things did turn out as the cat had calculated. In the morning at dawn
the troll man, an awfully large old man, came home and needed to get in fast, fast, as it
had lingered a bit too long; but then the gate was closed and locked, so that it remained
to stand outside. The troll started searching its pockets, if it’d have some key to open
with. It managed to have [one] too that it found eventually, but then the key hole was
blocked, so that the key didn’t go in, and in the hurry and eagerness to open and get in-
side, it just lingered more and didn’t notice itself—angry that it was—that the sun just
rose and immediately as it shone on it the whole troll-devil exploded “divided, split in
two”, as Háfri Ville said when his pants split, and there it remained.
En flicka blev en gång bortrövad av ett troll, som förde henne till sin boning i ett berg.
Trollet fattade behag till flickan och sade, att hon måste gifta sig med honom. Hon
tiggde och bad att slippa fri, men han lät icke beveka sig; varken böner eller tårar hjälp-
te. Slutligen sade han dock till henne: “kan du gissa mitt namn innan vår bröllopsdag,
skall jag återge dig friheten.” Flickan gissade gång på gång. Hon nämnde namn på
både fåglar och djur, men det rätta fann hon ej. På morgonen av den dag, bröllopet
skulle stå, hörde hon trollet, som trodde, att hon sov, säga:
Min hustru kan gissa både fåglar och djur,
men icke kan säga herr Vippumbur.
Då bad hon att få gissa ännu en gång, vartill trollet samtyckte. Hon nämnde då hans
namn, och trollet måste giva henne friheten. (Bygdeminnen 1910: 41–42)
A girl was once abducted by a troll that brought her to its dwelling in a hill. The troll
started fancying her and said that she had to marry it. She begged and pleaded to be
released, but it did not relent; neither pleas nor tears helped. Finally it nevertheless said
to her: “if you can guess my name before our wedding day, I will give you back your
freedom.” The girl guessed again and again. She mentioned the names of both birds
Storberget beläget i skogen mellan Karfsor och Kimo byar är beryktadt för bergtroll,
“rådan”, som tid efter annan skall hafva visat sig derstädes och skrämt folk, hvilka kom-
mit att färdas förbi detsamma. Så berättas om en man som för något 50 år sedan träf-
fade på en vacker stuga “rådstugu” i närheten af nämnda berg, då han skulle gå genom
skogen från Karfsor till Kimo följande: “Ejngang to in kár från Karfsor fy 50 år sidan
sku gá jinast från Karfsor ti Kimo jinom skåojin o kom til Ståorbjerji, so så an in ‘rå-
stugu’, som va römåla me vit fönsterkarmar o fåoderbre. Alt så iut som e sku a vari in
stior herrgål. Kárin jig in, o alt va snygt o tär va ba silver o kopar. Injin mensk så an
iutom in pigu, som ståo me spísin o kåoka o rörd i grytun. Hun tala int e åol til an, an-
nan ståo o knöjt navan åt an so an tärijinom sku fysta ti ga iut. Me dörin ståo in kopar-
sóv me skåopun i täri drakk an förr än an ji bort. To an jig iut o vendis okring, so tåo
The Great Hill situated in the forest between the villages of Karfsor and Kimo is not-
orious for hill trolls, “rå”, who are said to have shown themselves there time after time
and scared people who have come to pass by the same. Thus it is told of a man, who
some 50 years ago happened upon a splendid cottage in the vicinity of the aforemen-
tioned hill, when he was to walk through the forest from Karfsor to Kimo the following:
“Once when a man from Karfsor 50 years ago was to take a shortcut from Karfsor to
Kimo through the forest and came to the Great Hill, he saw a ‘rå cottage’, which was
painted red with white window frames and ledges. Everything looked as if it were a
large manor. The man went inside, and everything was tidy and there were only silver
and copper. No one did he see except a maid, standing by the hearth cooking and stir-
ring in the pot. She spoke not a word to him, but stood shaking her fist at him to make
him understand to leave. By the door stood a copper tub with a ladle in it. There he
drank before he left. When he departed and turned around, the point of his knife, pro-
truding from the sheath, touched that tub. As he came out onto the yard and was go-
ing away, the tub came dancing after him and hit him on the legs, and there it was left
lying. When he came to the Kimo works, he took people thence with him and went
back to the forest to find out more closely about that ‘rå cottage’. They saw no cottage
any more, but the copper tub lay on the spot where it was left when it hit him on the
legs. They took the tub to the Kimo … works. From that time onward the same man
who had encountered that ‘rå cottage’ was half addle-brained … and that he was sup-
posed to have become because the point of his knife touched the copper tub, and it
therefore came to hit him on the legs. (He then roamed around and killed cats and was
therefore most often called ‘Cat-John’.)[”]
This text portrays the fateful encounter, or the breakdown of the relation
between this world and the otherworld. On some level, the meeting of the
worlds is nearly always conscious, either on the part of man or on the part
of the troll. Although a crossing of the boundary between the two spheres
might be made unawares by a human, intentionality is generally present in
the wish of the troll to open up its world to man. Here intentionality is
entirely lacking on both sides, rendering it an occasion of deep crisis; the
banishment of the danger cannot even be performed with curses, it requires
silence. Rather than heaping abuse on the man, the troll girl must restrict
herself to shaking her fist at him; anything else might compromise the in-
tegrity of her realm.
By the Great Hill ghosts use to show themselves. Once there was a boy, who walked
along that road passing in the vicinity of the Great Hill. It was late in the evening,
almost in the middle of the night. When he came right in front of it, he saw a large
splendid building where there used to be only hills and forest, and then he saw a girl
going for water to the spring with a bucket of silver. He followed behind her and went
into the cottage, and there it was oh so beautiful: gold and silver vessels everywhere and
the mistress of the house stood by the hearth cooking porridge—and the Lady of the
Böte hill was there as a guest. The boy would have loved to get something, but he
didn’t get anything, he didn’t. Finally the boy happened to mention the name of Jesus
and it all vanished, and the boy was left sitting on the hill on a rotten tree stump.
The boy enters the sphere of the troll at a time conducive to supernatural
encounter, the night. He receives as uncharitable a treatment as his coun-
terpart in the former story: his cravings for food or drink remain unsatis-
23 Thus, “the word (the text) is an intersection of words (of texts) where one reads at least
one other word (text)”, for “all text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations, all text is the
absorption and transformation of another text. Instead of the notion of intersubjectivity
that of intertextuality installs itself, and poetic language can be read as at least double ” (my
translation; cf. Kristeva 1980).
1) The hill trolls are said to gladly entice young people to come to them, especially girls
that they keep in the hill. Sometimes it happens that the abducted get permission to
visit the church, though on the condition of leaving it before the parson has pronounced
the benediction. —Once the trolls had abducted a young girl. She got good food and fine
clothes. Every now and then she was also permitted to attend mass in church. Then she was
always wearing splendid clothes. During such a visit to church it nevertheless happened that
the girl forgot to leave while the parson was saying the Lord’s Prayer. When this had occurred
her fine clothes fell apart into mere rags, so that she, ashamed, did not know where to go.
But through the prayer she had been liberated from the troll’s power; people recognized her and
she was taken to her old home.
2) Every Sunday morning when they went to church, they put one peck of grain with
one bushel (four pecks) of sand added to it that she was to cleanse and cook until they
returned from church. One Sunday morning it so happened, when the others had gone
to church, that a man came to her, where she sat crying in the cottage and asked what
she was crying for. Then she told him what she had to do and she didn’t know how it
was to be done. The man gave her a staff, and said she had to go out onto the yard and
rap on the stone, and she would be allowed to wish for splendid clothes and a pair of gol-
den shoes, and she would be allowed to go to church, but [she had to] return from it, before the
parson pronounces “Lord bless us”. She did as the man asked: took the staff he gave her,
and went rapping on the stone in the yard, and got splendid clothes and golden shoes. Then
she went to church and sat down in the pew in front of the queen. Everyone marvelled at
her, for such a fine lady they had never seen in church, and no-one knew her. Before the
parson pronounced “Lord bless us” she left. When she came home, she removed those
clothes, and [the] golden shoes, and took her old clothes back and dressed in them.
The helper ensures that the princess acquires the raiment appropriate
to her station and withheld by her wicked stepmother; the outer splendour
is also a confirmation of her inner virtue. Nevertheless, the exaltation
is subject to a condition: she is not to stay in church while the parson
3) En flicka från Rökiö by i Vörå vallade kor i närheten av Boberget. Hon blev tagen av
trollen och förd in i berget där hon kläddes i fina kläder. Trollen gåvo henne tillåtelse att alla
söndagar besöka kyrkan, blott hon lovade att avlägsna sig härifrån innan prästen läst Herrans
bön. En gång tyckte flickan att hon gärna kunde dröja i kyrkan tills gudstjänsten var slut.
När prästen läste välsignelsen föllo de fina kläderna av henne och hon satt i samma trasiga
dräkt, som hon haft den gången hon vallade kor. (SLS 324: 299)
This text is more precise in the indication of time and place. The girl has
been given a definite birth place and she is herding her cows in a specified
area of Vörå’s topography. Contrary to the first example, which takes the
narrative a step further by focusing on the advantages of the liberation from
the trolls, this girl does not experience any redress of her humiliation in
losing her splendid attire; on this point Tegengren’s second record negates
the first. The story ends on a note of disgrace, perhaps not only a coinci-
dence: it might be intended as a rebuke of her extravagance. Vörå, like
many other parishes, was touched by the religious revivals of the period,
which naturally influenced the conceptions of morals current in the parish
(Wolf-Knuts 1991: 49–52). Vanity was not encouraged, and it was an object
of censure in the narrative tradition as well. Greta Mårtens of the village of
Rejpelt depicted the hazards of vanity thus in her story of “Muster Maja
och Lill Maja” (‘Aunt Maja and Little Maja’). Aunt Maja forbids Little
Maja to enter a specific room of the house while she attends a wedding:
4) So snast Muster Maja ha gá, o Lill Maja lemna emsend hejm, so jig un o sí i all
riumin, som fanns i gålin. To un kom i he di fybudi riume, so va tär in ståor spejl på
veddjin. Lill Maja så se i han di spejlin, o to tykt un se va håolöst vaker, so un int ha sitt
najn, som va so vaker som hun. To un sidan vendis okring, so så un in tiddjargubb, som
ståo bákom in o grét. Vídari so merkt un he e va in luku på golve; hun tåo opp en, o to
slåo bara blå eldin undan golve, so un brend fingre sett. He di såre vast aldri beter, so
un motta bind in lapp på e, so int Muster Maja sku få sí e, to un kom hejm. (R II 32)
4) As soon as Aunt Maja had gone, and Little Maja was left alone at home, she went
looking in all the rooms of the house. When she came into the forbidden room, there
was a large mirror on the wall. Little Maja looked into the mirror, and then she thought she
was so incredibly beautiful that she hadn’t seen anyone as beautiful as she. Then, when she
turned around, she saw an old beggar standing behind her crying. Moreover, she no-
ticed there was an opening in the floor; she opened it, and nothing but blue flames rose
from the floor, so that she burned her finger. That wound never got better, and she had
to bind a patch onto it, so that Aunt Maja wouldn’t get to see it when she came home.
5) When the queen was in the tower, Aunt Maja came to her and asked what she had
got on her finger, and said that she would help her get away if she just said it. Then the
queen said what she had got on her finger, and said that she had been in the forbidden
room. She said that when she entered, there was a large mirror on the wall, and when
she looked into it, and turned around, an old man was standing behind her crying.
Moreover, she said there was an opening in the floor, and when she opened it, blue
flames rose up from the floor and there she burned her finger. “That was the first sin you
committed, when you thought yourself pretty”, Aunt Maja said, and continued, “that old
beggar was the Saviour crying as you sinned, and underneath the cellar where the flames
rose up, was hell.” When the queen had told her how she got an injured finger, it
healed, and Aunt Maja gave her all three children back, and she once again became
queen and was allowed back to the castle.
Vanity is explicitly labelled a sin, grave enough to make the Lord mourn
the girl’s loss of innocence. Thus, Greta Mårtens’ tale agrees with the neg-
ative evaluation of vanity in Tegengren’s second record. This view is also
congruent with an intertext that will be discussed shortly, although its focus
has been altered, moving from vanity to shame (see text 7).
The food and the clothes surface in a record made by Mårten Thors as
well, and in this respect it agrees with Tegengren’s two texts (texts 1 and 3),
but the accent is somewhat shifted to another theme, metaphorical blind-
ness and invisibility:
6) Once upon a time in Mäkipää there was a girl who was herding the cows, and then the
troll took her and brought her home. She stayed there for a long time and managed well.
The food was good too, as long as she didn’t bless it; then it turned into worms and liz-
ards. She didn’t pine for home nor did she remember anything, but one day she heard
the church bells. Then she wanted to go to church. At last she was given leave to go,
but she wouldn’t be allowed to stay while the parson pronounced the benediction. The first
time all was dark before her eyes and she knew no-one. The second time she stayed for the
benediction. Then she became visible to the people and she began to recognize the people.
Then she saw she was wearing nothing but rags. The parson laid his hands on her, so the
troll didn’t get her any more.
The carefree existence portrayed in the phrases “[s]he stayed there for a
long time and managed well […] she didn’t pine for home nor did she re-
member anything” associates the folklore text to the Bible and the descrip-
tion of the Garden of Eden provided by the contrast to the conditions pre-
vailing after the Fall of Man:
7) Då öpnades bägges deras ögon och de wordo warse, at de woro nakne ; Och de bundo
tilhopa fikonalöf och gjorde sig skörte. Och de hörde Herrans Guds röst gångandes i
lustgårdenom, då dagen swalkades; och Adam undstack sig, med sine hustru, för
Herrans Guds ansikte, ibland trän i lustgårdenom. Och Herren Gud kallade Adam,
och sade till honom: hwar äst du? Och han sade: Jag hörde dina röst i lustgårdenom,
och fruktade mig, ty jag är naken, derföre undstack jag mig. (1 Mos. 3: 7–10)
7) And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; and they
sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the voice of the LORD GOD walking in the garden in the cool of the
day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves amongst the trees of the garden.
And the LORD GOD called unto Adam, and said unto him; where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and
I hid myself.
(Genesis 3: 7–10)
Before the Fall, Adam and Eve are blind to their nudity and blissfully
8) … förbannad ware marken för din skull, med bekymmer skalt du nära dig på henne i
alla dina lifsdagar. Törne och tistlar skall hon bära dig, och du skalt äta örter på mark-
ene. Du skalt äta ditt bröd i dins anletes swett, till dess du warder åter till jord igen, der
du af tagen äst. (1 Mos. 3: 17–19)
8) … cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of
it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
(Genesis 3: 17–19)
The herd girl is intimately acquainted with the world depicted in this pas-
sage; it is her everyday existence, eating her bread in the sweat of her face,
in sorrow, from all of which she finds relief in the realm of the troll during
her abduction. Food is supplied without any service in return and she en-
joys a life free of concern. She merely has to take care not to bless the food,
since it breaks the illusion of good fare. In one respect the first part of the
folklore text is a reversal of the Fall: the girl goes from want to luxury, from
awareness to oblivion. The second part represents a fall from grace in line
with the story of the Fall in Genesis, a reversion to the state before the re-
versal, so to speak, ending in agreement. Yet the connotations of the girl’s
paradisical existence and those of the Garden of Eden are highly divergent;
the former depends on illusion and is located in a sphere normally con-
strued as excluded from the blessings of Christianity. As the parson releas-
es the girl from the enchantment by reciting the benediction, she attains
knowledge: “Then she saw she was wearing nothing but rags”, in parallel with
the apple from the Tree of Knowledge conferring illumination on Adam
and Eve: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked”. The fundamental significance of illumination is a common feature
of both Thors’ record and Genesis, implying agreement, yet another rever-
sal is at work here. Illumination in Genesis was of evil, a step away from
9) He va’ ejngang in flikku i Sordavala, som va’ fy’skretsjeli’ höfälu. Sidan so hend’ e se’
in sondá, to ’un sku’ gá ti’ tsjyrtsjun, he ’un skoda’ se’ i spejlin, to ’un ha’ klédd se’, o to
vart ’un vár, he ’un há’ in orm ókring halsin me’ huvu’ på ejn axil o stjertin på tan annan
fy’ pälband. To ’un så’ ’an, so vart ’un fy’skrekt, o dem frejsta’ me in tang ta’ ’an om hu-
vu’, fy’ ti’ få bort ’an, men to ormin så’ he, so snärt ’an se’ so hårt flikkun om halsin, so
’un blåna’, o dem nödgast let ’an va’ i fred. Alla tíder va’ ’an tär. To e va’ kalt, so huldis
’an undi’ klénin némbrast kroppin, men to e va’ vakert veder o varmt so to lå’ ovanpå.
Han va’ tär, fast ’un jig ti’ tsjyrtsjun o ti’ nattvádin. To ’an vila hav’ matin, so snärt ’an
se’ hårdari o’kring halsin hennas, so ’un motta’ jev ’an mjölk o naun tsjöttsmulu. Va’ e
tukan mat, som ’an tykt’ om, so snärt’ ’an se’ hårdari o’kring halsin o to motta’ ’un let
’an smak’ föst iur stjejdin. So va’ i mang år, fast flikkun vart emsend gudsfruktu, ti sliut
fy ’svann ’an som ’an kom hennar åovitandes, so ’un int’ vist’ vart’ ’an tåo vejin. (R II 36)
9) Once upon a time there was a girl in Sordavala [Finnish Sortavala in eastern Finland]
who was terribly haughty. Then it happened one Sunday, when she was going to church,
that she looked into the mirror when she had dressed, and then she perceived that she
had a snake around her neck, with its head on one shoulder and its tail on the other, as
a pearl necklace. She was horrified, and they tried to take it by the head with a pair of
tongs to remove it, but when the snake saw it, it twisted so tightly around the girl’s neck
that she turned blue, and thus they had to let it be. It was always there. When it was
cold, it stayed under the dress close to the body, but when the weather was nice and
warm, [it] lay on top. It was there even though she went to church and to Communion.
When it wanted food, it twisted around her neck so that she had to give it milk and
some morsel of meat. If there was such food as it liked, it twisted tighter around her
neck, and then she had to let it have a taste first from the spoon. So it was for many
years, although the girl became humble and pious. Eventually it disappeared just as it
had arrived, unbeknownst to her.
10) Och ormen war listigare än all djur på jordene, som HERren Gud gjort hade, och
sade til qwinnona: Ja, skulle Gud hafwa sagt, I skolen icke äta af allahanda trä i lust-
gårdenom? Då sade qwinnan til ormen: Wi äte af de träs frukt, som är i lustgårdenom;
Men af frukten af det trät, som är midt i lustgårdenom, hafwer Gud sagt: Äter icke der-
af, och kommer icke heller derwid, at I icke dön. Då sade ormen til qwinnona: Inga-
lunda skolen I döden dö. Förty Gud wet, at på hwad dag I äten deraf, skola edor ögon öp-
nas, och warden såsom Gud, wetandes hwad godt och ondt är. Och qwinnan såg til, at trät
war godt att äta af, och ljufligit uppå se, och at det et lustigt trä war, efter det gaf för-
stånd; Och tog utaf fruktene, och åt, och gaf desslikes sinom man deraf, och han åt. (1 Mos.
3: 1–6)
10) NOW the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD
God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
(Genesis 3: 1–6)
The serpent is the most subtle of the animals God had created, and in the
1 1) And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought
him to touch him.
And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had
spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.
After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was
restored, and saw every man clearly.
(Mark 8: 22–25)
12) Men Saulus hade ännu i sinnet trug och slag emot HERrans lärjungar; och gick til
öfwersta presten; Och han beddes af honom bref til de synagogor i Damasco, at hwem
han finna kunde af denna wägen, män eller qwinnor, dem skulle han föra bundna til
Jerusalem. Och wid han war i wägen, och nalkades intil Damascum, då kringsken
honom hasteliga et sken af himmelen. Och han föll ned på jordena, och hörde ena röst,
sägandes til sig: Saul, Saul, hwi förföljer du mig? Då sade han: ho äst du, HERre? Sade
HERren: Jag är JEsus, den du förföljer; dig är swårt att spjerna emot udden. Då skalf
han och bäfwade, och sade: HERre, hwad wilt du jag skall göra? Sade HERren til
honom: Statt up, och gack in i staden, och der skall dig warda sagdt, hwad du göra
skalt. Och de män, som woro i sällskap med honom, stodo förskräckte, hörande wäl
röstena, och dock likwäl sågo de ingen. Då stod Saulus up af jordene, och uplät sin ögon,
och kunde dock ingen se; utan de togo honom wid handena, och ledde honom in i
Damascum. Och han war i tre dagar, så at han såg intet, och intet åt, ej heller drack.
12) And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the
Lord, went unto the high priest,
And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this
way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about
him a light from heaven:
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecu-
test: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the
Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must
do.
And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing
no man.
And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but
they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the
Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and
enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,
And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on
him, that he might receive his sight.
Paul, still known by his old name, Saul, has a vision of Christ on the road
to Damascus, and he is blinded. For three days he lives in darkness, fast-
ing, until Christ exhorts the disciple Ananias to come to him in the house
of Judas. There Ananias puts his hands on Saul, “and immediately there fell
from his eyes as it had been scales, and he received sight forthwith”. The first
part of the text is therefore an inversion of Mark chapter 8 (text 11), while
the last, being a reversal of the inversion, agrees with it. Saul’s blindness is
temporary, inflicted upon him at the conversion; rather than connoting the
Fall, blindness represents the opposite, some kind of hallowing. Saul used
to be evil, but he has repented and become a new man, a disciple of Christ.
Another vision presages his healing by Ananias, and eventually it is achieved
in the flesh. Saul returns to the normal, everyday world, but transfigured,
and he assumes a new place in it. In contrast, the girl in the troll text sim-
ply resumed her lowly existence after the disenchantment (text 6), and
Adam and Eve were thrust into a similar position (text 8). Saul, on the
other hand, is at least partially exalted from his fallen status.
The structure might be rendered as:
13) Another boy met two fine damsels there on the road [by the Great Hill]. When he
had passed them, he picked up a stone and threw it after them. The damsels were then
angry with him and made sure he didn’t find a way home or know in which direction it
was. He went into the forest, but couldn’t find his way back, for he was taken by the
forest. He heard cart wheels and the people calling for him; but he wasn’t able to re-
spond or see them. After he had walked a couple of days, he met the damsels again.
Then he asked them to show him to the road. Therefore they said: “you shouldn’t have
been naughty, then you wouldn’t have had to be here, but since you’re asking now,
you’ll get out of here[”], and they disappeared, and the boy was just stuck on the main
road.
Like the girl abducted by the trolls (text 6), the boy can hear the sounds of
the everyday world, but he is unable to see it; in this respect the texts agree.
Yet his longing for home is undiminished; the enchantment brings nothing
positive, it is rather the opposite of Paradise, and it is more related to the
physical blindness in Mark chapter 8 (text 11) due to the negative evaluation.
The boy finally abases himself and asks the fine damsels to guide him home
when he meets them in the forest. Somewhat grudgingly they grant his
request after reproaching him for his uncouth behaviour, and as they once
enchanted him, they also disenchant him—they fill the function of the
parson and Ananias as well—and he finds himself standing by the road.
Whether his experience has converted him into a polite gentleman is left
unsaid, but it is apparent that he enjoys no hallowing of the Pauline sort;
he returns to the human world with the same status as he left it, but if he
was indeed reformed, he becomes a better man. In any case, he has re-
ceived forgiveness for his transgression.
The prime similarity between Saul and the boy consists in their position
as the harassers of their respective enchanters: Saul persecuted the followers
of Christ, and thus Christ himself (text 12), the boy tried to stone the dam-
sels. The scheme of the latter narrative might be:
10) Och ormen war listigare än all djur på jordene, som HERren Gud gjort hade, och
sade til qwinnona: Ja, skulle Gud hafwa sagt, I skolen icke äta af allahanda trä i lust-
gårdenom? Då sade qwinnan til ormen: Wi äte af de träs frukt, som är i lustgårdenom;
Men af frukten af det trät, som är midt i lustgårdenom, hafwer Gud sagt: Äter icke der-
af, och kommer icke heller derwid, at I icke dön. Då sade ormen til qwinnona: Inga-
lunda skolen I döden dö. Förty Gud wet, at på hwad dag I äten deraf, skola edor ögon öp-
nas, och warden såsom Gud, wetandes hwad godt och ondt är. Och qwinnan såg til, at trät
war godt att äta af, och ljufligit uppå se, och at det et lustigt trä war, efter det gaf för-
stånd; Och tog utaf fruktene, och åt, och gaf desslikes sinom man deraf, och han åt. (1 Mos.
3: 1–6)
10) NOW the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD
God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
(Genesis 3: 1–6)
Here the knowledge bestowed is the ability to distinguish good and evil. In
folklore, the skill generally acquired is second sight. This is a form of extra
vision that does not exclude ordinary sight, nor does it imply blindness
14) Den som tager själavatten utur en död människas ögon när hon själas och smäter
med det uti sina ögon då faller ett töcken ifrån hans ögon och han börjar se allting hvad
som sedan skall vederfaras honom uti detta och det tillkommande lifvet och den blir en
medlare emellan de döda och deras anhöriga så att till den komma de döda om de ha
något att säga åt någon lefvande och den har makt att framkalla de döda som den vill.
Men en ogudaktig skall ej göra det där. Det var en man som var en stor drinkare,
och hans hustru hade hört omtalas det här, och så tänkte hon att om han skulle få ög-
onen öpnade, så skulle han upphöra att supa och därföre gaf hon honom af dessa drop-
par att supa, och han fick ögonen öppnade och såg huru det skulle gå med honom uti
evigheten, och därföre så var han rädd allting och slutade med att han gick och dränkte
sig. (SLS 220: 167–168)
14) If one takes soul water from the eyes of a dead man, at the moment of death, and
smears it onto one’s eyes, then a haze falls from one’s eyes, and one starts seeing all that
will befall one in this life and in the afterlife, and one will become a mediator between
the dead and their relatives, so that the dead come to [such a person] if they have some-
thing to say to the living, and one has the power to call forth the dead as one wishes.
But an impious [person] should not do that. There was a man, who was a great
drinker, and his wife heard about this, and she thought that if his eyes were opened, he
would stop drinking, and that’s why she gave him these drops to drink, and his eyes
were opened and he saw how he would fare in eternity, and therefore he was afraid of
everything and [it] ended with him drowning himself.
The everyday world – Consumption of the soul water – Second sight – Death – ?
This is a complicated text, containing many mysteries. The final stage for
example can only be represented by a question mark; a deprivation of sec-
ond sight is unlikely in light of the introduction, which specifies that the
potency of the soul water is dependent on its collection at the moment of
death, the instant when the sight of the everyday world is transformed into
the vision of the afterlife. The poor man would not lose his second sight,
but he would relinquish his normal vision. Hence he would have to grap-
ple with only one form of sight.
The position of mediator between the living and the dead is depicted as
a fairly prized one in the paratexte, but in the narrative it evolves into a
curse. Examining the world the man is cast into, it is an existence of
doubleness and superimposition he is not prepared to handle. The gift of
foresight demands a strong psyche in the encounter with the otherworld,
and the piety required of the seer or seeress functions as a safeguard for his
or her mental health, quite in line with the words of hymn 116, written by
Martin Luther, in the Finland-Swedish hymnal of 1886:
15) Wår Gud är oss en wäldig borg, A mighty fortress is our God,
Han är wår sköld och wärja, a bulwark never failing;
Han hjelper oss af nöd och sorg, our helper sure amid the flood
Som wilja oss besnärja. of mortal ills prevailing:
Nu mörkrets furste wred for still our ancient foe
Han will oss trampa ned; doth seek to work us woe;
Stor magt och mycken list with power and malice great,
Hans rustning är för wisst: and armed with cruel hate,
På jord ej fins hans like. on earth he has no equal.
Och wore werlden än så stor And though this world, with devils filled,
Och full af mörkrets härar, should threaten to undo us,
Så länge Gud ibland oss bor, we will not fear, for God hath willed
Platt intet oss förfärar. the truth to triumph through us:
Må werldens furste då the prince of darkness grim,
Förgrymmad mot oss stå, we tremble not for him;
Han skadar dock ej här, his rage we can endure,
Ty dömd han redan är; for lo! his doom is sure,
Ett ord kan honom fälla. one little word shall fell him.
Guds ord de måste låta stå, That word above all earthly powers,
Det få de ej om handa; no thanks to them, abideth;
Med oss skall Gud i striden gå the Spirit and the gifts are ours
Med wäldig kraft och anda. through Christ, who with us sideth:
Wi fritt och gladt till mods let goods and kindred go,
Ge ära, lif och gods: this mortal life also;
Det allt de taga må, the body they may kill:
Stor winst de icke få; God’s truth abideth still,
Guds rike wi behålle. God’s kingdom is forever.
(Translation by Frederick H. Hedge 1853,
Voices 1996)
For the unfortunate man in the folklore text (text 14), the bulwark provided
by God has indeed failed. He has had to confide in his own strength, and
his striving has been losing. His body has been killed—by himself—but
there is no sense of God’s truth prevailing. Luther’s hymn enjoyed a long-
standing popularity in Sweden and Finland (Olsson 1967), and was well-
known among the narrators. It may therefore be regarded as associatively
linked to the folklore text, expressing and emphasizing the necessity of a
sense of divine providence at work in the individual’s life; the consequences
of the lack of it are perfectly clear in the narrative above, which may be
viewed as a negation of the hymn.
16) he va in kvinnu, såm vart taji åv i trull å fört ti trullstugun. trullis tsjärngdjin sku jyst
få bån å tärfö va trulli et hundi kvinnun. trullis tsjärngdjin föd bån å kvinnun löuva e så
gav trulli inar in smörju, såm un sku smit pu bånis ögun, men un sku int få smit pu sin
ögun. men kvinnun kunna int hald se, utan smita pu sin ögur å. tå un ha laga allt i ån-
ing i tullstugun [sic], fikk un mytsji pengar å trulli fört bårt inar sölv, men int visst un,
hur un kåm se heim. nain tid bakett så un rådi i in handilsbåud. hun helsa på e. så
fråga rådi: “hur si tu me?” – “ja småurt öguna me hundi smörjun, såm du gav me”, sa
kvinnun. rådi vart arg å stakk öguna kvinnun ur huvu. å blind vart un. (SLS 28, 12: 79–80)
16) There was a woman who was taken by a troll and brought to the cottage of the troll.
The troll’s wife was just about to give birth and that’s why the troll fetched that woman.
The troll’s wife gave birth and the woman bathed it [sic]. Then the troll gave her an
ointment that she was supposed to smear on the child’s eyes, but she was not allowed to
smear it on her own eyes. But the woman could not contain herself, and smeared onto
her own eyes as well. When she had put everything in order in the troll house, she re-
ceived a lot of money and the troll itself escorted her home, but she had no idea how
she got home. Some time afterwards she saw the rå in a shop.24 She greeted it. Then
the rå asked: “How can you see me?” —“I smeared my eyes with that ointment you gave
me”, the woman said. The rå was angered and poked the woman’s eyes out of her head. And
blind she became.
Persons otherwise not endowed with supernatural abilities may catch iso-
lated glimpses of the beyond by performing a ritual. I will give an example
related to witchspotting on Easter Eve:
17) För att få se trollkäringar om påsknatten, så skall man sätta sig på ett hus, som blifvit
tre gånger flyttadt, samt tillika hålla sig tyst, om man ser hvad som helst. Skrattar man
åter så faller man ned till jorden, om stället der man sitter än är huru så högt.
Ejngang so samblast ungdåomin på in kvänvíppu (bommen) fy’ ti’ lyss på trulltsjern-
guna. To dem ha’ siti’ in stond, so kom in gubb rídand’ på in suggu oppneder (fötterna
voro opp) o há’ in smörgås i handin. Som ’an rejd jínt fyr ’un di kvänvippun, so slåo’ ’an
smörgåsin suggun i endan. To tem som sat på vippun så he, so kunna’ dem int’ hald’ se’,
annan byra’ gap skratt; men me’ ti sama föll dem neder allihåop, o to va’ alt fy’svonni’. (R II
178)
17) To get to see witches on Easter Eve you should seat yourself on a house that has been
moved three times, and you should keep quiet, even if you get to see just about anything.
On the other hand, if you laugh, you fall down to earth, regardless of whether the spot
you sit on is high [above the ground].
Once the youth gathered on a mill beam to listen to witches. When they had sat for
a while an old man came riding upside-down on a sow (his feet were upward), and he
had a sandwich in his hand. As he rode just past the beam, he hit the sow on the butt
with the sandwich. When those sitting on the beam saw it, they couldn’t contain them-
selves, but started laughing; but immediately they all fell down, and then everything disap-
peared.
18) sússas matt å ja jikk eingang i jepu in påsk-natt åsta hör på trúlltsjärngan vi kleiv åp
på i föustak såm a vali flytta tri gangur. vi satt áldeiles tyst ti mit i náttin nåu fikk vi hör,
men int så vi nu na int. e föfasilit vesen va e: tem jikk å dråu jinom påurtin å timra o
vesnast på fleira sett.
måut pensal hödis e föst huru e susa å så hödis in ståur klåkku tå byra e sedan skrål i
föfasilit jud å sáma påsk kört tsjengu-heik i häl se. (SLS 22, 26: 83–84)
18) Sussas Matt and I once went to listen to the witches on Easter Eve in Jeppo. We
climbed onto the roof of a byre, which had been moved three times. We sat completely quiet
long into the night. We did get to hear, but we didn’t see anything, we didn’t. It was a ter-
rible noise: they pulled [things?] through the gate and hammered and made noise in
many ways.
Toward Pensala it was first heard how it whistled, and a large bell was heard. Then
it started bellowing a horrible sound, and the same Easter Kengu-Heik was killed in a
driving accident.
The everyday world – Ritual – Second sight – Breach of silence – The everyday world
The everyday world – Ritual – Prescience
19) En gubbe trodde ej, att det finns tomtar. Han byggde en ny stuga och flyttade sitt
bohag från sin gamla förfallna bostad till den nya. När han fått det sista flyttningslasset
färdigt, tyckte han, att han gärna kunde bränna upp sin gamla stuga, som var så eländig
och bofällig, att den ingenting var värd. Tänkt och gjort. När stugan började brinna,
sade gubben, i det han satte sig upp på lasset: “Finns det någon tomte där, som folk
tror, så nog brinner han upp.” I detsamma hörde han en röst bakom sig: “Vi slapp undan i
lagom tid.” När gubben såg sig om, syntes dock ingen på lasset. (SLS 324: 292)
19) An old man didn’t believe brownies existed. He built a new cottage and moved his
furniture from his old run-down house to the new one. When he had got the last van-
load ready, he thought he might as well burn down his old cottage, which was so lousy
and decayed that it was worth nothing. No sooner thought than done. As the cottage
started burning, the old man said, as he climbed onto the load: “If there is a brownie in
there, as people think, he will surely burn.” At that moment he heard a voice behind him:
“We escaped just in time.” When the old man turned around, though, no-one was visible on
the load.
The old man is moving to a new home, and sets his old ramshackle house
on fire. The provocation inherent in denying the existence of brownies
leads to a response affirming their presence in audible, but not visible terms.
Invisibility rather boosts the impression of an other, intangible to man.
Here the presumptions of the old man are refuted in a gentle, but highly
efficient way.
Although the association of the second witchspotting text (text 18) to
tales of more accidental encounters with the supranormal is distinct, the
notion of hearing yet not seeing recurs in a context much closer at hand—it
is another variation on the witchspotting theme:
20) he va två karar, såm va å hört pu påsktrulluna pu i lidertak, såm a vali flytta tri gang-
ur tå dem a kumi se åp pu tatsji, sa dem: “nu vill vi hör, men int si.” måut klåkkun tålv
hört dem, hur e stsjåstsja i stsjyin å in stånd bakett hört dem hur kåm eín åpp ett knutin.
karan byra skratta. så måtta dem håpp neder å fik int hör na meir hun gangun. (SLS 37, 1 1 :
35)
These men request blindness to the otherworld while preserving the capac-
ity of hearing it. Hence sightlessness may be a matter of choice, induced by
uttering a petition during the ritual. The next five Easter Eves pass in the
state of both seeing and hearing, or, more accurately, the next four; the
sixth year they sense nothing, and consequently seem to draw the conclu-
sion that Easter witches are extinct, as it is no longer necessary to believe in
them. Structurally, it basically conforms to the pattern of the first text of
this kind (text 17).
Arcane knowledge of a dissimilar sort is the theme of another record
from the parish of Vörå: the understanding of bird language. The lengthy
narrative moves from Finland to Russia and back again, and the unusual
skill is achieved in the household of a Russian officer:
21) Samma tid [husartiden] hände det sig en dag, att två gossar lekte vid en boddörr på
Luoma gård i Storkyro i sagda by [Luokka by], då ryssarna kommo till stället. Vid des-
ses ankomst hann den äldre gossen springa undan, men den yngre blef fasttagen och förd
djupt inne i Ryssland, ända till trakten af Don. Der blef han först springgosse (löuparpojk)
och sedan betjent hos en general och fick börja laga mat åt honom. Hvarje gång maten
skulle kokas och tillredas, vägdes den, och gossen vågade icke smaka en smula af den-
samma, då den var färdig att inbäras och framsättas på bordet. Sedan hände det engång
att gossen var en dag med generalen i trägården, der alla slags foglar sjöngo och qvittra-
de. Generalen frågade då af gossen om han förstod något hvad desse foglar sjöngo.
“Nej” svarade denne. När gossen sedermera började på med sin matlagning, smakade
han litet af maten, då den var färdig. Först åt han obetydligt, men sedan började han äta
mer och mer för hvarje gång. Från den tiden begynte han förstå foglarnes sång, såsom då
hönan genom kacklanlande [sic] tillkännagifver för sine kycklingar: “komin hit ja ha
hitta mát!” När gossen i hela tretton år tjent generalen, utan att glömma sitt fädernesland,
beslöt han en dag, då generalen var borta, att rymma. Han tog med sig så mycket, han kunde
salvéra (medföra), af penningar han fann i huset, begaf sig på väg och kom slutligen lyck-
ligt till sin hemort i Storkyro. När han inträdde i sine föräldrars gamla boning, så höll
värdinnan, som ensam var hemma, på att baka bröd. Utan att säga hvem han var, be-
gärde den ankomne främlingen nattqvarter, som han ock erhöll. När han sedan satt
och hvilade sig på bänken, kom en höna intrippande och trampade på ett ogräddadt
bröd och sade med detsamma: “Aj, aj, foutin men, nu trampa do i kakkan” Om afton-
en kom husbonden hem från sitt arbete och frågade af den resande mannen, hvadan
han var. “Söderifrån svarade denne och började visa sine penningar och sitt dyrbara
21) In the same period [the time of the hussars] it happened one day that two boys were
playing by the door of a shed on the farm of Luoma in the above-mentioned village
[the village of Luokka in the parish of Isokyrö (Storkyro)], when the Russians came to
the place. At their arrival the older boy managed to run away, but the younger one was cap-
tured and brought deep down into Russia all the way to the vicinity of the river Don. There
he was first made an errand boy and later a servant of a general and he had to start cooking
for him. Each time the food was to be cooked and prepared, it was weighed, and the
boy dared not taste a morsel of it, when it was ready to be carried out and placed on the
table. Then it once happened that the boy was with the general in the garden one day,
where all kinds of birds were singing and chirping. The general then asked the boy
whether he understood anything of what the birds were singing. “No”, he replied.
When the boy started with his cooking later on, he tasted a little of the food when it was
ready. At first he ate only a trifle, but later he ate more and more each time. From that
time [onward] he began to understand birdsong, as when the hen cackling announces to
its chickens: “Come here, I’ve found food!” When the boy had served the general for
thirteen whole years without forgetting his native country, he decided one day, when the gen-
eral was away, to escape. He brought along as much as he could carry of money he found in
the house, went on his way and eventually arrived safely at his home in Storkyro. As he
entered the old dwelling of his parents, the mistress, who was home alone, was baking
bread. Without saying who he was, the stranger who had arrived asked for accommo-
dation, which he was granted. While he later sat resting on the bench, a hen came trip-
ping in and stepped into an unbaked piece of bread: “Uh-oh, my foot, now you stepped
into the dirt!” In the evening the master of the house came home from work and asked
the travelling man whence he came. “From the south”, he answered and started show-
ing his money and his valuable gold watch. When the master of the house saw the
money, he was immediately inflamed by a wicked desire for them. In the morning the
stranger asked the master of the house if he didn’t know where he might find work for
a few days. “You may certainly work with us”, the master of the house replied and was
It is the food served that induces this marvellous ability, similar to the con-
sumption of the apple in the Garden of Eden (text 10) and the “soul water”
in the record from Munsala (text 14). Other variants of this narrative fea-
ture a white snake as the ingredient effecting illumination, which may also
imply a veritable apotheosis, achieving omniscience—and only God is
omniscient (see Finlands 1931: 606).
The notion of receiving linguistic proficiency through a miracle is chiefly
associated with a New Testament text, the descent of the Holy Ghost in
Acts 2. The quotation below was read in Finnish churches at Pentecost in
the first year of the lectionary cycle, here quoted according to the text in
the hymnal of 1886:
22) Då pingstdagen fullkomnad war, woro de alla endrägteligen tillsammans. Och wardt
hastigt ett dån af himmelen, såsom ett mägtigt stort wäder kommit hade, och uppfyllde
allt huset, der de sutto. Och dem syntes sönderdelade tungor såsom af eld; och blef sit-
tande på hwar och en af dem, Och de wordo alla uppfyllde af den Helige Ande och begynte
till att tala med andra tungomål, efter som Anden gaf dem att tala. (Apg. 2: 1–4)
22) AND when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in
one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of
them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance.
(Acts 2: 1–4)
The folklore text (text 21) also evokes a multitude of other intertextual re-
lations, particularly to the Bible. For example, the capture and captivity of
the younger boy by Russian soldiers is associated with the story of the fall
of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity. The scope of the folk narrative
and the Old Testament texts differ: the former focuses on the misfortune
of an individual, the latter on a collective disaster, but all leave survivors be-
hind in the homeland. In 2 Kings, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has
just conquered Jerusalem after a siege, the king of Judah has been blinded,
his children have been slain, and the Temple as well as all other buildings
of the city have been burned to cinders:
23) Och hela de Chaldeers magt, som med hofmästarenom war, bröt omkull murarna,
som omkring Jerusalem woro. Men det andra folket, som qwart war i stadenom, och de
som til Konungen af Babel fallne woro, och det andra meniga folket, förde NebusarAdan
hofmästaren bort. Och af de ringesta [i] landet lät hofmästaren blifwa til wingårdsmän, och
åkermän. (2 Kon. 25: 10–12)
23) And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake
down the walls of Jerusalem round about.
Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the
king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzar-adan the captain of the
guard carry away.
But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen.
(2 Kings 25: 10–12; cf. 2 Chronicles 36: 17–20, Jeremiah 39: 8–10)
24) AND Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain
of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had
brought him down thither.
And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the
house of his master the Egyptian.
And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that
he did to prosper in his hand.
And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his
house, and all that he had put into his hand.
(Genesis 39: 1–4)
Joseph reaches a position in the household of his lord that is not granted
the boy, but both are trusted servants, more or less deservedly. Joseph
would do nothing to harm his master, he is a wholly devoted servant, but
in the folklore text the image of the good servant as represented by Joseph
has been overridden by the folk ideal of the clever peasant or crofter boy,
duping lords and more well-off members of the community (text 21).
As the boy tires of his service with the general, he pulls a trick reminis-
cent of that of Joseph’s father, Jacob, in his flight from his uncle Laban in
Mesopotamia. Jacob, escaping from the wrath of his brother Esau whom
he has wronged, has worked for Laban for many years, tending his herds,
and he has married Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel. He has served
his uncle for twenty years, amassing wealth for the both of them, but when
Laban denies him his promised share of the herd and Laban’s children turn
25) Så gjorde Jacob sig redo, och satte sin barn och hustrur på camelar; Och förde bort
all sin boskap, och alla sina håfwor, som han hade förwärfwat i Mesopotamien; på det
han skulle komma till sin fader Isaac i Canaans land. Men Laban war gången bort til at
klippa sin hjord. Och Rachel stal sins faders beläter. Alltså stal Jacob Laban af Syrien
hjertat, at han honom icke tilsade, då han flydde. Så flydde han, och allt det hans war
gjorde sig redo, och for öfwer älfwena, och stämde åt Gileads berg. (1 Mos. 31: 17–21)
25) Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels;
And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of
his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aram, for to go to Isaac his father in the land of
Canaan.
And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her
father’s.
And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he
fled.
So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face
toward the mount Gilead.
(Genesis 31: 17–21)
Jacob with his companions and the Storkyro boy flee from their master,
whom they have attended for a long time, at a moment when the latter is
absent. Likewise, the boy cannot forget his home in Finland, just as Jacob
longs to return to the land of his father Isaac. Thus far they agree; how-
ever, Jacob has property of his own, but the boy is not as fortunate; neither
are Jacob’s wives, who dispassionately contend that they no longer have a
share in their father’s estate nor a right to inherit from him. The boy steals
money from the general to be able to support himself during his journey
home, Rachel takes her father’s images, for reasons that remain obscure.
After this point, the narratives diverge: the boy arrives at the family farm
safe and sound, and unmolested, while Jacob is pursued by his uncle, who
is searching for his lost possessions and wishes to say goodbye to his
daughters and their husband. In the end Jacob is released and allowed to
go back whence he came.
The theme of homecoming in the folk narrative has numerous parallels
in the Bible. Jacob’s is one of them; in fear of his brother Esau and his
retinue of 400 men, he sends forth a gift to appease him. Jacob’s apprehen-
26) Och han sade: En man hade twå söner. Och den yngre af dem sade til fadren:
Fader, få mig den parten af ägodelarna, som mig tilkommer. Och han bytte ägodelarna
dem emellan. Och icke många dagar derefter, då den yngre sonen hade lagt all sin ting
tilhopa, for han långt bort i främmande land; och der förfor han sina ägodelar, och lef-
de öfwerflödeliga. Och sedan han allt förtärt hade, wardt en stor hunger i det landet;
och han begynte lida nöd: Och gick bort, och gaf sig til en borgare der i landet; och han
sände honom til sin afwelsgård, at han skulle sköta hans swin. Då begärade han upfylla
sin buk med draf, der swinen med föddes; och honom gaf ingen. Då besinnade han sig
sjelf, och sade: Huru månge mins faders legodrängar hafwa bröd nog, och jag förgås
här i hunger. Jag will stå up, och gå til min fader, och säga til honom: Fader, jag haf-
wer syndat i himmelen, och för dig: Jag är icke nu wärd kallas din son; gör mig såsom
en af dina legodrängar. Och så stod han up, och kom til sin fader. Och då han ännu
långt ifrå war, såg honom hans fader, och begynte warkunna sig öfwer honom, och lopp
emot honom, föll honom om halsen, och kyste honom. Och sonen sade til honom:
Fader, jag hafwer syndat i himmelen, och för dig, och är icke wärd härefter kallas din
son. Då sade fadren til sina tjenare: Bärer fram den yppersta klädningen, och kläder
honom deruti; och får honom en ring på hans hand, och skor på hans fötter. Och haf-
wer hit den gödda kalfwen, och slagter honom; wi wilje äta, och göra oss glada. Ty den-
ne min son war död och hafwer fått lif igen; han war borttappad, och är funnen igen. Och
de begynte göra sig glada. Men den äldre hans son war ute på markene; och när han
kom, och nalkades husena, hörde han sjungas och dansas; Och kallade en af sina tjena-
re, och frågade honom, hwad det war. Då sade han til honom: Din broder är kommen;
och din fader lät slakta den gödda kalfwen, at han hafwer honom helbregda igen. Då
wardt han wred, och wille icke gå in. Då gick hans fader ut, och bad honom. Swarade
han, och sade til fadren: Si, jag tjenar dig i så mång år, och hafwer aldrig gångit af ditt
bud; och du gaf mig aldrig et kid, at jag måtte göra mig glad med mina wänner. Men
sedan denne din son kommen är, som sina ägodelar hafwer förtärt med skökor, hafwer
du til honom slagtat den gödda kalfwen. Då sade han til honom: Min son, du äst all-
tid när mig, och allt det mitt är, det är ditt. Man måste nu glädjas och fröjdas; ty denne
din broder war död, och fick lif igen; och war borttappad, och är igenfunnen. (Luk. 15:
11–32)
The circumstances of the prodigal son’s departure are different from those
of the Storkyro boy’s (text 21); the former goes willingly into a far-away,
27) Och Adam kände sina hustru Hewa, och hon aflade och födde Cain, och sade: Jag
hafwer fått HERrans man. Och hon födde framdeles Habel hans broder. Och wardt
Habel en fåraherde, men Cain wardt en åkerman. Och det begaf sig efter några dagar,
at Cain offrade HERranom gåfwor af jordenes frukt. Och Habel offrade desslikes af
förstlingene af sin får, och af deras talg: Och HERren såg täckeliga til Habel och hans
offer. Men til Cain och hans offer såg han icke täckeliga. Då wardt Cain swårliga wred,
och hans hy förwandlades. Sade HERren til Cain: hwi äst du wred? Eller hwi förwand-
las din hy? Är det icke så? Om du äst from, så äst du tacknämlig; men äst du icke from,
så blifwer icke synden säker eller fördold; men städ henne icke hennes wilja, utan råd
27) AND Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have
gotten a man from the LORD.
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a
tiller of the ground.
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering unto the LORD.
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the
LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and
his countenance fell.
And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance
fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at
the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field,
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
(Genesis 4: 1–8)
Cain slays Abel in a fit of jealousy, as Abel’s sacrifice has pleased God, but
not his own. In the folklore text (text 21), the fratricide is aborted; it is a
negation of the intertext—it quotes Cain’s crime, but does not repeat it.
1) In Koskeby there is a hill, which is called the Troll Hill. Once a girl went to collect the
cows, and then the troll took her. One Sunday she asked to be allowed to go to church, and was
given leave, but she would not be allowed to stay until the parson pronounced the benediction.
She came to the church, and was so finely dressed that all the people looked at her. She
did not obey the troll in the end but was there when the parson pronounced the benediction,
and then those fine clothes turned into such as they had been while she was herding the cows.
Thursday was a day of power, perfect for working magic. Witches, sages,
supernatural creatures and quite ordinary people used it for their own pur-
poses (Stattin 1992: 52; Tillhagen 1977: 135–136), and the parson is no ex-
ception.
In the text, formal features are mentioned as the primary reason for the
failure of the parson’s attempt at banishment: “The first morning the parson
had put on the left boot first, and for this the trolls chided … him”. The com-
pleteness of ritual preparations is indubitably important, but a Gospel text,
read in Finnish churches during the first Sunday in Lent, in the third year
of the lectionary cycle, hints at a more profound flaw. The themes of the
two narratives are quite similar, focusing on the failure of a banishment of
supranormal beings from their abode: the parson proves to be incapable of
exorcising the trolls, just as the disciples are exposed as unable to cure a
possessed boy:
2) Då han kom til sina Lärjungar, såg han mycket folk omkring dem, och de Skriftlärda
disputerade med dem. Och strax allt folket såg honom, wordo de häpne; och lupo til,
och hälsade honom. Och han sporde de Skriftlärda: Hwad disputeren I med dem?
Och en af folket swarade, och sade: Mästar, jag hafwer haft min son hit till dig, den
der hafwer en stum anda: Och då han tager honom fatt, far han illa med honom; och
han fradgas, och gnisslar med sina tänder, och förtwinar. Jag talade med dina Lärjun-
gar, at de skulle drifwa honom ut, och de kunde icke. Då swarade han honom, och sade: O
I otrogna slägte; huru länge skall jag wara när eder; huru länge skall jag lida eder? Leder
honom hit till mig. Och de ledden fram til honom; Då anden fick se honom, strax for
han illa med honom; och föll neder på jordena, och wälte sig, och fradgades. Då spor-
de han hans fader til: huru länge är, sedan detta kom honom uppå? Då sade han: Utaf
barndom. Och han hafwer ofta kastat honom i elden, och i watnet, at han måtte för-
göra honom: Men förmår du något, så warkunna dig öfwer oss, och hjelp oss. Jesus
sade til honom: Om du tro kant; all ting äro möjelig honom som tror. Och strax ropade
drängsens fader, med gråtande tårar, sägandes: Herre, jag tror; hjelp min otro. När
Jesus såg, at folket lopp til med, näpste han den orena andan, och sade till honom: Du
ande, döfwer och dumbe, jag bjuder dig, gack ut af honom, och gack intet mer härefter
in uti honom. Så ropade anden, och for ganska illa med honom, och gick ut: Och han
wardt som han hade warit död, så at månge sade: han är död. Då tog Jesus honom wid
handena, och reste honom up; och han stod up. Och när han kom hem i huset, frågade
2) And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the
scribes questioning with them.
And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and
running to him saluted him
And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them?
And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son,
which hath a dumb spirit;
And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with
his teeth, and pineth away: and I spoke to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and
they could not.
He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.
And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare
him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.
And he asked his father; How long is it ago since this came unto him?
And he said, Of a child.
And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if
thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe;
help thou mine unbelief.
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit,
saying unto him, thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter
no more into him.
And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead;
insomuch that many said, He is dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.
And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could
not we cast him out?
And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and
fasting.
(Mark 9: 14–29)
3) Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have
faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to
yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
(Matthew 17: 19–21)
The intertextual relations between the folk narrative (text 1) and the two
Gospel texts (texts 2–3)—relationships established thematically as well as
through the Christian religious sphere invoked by all of them—create a
foundation for an implicit critique of clergymen. Less charitable opinions
of the moral principles and religious fervour of clerics are certainly compat-
ible with the mixed feelings concerning parsons and clerks current among
the parishioners of Vörå. The Devil himself appeared in a parson’s form
and “lords”, the group to which clerics belonged, were not always held in
very high regard (Wolf-Knuts 1991: 132; Wolf-Knuts 1992: 113; for the anti-
clerical aspects of these texts, see chapter 5.2). Without actually naming
unbelief as the cause of the parson’s somewhat disgraceful failing, the text
resonates with the grave implications of the Biblical intertext, and points to
the possibility of such an interpretation. If the audience of the narrative
linked it to its Biblical counterparts, the intertextual connection most in
line with the folk story would be those Gospel texts describing failed ex-
pulsions. This connection made, the listeners might also recall the reason
for the failure of the exorcism, the lack of faith, and transpose it to the folk-
lore text. Clergymen were accused of many things in folklore: trickery,
greed, fornication and adultery, theft, uncouth manners and stupidity (Fin-
lands 1920: 207–210, 236–277), but they were seldom explicitly denounced as
godless. It might have been sensitive to openly level this accusation at
them, or the collectors may not have gained access to this kind of folklore.
4) Once the Devil came to a dance, but no-one knew him, and he danced with the
boys, but not with the girls, though they wanted to dance with him too. Eventually a
girl who was haughty arrived, and with her he danced for so long ’til the skin peeled off
her feet, and then they guessed who that man with whom she was dancing was.
Therefore they went for the parson, but he could not expel him. Then they went for
another, but he couldn’t expel him either. Eventually they went for a third parson, and
when he came, he made a hole with a pin in the window-ledge and said: “if it is a
person, he may dance; if it is the Devil, he must out”. Then the Devil had to [go] out
through that hole.
5) Det finns många berättelser om tomtar och troll. Jag har hört många gamla sagor om
sådant. En gång berättas det att en flicka blev bortrövad av trollen. Om söndagarna läto de
henne gå till kyrkan, men fordrade, att hon skulle lämna kyrkan före prästen hade läst “Herren
välsigne oss”. Hon gjorde detta, men en söndag stannade hon. Då blev förtrollningen bru-
ten och hon blev fri. Hon tyckte förut, att hon var klädd så fint som en prinsessa, men med ens
5) There are many narratives of brownies and trolls. I have heard many old tales about
such [things]. Once it was told that a girl was abducted by the trolls. On Sundays they let
her go to church, but required that she should leave church before the parson had pronounced
“Lord bless us” . She did this, but one Sunday she stayed. Then the enchantment was broken
and she got free. Before, she thought she was dressed as finely as a princess, but suddenly she
was so badly dressed. Now when the parson got to know this, he made the girl follow
him to the dwelling of the trolls. He commanded the trolls to leave the place, but then
they started crying, and asked if they could lock the door and take the keys with them. Then
it is told that they flew away like two black birds.
The girl’s shameful loss of dignity is yet again emphasized, and Elna Käll-
backa’s comment captures the situation neatly: “Before, she thought she was
dressed as finely as a princess, but suddenly she was so badly dressed”. The men-
tion of princess immediately associates the narrative to the wonder tale and
the distinguished apparel so typical for it. Unlike his colleagues, this par-
son does not experience any diminution of his status: his faith is unshakable
and the banishment executed with skill and rapidity. The black birds were
also connected to the Devil in the tradition of Vörå. In a tale of The Youth
Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Is (AT 326), the king tests the boy by
asking him to sleep overnight in a haunted castle, a proposition he readily
agrees to:
6) han steig åpp å byra ragas på med jevlan ijen. ti slut fikk han tan gammlast jevulin i
tsjellarin. han gammlast vila löst, å åm an sku slipp löst, låva an, at dem sku far tedan
allihåup. påjtsjin sleppt löst an. dem fåur tedan allihåup å va såm svart kårpan. (SLS 37,
74: 159–160)
6) He rose and started brawling with the devils again. Eventually he got the oldest de-
vil into the cellar. The oldest wanted [to be] released, and if he were released, he pro-
mised that all of them would leave. The boy released him. All of them left and were like
black ravens.
7) Much discussed is the Troll Hill with its cave, the so-called “troll cottage”. This cave
is also quite remarkable, so that it is not strange that folk belief has made it a haunt of
trolls. The trolls living there have terribly alarmed the people all around and even stolen
silver objects from the churches, wherefore the parson finally had decided to “chant
them away” [i.e., banish them]. The first time he was there to read the trolls did not care in
the least about it, as he had no coat. The second time they did not care about his lesson eith-
er, as he had pulled on the left shoe before the right. The third time all must have been as it
should, for then the trolls had to go. Before they left, they asked to be allowed to close the door
to their room, which was granted. Therefore you cannot get further in than into their hall.
Then they flew screaming away in the form of three ravens. After that no-one has ever
seen them.
Mårten Lassus reports that the trolls in the Great Hill have a similar re-
putation for unbridled behaviour: “Efter andras berättelser skall deri nämn-
8) Så kommo de öfwer hafwet, in i de Gadareners engd. Och strax han steg utur skep-
pet, loppe mot honom, utur grifter, en man, besatt med den orena andan: Den der pläg-
ade bo uti grifter; och ingen kunde honom binda med kädjor. Förty han hade många
resor warit bunden med fjättrar och kädjor, och kädjorna woro sletna af honom, och
fjättrarne sönderslagne: Och ingen kunde späka honom. Och han war alltid dag och
natt på bergen, och i grifterna, ropade, och slog sig sjelf med stenar. Då han nu såg
Jesum fjerran ifrå sig, lopp han til, och föll neder för honom: Och ropade med höga
röst, och sade: Hwad hafwer jag med dig göra, Jesu, den högstas Guds Son? Jag beswär
dig wid Gud, at du icke qwäl mig. Då sade han til honom: Far ut af menniskone, du
orene ande. Och sporde han honom: Hwad är ditt namn? Swarade han och sade: Le-
gio är mitt namn; förty wi äre månge. Och han bad honom storliga, at han icke skulle drif-
wa honom bort utur den engden. Och der war wid bergen en stor swinahjord, den der
gick och födde sig. Och djeflarne bådo honom alla, sägande: Sänd oss i swinen, at wi må
fara in uti dem. Och Jesus tillstadde dem det strax. Och de orene andar drogo strax ut,
och foro in uti swinen; och hjorden brådstörte sig i hafwet; och de woro wid tutusend,
och wordo fördränkte i hafwet. (Mark. 5: 1–13)
8) AND they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the
Gadarenes.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a
man with an unclean spirit,
In the Biblical narrative the unclean spirits demand restitution in the form
of a new refuge in the grazing herd of swine, a request Christ grants. The
herd is subsequently plunged into the sea, where it suffers its demise. The
trolls in Elna Källbacka’s essay (text 5) and J. Kaustinen’s record (text 7)
have a more modest proposal: they merely wish to be able to close the door
behind them and bring the keys with them as they depart, and the parson
thinks it a fair request. If we return to the text recorded by V. E. V. Wess-
man (text 1) and reconsider the end in the light of the Gospel, we notice
the refusal of the parson to let the trolls move to another hill—they are not
even allowed to remain in the kingdom as a whole—quite in contrast to the
compliance of Christ in a similar situation. In Wessman’s text, the Gospel
clashes with a different image of Christ, the Jesus of incantations, and more
specifically of the historiolas, the narratives featuring Biblical characters.
The following spell was used against kväison, a disease which caused
swellings and attacked the udders of the cows, and it was written down by
Jacob Tegengren in the parish of Korsnäs in 1912 or 1913:
There is no trace of the mercy exhibited by Christ in the Gospel (text 8); in
the incantation, he brings all his divine authority to bear on the disease de-
mon and its wicked plans, and effectively aborts the danger it poses to the
cattle and the livelihood of men. This severe attitude is more in agreement
with the folk narrative recorded by Wessman which denies the trolls the
right to move to another hill (text 1), than with the mercifulness of the New
Testament text (text 8). His record and the incantation thus represent a
negation of the Gospel and the other folklore texts in which the parson
grants the trolls’ request.
A third reason for the expulsion of the trolls is revealed in Mårten Thors’
record of the troll cottage in Vörå. Conceptions of witches and trolls inter-
mingle in the text, and for the first time a personal error is cited in the ac-
cusations against the parson:
10) han tidin tå e va mytsji trúltsjärngur i vörå, så hadd dem riktut in trúlstugu i bjärji
bákåm murkas å bjärji kallas ennú fö trulbjärji tä mitt i bjärji så va e riktut tráppur, såm
jikk neder i bjärji, å tå va e i ståurt hål, såm nu e teppt me in stein. truli båud tä leng,
fast e va slut me trúltsjärngan he vart så ílakt ti slut, så e byra jemst ta bånin. tå fåur
prå’ustin hártmann tid, såm va pråust i vörå,25 å sku driv ut trúlli, men int fikk an ut e me
föst gángun he hadd állti na ti föribrå an föri, såm e a gai på sneid fö pråustin únder hans
studéntatid. eingang sa trúlli åt an: “tu stal i tråsnystan tå du va studént” – “ja he jåul ja
he i min fátisdåum” sa pråustin. så jikk an heim å jik tid in ádrun gang tå sa trúlli åt an:
“tu kled skåuvin in gang föst på vénster fåutin” å så fik pråustin ga me he tun gángun men
trédi gangun had int trúlli na ti sej, å tå måsta he ga ut, men innan e fåur, så bad e pråustin
åm att få steng dörin bákit se pråustin låva, å täfö ligger in ståur stein på håli, så int náin
slípper in i trúllstugun de här lär va guds klára sánning. (SLS 22, 11: 28–29)
25 Vörå has had two deans by the name of Hartman, Jacob Haartman († 1767) and Johan
Haartman († 1794), who were brothers. The latter succeeded the former on the post
(Åkerblom 1962: 151). It is hard to say which one of them is supposed to be the protagonist
of the story.
The numerous kidnappings perpetrated by the troll enrage the dean, who
goes off to eliminate the problem. His competence and moral virtue are
called into question in the first disastrous attempts, which disclose his vio-
lation of the Seventh Commandment, for instance, “Thou shalt not steal”
(Deuteronomy 6: 19), and he must suffer the taunts of the troll for it. This
clergyman is not irreproachable, but a fairly normal person with his quali-
fications and faults. In the jocular narrative tradition, students were also
known to be a wily sort. Isak Rön[n]holm from the village of Helsingby in
the parish of Korsholm a bit further south described the antics of students
as follows:
1 1) Ejn gang vandra trí studenter, o to så di på ávstond in gubb, som ji o lejdd in kó. To
studentren så he, so steld di se in beta från varár o stá på vejin. Som gubbin kåm, so
fråga hann föst: “va kostar jejtin?” “Va jejten? Sír du int at e je in kó?” svara gubbin
förarga o fór vidari framåt. To an åter kåm en beta, so stó in student på véjin o fråga
“fár va kostar jejten?” “Sír du int at e je in kó”, svara gubbin o fór vídari. To an åter kåm
e styck framåt so mött an ijen in student, som fråga “va kostar jejten fár?” Knaft henda
studentin fråg “va kostar jejtin?” so börja gubbin funder; kanske he je in jejt, to di nu all
tri ha fråga: “va kostar jejten” o sá príse, o sold kóven sín för in jejt. (R II 64)
1 1) Once three students were strolling, and then they saw at a distance an old man, who
walked leading a cow. When the students saw that, they stationed themselves a short
distance from each other on the road. As the old man arrived, the first one asked: “How
much is the goat?” “What goat? Can’t you see it’s a cow?” the old man answered, an-
gered, and continued on his way. When he once again had come a short distance, a
student was standing by the road, asking: “Father, how much is the goat?” “Can’t you
see it’s a cow”, the old man answered and continued. When he once again came a short
These students live up to their reputation, cheating the old man of his cow,
but he takes a magnificent revenge, duping them in their turn. This con-
forms to another narrative stereotype concerning academics: they are gul-
lible, especially when the ruse involves the prospect of free drinks and the
learning of foreign languages. The story cited above continues with the
following episode:
12) To ’an kom ti’ stán, so merkt ’an at ’an ’va’ narra’, “men nó ska’ ja’ dra’ dem om nes-
an tibak” tykt gubbin. Han jég sedan in på trí króstell’ o bistelt likörer o bitála alt fédit.
To ’an ’a’ jórt he, so jég ’an o lejta upp tejdi studentren o böjd dem o drikk’ me’ se líti.
Ti jég me’ ’an föst på e stell: To di ha’ drotsji, snurra’ gubbin om hatten sen o fråga’:
“ä’ de’ int’ alt bitált?” “Jó” svara védin. Sedan jég di på e anna stell’ o to di tér ha’ drut-
sji ’va’ gubbin böjd dem, fråga’ han, i he ’an snurra’ om hatten sen: “ä’ int’ alt’ bitált?”
“Jó” svara’ di ’an o studentren förundra’ se’. Tedan jég gubbin me dem til’ e tridi’ stell’ o
böjd dem drikk’ me’ se’. Ti jég. To alt va’ drutsji’ ’va’ gubbin böjd dem, so snurra’ han
ókring hattin o fråga: “ä’ int’ alt bitált?” “Jó” svara’ védin, o studentren förundra’ se’ ’va’
he sku’ va’ för sla’, to int’ gubbin bihöva’ bitál ná, anna to an bara snurra’ omkring hat-
tin sen o fråga: “ä’ int’ alt bitált?” so svarar védin jó”, fast ’an int’ får na pengar. Ti vila
to tsjöp’ óv gubbin hattin hans, men han svara: “ja’ vil’ int’ säli’ ’an, han je’ brá’ ti há; för
ja’ får drikk’ va’ ja’ vil’, bara ja’ snurrar ókring hattin, o frågar: “ä’ int’ alt bitált, så svarar
di jó”. To studentren hört’ he, so vila di ännu mejr tsjöp’ han di hattin óv gubbin. Ti
slút so sold’ gubbin hattin sen åt dem, to ’an fi’ brá bitált för ’an. Nög skildes di åt. (R
II 64)
12) When he came to town, he noticed he had been cheated, “but surely I’ll fool them
in their turn”, the old man thought. He entered three bars and ordered liqueurs and
paid for everything in advance. When he had done this, he went looking for those stu-
dents and invited them to drink with him a little. They followed him first to one place:
when they had drunk, the old man spun his hat [on his head] and asked: “Isn’t it all
paid for?” “Yes”, the proprietor answered. Then they went to another place, and when
they had drunk what the old man offered them there, he asked, as he spun his hat, “Isn’t
it all paid for?” “Yes”, they answered him and the students were astounded. From there
the old man went with them to a third place and invited them to drink with him. They
went. When everything that the old man offered them had been drunk, he spun his hat
and asked: “Isn’t it all paid for?” “Yes”, the proprietor answered, and the students won-
dered what it was when the old man didn’t have to pay anything, but when he just spun
his hat and asked: “Isn’t it all paid for?” the proprietor answers [“]yes”, even if he doesn’t
get any money. Therefore they wanted to buy the hat from the old man, but he re-
plied: “I don’t want to sell it, it’s good to have; ’cause I can drink what I want, if I just
Naturally, the students do not receive free drinks simply by spinning the
hat on their heads and asking: “Isn’t it all paid for?” The proprietors of the
inns they visit become angry with them for trying to escape the bill, and
finally they have to face the facts: they have been deceived by the old man.
They decide to revenge themselves upon him:
13) To di kåm’ tíd tér gubbin bódd, so va’ tsjern’jin emsand i stygun; Studentren fråga’
to, ’vann ’an va’ o sá’ se’ vil’ råk’ ’an. “Undi’ he de káre på golve’ o lér se’ flejra slags
tungumål,” svara’ tsjern’jin. Som studentren hört’ he, so tykt’ di: nah vi får ful to o lér’
oss språtsjen, o útlens tungumål, o fråga’ óv gubbin, om ’an int’ vil’ lér dem fremand’
tungumålen. “Jó” svara’ gubbin, “men ni får int’ flejr än ejn i gangun kåm’ híd undi’
káre’. Studentren va’ nögd ti’ gá ejn i gangun undi’ káre’. To tan föst kåm undi’ káre’,
sá’ gubbin: “rékk’ út tungun dín et ja’ får sí’ ti’ va’ språk ’un je’ pasli’!” Studentin jól som
’an, gubbin, vila o rekt’ ut tungun o to’ skár gubbin spetsin óv ’un. Som e va’ jórt, så
börja’ studentin ploter o tál’ so sotrut, at to ti ár hört’ he, so tenkt’ ti: “sí ’va’ he jég fórt,
nu talar ’an e fremand språk. To han kåm út, so jég ejn annin undi’ káre’ o me’ han ji’ e
på sama vís. Som tan tridi hört’ han bobel o ploter undi’ káre’, so tenkt’ ’an: “nu ha’
han lért se’ e fremand språk”, o som ’an kåm út, so kröjp han undi’ káre’. Óv han skar o
gubbin tungspetsin. Ti sliut dödd’ di allihóp. (R II 64)
13) When they came to the place where the old man lived, the old woman was alone in
the cottage; the students asked where he was and said that they wanted to meet him.
“Under the vat on the floor learning several kinds of languages,” the old woman an-
swered. When the students heard this, they thought: Well, we certainly have to learn
languages and foreign tongues, and asked the old man if he didn’t want to teach them
foreign languages. “Yes”, the old man answered, “but no more than one of you can come
here beneath the vat at a time[”]. The students were content to go under the vat one at
a time. When the first came underneath the vat, the old man said: “Stick out your
tongue so that I can see for what language it’s suitable!” The student did as he, the old
man, said and stuck out his tongue, and then the old man cut off the tip of it. As this
had been done, the student started chattering and talking so indistinctly that when the
others heard it, they thought: “Look how fast it came about, now he’s speaking a for-
eign language.[”] When he came out, another went beneath the vat and the same thing
happened to him. When the third heard him babbling and chattering under the vat, he
thought: “Now he’s learned a foreign language”, and when he came out, he crawled
underneath the vat. The old man cut off the tip of the tongue for him too. Eventually
all of them died.
These students have to pay dearly for their initial prank; in comparison,
Dean Hartman receives very mild treatment. Given the morally dubious
14) tå pråustin hártmann va i vörå, så brend dem fléira trúlltsjärngur; men tem vila int
brin, na eld tåu int på dem. tå dem tå sku brenn ein, so int tåu he na eld på hénnar hél-
der. hun råupa bára: “méra néver, mera stikkur.” men tå pråustin kåm, så nåu lär un ha
brúnni såm blånan. han va in mérkvädu man hándi sáma hártman.
hundi trúlltsjärngjin hadd in påjk såm pråustin tåu å sku fåuster åpp, men an ha hén-
da lär se så mytsji vitenskap, så int fik he pråustin na hender me an. eingang ståu an i
fönstri å så på tå dem kört åpp träsåkrin i bárkaråkrin. tä va åumyölit (?) mytsji héstar, å
tå sa an: “vil ni si, så ska al témdi héstan stann är (?) åsta piss på sama gang?” nå an sku
fösök å all héstan stánna an útåm ein. tå fråga fålktsji åv an: “vafö stána int han dé-
nan?” – “han har véndapinnan åv in flågrönn”, sa påjtsjin.
tan påjtsjin jåul så mytsji så pråustin måsta stsjikk an ti ståkkhålm åsta ådras i häl.
(SLS 22, 10: 26–27)
14) When Dean Hartman was in Vörå, they burned several witches; but they wouldn’t
burn, fire didn’t affect them. As one [of them] was to be burnt, no fire worked on her
either. She just cried: “More birch-bark, more sticks.” But when the dean arrived, she
is said to have burned like yarn. He was a strange man, that Hartman.
That witch had a boy, whom the dean took to bring up, but he had acquired so much
knowledge that the dean couldn’t manage him. Once he was standing by the window,
watching while the fallow section of the Barkar field was being ploughed. There was a
tremendous number of horses, and he then said: “If you want to see, all those horses
The dean emerges as a more potent defender of the faith in this narrative,
as the witch, who has previously been impervious to fire, starts to burn in
his presence, and no personal accusations are levelled at him. Yet he is not
strong enough to manage the son of the executed witch, and in the end he
proves unable to reform him and guide him to a life of godliness. Notwith-
standing, there is no apparent trace of a critique due to this failure; the boy
is regarded as too corrupted to be able to change his ways.
From an intertextual point of view, this story is very interesting. The
first part is an inversion of an Old Testament text illustrating the superior-
ity of the Hebrew God:
15) Då talade NebucadNezar til dem, och sade: Huru är det? Wiljen I, Sadrach, Mesach
och AbedNego, icke wörda min gud, och icke tilbedja det gyldene belätet, som jag haf-
wer upsätta låtit? Nu wäl, reder eder til, så snart I hören ljudet af basuner, trummeter,
harpor, gigor, psaltare, lutor och allahanda strängaspel, så faller neder, och tilbeder be-
lätet, som jag hafwer upsätta låtit: Om I icke tilbedjen det, så skolen I på samma stund
warda kastade uti en brinnande ugn: Låt se, hwilken den Guden är, som eder utu mina
händer tager. Då swarade Sadrach, Mesach och AbedNego, och sade til konung
NebucadNezar: Det är icke af nödene, at wi sware dig deruppå: Si, wår Gud, den wi
dyrke, kan wäl hjelpa oss utu den brinnande ugnen, och frälsa oss utu dine hand, o
konung. Och om han än icke det göra will, så skalt du ändå weta, o konung, at wi dina
gudar intet wörde, ej heller det gyldene beläte, som du hafwer upsätta låtit, tilbedja
wiljom. Då wardt NebucadNezar full med grymhet, så at hans ansikte förwandlade sig
öfwer Sadrach, Mesach och AbedNego: och befallte, at man skulle göra ugnen sju res-
or hetare, än han eljest plägade wara: Och böd de bästa krigsmän, som uti hans här
woro, at de skulle binda Sadrach, Mesach och AbedNego, och kasta dem uti den brin-
nande ugnen. Alltså wordo desse männerne, uti deras mantlar, skor, hattar och annor
kläder, bundne, och kastade uti den brinnande ugnen. Ty konungens befallning måste
man med hast fullgöra: Och elden wardt så stark i ugnen, at de män, som Sadrach,
Mesach och AbedNego, upbränna skulle, blefwo döde af eldslåganom. Men de tre
männerne, Sadrach, Mesach och AbedNego, föllo neder uti den brinnande ugnen, så
bundne som de woro. Då förskräckte sig Konung NebucadNezar, och gick hastigt up,
och sade til sitt råd: Hafwe wi icke låtit kasta tre män i elden bundna? De swarade, och
sade til Konungen: Ja, Herre Konung. Han swarade, och sade: Ser jag dock fyra män
lösa gå i eldenom, och dem skadar intet; och den fjerde är lika som han wore en Guda son.
Och NebucadNezar gick fram för gapet på den brinnande ugnen, och sade: Sadrach,
Mesach och AbedNego, högsta Guds tjenare, går här ut, och kommer hit. Så gingo
15) Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set
up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the
image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour
into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out
of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O
Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,
and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship
the golden image which thou hast set up.
Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they
should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.
And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other
garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding
hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego.
And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the
midst of the burning fiery furnace.
Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said
unto his counsellors, Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They
answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they
have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake,
and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come
forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the
midst of the fire.
With the aid of the Lord, who sends forth someone “like the Son of God”
to protect his devotees, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego become im-
mune to the flames, and they exit the burning fiery furnace unharmed.
Nebuchadnezzar is so impressed by this that he proclaims the glory of the
God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, and vows to destroy anyone
blaspheming him.
Just as the fire has no power upon the bodies of these men, it is power-
less against the witch. An apostate has replaced holy men, and the Devil
has ousted God in the legend. It is as if the former are quoting the latter,
and thereby diminishing the wonder of the miracle, appropriating it for
themselves. The inversion is cancelled by Dean Hartman through the
authority he carries as a representative of the church, and the world is re-
stored to its proper order as the Devil’s might dwindles and the witch is
consumed by the flames. All stories of a similar type do not contain an
annulment of the inversion, however; an example is furnished by a story
from the parish of Replot, which I do not cite as an intertext, but rather as
an illuminating contrast to the Oravais text:
16) En trollpacka i Vörå påstås ha fått ett barn med Skitmöss (den onde). Detta barn
slaktade hon i sin bastu, för att av liket tillreda någon salva. Men grannarna fingo nys
om saken. De kommo, medan häxan sysslade med sina onda konster, bommade för
dörren och antände bastun. Men när den brunnit ned, satt häxan oskadd på en golvtilja,
som ej angripits av elden. “Var det ej hett därinne, din helveteskona?” ropade grannar-
na. “Visst var det som en ljumma skulle dragit förbi, men intet vidare”, svarade häxan.
(FU 26: 300; emphasis in original)
16) It is said that a witch in Vörå had a child with the Devil. This child she butchered
in her sauna in order to make some ointment of the corpse. But the neighbours got to
know of the matter. They arrived while the witch was occupying herself with her wic-
ked arts, barred the door and set fire to the sauna. But when it had burned down, the
witch was sitting unharmed on a floor-board that hadn’t been affected by the fire.
“Wasn’t it hot in there, you denizen of hell?”, the neighbours cried. “It was certainly
like a mild wind passing, but no more”, the witch answered.
The witch does not suffer any damage at all, and her neighbours can only
17) Hwilken är den man ibland eder, som hafwer hundrade får, och om han tappar bort
et af dem, låter han icke de nio och niotio uti öknene, och går efter det som borto är,
till dess han finner det? Och då han hafwer det funnit, lägger han det på sina axlar med
glädje. Och när han kommer hem i sitt hus, kallar han tilhopa sina wänner och gran-
nar, och säger til dem: Glädjens med mig; ty jag hafwer funnit mitt får, som borttap-
padt war. Jag säger eder, at sammalunda warder ock glädje i himmelen öfwer en syndare,
den sig bättrar, mer än öfwer nio och niotio rättfärdiga, som ingen bättring behöfwa.
Eller hwad qwinna är, som hafwer tio penningar, om hon borttappar en af dem, tänder
hon icke up ljus, och sopar huset, och söker granneliga, til dess hon finner honom? Och
då hon funnit hafwer, kallar hon tilhopa sina wänner och granqwinnor, och säger:
Glädjens med mig; ty jag hafwer funnit min penning, som jag tappat hade. Samma-
lunda, säger jag eder, warder glädje för Guds Änglom öfwer en syndare, som sig bättrar.
(Luk. 15: 4–10)
17) What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave
the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying
unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.
I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a
candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
18) he va två jevlar, såm skapa se såm två fin herrar å fåur ti bårmestari i nykarbi me glas-
vagn. tem steig ur å jikk in te bårmestarin. dem byra jet å drikk lame han. pigun va i
föusi, tå dem kåm. tå un kåm ut, så un glasvagnin å in hund såm eldin å blålågan ståu
ur munin tå fråga va e va fö fremmand, men int vita he nain, fast nåu jisa he ein var at e
sku va na frun he undrast rymi.
ti slut måsta dem ett prestin. föst eitt vörå prestin, men han våga int se alls när, fö
dem sa åm an kåmber ska dem (?) riv tarman ur an.
18) There were two devils, who transformed themselves into two fine gentlemen and
went to the mayor of Nykarleby in a glass carriage. They stepped out and went in to
the mayor. They started eating and drinking with him. The maid was in the byre when
they arrived. As she came out, she saw the glass carriage and a dog, out of whose mouth
fire and blue flame emerged. Then she asked who the guests were, but no-one knew,
though everyone surely guessed it was something from the nether regions.
Eventually they had to go for the priest. First for the parson of Vörå, but he dared
not come close at all, for they said that if he comes, they will rip out his entrails.
Then they went for the parson of Kyro. When they saw him, they said: “[So] you’re com-
ing, you rascal, who’s stolen a hymnal.” “ That I have received forgiveness for.” He made a
hole in the window-ledge, and through it they had to exit. But to be sure it is said to have
clattered and roared when they left.
The parson from Vörå is effectively deterred from intervening by the pros-
pect of getting his entrails ripped out of his body, an unusually grisly detail
in the context of folk narratives of banishments. The dean of Kyro fares
better, in spite of having stolen a hymnal, and he can even invoke the ab-
solution of his transgression in a pretty nonchalant fashion. He is thus
saved from having to make several attempts at expulsion, like Dean Hart-
man is obliged to do, and at the exorcism he follows the same procedure as
the third parson in R II 19 (text 4), puncturing the window-ledge and com-
pelling the devils to leave that way.
The humiliating exposure of Dean Hartman’s sins courtesy of the troll
(text 10) also bears an intertextual relation to a category of texts dealing
with an analogous unmasking; the comparison is not flattering for the dean,
considering the status of his counterpart, but definitely for the troll, who
occupies the same position as Jesus. It is the song of Mary Magdalene,
where Christ divulges all of Mary’s secret transgressions, including some
that would nowadays count as obvious rape and incest (see Nenola 1998,
Häggman 1992). The element of exposure is the same, and both Dean
Hartman and Mary Magdalene are reproached for sins no mortal knows
anything about. The person doing the unmasking must therefore have some
kind of supernatural knowledge of their transgressions, which appears to be
the case in both texts.
The songbook of Jakob Lassus from the village of Kärklax in the parish
of Maxmo includes a variant of the song of Mary Magdalene:
19) Maid Lena sat on the Kelle bridge and the sun shone so widely
Unto her came Christ our Lord
All in the grove so green.
Dean Hartman’s crimes may be of a lesser order than maid Lena’s multiple
infanticides and incestuous and illicit relationships, but the manner of their
disclosure is quite similar, and in this sense the texts agree. Still, the dean
does not have to undergo the penance maid Lena is enjoined, seven years
in the wilderness with snakes and dragons as her only friends. He just goes
home to wait for a more propitious moment for the achievement of his
quest. He does not commit perjury either, like maid Lena in her solemn
avowal of her chastity. The Gospel narrative the song is partly based on
does not contain such a denial; the woman in the story admits her clandes-
tine relation without much prompting:
20) Och när han kom til en stad i Samarien, som kallas Sichar, wid en bolstad, som
Jacob gaf sinom son Joseph: Och der war Jacobs brunn; och efter det JEsus war trötter
af wägen, satte han sig så ned wid brunnen, och det war wid sjette timan. Då kom en
qwinna af Samarien, til at hemta watn. Sade JEsus til henne: Gif mig dricka; Ty hans
lärjungar woro gångne in i staden, til at köpa mat. Då sade den Samaritiska qwinnan til
honom: huru bedes du, som äst en Jude, dricka af mig, som är en Samaritisk qwinna?
Ty Judarne hafwa ingen handel med de Samariter. JEsus swarade, och sade til henne:
Förstode du Guds gåfwo, och ho den är, som säger til dig: Gif mig dricka; då beddes
du af honom, och han gåfwe dig lefwandes watn. Sade qwinnan til honom: HERre,
icke hafwer du det du kant tagat med, och brunnen är djuper; hwadan hafwer du då
lefwandes watn? Mån du wara mer än wår fader Jacob, som gaf oss brunnen, och drack
af honom, med sin barn och sin boskap? Då swarade JEsus, och sade til henne: hwar
och en som dricker af detta watnet, han warder törstig igen: Men hwilken som dricker
af det watn, som jag honom gifwer, han skall icke törsta til ewig tid; utan det watn,
som jag honom gifwer, skall blifwa i honom en källa med springande watn i ewinner-
ligit lif. Då sade qwinnan til honom: HERre, gif mig det watnet, at jag icke törstar,
eller behöfwer komma hit efter watn. Sade JEsus til henne: Gack, kalla din man, och
kom hit. Swarade qwinnan, och sade: Jag hafwer ingen man. Sade JEsus til henne: du sade
rätt, jag hafwer ingen man; Ty du hafwer haft fem män, och den du nu hafwer, är icke din
man; det sade du sant. Då sade qwinnan til honom: HERre, jag ser, at du äst en Prophet
[…] Då lät qwinnan stå sina kruko, och gick in i staden, och sade til det folket: kom-
mer, och ser en man, som mig hafwer sagt allt det jag hafwer gjort: Mån han icke wara
Christus? ( Joh. 4: 5–19, 28–29)
21) Och JEsus sade til dem: I skolen alle i denna nattene förargas på mig, ty det är skrif-
wit: Jag skall slå herdan, och fåren warda förskingrad. Men då jag är upstånden, will
jag gå fram för eder uti Galileen. Då sade Petrus til honom: Om än alle förargades, skall
jag icke förargas. JEsus sade til honom: Sannerliga säger jag dig; i dag, i denna natt, förr än
hanen hafwer twå resor galit, skalt du tre resor försaka mig. Då sade han ändå ytterligare:
Ja, skulle jag än dö med dig, jag skall icke försaka dig. Sammalunda sade de ock alle […]
Och Petrus war nedre i palatset: Då kom en öfwersta Prestens tjensteqwinna: Och då
hon fick se Petrum wärma sig, såg hon på honom, och sade: Du wast ock med JEsu
Nazareno. Då nekade han, och sade: Jag känner honom intet, ej heller wet jag hwad du säg-
er. Och så gick han ut i gården, och hanen gol. Och qwinnan såg honom åter, och be-
gynte säga til de der när stodo: Denne är utaf dem. Då nekade han åter. Och litet der-
efter talade de åter til Petrum, som när stodo: Sannerliga äst du utaf dem; ty du äst ock
en Galileesk man, och ditt mål lyder derefter. Då begynte han til at förbanna sig, och
swärja: Jag känner icke denna mannen, der I om talen. Och åter gol hanen. Då begynte
Petrus draga til minnes det ordet, som JEsus hade sagt til honom: Förr än hanen haf-
wer galit twå resor, skalt du försaka mig tre resor. Och han begynte til at gråta. (Mark.
14: 27–31, 66–72)
21) And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it
is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.
But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.
And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the
cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.
Likewise also said they all.
[…]
And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high
priest.
And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou
also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.
But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went out
into the porch; and the cock crew.
And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, this is one of them.
The temporal perspective is dissimilar in these three texts; in the first two
Christ enumerates transgressions of the past, in the last he predicts a three-
fold renunciation yet to take place. Maid Lena (text 19) and Peter (text 21)
are both lying—in this respect the texts agree—maid Lena about her vir-
tue, Peter about his connection with Christ, and both swear to their inno-
cence at different junctures, equally culpable. However, Peter’s sole punish-
ment is tears and bitter remorse, no more.
submit what I have been able to collect about trolls from diverse passages in the authors to
your judgement, good reader. It is well-known that the trollish people survived in Scandi-
navia until the Christian period and that they were distinct from others; but thereafter
they have been absent, being either extirpated or gradually mixed with the other inhabit-
ants’; my translation.) (Neikter 1793:14–15)
27 In modern-day Scandinavia this is no longer the case; the religious discourse has been
transferred to the category of internally persuasive discourse.
28 Bakhtin’s argument on this specific point is not pertinent to the original Greek text of
the New Testament, which uses the everyday language of the period, but regarding the
Swedish translations all but the most recent, Bibel 2000, have favoured archaic language.
218 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
marily in relation to questions of genre. Genre may be viewed as a type of
intertext, and thus, intertextuality will be examined in the guise of generic
intertextuality or intergenericity (for the latter term see Plett 1991: 21), under
which the other aspects (parody, chronotopes and novelization) may be
subsumed, as they address particular features of “the problem of speech
genres”, to use Bakhtin’s phrase (Bakhtin 1986b: 60–102).
The narrator, Johan Alén, was born in 1825 and died in 1891. At the age
of fifty, when Jakob Edvard Wefvar interviewed him, he was living in the
village of Rejpelt in the parish of Vörå. He was a cottar, and worked as a
carpenter and shoemaker. He was also known as a brewer of ale. Being too
old to benefit from the generally accessible schooling introduced at about
this time, he was still deemed to have received a decent education,
according to the parish records (Wolf-Knuts 1991: 66). He was an expert
on humorous tales, as his recorded repertoire attests: of 26 texts, 15 are jo-
cular tales, including one tale of the stupid ogre; 2 (the ones analyzed here)
are parodies of wonder tales; 3 are legends and 2 are fables, while the last 4
are serious tales of magic (see Appendix A). In this connection it might be
noted that jocular tales form a relatively small part of the folktale material
stored in Finland-Swedish archives, and if Michèle Simonsen is correct in
assuming that humorous narratives and anecdotes have constituted the most
popular types of stories in all periods of European history (Simonsen 1995:
99), these genres are severely underrepresented in our collections. A bias in
favour of the long and complicated wonder tale on the part of the field-
workers is certainly wholly plausible, as is a disinclination to reveal the
more obscene stories of the repertoire to a stranger on the part of the
performer, and I believe that jocular tales may well have been more fre-
quent than the recorded material indicates.
6.1 Genre
Before we turn to the first story, I need to introduce the first set of analytic
concepts to be applied. In accordance with the definition given by Charles
Briggs and Richard Bauman in their article “Genre, Intertextuality, and
Social Power” (1992), I understand genres as “generalized or abstracted
models of discourse production and reception”, mediated by their relation-
ship with prior discourse, i.e., intertextuality (Briggs & Bauman 1992: 147).
They are powerful means of shaping speech into ordered, unified and
Genre 219
bounded texts with strong social and historical associations, while at the
same time rendering texts fragmented, heterogeneous and open-ended due
to their dependence on other discursive formations and contextual factors
for the interpretation, production and reception of discourse (cf. Hanks
1989: 104–105). This conception of genre differs on several points from that
proposed by Lauri Honko in a number of influential articles (Honko 1968,
1971, 1976, 1981, 1989). Firstly, the taxonomy of the genre system and de-
finition of individual genres is not as prominent a reasearch object in Briggs
and Bauman’s theory as in Honko’s, and secondly, Briggs and Bauman are
less concerned with the communicative specialization of genres advocated
by Honko, stressing the political implications of genres instead.
The invocation of a genre provides a textual model for creating cohesion
and coherence within a text, but just as important as the structural effects is
the process itself, entextualization. In an earlier treatment of this topic
(1990), Briggs and Bauman describe entextualization as the act of producing
a unit, a text, that can be extracted from the surrounding flow of discourse
(Bauman & Briggs 1990: 73). Entextualization is also a recontextualization:
whenever a generic model is utilized, the narrator actively reconstructs and
reconfigures genre by selecting and abstracting certain characteristics and
glossing over others, which results in a decontextualization, and the narra-
tor then recontextualizes the text in another context (Briggs & Bauman
1992: 147–149). This point has been challenged by Lauri Honko, who
questions the idea that a text can be decontextualized at all (Honko 1998:
149–151). A complete decontextualization would certainly seem unjustified
to posit, and that was hardly Briggs and Bauman’s intention. Generic fea-
tures still have associations, despite being subjected to generalization and
abstraction, and to decontextualization. Moreover, as Briggs and Bauman
acknowledge, entextualization can carry previous contexts within itself,
thus chronicling the text’s history of use (Bauman & Briggs 1990: 73–75).
To my mind, the utility of this approach lies in its highlighting of the trans-
formation of a text in performance, and of the constructed character of the
relation of the text to other renditions of a story.
Briggs and Bauman further develop the imperfect fit between text and
generic model by introducing the concept of intertextual gaps. Their for-
mulation is worthy of quoting, as it captures the gist of their argument in a
few sentences:
220 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
The process of linking particular utterances to generic models thus necessarily produces
an intertextual gap. Although the creation of this hiatus is unavoidable, its relative sup-
pression or foregrounding has important effects. One [sic] the one hand, texts framed
in some genres attempt to achieve generic transparency by minimizing the distance be-
tween texts and genres, thus rendering the discourse maximally interpretable through
the use of generic precedents. This approach sustains highly conservative, traditionaliz-
ing modes of creating textual authority. On the other hand, maximizing and highlight-
ing these intertextual gaps underlies strategies for building authority through claims of
individual creativity and innovation (such as are common in 20th-century Western lit-
erature), resistance to the hegemonic structures associated with established genres, and
other motives for distancing oneself from textual precedents. (Briggs & Bauman 1992:
149; emphases in original)
Genre 221
gap, minimization and maximization, entextualization, decontextualization
and recontextualization.
It is time to look at the story itself:
1) Tre prinsar
He va ejngang in konung, som ha trí prinsar. Ti två gamblan apa endes ett han yngst,
o kunna int tål an. Sidan sku dem fa osta sök se ti måg o skaff se hustror. To tem di
två gamblan ha rejst so kom e kríg o to kunna int konunjin let tan yngst fa osta frí o sök
se hustru, fy han motta iut i kríi. To he di kríe vast sliut, o an kom hejm, so vila an sid-
an ijen rejs o skaff se hustru. Konunjin lova an ti rejs. Han rejst på lande, to brödrin
hans åter rejst ti städer osta frí. To an rejst, so kom an til in lillan torparstugu i skåojin,
o tíd so ji an in. Som an kom in, so sprang e möss från o til på golve, o va i tuku bistyr
som e sku ha vari vädinnun sjölv. Opp me spísin so va e hol, o tíd pjiuka e se óv, to e ha
jåost va e sku jer i stugun. To prinsin kom in, so sá an ärande sett: he an va osta sök se
hustru, o to tykt mösse he an nåok sku få frí ti he. Når an bejdis ti få tjöp mat, so laga e
matin åt an. To an ha jiti so bedda e opp senjin, so an fi gá osta ligg. Sidan e ha jåost
he de, so pjiukka e óv neder i hole me spísin. Om morunin so bedda e opp senjin tibak,
o to an sku fa so gáv e an in gulltjed. To an kom hejm ov sín fríarrejsu, so há han ti vís
in gulltjed, to brödrin hans åter fig óv sin briuduna bara silvertjeduna. Når an sidan
kom adrun gangun tibák ti he di sama stelle, so sprang åter he di sama mösse på golve o
bistyrd, som e sku ha vari vädinnun i hiuse. He laga matin åt an, o he bedda opp sen-
jin, o sidan e ha jåost sysluna sin, so pjiukka e óv neder i hole sett me spísin. To an
sidan sku fa hejm, so gav he di sama mösse an in gullstejd [sic], som han ha ti vís, to
han kom hejm; to brödrin hans ha injinting ti vís från sín briudor, to dem kom ádrun
gangun hejm. Når an sidan fåor tredi gangun osta frí, so sprang he di mösse i samma
bistyr som ti förr ganguna: he laga matin åt an, o he bedda opp senjin åt an, o to all
jörumål i hiuse va undan steóka, so tjíla e óv neder i hole sett me spísin. To e var gang
som prinsin va tär, pjiukka óv neder i hole sett so snart e ha jåost arbejte sett, so tenkt
an: “nö ska ja no gá skåd i he di hole. Han så i e, o to va undi golve rigti grann båon-
ingsrium, o fína mamselder som sat tär o söma, o he di mösse, he va vädinnun. Om
morunin to e kom opp so va e in fín o vaker mamsell, so int vakran kan va. Hun va to
prinsis briud. To dem sku fa, so dråo un fram vagnin sín, o tåo ejinsas hestar o ejinsas
pígur, o so bar e óv. Når an kom ti konungsgålin, so há han tan fínast o vakrast briud
óv all trí brödrin, fast hun va e trull, o so grann tjörrejdskap, so int konunjin ha vakran
tjördåon. (R II 27)
1) Three Princes
Once upon a time a king had three princes. The two eldest ridiculed the youngest, and
could not stand him. Then they were to seek to become sons-in-law and find them-
selves wives. After the two eldest had gone off, a war broke out, and then the king
couldn’t let the youngest go courting and finding himself a wife, since he had to go to
war. As that war was ended, and he came home, he wanted to travel again and find
himself a wife. The king subsequently promised him that he could travel. He travelled
222 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
in the countryside, while his brothers in their turn travelled to towns to woo. When he
was travelling, he arrived at a small crofter’s cottage in the forest, and he went inside.
As he came in, a mouse ran to and fro on the floor, and was in such a hurry as if it had
been the mistress of the house herself. By the hearth was a hole, and into that it bolted
when it had done what it ought to do in the cottage. When the prince came in, he
stated his business: that he was looking for a wife, and then the mouse thought he
might as well be allowed to propose to it. As he asked to buy food, it cooked food for
him. When he had eaten, it made the bed for him, so that he could go to sleep. When
it had done that, it bolted down into the hole by the hearth. In the morning it made
the bed once more, and when he was to go it gave him a chain of gold. When he came
home from his courting trip, he had a chain of gold to show, while his brothers in their
turn only got chains of silver from their brides. As he came back to the same place the
second time, the same mouse was running in a hurry on the floor once more, as if it
had been the mistress of the house. It cooked food for him, and it made the bed, and
when it had done its duties, it bolted down into its hole by the hearth. As he was to go
home, that mouse gave him a golden spoon to show when he got home; while his bro-
thers had nothing to show from their brides, the second time they came home. When
he went the third time to woo, that same mouse ran in the same hurry as the previous
times: it cooked food for him, and it made the bed for him, and as all work in the
house was done, it scampered off down into its hole by the hearth. As it bolted off
down into its hole as soon as it had done its work each time the prince was there, he
thought: “now I’ll go looking into that hole.[”] He looked into it, and beneath the
floor there were really splendid chambers, and fine damsels sitting there sewing, and
that mouse was the mistress. In the morning when it emerged it was a fine and beauti-
ful damsel, so that there could be none more beautiful. She was thus the bride of the
prince. When they were to leave, she pulled out her carriage, and took her own horses
and her own maids, and they were off. When he came to the royal estate, he had the
finest and most beautiful bride of all three brothers, despite her being a troll, and so
splendid driving equipment that the king didn’t have more beautiful driving tackle.
The opening formula Once upon a time immediately pin-points the generic
model to which the narrative is related. As a key to performance (Bauman
1984), it is an index of entextualization (cf. Bauman & Briggs 1990: 74). It
separates the text from the surrounding discourse, now lost to us. (What
we have is a doubly entextualized narrative, first made into a coherent
whole in performance, then in transcription.) On the level of structure as
well as content the text thus far accords with the model, and the intertext-
ual gap is minimized: in the register of wonder tale prose—register being
understood as “major speech styles associated with recurrent types of
situations” (Hymes 1989: 440; Harvilahti 2000: 68)—the carpenter Alén
describes the position of the reviled youngest brother, a common one in
the folktale genre (Lüthi 1994: 43, 47), the quest for a wife, the prime goal
Genre 223
of many tales (Propp 1970: 99), and the superiority in beauty and wealth of
the bride of the youngest son. There is a hint of humour in the depiction
of the industry and domestic virtues, verging on the frantic, of the mouse,
initiating a series of slightly maximizing segments (“As he came in, a mouse
ran to and fro on the floor, and was in such a hurry as if it had been the mis-
tress of the house herself. By the hearth was a hole, and into that it bolted
when it had done what it ought to do in the cottage.”). This is repeated
each time the prince arrives at the cottage of the mouse. The choice of
words, the crucial elements of which are italicized above, creates multiple
interpretative possibilities. On the one hand, the depiction of the behavi-
our of the mouse may be taken at face value, resulting in a minimizing
interpretation of the intertextual gap. On the other hand, an ironic dimen-
sion may be discerned, leading to a relative maximization of the inter-
textual gap. Like Linda Hutcheon, I regard irony as relational, inclusive
and differential. It is relational in the sense that it brings together both the
said and the unsaid, and different people (ironists, interpreters and targets).
The inclusive aspect entails a simultaneous presence of, or oscillation be-
tween, the said and the unsaid in the ironic utterance; both are required to
produce irony. Finally, the unsaid is different from, not necessarily directly
opposite to, the said (Hutcheon 1994: 12–13, 55–66). In this case, the oscil-
lation between ironic and non-ironic meanings in Alén’s words corresponds
to a dialogue of minimizing and maximizing strategies in his manipulation
of intertextual gaps.
Yet a more fundamental subversion lurks beneath the surface, striking
rapidly and vanishing with equal expedition. Contained in the subordinate
clause “despite her being a troll”, it forcefully maximizes the intertextual gap.
The distance between text and generic model is here at its peak. Immedi-
ately afterwards, the intertextual gap is again minimized, and the narrative
is once more conforming to the conventions of the wonder tale in empha-
sizing the splendour of the driving tackle. Nevertheless, the effect of max-
imization lingers and has repercussions on the whole narrative; a new in-
terpretation of the text is necessary. This is a lucid example of the recursive
structure of meaning as well. It demonstrates the impact of the last sen-
tence on the whole utterance, and on the preceding parts of the narrative,
while stressing its own dependence on the latter in order to be meaningful
(Vasenkari & Pekkala 2000: 250–251).
Hence Alén deploys two strategies for maximizing intertextual gaps in
224 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
this narrative: the first form is predicated on irony and its effects on the
interpretation of the text. As a specimen of figurative language, it is a key
to performance (Bauman 1984: 17–18), and plays a role in the entextuali-
zation of the narrative. The second relies on the narrator’s metatextual
comment on the real identity of the mouse, functioning as a textual ele-
ment referring to the text itself (Hanks 1989: 107). Bauman and Briggs note
that the metalingual function is fundamental for entextualization (Bauman
& Briggs 1990: 73), and the example of Alén’s text confirms it. His
comment furnishes the final denouement of the story, which is rapidly
drawing to a close. The text is being disengaged from the flow of speech at
the other end, so to speak.
As I mentioned before, this variant of the tale goes against the grain of
tradition, as it conflicts with the general construction of overtly marital re-
lations between man and troll. If we juxtapose Alén’s narrative with a vari-
ant recorded from Berndt Strömberg, we can see how Alén has decontext-
ualized and recontextualized the tale. Berndt Strömberg’s story represents a
more traditional telling of the tale, and in the absence of information on
previous contextualizations of the narrative as encountered by Alén, it will
have to serve as a point of reference. The most obvious object of recon-
textualization is the role of the troll in the story: in Strömberg’s tale, the
troll caused the heroine’s metamorphosis into a mouse (SLS 202 Sagor II,
15: 462). Alén has decontextualized this aspect and transformed the oppo-
nent into the heroine. This recontextualization is at odds with the conven-
tional assignment of structural slots: a troll cannot really occupy the slot of
heroine, especially not when marriage is involved, and get away with it.
Amorous relationships between men and supernatural beings are numerous
in oral tradition to be sure, but they tend to develop into tales of parting
and abandonment (e.g. SLS 215, 248–250: 80), or poverty and misery (e.g.
Bygdeminnen 1909: 38), in legends in particular. Extant wondertales do not
incorporate this theme to my knowledge. Male trolls may abduct girls in
order to marry them, but they do not get to keep their intended wives (e.g.
SLS 37, 6; SLS 202 Sagor I, 8).
The last intertextual gap is also connected to an intertext, as the com-
ment is a refutation of the proverb “Han som tar trull fö gull, får gråt sina
nävar full” (‘The one taking trolls for gold will cry his hands full’) (SLS 37).
The prince does not woo the mouse/troll out of greed, the wealth he ac-
quires by his marriage is a happy coincidence, but still his choice of bride
Genre 225
defies the traditional wisdom articulated in the proverb, understood in its
most literal sense. The “proper” interpretation of the proverb is of course
more general, it is a warning against marrying for money, but the inter-
textual link established between the folktale and the proverb calls for a re-
interpretation of both precisely in their relation to each other: the folktale
suggests that it is indeed possible to be contented with the troll, as we all
know that fairytales have a happy ending—or do they? Is it the eternal bliss
of the wondertale that is open to dispute? Maybe the proverb eventually
prevails?
A similar subversion is achieved in the second story narrated by Alén,
“Lisl Matt” (‘Little Matt’), where the male offspring of a man and a supra-
normal creature, unspecified of what kind, enjoys a fate afforded no other
semi-human hero:
2) Lisl Matt
Ejn gang ji in arbis kár, som hejtt Matt ti skåojin osta hugg, o to kom in ståor kvinnu,
kledd som in mamsell, o vila he han di kárin sku by frí til in. Han vila int gá in på he
dé, men to an int slapp in, so jaol [sic] an in ti viljis. To an sidan sku gá hejm, so tåo un
yxin hans o slåo in i bjerji o sá: “to får in it förrän pojtsjin den komber o för in åt de”.
Han motta so gá hejm iutan yxin. Når tídin va in, so född hun di kvinnun in pojk, som
un ti stjilnan från fádrin hans, som o hejtt Matt, kalla lisl Matt. To fämton år ha fy-
lidi, so sá måodrun åt pojtsjin sin, he an sku dra opp fár sens yxin iur bjerji o gá me in ti
fádrin sen, so sku han tsjenn an, to an sku få sí yxin sín, fy hun tykt he han nåo sku ha
tíd ti föd an nö, to hun ha född an i fämtun år. Pojtsjin jåol som un bå an o dråo opp
yxin o fåor ti fár sen. Som han fi sí yxin, so tsjend an in, o to tsjend an pojtsjin sen o.
Han tåo imåot an, men han åt so mytsji, so injin vila båt föd an. To an a vari najn tid
me fádrin sen, so sá han åt an: “int båtar ja föd de, jär je in konungsgål, ja ska gá fråg
om int konunjin hár na arbejt åt de”. Han jåol som an sá o ji ti konungsgålin. To an
kom tíd o tala om ärande sett, so sá konunjin: “ja sku ful int bihöv na karar, men ja hár
in ox, som int najn kan tjör me, me han ska an få tjör”. Når lisl Matt kom ti konungs-
gålin, so fi an sess ti båols me ti áder drenjan o jet förr än dem sku fa ti skåogs et na ved.
Som an sestis osta jet, so åt an so leng, so ti áder drenjan henda stíg opp o fa ti skåojin o
kom tibák me vedin, to han ännu sat o åt. To an så iut jinom fönstre o vast vár, he ti
áder drenjan va hejm från skåojin, so vast an arg, ji o spend i oxin o fåor ti skåojin. Som
an kom tíd, so hugd an ti stöst tré, som an hitta. To an huld so best på o hugd, so kom
in bjön o rejv ihäl oxin hans. Som lisl Matt så he, so riusa an óv tíd o slåo ihäl bjönin o
kasta an på sledan o lá oxin me på, o so dråo an hejm hejla lasse. To an kom hejm, so ji
an ti konunjin o sá: he in skåogskatt kom o rejv ihäl oxin hans. “Noh he je int so fálit,
to dö hár in bjön, som bitálning”, tykt konunjin. To e ha vari najn tid, so byra konunjin
gá o sörg o så sorsli o bidröva iut. Ti slút so fréga lisl Matt va som fejla an, to an va so
bidröva. “Va sku tö kunn jev me råd om ja sku sej vafyri ja je bidröva”, svara konunjin
an. Lisl Matt tykt he an sku nö kunn sej, vem vejt, om an int sku kunn jälp an. Konun-
226 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
jin sá to, he an a få åofred me in fíund, som va starkan än han själv. “Ja ska ful gá imåot
an ja”, tykt lisl Matt. Konunjin va me om sátjin. Dem laga to mat åt an fy rejsun: e
magasín me brö, o e anna me smör. Lisl Matt tåo to ejtt på var axla, o hun di grenin
som an va et ti skåojin i handin, o so bar e óv ti kríi. To an kom tíd, o krigsfoltsji så an,
so vist dem int va e va. Två magasin så dem, som kom skrídand framåt, men int na
anna. Ti sliut so sestis lisl Matt neder, o lá magasínin på vejin o byra jet. To an åt, so
byra dem stjiut på an, men han åt bara o råopa, he dem int sku kast rosk i smöre hans.
Når dem int sliuta óv ti stjiut, so tåo lisl Matt tsjeppin sen o ji tíd o slåo ihäl in ståor
håop óv dem, o ti áder tåo på flyktin. Sidan tåo an magasínin på ryddjin o vandra óv
hejm me grenin i handin som tsjeppin. To åter najn tíd ha vari, so byra åter konunjin
gá o engslas o va bidröva. Den he gangun fréga åter lisl Matt va som fejla an. Konunjin
svara an, he två prinsessör ha kömi bost, o dem vist int vast dem ha teji vejin. Lisl Matt
tykt to he han sku fa o sök opp dem. Konunjin lét an far. To ’an fåor, so ji’ ’an jinom
skåogar o ödimarker, men va’ iutan mat, fy’ han tenkt’ ’an snast sku’ hitt’ dem. Når ’an
’a’ vandra’ jinom skåogar o vildtrakter, so kom ’an ti’ e tresk, tär in gubb sat o mejta’ i in
båt me’ strandin. “Vil’ dö kom’ o brotas me’ me’?” fréga’ gubbin. “Jeö’, he ska ja’ kom’ ”,
sá’ lisl Matt, o so tåo’ dem i krágatag men lisl Matt vann. Tem fy’líktes sidan o kom
sams he dem sku’ följas åt. Gubbin fåld’ me’ ’an, o so byra’ dem vander i lag. To dem
vandra’ so treffa’ dem rej’ tan sama dáin på in gubb, som grefta’ emsend i skåojin. Han
fréga’ åt dem, om dem int’ vil’ by’ greft’ me’ ’an. Dem tykt’ he sku’ va’ ti sama o byra’
greft’ i la’ me’ ’an. Fy’ valenda dá’ so grefta’ dem in mil i fyrkant. To dem vast hungru’,
so laga’ dem han di gubbin, som sat o mejta’ osta kåok. Han ji’ to ti’ skåojin o kom ti-
bák’ me’ in ox, som ’an lá’ i grytun. To ’an kåoka’, so kom in gubb o vila smak’ o klaga’
he ’an va’ mytsji’ hungru’. Gubbin tåo’ opp e lårstykk o gáv ’an smak’. Som ’an fi’ smaka’,
so åt ’an opp alt va’ som va’ i grytun, o so fåor ’an sin veg. Tan annan dáin, to dem åter
grefta’ in míl i fyrkant, so ji’ han di gubbin, som va’ hosbund i hiuse’ o kåok’. Han ji’ o
ti’ skåojin et’ in ox, som ’an slakta’ o lá i grytun o byra’ kåok’. Som ’an huld på o kåoka’,
so kom in gubb o vila smak’. Han som kåoka’ sku’ int’ ha’ jivi’ ’an smak, men han klaga’
se’ va’ fy’skretsjeli’ hungru’. To ’an fi’ smaka’, so åt ’an opp alt va’ som fanns i grytun o
sprang bost. Tan tredi’ dáin, to dem åter ha’ grefta’ in míl i fyrkant o byra’ tsjenn’ se’ va’
hungru’, so ji’ lisl Matt o kåok’. Han ji’ föst ti’ skåojin et’ in ox, som ’an slakta’ o stoppa’
i grytun. To ’an kåoka’ som best, so kom in gubb o bejdis få smak’ óv he ’an ha kåoka’.
Lisl Matt vila int’ jev’, men to han di gubbin lét ill’ om se’ o klaga’ se’ va’ hungru, so tåo’
’an opp e lårstykk o gáv ’an smák’. To ’an sku’ smak’, so åt ’an opp alt va’ som va’ i
grytun. Som lisl Matt så’ he, so vast an arg, o so byra’ dem brotas, men lisl Matt, han
vann, o gubbin riust’ óv iut o sprang ti’ skåojin, o lisl Matt báket’ o líkaså ti áder gubban.
To dem kom ti e brinnande holster, o gubbin sprang om e o lisl Matt báket, so full an
tíd, so lét bara ejngang “skvett”, o tär va tem di prinsessuna, som an va osta sök et. Tem
di två áder gubban sleft to neder in korg, so an fi opp tem di prinsessuna, men to dem fi
opp tem, so kasta di ijen(n) hole o lisl Matt lemna emsend tär. Han frejst arbejt se opp,
men han orka int. To an int slapp opp, so ji an ti he di greftlande et jénstanjin, so an
sku få arbejt opp se. To an a arbejta opp se, so tåo an bost tem di prinsessuna o fåor
hejm me dem. To an kom hejm, so vast an jift me tun gamblast o et konunjis död re-
järand i hans stád o stelle o rejära i sjiu hundra år et sin död. (R II 58)
Genre 227
2) Little Matt
Once a workingman, who was called Matt, went to the forest to chop [wood], and then
a big woman, dressed like a damsel, came and wanted that man to start wooing her. He
didn’t want to agree to that, but when he didn’t get rid of her, he did as she wished.
When he was to go home, she took his axe and drove it into the rock and said: “you
won’t get it until your son comes and brings it to you”. Thus he had to go home with-
out the axe. When the time had come, that woman gave birth to a boy, whom she, in
contrast to his father, who was also called Matt, called Little Matt. As fifteen years had
passed, the mother said to her boy to pull up his father’s axe from the rock and go with
it to his father, and he would recognize him when he got to see his axe, for she thought
he would surely have time to feed him now, when she had fed him for fifteen years.
The boy did as she asked and pulled up the axe and went to his father. As he got to see
the axe, he recognized it, and then he recognized his son as well. He received him, but
he ate so much that no-one could manage to feed him. When he had spent some time
with his father, he said to him: “I can’t manage to feed you, here is a royal estate, I’ll go
and ask if the king doesn’t have some work for you”. He did as he said [he would] and
went to the royal estate. When he arrived and stated his business, the king said: “I
don’t really need any men, but I have an ox that no-one can drive, he’ll be allowed to
drive it”. When Little Matt came to the royal estate he got to sit at the table with the
other farm-hands and eat before they went into the forest for some firewood. As he sat
down to eat, he ate for so long that the other farm-hands had time to go to the forest
and come back with the firewood, while he was still sitting and eating. When he
looked out the window and perceived the other farm-hands were home from the forest,
he got angry, went yoking the ox and left for the forest. As he arrived, he chopped
[down] the largest tree he could find. While he was just in the midst of chopping, a
bear came and tore his ox to pieces. As Little Matt saw that, he rushed thither and
killed the bear and threw it onto the sleigh and put the ox on top too, and pulled the
whole load home. When he came home, he went to the king and said that a forest cat
had come and torn his ox to pieces. “Well, it’s no big deal, since you have a bear as pay-
ment”, the king thought. When some time had passed, the king started to go around
grieving and [he] looked sad and sorrowful. Eventually Little Matt asked what was the
matter with him, when he was so sorrowful. “Why should you be able to give me ad-
vice if I were to tell [you] why I’m sorrowful”, the king answered him. Little Matt
thought he might as well tell [him], who knows if he wouldn’t be able to help him.
Then the king said he had strife with an enemy, who was stronger than he. “I’ll cert-
ainly go against him”, Little Matt thought. The king agreed to the matter. Then they
prepared food for him for the journey: a storehouse of bread, and another of butter.
Then Little Matt took one on each shoulder, and that branch he fetched from the for-
est in his hand, and he was off to war. When he arrived and the warriors saw him, they
didn’t know what it was. They saw two storehouses gliding forward, but nothing more.
Eventually Little Matt sat down, and laid the storehouses on the road and started eat-
ing. While he was eating, they began shooting at him, but he just ate and shouted that
they shouldn’t throw refuse into his butter. When they didn’t stop shooting, Little Matt
gripped his staff and went there and killed a great multitude of them, and the others
fled. Then he put the storehouses on his back and wandered off home with the branch
228 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
in his hand as a staff. As yet again some time had passed, the king started to go around
fidgeting and being sorrowful. This time too Little Matt asked what was the matter
with him. The king answered him that two princesses had disappeared, and they didn’t
know where they had gone. Then Little Matt thought he would go looking for them.
The king let him go. When he departed, he walked through forests and the wilds, but
was without food, for he thought he’d soon find them. When he had wandered through
forests and the wilderness, he came to a marsh, where an old man was sitting and fish-
ing in a boat by the shore. “Do you want to come and wrestle with me?”, the old man
asked. “Yes, I’ll come”, Little Matt said, and they fought, but Little Matt won. They
were then reconciled and agreed to accompany each other. The old man followed him,
and they started roaming together. Already on the very same day, while they were strol-
ling, they met an old man who was ploughing by himself in the woods. He asked them
if they didn’t want to plough with him. They thought it made no difference and started
ploughing with him. For each day they ploughed six square miles. When they got
hungry they made the old man, who was sitting and fishing, cook. He then went to the
forest and came back with an ox which he put in the pot. While he was cooking an old
man came and wanted to have a taste and complained he was very hungry. The old
man thus removed a piece of leg and gave him to taste. As he got to taste he ate all that
was in the pot and went his way. The second day, when they once again ploughed six
square miles, the old man who was the head of the household went to cook. He also
went into the forest for an ox which he slaughtered and put in the pot and started cook-
ing. As he was cooking an old man came in and wanted to have a taste. The one who
was cooking wouldn’t have given him a taste, but he complained he was terribly hun-
gry. When he got to taste, he ate all that was in the pot and ran away. The third day,
when they once more had ploughed six square miles and started feeling hungry, Little
Matt went to cook. First he went into the forest for an ox which he slaughtered and
put in the pot. As he was occupied with cooking, an old man came in and begged to
get a taste of what he had cooked. Little Matt didn’t want to give, but when that old
man grumbled and complained he was hungry, he removed a piece of leg and gave him
to taste. When he was to taste, he ate all that was in the pot. As Little Matt saw that
he was angry, and they started wrestling, but Little Matt, he won and the old man
rushed out and ran into the woods, and Little Matt behind him and the other old men
as well. When they came to a burning mound, and the old man ran past it and Little
Matt after, then he fell into it, it just said “splash” once, and there were those princesses
that he was looking for. Those two other men then let down a basket, so that he hauled
those princesses up, but when they had hauled them up, they filled the hole and Little
Matt was left alone there. He tried working himself upward, but he couldn’t manage it.
As he didn’t get up, he went to that ploughed field for the iron bar so that he would be
able to work himself upward. When he had worked himself up, he took away those
princesses and went home with them. As he got home, he was married to the eldest
and after the king’s death [he] ruled in his city and [in his] stead, and ruled for seven
hundred years after his death.
Genre 229
was married to the eldest and after the king’s death [he] ruled in his city and [in
his] stead, and ruled for seven hundred years after his death signals its end. As
for the distinguished position of Little Matt, it is, interilluminated by other
variants of this taletype recorded in the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland,
a departure from the common construction of the tale. For example, a nar-
rative collected from Henrik Lilljans in the village of Dagsmark exhibits a
more conventional approach to the story. Lilljans stresses the super-human
strength of the demi-troll and the sheer impossibility of providing it with
the amount of food it craves. Not even the substantial resources of the king
suffice, and the troll is continually manipulated into situations to finish it
off, a point the narrator is quite explicit on:
3) When the king in no way managed to kill him, he ordered him out in the field and
put food for him in seven oxhides, and sent a whole army against him. As he came onto
the field he sat down to eat, and when they fired and bullets hit him and some flew into
the butterbox, he said: “What blueberries are these flitting around me here?” As soon
as he had eaten he took the lunch pack and hit out right and left, and killed every man.
When all this had been done, he went home. As he came home, the king asked[: “]Are
you still alive?[” “]Oh yes, I’m alive, but I’ve killed all the others.[”] Then he started
building a church, [and] when it was finished, he left only a hole through which he
could get in; but when he was in the church and strolled around there, the king let the
army break it open and down. Then they threw in stones, and he didn’t have the chance
to defend himself and throw the stones out again, but was killed there.
The reward for being a halfling and a monster is death, at least in this text.
Isak Rön[n]holm in the village of Helsingby in the parish of Korsholm
opted for a less lethal ending; he allowed his son of a smith and a hill rå to
return to the otherworld in the arms of his mother (R II 62: 21). In recon-
textualizing the tale, Alén allows Little Matt to retain the unnatural strength
and gargantuan appetite of his counterparts, but whereas the latter are sent
to war in order to be conveniently disposed of, Little Matt’s martial experi-
230 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
ence is dictated by his concern for the king; he nobly offers to fight in his
lord’s stead, and he becomes a trusted counsellor. The conflict between
human and alien so conspicuous in many similar texts is wholly aborted in
Alén’s narrative, and transmuted into a representation of harmonious co-
existence.
The subversion and maximization of the intertextual gaps are accom-
plished on the level of contents by inserting the motif of counselling, which
gives a positive impression of Little Matt, and serves as an indication of
acceptance, and by dropping the end of the tale, the death of the semi-
human being or some other method of dispatch. Alén prefers to append
episodes from two other taletypes to the thus “truncated” story, utiliz-
ing the intertextual technique of substitution (suppression + addition, see
Genette 1992: 384). The framing episode is found in its perhaps most
popular form in the Finland-Swedish oral variants of the Norwegian tale of
Lunkentus, in which the hero, often a soldier, goes off to search for the
princesses abducted by a troll or some other supernatural being. Two com-
panions are assigned to him or join him on the way, and when he has res-
cued the princesses by single-handedly slaying the troll, they betray and
desert him, leaving him alone in the troll’s subterranean dwelling. Unable
to get out on his own, he finds a pipe and unwittingly summons the troll
Lunkentus, servant of the now deceased troll king, who assists him in es-
caping his captivity in the bowels of the earth. Eventually he marries one
of the princesses and becomes king after his father-in-law’s death (see e.g.
SLS 137 Sagor I, 1; R II 420). Some variants of the Dragonslayer (AT 300)
also incorporate this motif (e.g. R II 138). Set into this frame is an episode
from another taletype with a certain affinity with the former. In a variant
from the parish of Övermark, a strong boy teams up with two other men of
equal strength to live in a sauna in the forest. One day, when the boy is re-
sponsible for the cooking, an old man enters the sauna and asks for permis-
sion to taste the food. The boy gives him permission, but is angered when
the stranger devours all the contents of the pot, and the boy strikes him
with a hammer. The man escapes into the earth, but leaves a hole open,
and through this the boy descends, lowered down by his companions with
a rope. Underground he happens upon a woman who chides him for hav-
ing hurt her father, who is lying ill in his bed. The boy kills the old man by
substituting a harmless beverage for a poisonous one, and subsequently lets
his friends haul the woman and her recently inherited riches to the upper
Genre 231
world. His friends are deceitful, however, and leave him stranded beneath
the earth, where he encounters an old woman, who guides him back up.
Then the boy slays his untrustworthy companions and marries the earth-
dweller woman, living happily and contentedly for the remainder of his
days (R II 327).
This narrative also features a marriage with a presumably supernatural
being, but the boy is himself somewhat super-human due to his extraordi-
nary strength, and he does not become king in a human realm, he turns
into a rich, yet humble peasant. Alén’s move of adopting the internationally
wide-spread version combining this narrative (AT 650A Strong John) with
Quest for a Vanished Princess (AT 301B) which casts the traditional villain
as the hero of the tale is, in comparison with other variants lacking this ad-
dition, more radical as it definitely undermines and transgresses the other-
wise strictly observed boundary between the human and the supernatural.
The relation between representatives of the two realms can be cordial, of
course, but it is precisely a relation between inhabitants of two separate
worlds: each might make incursions into the other’s territory, yet eventu-
ally they return to their own place in the scheme of things (see e.g. SLS 31,
146; SLS 202 Sagor II, 1; SLS 202 Sagor II, 24; R II 336; R II 339). Little
Matt, on the contrary, is wholly integrated into the human sphere through
successive maximizations of intertextual gaps, the first of which is his ca-
pacity as counsellor of the king, as mentioned above, the second by his as-
sumption of the role of hero, and the third by his marriage to the eldest
princess, which is as close as a semi-human might ever come to an apothe-
osis.
Alén’s choice entails the utilization of a very specific story-line as well
which is different from its common manifestation, here epitomized by the
Lunkentus stories; in a sense, it is another example of substitution, this
time on the level of individual motifs. In terms of entextualization, Alén is
virtually recontextualizing the episode by excluding the abductor-troll,
maybe to avoid a clash between two supranormal creatures, and replacing it
with an anonymous perpetrator who fails to guard his acquisitions. The
lack of a specified opponent obviates the need for a fight, and Little Matt
can simply walk in and trot off with the princesses; or he would, if it were
not for his deceitful friends. The fact that little Matt must also be his own
helper is yet another instance of a recontextualization of sorts; as a semi-
supernatural being, he ought to possess the qualifications to deal with such
232 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
crises on his own. Thus, despite his adoption into the human world, Little
Matt does not renounce his super-human abilities, which is also demon-
strated by his unusually long reign.
In this subchapter I have applied Charles Briggs’ and Richard Bauman’s
theory of intertextual gaps in order to elucidate the ways in which Johan
Alén changed traditional folktales. I have found the notion of maximiza-
tion and minimization of intertextual gaps a useful one in this enterprise, as
it highlights the strategies employed by the performer in actively construc-
ting his relation to a given genre. Similarly, the concepts of entextualiza-
tion, decontextualization and recontextualization have been instrumental in
understanding this process of reconstructing and reconfiguring a genre. As
I hope to have shown, Johan Alén utilizes diverse strategies for manipula-
ting intertextual gaps and effecting entextualization: in “Three Princes”,
his deployment of figurative language, a key to performance, in the form of
irony results in a dialogue of minimization and maximization, while his
metatextual comment achieves a maximization of the intertextual gap. In
“Little Matt”, maximization is accomplished through the intertextual tech-
nique of substitution, both of entire episodes and of individual features in
line with the characteristics of the subtype of the tale he has opted to re-
late, but in contrast to the general ethos of these tales in Swedish-speaking
Finland. All of these strategies contribute to entextualization, as they help
to mould and structure the narrative as a separate unit in the flow of speech,
and so do the uses of special formulae in the beginning and the end of the
narratives.
6.2 Parody
Nevertheless, “Three Princes” and “Little Matt” might be considered par-
odies of wonder tales as well, and here I investigate how the parodic fea-
tures of Alén’s narratives affect genre (cf. Simonsen 1995: 114–115 on par-
odies of serious folktales). The definition of parody has been the object of
an occasionally fierce debate in recent years (see Dentith 2000; Hutcheon
1985; Rose 1993). The definition most in concert with Johan Alén’s practice
is that of Margaret Rose who construes parody as “the comic refunctioning
of preformed linguistic or artistic material” (Rose 1993: 52; cf. Rose 1979: 35).
Refunctioning is understood as the conferral of new functions on the paro-
ied material, and it may imply critique as well, whereas preformed material
Parody 233
indicates that the material used in the parody has already been formed into
a work by someone else (Rose 1993: 52). Hence I have decided not to es-
ouse Gérard Genette’s rigorous and rather structuralist distinctions in
Palimpsestes (Genette 1992: 45), nor Linda Hutcheon’s conception of post-
odern parody, which is keyed to another form of parody than that exercised
by Johan Alén (Hutcheon 1985; Hutcheon 1991).
Simon Dentith has stressed the status of parody as one of several variants
of intertextual allusion referring to precursor texts with deliberate evaluative
intonation (Dentith 2000: 5–6). He further distinguishes between specific
and general parody: the former targets a particular anterior text, while the
latter parodies a whole genre (Dentith 2000: 7; see also Rose 1979: 17; Rose
1993: 47–53). These categories are not mutually exclusive, as general parody
relies on specific parody to generate the ambivalent dependence on its tar-
et typical of all parody. Since parody incorporates its target into itself while
simultaneously criticizing and refunctioning it, this creates an ambivalence
in its relation to the precursor text (Rose 1993: 51). Johan Alén’s parodies
seem to embody both parodic modes: he transmutes specific wonder tale-
ypes into a narrative voicing critique of the genre as such. This metafictio-
nal aspect focuses and reflects on the processes of creating narratives (cf.
Rose 1993: 48), and I will investigate the implications of it for Alén’s texts
below. His parodies are also fully developed formal ones comprising the
whole text; their relation to the precursor texts and parodied modes is their
entire raison d’être (Dentith 2000: 7).
In his discussion of utterances in which two distinct languages can be
heard (types of internally dialogized interillumination of languages),
Mikhail Bakhtin considers stylization and parodic stylization. As an under-
standing of the latter presupposes knowledge of the former, I will treat
both in the following. Bakhtin characterizes stylization as an artistic re-
presentation of another person’s linguistic style. Here the linguistic con-
sciousness of both the one who represents, the stylizer, and of the discourse
represented co-exist in a single utterance. Interillumination is achieved as
the stylized language offers the stylizer a vehicle of expression unavailable
in his own language, thus viewing the latter in terms of the former, while
the process of stylization itself reaccentuates the stylized discourse and ren-
ders it in a new light (Bakhtin 1986a: 362).
When the intentions of the representing discourse conflict with those of
the represented language, the result is parodic stylization. The represented
234 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
discourse no longer functions as a productive perspective; it is turned as a
weapon against itself to bring about its own imminent destruction. But this
devastation must not be too crude and petty if the stylization is to retain its
status as an image of a language and a world view. Instead, Bakhtin em-
phasizes, “[i]n order to be authentic and productive, parody must be ex-
actly a parodic stylization, that is, it must re-create the parodied language as
an authentic whole, giving it its due as a language possessing its own inter-
nal logic and one capable of revealing its own world inextricably bound up
with the parodied language (Bakhtin 1986a: 363–364; emphasis in original).
A lucid example of parodic stylization is to be found at the end of “Three
Princes”. Here all the hyperbole of wonder tale wealth converges in a few
sentences, and a distinct parodic intonation can be heard. Let us review the
text again (italics indicate features crucial for my argument):
1) Han så i e, o to va undi golve rigti grann båoningsrium, o fína mamselder som sat tär o
söma, o he di mösse, he va vädinnun. Om morunin to e kom opp so va e in fín o vaker
mamsell, so int vakran kan va. Hun va to prinsis briud. To dem sku fa, so dråo un fram
vagnin sín, o tåo ejinsas hestar o ejinsa pígur, o so bar e óv. Når an kom ti konungs-
gålin, so há han tan fínast o vakrast briud óv all trí brödrin, fast hun va e trull, o so grann
tjörrejdskap, so int konunjin ha vakran tjördåon. (R II 27)
1) He looked into it, and beneath the floor there were really splendid chambers, and fine
damsels sitting there sewing, and that mouse was the mistress. In the morning when it
emerged it was a fine and beautiful damsel, so that there could be none more beautiful.
She was thus the bride of the prince. When they were to leave, she pulled out her car-
riage, and took her own horses and her own maids, and they were off. When he came to
the royal estate, he had the finest and most beautiful bride of all three brothers, despite her
being a troll, and so splendid driving equipment that the king didn’t have more beauti-
ful driving tackle.
Parody 235
discourse she is an equally enthralling supernatural being. The lady’s pos-
session of a carriage, horses adorned with the most splendid driving tackle
and maid-servants of her own further bespeaks her human wealth in one
discourse, while it in the other exposes her otherworldly origin (cf. SLS 31,
146; SLS 137 Sagor I, 1; SLS 280: 132). In descriptions of the troll’s demesne
and person, precisely these features are often emphasized; in the following,
I will examine this theme in some detail, as it has bearing on the subsequent
discussion.
The opulence of otherworldly dwellings is occasionally hinted at in a
single phrase, which functions as a sêma, a traditional sign of the kind
pointing to an emergent reality (Foley 2000: 341) (John Miles Foley con-
siders sêmata on two levels: on the level of the story-pattern on the one
hand, and on the level of individual motifs on the other. The item quoted
is of course a form of the latter):
4) He va’ ejngang in pojk, som ha rík fyeldrar, o so fåor ’an ti’ skåojin o kom ti’ in vaker
byggning, som va’ in trullstugu. (R II 46)
4) Once there was a boy, who had rich parents, and he went to the forest and came to a
splendid building, which was a troll cottage.
Here the supernatural nature of the building is specified, but this is not
always the case. The motif will also recur in some of the texts soon to be
cited. Alén, however, did not explicitly utilize this sêma, but he employs a
similar setting, a building in the forest. It is possible that the sêma would
have disclosed too much at this early point in the narrative. Another strand
in the web of associations is furnished by one of Jacob Tegengren’s contri-
butions to Budkavlen, in which he provides a brief, but vivid depiction of
the troll’s abode:
5) Omkring 100 meter söderom den nämnda backen [Taipalbacken] finns på östra sidan
av landvägen ett mindre berg – Högklint – som mot vägen stupar brant ned bildar en
vägg, i vilken man säges kunna se spår av en tillsluten dörr. Detta är ingången till trol-
lets eller rådarens bostad. En och annan, som i mörkret passerat stället, har sett dörren stå
öppen och berget invändigt stråla av ljus och dyrbarheter. För några har trollets bostad tett
sig snarlik en handelsbod med prunkande varor uppradade på hyllor. (Budkavlen 1924: 85)
5) About 100 metres south of the aforesaid hill [the Taipal Hill] lies on the eastern side
of the main road a minor hill—the High Cliff—which slants steeply toward the road
creating a wall, in which it is said one may see traces of a closed door. This is the ent-
236 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
rance to the dwelling of the troll. Some who have passed the place in the dark have seen the
door open and the hill shining within with light and riches. For some the dwelling of the troll
has seemed like a shop with costly items stacked on the shelves.
Despite the fact that the formulations are obviously Tegengren’s own, his
interpretation is valid. Some records from the parish of Vörå do exhibit
such a “mercantile” conception of the supranormal realm; there is a definite
showroom quality to several of the otherworldly domains portrayed in my
material. The resplendent chambers of the troll bride are therefore firmly
rooted in tradition, as is the appearance of the lady herself, which is attest-
ed by a number of collected texts. During one of his field trips, Jakob
Edvard Wefvar was informed of the locals’ encounters with three female
supernatural beings living in a hill nearby:
6) På Kondivor bjerg (Kondivorberg är beläget 2 (?) ryska verst … från Jörala by i Vörå)
så’ ejngang in kvinnu, to ’un sökt et’ kåonan trí mamselder sit’ övast på bjergspitsin o
sjung. He dé va’ midt i nattin, o sku’ ha’ stjédd’ fy’ na sjiuti’ år sidan. In ádrun gang so
mött’ folk i Jöral’ iutanfy’ in bundgål, Nikul kallad, trí mamselder. To ’an fréga’ åt dem,
’vadan dem va’ hejm, so svara’ dem: “från Kondivor bjerg.” (R II 204)
6) On the hill of Kondivor (the hill of Kondivor lies 2 Russian versts … from the village
of Jörala in Vörå) a woman once saw three damsels sitting on the top of the rock singing,
while she was looking for the cows. That was in the middle of the night, and is reputed
to have occurred some 70 years ago. Another time folk met three damsels in Jöral outside
a farmhouse called Nikul. When he asked them where they came from, they answered:
“From the hill of Kondivor.”
Here the women are merely called damsels (mamseller), but that is sufficient
to pin-point their origin—it should be noted that mamsell also implies so-
cial distinction: urban bourgeois women were addressed in this manner.
Similarly, the Devil was sometimes called lord (Wolf-Knuts 1992: 113), as
were his underlings (SLS 28, 19: 88). The encounter is also peaceful: the
humans have glimpsed the denizens of the otherworld at a favourable mo-
ment. All have not been so lucky, but it is sometimes their own fault. One
who has only himself to blame for stirring up their wrath is the boy in the
next narrative (cf. chapter 4.1):
7) in ánnan påjk råka två gránna mámselder tär på vejin [vid Isomäkiberget]. tå an ha gá
åm dem, så tåu an åpp in stein å kasta bákett dem. mámseldran vart tå föárga på an å
lága, så an int hitta heim élu vita vart åt e var an jikk in i skåujin, men hitta int ut tíbak,
fö an va skåuks taji. an hört kérrjuli å fåltsji, såm råupa ett an; men an va int stånd til
Parody 237
svar éli se dem. tå an ha gai in pa dagar, så råka an mámseldren ijénn tå bad an dem, he
dem sku vis an på véjin. tem sa tå: “du sku int ha vári ílak, så sku du int ha bihöva va
jär. men tå du béder nu, så ska du slipp jan, å så fösvánn dem, å påjtsjin va bára fast i
lánnsvéjin. (SLS 22: 16–17)
7) Another boy met two fine damsels there on the road [by the Great Hill]. When he
had passed them, he picked up a stone and threw it after them. The damsels were then
angry with him and made sure he didn’t find a way home or know in which direction it
was. He went into the forest, but couldn’t find his way back, for he was taken by the
forest. He heard cart wheels and the people calling for him; but he wasn’t able to re-
spond or see them. After he had walked a couple of days, he met the damsels again.
Then he asked them to show him to the road. Therefore they said: “you shouldn’t have
been naughty, then you wouldn’t have had to be here, but since you’re asking now, you’ll
get out of here[”], and they disappeared, and the boy was just stuck on the main road.
The more ominous aspects of the fine damsels are beginning to emerge.
Johan Alén was able to tap the multifarious meanings ascribed to the image
of the fine damsel and use it in the verbal construction of his heroine. By
insistently refusing to openly address the issue of connotation in his narra-
tive, there is a permanent oscillation between the positive and the negative
associations of the troll bride; this fundamental ambivalence is perpetuated
beyond the boundaries of the text. The climax of indeterminacy in regard
to the heroine’s looks arrives after the divulgence of her true nature. A
power intermittently utilized by trolls is namely the art of illusion, or pos-
sibly shape-changing, and the implications of that capacity are explored in
the following account from Vörå (cf. chapter 7):
8) He va’ ejngang in pojk, som in bjergtrullflikku vila by’ frí til. Injin så in, iutom pojt-
sjin. Han briuka gá et’ vejin o spasjär me’ in o tala’ ejtt o anna. Hun sá he ’an int’ sku’
tal’ om va’ dem braska me’ varáder. Sliutligen byra’ un kom tíd, tär ’an båodd’, men in-
jin, iutom han så’ ’in. He va leng’ förrän han upptekt’ he ’un vila jift se’ me’ an. Sidan
tala’ an om vem an umjigs me’ o sá: “int sír ni ’in men to ja’ rör handin me’ sídun, so
ska’ ni vit’ he ’un je’ tär. Ja’ får int’ sej; fy’ to fysvinder ’un.” Når un sidan kom e kveld,
so röld pojtsjin handin me’ sídun, o to vist’ dem, he ’un va’ tär. To pojtsjin jåol’ he, so
fata’ hosbundin, som va’ pojtsjis fár eldbrandin iur spísin o slåo til, tär pojtsjin vist …
vann un ståo, o slåo lårbejne óv ’in. To vast ’un synli, ’o he va’ én gambel mensk. (R II 70)
8) Once upon a time there was a boy whom a hill troll girl wanted to start wooing. No-
body saw her except the boy. He used to walk along the road and stroll with her and
talk of one thing or another. She said he shouldn’t mention what they were chatting
about among themselves. Eventually she started coming to where he lived, but nobody
saw her except him. It was long before he discovered she wanted to marry him. Then
he mentioned whom he was seeing and said: “you won’t see her, but when I move my
238 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
hand along my side, you’ll know she’s there. I cannot tell, for then she’ll disappear.”
When she came one evening after that, the boy moved his hand along his side, and they
knew she was there. When the boy did that, the master of the house, who was the boy’s
father, gripped the poker from the hearth, and hit where the boy showed she was stand-
ing, and dislocated her thigh bone. Then she became visible, and it was an old person.
Thus, whereas the superiority of the bride of the youngest brother is a mat-
ter of course in the parodied discourse, her beauty is far more sinister in the
parodying discourse.29 No wonder the bride of the youngest prince is more
ravishing than the other girls with such powers at her command. What she
might look like underneath the illusion, the parodying discourse darkly
suggests, is impossible to say. This specific intertext represents the most
serious attempt at undermining the positive image of the heroine by sur-
reptitiously inserting an element of doubt or apprehension. I believe Alén
actually strove for this effect, and I would argue that the intertext is invoked
by the parallel with the transformation of the mouse at the end. It is evi-
dently voluntary, and if she can assume any guise she wishes, why would
her “fine and beautiful damsel” shape be the true one? Yet there is no hard
evidence to prove that it is not.
If we are to follow this darker train of associations, the arrival of the
prince to the cottage allows some occasion for suspense, but the reader
realizes it only after the conclusion of the story. The inhabitants of troll or
rå cottages are not always keen to entertain uninvited guests, and apart
from being chased away in a most undignified and hostile manner, every-
one has not come out of such an encounter entirely unchanged. One of the
earliest records from Vörå describes such an encounter (cf. chapter 3.4.6):
9) I forntiden skall vid detta berg, en halfvuxen gåsse ifrån Tuckor by som vallat boskap,
och varit försedd(?) med en knif, dermed han åt sig löstskurit en käpp, och under vand-
ringen gått och snickrat denne käppen, och således kommit till Isomäki berget, hade
han derstädes oförmodeligen kommit till en Herregård, der han gått in på gården, och
der kommit att fästa sin uppmärksamhet å en der varande brunn, med vindställning,
och dersom brunnhinken varit utaf koppar blankskuradt, som han kände sig törstig
begaf han sig in uti Byggningen, i afsikt för att få sig något till dricka, inkommen uti
29 Here I am working according to the assumption that the preformed material is the text
being parodied by the comically refunctioned narrative, but in reality the relationship be-
tween parodied and parodying discourse might be far more complicated. I have tried to
take this into account by paying attention to potential ambiguities in the identification of
the parodied and the parodying discourse.
Parody 239
rummet, stodo utmed dörren ett blankt koppar käril, om en såfs storlek fyldt med vat-
ten, och vid spislen voro flere qvinspersoner likasom i brådska sysselsatte med någon
Matlagning, och vid bordet har suttit någon, jämte en välklädd qvinsperson, gåssen
stannade så vid dörren nära till det nämnda vattu kärillet af förundran, i detsamma kom
en qvinna till honom, och afviste gåssen med orden: laga dig ut pojke, Bötesmor är här
och gästar. Gåssen begaf sig så genast der af, men kom så med sin knif att röra vid det
nernämnda vattu koppar (?) kärillet, men som knappast var han utkommen, förrän han
blef överskjöld med vatten, samt kastade de samma vattukärillet efter honom (?); Gås-
sen kom då till det nära belägna Kukkus hemman och befanns han vara mycket för-
skräckt, med berättelse om hela denna tilldragelsen. Gåssen blef deraf sedan sinnessvag
för all sin tid; och lefde likväl till någon högre ålder. (SLS 299: 34–35)
9) In the old days, by this very hill, an adolescent boy from the village of Tuckor, who
had been herding cattle and been equipped with a knife, with which he had cut loose a
stick for himself, carving this stick during the walk, and thus coming to the Great Hill,
had suddenly happened upon a manor in that place. There he entered the courtyard
and came to take note of a well with a winch which was situated there, and since the
well bucket was made of polished copper and he felt thirsty, he entered the building in
order to get something to drink. Having come into the room, a shining copper vessel
the size of a tub filled with water was standing by the door, and by the hearth several
females were, as if in haste, occupied with some sort of cooking, and someone was sit-
ting by the table, as was an elegant female. In awe the boy therefore stayed by the door
close to the abovementioned water vessel. Immediately a woman came to him and
turned him away with the words: get yourself out boy, the Böte matron is here visiting.
The boy left at once, but chanced to touch the abovementioned water vessel of copper
with his knife. He was scarcely out [of the door] before he was showered with water,
and they threw the selfsame water vessel after him; then the boy came with an account
of the whole event to the Kukkus homestead situated in the vicinity, and was found [to
be] very frightened. The boy was then feebleminded because of it for the rest of his days, [but]
nevertheless lived to some advanced age.30
The boy loses his sanity because of this experience, and one question raised
by this intertext is whether the prince escapes that fate. In other word, is
he quite as sane as he appears to be? Or alternatively, is he wholly duped by
the troll/mouse, and incapable of breaking free from her spell? The poten-
tial instrument of enchantment is indeed present in the text, in the form of
the food she cooks for him. The boy in the previous record never got any
30 Due to the awkwardness of the Swedish original I have felt compelled to disregard my
otherwise fairly literal translation practice in this case in order to provide a more enjoyable
English rendition. I have occasionally changed the punctuation, and in some instances the
grammar of the text, but I have nevertheless attempted to stay as close to the Swedish as
possible, given the circumstances.
240 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
victuals from the otherworld, but a narrative collected by Mårten Thors
hints at the relation between food and enchantment:
10) he va in gang i metsjipe in flikku, såm vala kåur å så tåu trulli inar å fört un ti se.
hun va leng tär o hadd e bra. matin va å bra, bara un int velsina an, men tå vart e bara ti
maskar o elur. int hadd un drygt å int kåm un ihåg na helder, men eingang så hört un
tsjyrkklåkkuna. (SLS 28, 3: 69)
10) Once upon a time in Mäkipää there was a girl, who was herding the cows, and then
the troll took her and brought her home. She stayed there for a long time and managed
well. The food was good too, as long as she didn’t bless it, but then it turned into
worms and lizards. She didn’t pine for home nor did she remember anything, but one
day she heard the church bells.
Eating the food of the supernatural realm incorporates humans into the
otherworld, and thrice the prince dines at the cottage of the mouse. Unlike
the girl of the quotation, however, he does not become invisible to his own
kind. These intertexts emphasize the inherent danger of the prince’s ac-
tions, and the last intertextual asssociation to be presented reinforces this
atmosphere of warning:
1 1) in flikku in gang vandra i skåugdjin (?) å kåm til in ståur tregål, tär e va mytsji epäl.
hun byra bit i eplin tå så un in ståur vaker byggning döran ståu åpp hun jikk in i he föst
rymi va e bara brikkuna å klåkkuna å tsjeduna å tuku denan. tå kåm un i e rym, tär e va
klenin å vöråtsjåualan. tå kåm un i e rym tär e va fylklin å halsdukan tå kåm i e rym tär
e va bössuna å knivana å yksuna å tuku denan å ti slut kåm un i e rym tär in ståur blåud-
tsjitil ståu pu gålve å in seng ståu me vegdjin fl. vart redd å kröup under sengdjin. – tå
in stånd ha vari, kåm trulli heim, för e va in trullstugu, å hadd in påjk å kvinnu mes-se.
kvinnun tåu an livi åv å la blåudin i tsjitilin. hun hadd in ring pu fingri. trulli huggd åv
fingri, så e tritta under sengdjin. påjktsjin åsta sök, men flikkun henda ta vara pu
ringdjin. tå int påjktsjin hitta na, sa trulli, at an sku få let e va åusökt, tärtil e kåmber na
meir. tå sprang fl. heim. (SLS 37, 3: 14–15)
1 1) Once a girl was walking in the forest and came to a large garden, where there were
many apples. She began biting the apples. Then she saw a large beautiful building. The
doors were open, she went in. In the first room there were only trays and clocks and
necklaces and things like that. Then she came into a room, where there were clothes
and Vörå skirts. After that she came into a room, where there were aprons and shawls.
Then she came into a room, where there were rifles and knives and axes and things like
that, and finally she came into a room where a big kettle with blood was standing on
the floor and a bed was standing by the wall. The girl was frightened and crept under
the bed. — After some time had elapsed, the troll came home, for it was a troll cottage,
and he had a boy and a woman with him. He killed the woman and put the blood in
the kettle. She had a ring on her finger. The troll lopped off the finger, and it flew
Parody 241
under the bed. The boy was looking [for it], but the girl managed to keep it safe. When
the boy didn’t find anything, the troll said he could let it be unsearched for until more
was coming. At that the girl ran home.
The text contains several of the motifs discussed above; the girl tastes the
fruit of the otherworld, yet is not assimilated into the supernatural realm,
like the prince. She spots a large beautiful building, the sêma for a troll
cottage as the anonymous narrator overtly acknowledges, and the interior
of the house is much akin to the shop depicted by Tegengren (text 5). Each
category of items has its own place in the organization of the household.
Although it is not stated explicitly, these objects might be the trophies of
the troll, taken from the people it has slain. As Alén’s story is a story of
possibilities, the last intertext illustrates what could have happened had the
prince not been so lucky as to encounter only a mouse in the cottage.
The rodent shape is in itself ambiguous. In the “conventional” rendition
of the story (cf. the discussion of Berndt Strömberg’s variant above), the
mouse or rat sports a very positive image in accordance with the wonder
tale evaluation of this animal as identified by Jan-Öjvind Swahn. Swahn
argues that mice and rats are described in an endearing, often “sweet” fash-
ion in wonder tales, and that they co-operate with the human protagonists
to the advantage of the latter. There are no Scandinavian wonder tales in
which these animals are viewed unfavourably, he states (Swahn 1984: 21).
Nevertheless, in legends and folk belief, rats and mice are seen as disgusting
little creatures, associated with every conceivable calamity (Swahn 1984: 17–
19). Alén exploits the different perspectives on these rodents by creating an
interference between the positive wonder tale image of them and the singu-
larly negative one of legends, since his recontextualization of the mouse in
the narrative (see 6.1) subjects it to a reinterpretation in the light of other
generic models. The ominous qualities of the mouse are actualized in Alén’s
invocations of intertexts: the enthralling mouse/troll (cf. text 10: SLS 28,
3: 69), the devious mouse/troll (cf. text 8: R II 70), the punishing mouse/
troll (cf. text 7: SLS 22: 16–17; text 9: SLS 299: 34–35). The intertextual as-
sociations of his parody thus “rub off” on the image of the mouse, giving it
other and more horrifying dimensions. The guise of the mouse was also
employed by those supernatural beings—trolls, witches and the nightmare
—which inspired most fear in humans (Swahn 1984: 18), and the sinister
connotations of the shape are present along with the positive ones in Alén’s
story through the intermingling of wonder tale and legend traits.
242 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
Hence, Johan Alén’s narrative demonstrates the intertextual constitution
of parody posited earlier in this chapter. Upon scrutiny, a finely wrought
web of intertextual allusions traverse the whole text, evoked by his carefully
selected phrases, but it is a sign of the sophistication of his craft that the
parodic intonation and many of the associations remain implicit in the nar-
rative until the last moment, when the listener, and the latter-day reader, is
obliged to review and reinterpret the text. The disturbing results of this re-
consideration is to some extent due to the intergenericity of the parody;
Alén superimposes what might be described as the code of the legend (the
parodying discourse) onto the conventions of the wonder tale (the parodied
discourse). This is why I proposed to view Alén’s narratives as similar to
mixed genres or genres linked to multiple sets of generic features.
Alén’s parodies may also be labelled metanarrational or metafictional,
since they comment on “the narrative itself and those elements by which it
is constituted and communicated” (Babcock-Abrahams 1976: 179–180). Ac-
cording to Barbara Babcock-Abrahams, metanarration tends to focus on
the code, message or medium of communication and, as a form of meta-
communication, pertains especially to the relation between the narrator,
the audience and the narrative message (Babcock-Abrahams 1976: 179). All
of these are deeply implicated in the actualization of parody. Thus, in his
parodies, Alén reflects on the act of storytelling as it has been practised by
other narrators, and on the generic structure and composition of other texts
(cf. Rose 1993: 92), thereby linking his own rendition to previous tellings of
the stories. He criticizes the world portrayed in the wonder tale and the
narrators perpetuating it by transposing the generic ideal of social climbing
—prevalent in jocular tales as well—to an area where it does not belong,
namely to the illicit transgression of the strict boundary between the
supernatural and the human. He creates a forbidden liaison between the
domains, defying the prohibitions designed to separate them, and subverts
the marital ethic of the wonder tale. His violation of this generic feature
attracts our attention to it precisely as a convention or code, and it distorts
the message of the parodied text.
Similarly, Alén’s parodies are self-reflexive, as they are used to highlight
their own composition and audience too in the process of refunctioning the
anterior text (cf. Rose 1993: 91–92). Once again, the construction of genre
takes pride of place in the communication with the audience. In minimi-
zing the intertextual gaps for the larger part of the narrative, Alén raises the
Parody 243
listener’s or reader’s expectations of a serious variant of a wonder tale only
to disappoint those expectations in the maximization of intertextual gaps or
the initiation of a dialogue between minimization and maximization. The
disappointment of expectation is crucial in encouraging the audience to as-
sume a more critical position vis-à-vis both the parodied and the parodying
text, and in exposing the process of their composition.
The extent of reflexivity in parody has been the object of some debate,
however. Margaret Rose, for example, denies that metafictional (metanar-
rational), reflexive parody undermines its own claims to a truthful or mea-
ningful depiction of reality (Rose 1993:96, 98–99), while Michele Hannoosh
argues that it must call both itself and its target into question (Hannoosh
1989: 113). I have opted to side with the latter, for two reasons. First, in
Alén’s case it is obvious that he is not attempting to present a more “truth-
ful” picture of “reality”; his version of the world is just as unrealistic as the
wonder tale’s. Second, he might be said to utilize one of the three tech-
niques of parodic reflexivity discussed by Hannoosh: in his invocation of
intertexts, he suggests other possible variants of the story (Hannoosh 1989:
117), casting his own as a non-authoritative rendition as susceptible to sub-
version as the parodied text. In this sense, his parodies are both critical and
creative; on the one hand, they mock and attack the anterior texts, and on
the other they engender a multiplicity of versions within themselves
(Hannoosh 1989: 117). This is true of “Three Princes” in particular. Hence,
the reflexive function of Alén’s parodies harmonizes with their intertextual
complexity, turning them into stories of possibilities on yet another level.
But are these texts truly parodies, or is their parodic nature merely a fig-
ment of my own imagination? My experience in reading folklore texts tells
me that there is something odd about these narratives; they do not entirely
conform to my expectations for an orthodox variant of the taletypes in-
volved. Therefore I have begun to look for idiosyncrasies in the texts that
might confirm their status as parodies, relying on my previous knowledge
of these specific taletypes and of folklore narratives in general. In other
words, this is a subjective interpretation; whether it is an overinterpretation
as well is for the reader to decide. I have tried to suppress my wilder
thoughts on the subject, and kept only those I feel I can defend with argu-
ments based on the material and the information at hand.
Some of the peculiarities I believe myself to have uncovered are congru-
ent with Margaret Rose’s observations on the signals of parody (Rose 1993:
244 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
37–38): comic changes to the message or subject matter of the original or
more common subtype of a taletype can be discerned, the (lauded?) mar-
riage to a troll and the semi-troll being cast as hero constituting cases in
point. In “Little Matt” passages from the basic taletype have been juxta-
posed with passages employed in other types, in accordance with the inter-
national subtype, and the associations of the text have been changed be-
cause of it. Little Matt is no longer ordained to die, he has metamorphosed
into a kingly figure worthy of marrying the princess (cf. the discussion be-
low in 6.3). As for “Three Princes”, the associations of the story have been
altered through the invocation of intertexts subverting the meanings of the
parodied text.
Margaret Rose also discusses parody’s effects on the reader, enumerating
“[s]hock or surprise, and humour, from conflict with expectations about
the text parodied” and “[c]hange in the views of the reader of the parodied
text” as such effects (Rose 1993: 38). This sums up my reactions to the two
texts fairly well. The shock and humour derive from the perceived viola-
tion of the taboo against marriage between humans and supernatural crea-
tures, and the parodies invite meditation on the world portrayed in the
wonder tale and the norms governing it.
6.3 Chronotopes
Furthermore, the assimilation of the codes of the legend adds another
chronotope to the story, and this has repercussions on the construction of
genre and of the image of the troll. Mikhail Bakhtin uses the term chrono-
tope to denote “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relation-
ships that are artistically expressed in literature” (Bakhtin 1986a: 84). It
asserts the inseparability of time and space, and is a formally constitutive
category of literature intimately connected with genre and generic distinc-
tions (Bakhtin 1986a: 84–85). Bakhtin primarily used the concept in a broa-
der discussion of entire genres in the history of literature, such as the an-
cient Greek novel and the chivalric romance, but it can also be employed in
the case of individuals in a narrative (cf. Holquist 1990: 131–140).
A distinctive feature of some legends is that they imbue a portion of
local space with history (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 52). The place has a past, some-
times even a supernatural past, as in the legends I have adduced, and that
past is still present there. Consequently, such spaces are multitemporal or
Chronotopes 245
synchronous (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 28, 41), many times co-exist in them, and
they are significant in the present. They are not alien, without any relation
to the present (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 32–33). The heterochrony created by the
legend brings the narratives closer to the individual; events have occurred in
the listener’s immediate surroundings, and this knowledge might influence
future behaviour and experiences. By drawing such a chronotope into his
story through allusion, Alén engenders doubt about the proper chronotope
of the text. The doubleness of parodic discourse provides the perfect condu-
it for his exploration of chronotopic indeterminacy, but as Bakhtin stresses,
it is a dialogue between chronotopes, not within them—the individual chro-
notope constitutes a whole (Bakhtin 1986a: 252). This multiplicity of chro-
notopes within a narrative contributes to the multileveledness of the text.
Chronotopicity may be further examined in the story of “Little Matt”,
which does not lend itself equally well to an analysis of parodic stylization,
wherefore I will abstain from such an investigation here and concentrate on
other aspects of parody in it. The figure of Little Matt as portrayed in the
text neatly demonstrates the perhaps most important facet of the Bakhtinian
chronotope, its power to affect the image of man in literature (Bakhtin
1986a: 85). Little Matt’s counterparts in other variants of the tale are pre-
cisely such ready-made, unchanging persons as Bakhtin describes in his
essays on chronotopes and the Bildungsroman (Bakhtin 1986a; 1986b).
Neither the world nor the hero is capable of change, everything remains
the same no matter what happens. The price they have to pay for their
stable identity is death and banishment from the human world. The mo-
ment Little Matt feels compelled to offer his advice to the grieving king, he
embarks on a course that will lead him to his own becoming. He becomes
a social being, unlike the other semi-humans, who are loners and occasion-
ally somewhat antisocial. By involving himself in the king’s life and con-
cerns, he truly enters the human sphere and becomes an active, independent
participant in the events unfolding in this realm, in contrast to the other
semi-humans who only follow orders; they never do anything on their own
initiative. They cannot make their way in the world, and they behave like
automatons. While Little Matt really responds to humans, the others
merely react to them. He learns empathy and altruism, to act selflessly on
another’s behalf. That he simultaneously functions as the king’s somewhat
unorthodox supernatural helper, and that he is well aware of his own physi-
cal superiority, does not change this fact.
246 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
Little Matt takes the next step in his development when he joins the
other men and shares their life and work. Despite his seemingly indiffer-
ent attitude—he “might just as well” help the second old man with the
ploughing—he makes a serious commitment in this part of the story. For
the first time he is depicted as the member of a team; previously he has
always worked on his own. Now he comprehends the value of co-operation.
In his encounter with the beggar he demonstrates that he can let compas-
sion overcome suspicion, even if the beggar has devoured all their food for
two days, but also that he is capable of protecting the interests of his group.
Later he is forced to realize that not even friends can be trusted, at least not
in a naive way; whether he develops cunning because of this rather painful
experience is not stated in the text.
Finally, the marriage to the princess consummates his emergence as a
person. He has come full circle, from apprehending to protect his lord and
then his community to assuming responsibility for a wife, and with her a
kingdom. The private and public spheres are combined, the intimate and
the collective. Since people tend to marry for love in wonder tales, they
might do the same in parodies of wonder tales, and we may perhaps pre-
sume that Little Matt has learned to sustain a romantic relationship with a
woman, the missing link in his evolution. Thus his education as a man, a
husband and a ruler is complete.
That it is indeed a process of development and not the unfolding of char-
acteristics already present in his personality is evidenced by the fact that it
acquires plot significance. The whole plot is reinterpreted and restructured,
as I have previously shown, and time is inserted into the image of Little
Matt (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 21). His entire life is remoulded, and with it the
chronotope usually accorded the semi-human in the Swedish-language
tradition in Finland. He transcends the limitations of his origin and be-
comes an unprecedented being, which brings us to the second dimension of
his emergence. Not only Little Matt is involved in a process of change, the
world is evolving as well. Since Little Matt is on the threshold of two
epochs, and the transition is achieved in him and through him, the world is
forced to follow suit. Shaken in its foundations, its becoming intertwines
with Little Matt’s (cf. Bakhtin 1986b: 23–24). The dominant chronotope of
the story, the unspecified time and place of the wonder tale, preserves the
semblance of hegemony, and the vague conception of temporal flow is ren-
dered even more indistinct by Little Matt’s longevity, but it is apparent
Chronotopes 247
that he has subverted the ethical foundations of the world. The world must
move to accomodate him if he is to flourish in it, and it indubitably seems
he does.
6.4 Novelization
248 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
lacks a canon, but a liberation from ossified forms impeding their develop-
ment in a new historical context (Bakhtin 1986a: 39). Gary Saul Morson
and Caryl Emerson have, not without cause, labelled Bakhtin’s approach in
“Epic and Novel” a version of novelistic imperialism (Morson & Emerson
1990: 301), and I concur that some of his statements are somewhat exag-
gerated, but I still consider the notion of novelization a useful one, for it
delineates the process of applying a specific point of view on man and the
world, which is most palpable in the novel, to contexts where it is usually
absent. Moreover, though I will not at present explore this aspect further,
novelization is related to other, more extensive social changes which boost
it into primacy within the field of literature in a given period (Bakhtin
1986a: 7). Novelization is more a consequence than a cause.
I believe Alén is implementing a novelization of the image of Little Matt
by boosting the subtype-specific chronotope with that of his favourite gen-
re, the jocular tale, which, very much like the novel, is concerned with the
inconclusive present and its social diversity. I have already outlined the
essential traits of this process in the analysis of chronotopicity above, as the
markers of both coincide. In addition, novelization and the chronotope of
becoming engender a profound unfinalizability of the figure of Little Matt.
Being a term with many meanings, unfinalizability may designate innova-
tion, surprisingness, the genuinely new, openness, potentiality, freedom
and creativity (Morson & Emerson 1990: 36–37). It is the precondition of
creativity, ethical responsibility and historicity, as it is achieved in everyday
processes saturated with the requirements of an ethical point of view on
what is going on, and with the presentness and potentialities of each his-
torical moment. Time is open, and at every moment any one of numerous
possibilities may be realized. The present does not invariably follow from
the past, and it is not wholly constrained by the past (Morson & Emerson
1990: 38–49). Unexpected things still happen, like Little Matt’s becoming,
and they occur in the context of everyday events, as in the social situations
in and through which Little Matt grows as a person.
In the character of Little Matt, Johan Alén shows the potentials of true
freedom, which is neither random nor imaginary (Morson & Emerson
1990: 39–42), but imbued with a keen awareness of the nature of time and
the world, and the individual’s place in it. Little Matt is assuming respon-
sibility for his own place in existence, and is thus also created as an ethical
being. He knows that there is “no alibi for being”, as Bakhtin frequently
Novelization 249
stressed in his early works (Bakhtin 1993: 40 et passim). This implies that he
can relate to others while maintaining his sense of being a self, an open-
ended, unfinalizable entity, and that he engages in earnest dialogue with
them. Those themes, unfinalizability and dialogue, are the topic of the
next chapter.
250 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
term’s literary connotations, because it is an established designation for the
prime quality of Little Matt’s character, his unfinalizability. I have argued
that a similar chronotope is to be found in many jocular tales, Johan Alén’s
favourite genre (see Appendices A and B), and that he has super-imposed
it on the wonder tale, amplifying the parodic effect of the subtype through
the incompatibility of that chronotope with the one of the common
subtype of the tale. Hence Johan Alén manipulates chronotopes in two
distinct ways: in “Three Princes” he employs intertextual allusion in order
to add the more situated and disturbing chronotope of the legend to that of
the wonder tale, whereas the epic chronotope of the semi-human is largely
replaced by a novelistic one in “Little Matt” by connecting episodes to the
story not present in the best-known version of the taletype. In other words,
I think those variants of AT 650A which include AT 301B function as
parodies of AT 301, at least in the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland,
where narrators tend to favour variants disposing of the semi-supernatural
hero in some suitably gruesome way. In addition, I believe Alén’s rendi-
tion of the subtype is enriched by its intergeneric relations to jocular tales.
To what genre might “Three Princes” and “Little Matt” be said to be-
long? The question is a tricky one, and I will not endeavour to offer a solu-
tion to it; I will merely point to some considerations complicating the mat-
ter further. Parodic texts have been variously construed as constituting a
genre of their own (Hutcheon 1985: 18–19), or as comprising a subgenre of
the jocular tale (Simonsen 1995: 114–115). The most productive point of view
is perhaps furnished by Bakhtin who, while speaking of the parodic sonnets
in Don Quixote, states that a parodic sonnet cannot be classified generically
as a sonnet because the sonnet form does not function as a genre in this
case; it is rather the object of representation, the real hero of the parody. It
is an image of a sonnet, not a proper sonnet (Bakhtin 1986a: 51). Similarly,
the wonder tale as parodied by Johan Alén is not a real wonder tale, but the
image of a wonder tale.
So why did Johan Alén tell such odd variants of the tales? At this point
the metanarrational aspects of parody come to the fore. One possible ex-
planation has already been hinted at, i.e., the desire to criticize the world
portrayed in the wonder tale and the narrators cherishing it; Alén might
have had ideological objections to the world view reigning in the wonder
tale. Simultaneously, he might have felt that his chosen genre was being
denigrated and overshadowed by the wonder tale in the minds of folklore
252 Genre, Parody, Chronotopes and Novelization: the Wonder Tales of Johan Alén
7 THE PROBLEMS OF UNFINALIZABILITY
AND DIALOGUE
7.1 Introduction
Unfinalizability is, as celebrated by Bakhtin in his book on Dostoevsky
(first published in 1929), and in his own way, by Johan Alén in “Little
Matt”, in the context of traditions of the supernatural, sometimes more of
a curse than a blessing. The unfinalizability or indeterminacy of supranor-
mal creatures—the terms will be used interchangeably—is keenly felt as a
shortcoming and a source of fear for humans, as some of the examples
given below will demonstrate. Rather than embracing unfinalizability as a
necessarily positive value, then, a persistent urge to finalize, or consummate,
supernatural beings is occasionally evinced, and it may take radical forms
(see chapter 7.3, where I focus on this aspect). Often, however, trolls and
their kith and kin continue to be bewilderlingly unfinalized. Though this
may be to the chagrin of the human protagonists, it is also the lifeblood of
the supranormal tradition, as noted by Catharina Raudvere (Raudvere
1993: 122–123). Hence, stories of the supernatural regarded as a genre often
seem to require the unfinalizability of supranormal beings in order to be
effective as narratives. Therefore, I propose to study finalization and un-
finalizability in troll narratives, and to consider the ways in which it moulds
the relationship between man and supernatural creatures in the stories (the
third level of inquiry as mentioned in chapter 1.1). In this context I use the
term unfinalizability to refer to the construction of the image of the indi-
vidual in narrative, as well as to the construction of the narrative as a whole.
The conceptual framework needed to analyze troll tradition is not only
that of the positive unfinalizability of Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (the
1963 revised edition), but also that of the prepolyphonic Bakhtin of Author
and Hero in Aesthetic Activity (here cited according to the French translation
by Alfreda Aucouturier), when he had not yet discovered the pervasive
influence of the word on human subjectivity. In this early work, written in
the 1920s, Bakhtin was much concerned with finalization and the self–
other distinction. More importantly, he also pondered the “distortions” of
the artistic image effected by an incomplete finalization. I believe the no-
tion of defective finalization may be of assistance in investigating finali-
zation and unfinalizability in the narratives, as it can be used to highlight
Introduction 253
the anxieties of the latter, even though it was not expressly devised for that
purpose.
The concept through which Bakhtin explored the relation of author and
hero (self and other) was outsideness. In aesthetic activity, he argued, it was
the task of the author to finalize his characters, see them as a unified
whole, by remaining outside of their consciousness in space, time and val-
ues (Bakhtine 1984: 36). In order to achieve this finalization, the author
must use his surplus, the wider vision and knowledge he possesses that is
inaccessible to his characters. Bakhtin construed finalization as a gift
granted by the author to the hero, who is himself incapable of accomplish-
ing it from within his own being. The self cannot finalize itself—finaliza-
tion always comes from the outside—and if it could, it would be devasta-
ting: the principal characteristic of the self is that it never coincides with
itself, and it is this trait that ensures the possibility of life and action
(Bakhtine 1984: 34–35). A finalized self would not be a living self.
The surplus of vision exercised by the author is determined by his unique
place in existence, which he must occupy if his efforts are to be useful
and meaningful, and his acts ethically responsible and humane. Bakhtin
strongly emphasized the significance of maintaining outsideness in situ-
ations demanding a genuine understanding of the predicament of the oth-
er. He does not entirely deny the utility of identification with the other,
but he insists that the process cannot end there. Identification is not an
aesthetic act, and it does not engender a new perspective on an event.
Bakhtin illustrates his point with the case of a person in pain: merely re-
living his sensation, i.e., duplicating his experience, is utterly unproduc-
tive; what he craves is succor and kind words, and in order to provide that,
you have to be within your own horizon. You must feel his anguish in the
category of the other (Bakhtine 1984: 44–47; cf. Bakhtine 1984: 100).31
Hence Bakhtin posited a fundamental difference between the ways self
and other are perceived. The self cannot be subjected to any of the final-
izing measures fixing the other in space, time and meaning, as mentioned
above. The self lacks the visual and conceptual tools to see itself as a boun-
31 Bakhtin returned to his notion of outsideness in one of his last essays, “Response to a
Question from Novy Mir”, where he contemplated the state of literary research in the
1970s and criticized the tendency to “go native” in the encounter with another culture.
Only a position outside the foreign culture is mutually enriching, he states (Bakhtin
1986b:6–7).
Introduction 255
In this theory of aesthetic activity, unfinalizability emerges as a weakness
on the part of the author, as a malfunction of finalization. Autobiographical
writing is especially prone to it, as author and hero are essentially the same
person, and it might be hard to establish an outside position to an image of
oneself, but there are other instances as well (Bakhtine 1984: 39–42). One
possible consequence of this kind of unfinalizability is that the hero is
transferred to the category of self and loses his status as other. His body
and soul may disintegrate, his boundaries dissolve (Bakhtine 1984: 138–140).
My hypothesis is that the same happens to the troll in many texts, for every
story-teller wishing to narrate the supernatural seems to be in a similar
quandary, but for different reasons. The problem is not that he or she
merges with the other, it is rather that the supranormal being is too much
of a self. At this juncture it might be appropriate to return to the concept
of unfinalizability represented by the Dostoevsky book. Here Bakhtin links
unfinalizability to the polyphonic novel, contrasting it with the fin-
alization typical of the monological novel. The author of the polyphonic
novel, Bakhtin states, does not view the consciousness of the other as an
object, he perceives it as equal to himself, interminable and unfinalizable.
He assumes a dialogical position vis-à-vis the hero (Bachtin 1991: 71, 76),
who is marked by all the characteristics of the self. In other words, Bakhtin
completely re-evaluated his former stance regarding the desirability of fin-
alization and unfinalizability; the latter is no longer an error, but the acme
of artistic achievement. The unfinalizable image of the troll may likewise
be said to entail a dialogical position on the part of the narrator in relation
to the supranormal. Thus, I intend to examine the problem of unfinalizabi-
lity in the texts from the point of view of the narrator and the requirements
of the genre on the one hand, and from the perspective of the characters
within the text on the other. The latter will be the prime focus of inquiry.
In this case, the self will be regarded as the character from whose perspec-
tive the events and other characters in the narrative may be viewed, while
the other is the object of the self’s perceptions. No character will be defined
as the self in the narrative; each is a self in relation to himself, but an other
to the other characters.
When I speak of the point of view of the narrator, however, some quali-
fications must be made. Since the texts analyzed are traditional narratives, I
do not presume that the narrator has total liberty to mould the story as he
wishes. He must take the tradition into account, and refer to the conven-
Lorsque je contemple un homme situé hors de moi et face à moi, nos horizons con-
crets, tels qu’ils sont effectivement vécus par lui et par moi, ne coïncident pas. Aussi
près de moi que puisse se trouver cet autre, je verrai et je saurai toujours quelque chose
que lui-même, de la position qu’il occupe, et qui le situe hors de moi et face à moi, ne
peut pas voir: les parties de son corps inaccessibles à son propre regard—sa tête, son
visage, l’expression de ce visage —, le monde auquel il a le dos tourné, tout un ensemble
d’objets et de rapports qui, en fonction du rapport respectif dans lequel nous pouvons
nous situer, sont accessibles à moi et inaccessibles à lui. Lorsque nous nous regardons
l’un l’autre, deux mondes différents se reflètent dans la pupille de nos yeux. (Bakhtine
1984: 44)32
32 “When I contemplate a person situated outside of me and in front of me, our concrete
horizons, such as they are actually experienced by him and me, do not coincide. How-
ever close to me that other can find himself, I will always see and know something that
he, from the position he occupies and that situates him outside of me and in front of me,
cannot see: the parts of his body inaccessible to his own gaze—his head, his face, the
1) He va’ ejngang in pojk, som in bjergtrullflikku vila by’ frí til. Injin så in, iutom pojt-
sjin. Han briuka gá et’ vejin o spasjär me’ in o tala’ ejtt o anna. Hun sá he ’an int’ sku’
tal’ om va’ dem braska me’ varáder. Sliutligen byra’ un kom tíd, tär ’an båodd’, men in-
jin, iutom han så’ ’in. He va leng’ förrän han upptekt’ he ’un vila jift se’ me’ an. Sidan
tala’ an om vem an umjigs me’ o sá: “int sír ni ’in men to ja’ rör handin me’ sídun, so
ska’ ni vit’ he ’un je’ tär. Ja’ får int’ sej; fy’ to fysvinder ’un.” Når un sidan kom e kveld,
so röld pojtsjin handin me’ sídun, o to vist’ dem, he ’un va’ tär. To pojtsjin jåol’ he, so
fata’ hosbundin, som va’ pojtsjis fár eldbrandin iur spísin o slåo til, tär pojtsjin vist …
vann un ståo, o slåo lårbejne óv ’in. To vast ’un synli’, o he va’ én gambel mensk. Når
’un sidan sku’ fa’, so sku’ ’un ha’ vila há’ najnting óv pojtsjin: na klésplagg, elu na anna,
men tem gáv ’in int’. Sliutligen so bejdis ’un e håsstrå helst. He tykt’ dem ’un sku’
kunn’ få, o gáv ’in e (iur pojtsjis huvu). So fåor ’un óv, to ’un fi’ tag’ i håsstrå, men in-
nan kost, so va’ pojtsjin iutan hår. (R II 70)
1) Once upon a time there was a boy whom a hill troll girl wanted to start wooing. No-
body saw her except the boy. He used to walk along the road and stroll with her and
talk of one thing or another. She said he shouldn’t mention what they were chatting
about among themselves. Eventually she started coming to where he lived, but nobody
saw her except him. It was long before he discovered she wanted to marry him. Then
he mentioned whom he was seeing and said: “you won’t see her, but when I move my
hand along my side, you’ll know she’s there. I cannot tell, for then she’ll disappear.”
When she came one evening after that, the boy moved his hand along his side, and
they knew she was there. When the boy did that, the master of the house, who was the
boy’s father, gripped the poker from the hearth, and hit where the boy showed … she
was standing, and dislocated her thigh bone. Then she became visible, and it was an
old person. When she was about to leave, she wanted to have something from the boy:
some piece of clothing, or something else, but they didn’t give her. Finally she asked
for a hair at least. That they thought she could have and gave it to her (from the boy’s
head). Then she went off, as she got hold of the hair, but shortly thereafter, the boy
lost his hair.
Viewed from the parents’ perspective, the invisibility of the troll girl to
anyone but the boy constitutes her not as an other, but as a self, and it has
profound implications for their relation to her. One of the main criteria for
expression of that face—, the world to which he has turned his back, a whole of objects
and relationships that, according to the respective relationship in which we can place
ourselves, are accessible to me and inaccessible to him. When we look at each other, two
different worlds are reflected in the pupil of our eyes.” (My translation.)
2) En gáng kom en tsjerrgródo … til en torpartsjelg som höll op o brygg’ o hav dören
upp. To gródun kóm ove trosgålin, so såt un o hengd tungun ur munin o va’ mytsji
tsjokk o svart. Tsjeljen lág to drekk op e téfát o let un drekk’. Dájin báket kóm gród-
unas karin, som va’ e bergtroll o ba tsjeljin o gubbin henars ti’ fadders. Tom vela it föst
tröst gá, men so sá gubbin: “vi sku’ nu gá änto.” Tom följa bergtrolle. To dom kóm ti
et berg, va’ tär in stejnhällo som dören. Når dom tó’ upp hun, so va’ bergtrollenas bón-
ing júpt nér i berje. Ter va’ som i in árun stugo, o tsjeljin låg i basséng o va’ so kvít som
en árun bastsjelg. Tsjeljin, hun jót kva’ un sku jär o to dom sku’ gá bot, o va’ líte rädd
so sá bergtrolle, “it bihöver ni va’ na rädd, nó ska ja för er ti bák tít ter ja’ ha täji er!” To
dom ha jeti’ o drotsji o sku ga hejm jég bergtrolle bákom dören o öjst i tsjeljinas förkli
2) Once a marsh frog came … to a crofter woman who was brewing while keeping the
door open. When the frog passed over the threshold, it sat hanging its tongue out of its
mouth and was very fat and black. The woman then put something to drink on a
saucer and let it drink. The next day the frog’s husband who was a hill troll came and
asked the woman and her husband to become godparents. First they dared not go, but
then the man said: “We should go after all.” They followed the hill troll. As they came
to a hill there was a slab of stone [serving] as a door. When they opened it, the dwelling
of the hill trolls was deep down in the hill. There it was like in any other cottage, and
the woman was lying in childbed, and she was as white as any other woman in childbed.
The woman, she did what she was supposed to do, and when they were going away,
and were a little frightened, the hill troll said: “You needn’t fear, I’ll take you back to
the place where I took you.” When they had eaten and drunk and were going home,
the hill troll went behind the door and scooped chips [of wood] into the woman’s ap-
ron. She didn’t want them and didn’t know what to do with them, but she thought:
“I’ll take them when he gives them, they’ll surely be good for burning, if nothing else.”
The hill troll followed them on their way after opening the hatch for them. When they
came home, the woman thought: “What am I to do with this[”] and threw her chips
onto the hearth. But then they turned into silver coins, and those who had once been
poor got rich.
The narrative begins with the attribution of a definite physical form, that
of a white bear, to the troll. It is doubtful whether the narrator actually had
a polar bear in mind; the white colour may signal the supernatural identity
of the bear, as the colours white and black often function as markers of a
metaphysical character. They denote the abnormal and the sacred, the un-
usual and the unnatural, as Jochum Stattin, referring to the theories of
Edmund Leach, has observed (Stattin 1992: 98–99; Siikala 2002: 234). Yet
in spite of the concrete shape of the troll, unfinalizability is enhanced rather
than diminished because of the symbolic implications of the material form.
The spatial frame of the troll is thus finalized, but the temporal one, its
soul, is not. Once again, the position of outsideness is to no great avail for
the human characters; it enables them to perceive the body of the troll, but
4) Så flög han i två dagar och kom till en kungsgård. Där var en prinsessa, som satt i en
bur och inte vågade gå ut, så skulle ett troll fara af med henne. Då sade han åt prinses-
san, hvad han var för en karl. Prinsessan sade då: “Var nu här till morgonen, så skall
jag gå under bara himmelen, efter du kan flyga så hårdt”. – När dagen blef, så hade han
henne att gå under himmelen. Strax kom ett troll och for af med henne. Han lagade
sig till svan och flög bakefter, men fikk inte fast henne. Han flög två dagar bakefter. Så
kom han till en bärgklack ut i villa hafvet. Han var trött och hvilade sig. Som han går
och spatserar och äter gullstenar, så hittar han ett litet hål och lagade sig nio gånger
mindre än myran och kröp dit och där träffade han prinsessan. När prinsessan såg hon-
om blef hon glad och så gingo de ut och ackorderade, huru hon skulle slippa härifrån.
Så sade han åt henne: “Nu skall du narra af trollkäringen, att du får veta, hvar hon har
sin död gömd, och så skall jag taga lifvet af henne”. – Sedan gick hon in och sade:
“Hvart har farmor sin död gömd?” – “Huruså?” sade trollet. – “Annars bara”, sade hon.
– “Jag har den där i sopkvasten”, sade trollet. – Då låtsade hon inga bättre veta, bara
klädde den grann. När trollkäringen sedan kom in, så sade hon: “Hvarför har du klädt
4) He flew for two days and came to a royal farm. There was a princess there who was
sitting in a cage and dared not go out, since a troll would take her away. Then he told
the princess what kind of a man he was. The princess said: Be here until the morning,
and I will walk under the open sky, as you can fly so fast”.—When day broke, he made
her walk under the sky. Soon a troll came and made off with her. He made himself
into a swan and flew after them, but could not catch her. He flew after them for two
days. He came to a rock in the wild sea. He was tired and rested. As he is walking and
strolling and eating stones of gold, he finds a little hole and made himself nine times
smaller than the ant and crawled in and there he met the princess. When the princess
saw him she was glad and they went out to discuss how she should escape. He said to
her: “Now you shall trick the old troll woman, so that you get to know where she has
hidden her death, and I will slay her”.—Then she went in and said: “Where has
grandmother hidden her death?” —“Why?”, said the troll. —“Just because”, she said. —
“I have it there in the broomstick”, the troll said. Then she pretended not to know
better, but simply dressed it finely. When the old troll woman came in later, she said:
“Why have you dressed it so finely?”—“Well, since grandmother has her death hidden
in it”, the princess said.—“Well, women have long hair and a stunted mind”, the troll
said and stated: “My death is so many hundreds of miles from here that no-one can get
any further. There, at the end of the world, is a miller and in his mill pond is a dragon
which is so strong that no-one manages to kill it. And if anyone manages to kill it, a
dove comes out of it and it flies so quickly that no-one can catch it. But if anyone would
In the beginning of the passage quoted, the princess has locked herself into
a cage in order to protect herself from the unfinalizable troll. Once more
the insufficiently finalized temporal image of the troll results in immense
fear, as its actions are, if not unpredictable, at least fickle and menacing. At
this point, the spatial whole of the troll appears quite unproblematic: it is
hardly mentioned, and the characters behave as if it were self-evident. In
this case, the defective temporal finalization of the troll becomes closely
linked to its temporal boundaries, especially its death. Finding and effec-
ting this death is not an easy task, however, and the tenacity with which
the troll defends and defers it is almost admirable. It is as if the physical
unfinalizability of the troll has been transposed to the embodiment of its
death, which assumes many guises, and the very notion of a death con-
cealed within layers of living creatures indicates a certain insubstantiality;
the only “essence” the troll possesses is its unfinalizability, everything else is
changeable.
Notwithstanding, the actual death of the troll serves to create a finalized
image of it, and to move it from the category of another self to that of an
other. For once, its temporal boundaries become tangible and possible to
define, and viewed stripped of its future, the future and the present are as-
similated into its past. In this text, the other is literally dead for the self,
and the play of indeterminacy is halted, or so it would appear. I say appear,
5) de va en kong som add tri prinséssor o dom sku int slipp ut för en dom sku bli sju år
gamla, men sen bijära dom låv at slipp ut en da o slapp o. so när dom va ute komd en
sjy o to bort dem […] me sama kom trollkongin imm o sa: “är loftar kristi blod”. “he
5) There was a king who had three princesses, and they weren’t to be allowed to go out-
side before they’d turned seven years old, but one day they asked for permission to go
outside and got too. When they were outside a cloud came and took them away […]
Immediately the troll king came home and said: “[It] smells of Christian blood here”.
“That you’ll see”, the soldier said and decapitated him, and placed a handkerchief in
between so that the blood wouldn’t meet. But the tongue talked in his mouth though
the head was off: “Thou shouldst not have done this”.
The story begins with emphasizing the unfinalizability of the material shape
of the troll. In the guise of a cloud it abducts the three princesses, and it is
only later in the narrative that its “real” identity emerges. Insecurity about
its actions and designs, i.e., doubts connected to the unfinalizability of its
soul, has provoked the introduction of a taboo for the girls not to stay out-
doors until they have reached seven years of age. These precautions fail as
the princesses violate the taboo. When the soldier comes to liberate them
from the clutches of the troll, he gets more than he has bargained for. The
troll king does indeed die as the soldier beheads it, but that does not stop it
from talking. It is too stubborn, and too unfinalizable, for that. It refuses
to be placed in the category of the other, and demands to be perceived as
another, alien self. In other words, it overtly requires the adoption of that
extreme form of outsideness characteristic of polyphony (Emerson 2000:
211), or something akin to it. The humans never assume a truly dialogical
position vis-à-vis the troll, they never try in earnest to let it reveal itself in
dialogue, but they are forced to acknowledge the impossibility of consum-
mating it once and for all.
The troll disdains any attempt to reduce the unity of its life, which is a
unity of meaning, to a spatio-temporal unity. The death of its spatio-
temporal form proves to be irrelevant, since it is incapable of making the
exterior and the interior of the troll coincide, or of condensing and rhyth-
micizing its life. No significant boundaries exist for it, as even death con-
tributes to its unfinalizability, and neither during its life nor after its passing
is any requiem needed. The troll is simply, and perpetually, a self. The
narrator exploits that fact, using the conventional story-line to stress the
utter unfinalizability of the troll and his own dialogical attitude to it, both
aspects conforming to the generic code.
6) Når dom sidan kom’ hejm, so ha’ trullis båne’ smutsa’ neder se’, o pojtsjin båd trulli’
[d.v.s. trollet bad pojken] gá rens. Pojtsjin lydd’, men skár opp båne’ o tåo’ inelvuna iur
e, o hengd kroppin på knappan me’ dörin, sidan ’an ’a’ tvetta’ e som e anna slaktjiur. To
’an ha jåost he dé, so fréga’ trulle’: “ ’vast jåol’ dö óv båne’?” “Ja’ rensa’ ju e o tvetta’ e o
hengd’ e på knappan me’ dörin,” svara’ pojtsjin. “Nö vejt ja int’, ’vast ja’ ska’ jer’ ov de’.
nö ha’ dö pota’ ögunin iur all’ jejten, o nö ha’ dö teji’ líve óv båne’, nö ska’ ja’ eld iunin o
hev’ de’ tíd,” sá’ trulle’, o so byra’ ’an eld iunin. (R II 67)
6) Then when they came home, the troll’s child had got itself dirty, and the boy asked
the troll [i.e., the troll asked the boy] to go and cleanse it. The boy obeyed, but cut up
the child and removed the entrails, and hung the body on the knobs by the door when
he had washed it like any other animal to be butchered. As he had done that, the troll
asked: “What did you do with the child?” “Why, I cleansed it and washed it and hung
it on the knobs by the door,” the boy answered. “Now I don’t know what to do with
you. Now you’ve plucked the eyes out of all the goats, and now you’ve killed the child,
now I’ll heat the oven and throw you into it”, the troll said, and it started heating the
oven.
The problem lies in the verb rensa, which literally denotes the act of gut-
ting an animal. It can also be used more metaphorically in the sense of to
clean, and that is the way in which the troll expects it to be taken, but it
underestimates the evil designs of the boy. He seizes the opportunity to
inflict pain on the troll by slaughtering its progeny, exploiting literalism as
an excuse for doing so, and invoking feigned daftness as his alibi.
The troll in this text does not exhibit any dialogical inclinations. When
it converses with the boy, it is completely focused on eliciting the replies it
text 1: R II 70
monologue/unfinalizability – monologue/finalization – monologue/unfinalizability
(parents)
dialogue/unfinalizability – monologue/finalization – monologue/unfinalizability
(boy)
text 2: R II 336
dialogue/finalization (humans’ relation to troll woman)
monologue/unfinalizability (humans’ relation to male troll)
text 6: R II 67
monologue/?
280 Discussion
series of metaphors, to describe the intertextual relations between troll
texts, other folklore texts and Biblical stories. The primary material con-
sisted of two groups of texts on abduction and the banishment of trolls
collected in the Ostrobothnian parish of Vörå. I suggested that folklore
and the religious tradition formed parts of the same network of associations,
and that folklore could not be interpreted in isolation from Christianity
and the dialogue it pursues with it because of the sustained contacts be-
tween the traditions. I also considered how other discourses affected their
relationship, utilizing the concept of interdiscursivity elaborated by Norman
Fairclough. The investigation of the power relations between discourses is
a crucial aspect of the theory, and I therefore combined it with Michel
Foucault’s conception of power which emphasizes the emergent nature of
relations of power and the inseparability of power and resistance. Thus, the
dominant discourse, the religious discourse, and the dominated discourse,
folklore, were in a constant struggle for ascendancy, and the labels dominant
and dominated are not absolute. The high status of the religious discourse
was reinforced by its institutional backing and its claims to knowledge and
truth, as it professed to offer an eternal truth of salvation in Christ. Here
the forms of intertextual relations discussed—agreement, inversion or re-
versal, and negation—become important as they may indicate the relative
strengths of the two discourses. Agreement might hint at the dominance
of the religious discourse, while inversion or reversal and negation may re-
present challenges to it, functioning as vehicles of critique of the religious
tradition, either an ideological critique as in chapter 4, or social critique as
in chapter 5. Although such a correspondence between intertextual relation
and power relation is by no means universal—there are several exceptions
to the rule—it works as a preliminary hypothesis which must be reassessed
in each individual case.
Some of the contemporaneous discourses influencing the power relation
between folklore and religion have been presented: the discourse of the
discipline of folkloristics which partially raised the status of folklore, and
the discourse of liberalism which advocated the detachment of the individ-
ual from the authority of the church. The discourse of popular enlighten-
ment reinforced both the religious and the popular discourse in the begin-
ning of the period, but shifted more toward the popular discourse later on.
A potential development of the concerns of this study might be an ex-
tension of the analysis to include the link to early modern contexts and
281
mentalities; in spite of the social changes of the 19th and early 20th centu-
ries, the rural population was still a part of that context to some extent.
Nevertheless, since this subject constitutes a separate field of research with
its own methods and points of view, I have not been able to pursue that
inquiry further at present.
To summarize the findings of chapters 4 and 5, the image of the troll is
woven out of elements drawn from different texts and discourses which be-
long to the same system of referentiality or web of associations; Biblical
texts and images consequently supply the pagan troll and its dominion with
some of their attributes through the intertextual connections likening the
spiteful troll to Christ revealing the secrets of ordinary men and women,
and the bounteous world of the troll to the primordial Garden of Eden.
These conclusions contribute to our knowledge of the construction of re-
ligious beliefs and expressions in a local community influenced by religious
revivals, in this case the Ostrobothnian parish of Vörå.
Regarding the distinguishing characteristics of the notion of intertextu-
ality, one might ask how it differs from conventional comparison. The
principal divergence seems to be the implications of an intertextual analysis
and a comparison respectively. In the former case, the text under study and
its intertexts are perceived as forming integral parts of “an entire system of
referentiality”, as Laura Stark-Arola so eloquently puts it (Stark-Arola
1998: 188), while in the latter instance that is seldom the case. The first ap-
proach accords greater interpretative value to the relation between texts,
and assumes a different sort of connection between them; they constitute a
more intimately linked network of associations than a mere comparison
would permit.
In chapter 6 I scrutinized the generic components of the image of the
troll, and examined how the manipulation of these elements could alter the
conception of it. Two peculiar stories narrated by the carpenter Johan Alén
from the parish of Vörå furnished the primary objects of analysis. To come
to terms with the problem of genre, I employed Charles Briggs’ and
Richard Bauman’s theory of intertextual gaps supplemented with Mikhail
Bakhtin’s conceptualizations of parody, chronotopes, novelization and un-
finalizability to understand the relation of Alén’s narratives to their generic
model. I found that the first text was linked to not one, but two generic
models, those of the (parodied) wonder tale and the (parodying) legend,
while the oddity of the second narrative was due to the incorporation of
282 Discussion
episodes not common to most Swedish-language variants of the type in
question. In the former case, the intertextual gap between text and generic
model was minimized on the level of the parodied wonder tale, but maxi-
mized on the level of the parodying legend, producing a simultaneous pre-
sence of minimization and maximization which contributed to the parodic
effect of the story. The introduction of the parodying language of the leg-
end through intertextual allusion also changed the chronotope of the nar-
rative, endowing it with more sinister overtones. In the latter instance, the
maximization of intertextual gaps through the adoption of “alien” episodes
in the story resulted in the modification of the usual chronotope of the
semi-supernatural being, converting it into a novelistic one stressing the
evolution and unfinalizability of the character.
Hence Johan Alén’s two narratives demonstrate the importance of gen-
eric framing in the construction of the image of the troll. The manipula-
tion of intertextual gaps and chronotopes allows a different conception of
the troll to emerge.
In chapter 7 I continued pondering the generic constitution of the troll
on the basis of a more extensive material than in the previous section. I
argued that the indeterminacy of the troll was an essential element in the
construction of it in the context of narratives of the supernatural, and that
the requirements of the genre and the interests of the characters diverge on
this point. For the latter, unfinalizability is a source of anxiety, while it is
the lifeblood of the former, and the prerequisite for a good story. Thus, I
complemented Bakhtin’s notion of unfinalizability with his early formula-
tion of the concept of finalization in order to study the relationship be-
tween unfinalizability and finalization in the texts. The difficulties experi-
enced by the characters in their struggle to finalize the troll were centred
on either the physical indeterminacy of the troll or its spiritual unfinalizabi-
lity, or both. In several of the narratives, there is an interplay of finalization
and unfinalizability, but the latter tends to win out in the end.
I also related the problem of unfinalizability to Bakhtin’s conception of
monologue and dialogue, positing that the narrator usually assumed a dia-
logical position vis-à-vis the troll, i.e., that he treated it as an unbounded,
unfinalizable being, in order to accomplish the effect of indeterminacy dis-
tinctive for the genre. On the level of the characters, monologue was pre-
dominant in the relationship between man and troll. Dialogue of some sort
was evinced in only two texts of those examined, and just one of these
283
exhibited the Bakhtinian form of dialogue in which it is coupled with un-
finalizability. Intriguingly, trolls were somewhat more inclined to engage
in dialogue than humans were. From the point of view of the latter though,
monologue entails protection and demarcation from, as well as exclusion
of, the supranormal other. In other words, unfinalizability constitutes a
serious obstacle to a dialogue between man and troll, as it engenders fear
and explicit or implicit hostility to supernatural creatures.
An important task for future research would be to examine the generic
significance of unfinalizability in narratives of the supranormal using a con-
siderably larger body of material than the one consulted here. The conclu-
sions drawn from my rather limited corpus are merely tentative, even though
I believe they might be pointing in the right direction.
To summarize, theories of intertextuality and genre help to explain the
realization of images of the supernatural in narrative by linking the elements
employed in the construction of these images to other texts and discourses
in which they are current, and to the genres/generic models which they
contribute to the reconstruction and reconfiguration of.
Finally, it is imperative to contemplate the wider applicability of the
methods of interpretation utilized in this dissertation. The three concepts
of intertextuality discussed—intertextuality proper, interdiscursivity and
intergenericity—form a coherent interpretative framework in that they are
all based on the same underlying principle, namely the absorption and
transformation of another text or discourse, or of a generic model, into the
text/discourse under study. Context is comprehended in the notions of
text, discourse and genre, and is therefore a constitutive feature of inter-
textuality, yet only one among many. In the present case, some aspects of
context, such as situational context, have been impossible to address due to
the nature of the sources, but scholars working with contemporary material
might have more opportunities to develop this facet further.
The advantage of this tripartite model is that it can be employed to chart
the relations between different domains within a culture, or between ele-
ments of a single domain. As such, it is a valuable instrument in cultural
research, which attempts to understand the workings of human culture. It
might be added that the link between folklore and the religious tradition is
only one of many examples, albeit an important one, and so is the legend-
ization of the wonder tale in parody. The framework could also be supple-
284 Discussion
mented with a theory of the intertextualized subject to cover that aspect as
well; unfortunately I have not been able to elaborate that point in this study.
It has been my ambition to promote a more holistic perspective on folk-
lore, folk belief and images of the supernatural by stressing the associations
between official religion and folk belief in the examples provided by my
material. For the narrators of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, these
discourses were integrated constituents of their lives, their world views and
their stories, and in our interpretation of folklore this must be taken into
account. My investigation also points to the existence of popular concep-
tions about the expression of religion; since it is not meaningful to separate
folk belief from official religion when both deal with the same themes and
structure them in similar ways, folk belief should perhaps be regarded as a
form of religion. These similarities hint at a common store of expressions
of religion, the use of which is subject to considerations as yet unexplored.
This aspect would merit further attention.
In addition, my study underlines the significance of the active construc-
tion of genre in the creation of images of the supernatural in folk belief,
and could probably be extended to the generation of images in folklore in
general. It also indicates the crucial role of chronotopes in the construction
of narratives, and highlights the mutability and multiplicity of chronotopes
utilized in narrative, especially in ironic and parodic stories. Similarly, the
notion of unfinalizability helps to explain the relationship between man and
supranormal beings constructed in folk belief.
285
9 ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
AT Aarne & Thompson 1961
CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
FF Folklore Fellows
FU Förhandlingar och uppsatser (‘Negotiations and Essays’)
NIF Nordiska institutet för folkdiktning (Nordic Institute of Folklore)
R Ranckens samlingar (The Rancken collection)
SLS Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (The Swedish Literature
Society in Finland)
Unpublished
Helsingfors:
Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (SLS), Folkkultursarkivet:
SLS 1, SLS 10, SLS 21, SLS 22, SLS 28, SLS 31, SLS 33, SLS 37, SLS 45,
SLS 56, SLS 59, SLS 65, SLS 71, SLS 72, SLS 80, SLS 98, SLS 137 Sagor I,
SLS 137 Sagor II, SLS 166, SLS 192a, SLS 202 Sagor I, SLS 202 Sagor II,
SLS 208, SLS 213, SLS 215, SLS 217, SLS 220, SLS 226, SLS 228, SLS 255,
SLS 275, SLS 280, SLS 290, SLS 299, SLS 319, SLS 320, SLS 324, SLS 333,
SLS 338, SLS 374
Åbo:
Åbo Akademi University, Archive of the Department of Folklore:
R I; R II
IF 111
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R II 131: Löpargossen och hans katt (‘The Errand Boy and His Cat’); AT 1651
Whittington’s Cat – Jocular Tale
R II 162: En annan berättelse om en bortbyting (‘Another Narrative of a
Changeling’) – Legend
R II 218: Sagan om Doktor Klok och Vis (‘The Tale of Doctor Sensible and
Wise’); AT 1641 Doctor Know-All – Jocular Tale
R II 219: Resan till konungariket Midnattssol (‘The Journey to the Kingdom of
the Midnight Sun’); AT 400 The Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife –
Wonder Tale
R II 220: Kvinnan som sålde smör på Åbo Torg (‘The Woman Selling Butter in
the Marketplace in Åbo’); AT 1382 The Peasant Woman at Market – Jocular
Tale
R II 221: Gumman som alltid var missnöjd med sin man när han kom hem från
staden (‘The Old Woman Who Was Always Discontent with Her Husband
When He Came Home from Town’); AT 1383 The Woman Does not Know
Herself – Jocular Tale
303
3) Tsjittargrå
He va’ ejngang e pa’folk, som lävd’ lyklit o aldri’ gräla’. To int’ fänin lykkast få dem ti’ perr’
o stríd’, so ji’ ’an ti’ Tsjittargrå o sá’: om hun sku’ få he di pa’foltsji’ ti’ gräl’, so sku’ ’un få e
pa’ pjeksor. Tsjittargrå hun lova’ jer’ e, o ji’ föst ti’ tsjern’jin o sá’ åt hennar: “om dö får
skuri’ bost tem di trí strånin ’an (hennes man) hár i stjeddje’ sett, so vál ’an ännu beter.
Han je’ mytsji’ redd fy’ dem, to ska’ sí et’ to do luskar ’an”. Sidan ji’ ’un ti’ kárin hennas o
sá’: “to ska’ sí de’ nåoga fyri nesta gang, to tsjern’jin dín luskar de’, hun tenker stjer striu-
pan óv de’ ”. To tsjern’jin sidan luska’ gubbin sen, so vila ’un sí i stjeddje’ hans o, fy’ ti’ få
bost skuri tem di strånin. Som ’un sku’ sí i stjeddje’ hans, so tråodd’ han som Tsjittargrå
sá’ he tsjern’jin hans vila stjer’ striupan óv ’an, o byra’ perr’ o dra’ se’ undan, o ti sliut so by-
ra’ dem slåss’. Tsjittargrå hun iutretta’ no he som int’ fänin va’ kár til’. Från tan tídin ha’
pa’foltsji’ gräla’, int’ förr. Tsjittargrå je’ hun, som föst jåol’ he, o fänin motta’ som ’an lova’
söm’ åt ’in e pa’ ny pjéksor. Han sat på tsjyrkkamban o söma’ dem, o bekksnörin rekt’ en-
da neder ti’ jåolin. To ’an ejn gang (det var om en söndagsmorgon) dråo’ opp snöre’, so
rykt’ ’an me’ ti sama opp in tsjerng. Fänin tykt to: “he kom fy’ ståor kniut”, men sá’ ’an:
“he ska’ ful änto dog’ åt Tsjittargrå”, o klappa’ líti’ om ’an me’ hamarin. To pjéksuna va’
fädi’, so dösa’ int’ fänin jev’ dem åt Tsjittargrå, annan bár dem på in humbelstang o rekt’
dem yvi’ älvin ti’ ádrun sídun åt Tsjittargrå. (R II 14)
3) Tsjittar Grey
Once upon a time there was a couple that lived happily and never quarreled. When the
Devil didn’t get them to tease and fight, he went to Tsjittar Grey and said: if she got that
couple to quarrel, she’d get a pair of boots. Tsjittar Grey promised to do it, and first she
went to the woman and said to her: “if you can cut off those three hairs he (her husband)
has in his beard, he’ll be even better. He’s very anxious about them, you should look when
you’re delousing him.” Then she went to her husband and said: “you should be very care-
ful the next time your wife delouses you, she’s going to cut your throat.” When the woman
deloused her husband, she wanted to look in his beard too, to get those hairs cut off. As
she was going to look in his beard, he believed his wife wanted to cut his throat, as Tsjittar
Grey said, and started teasing her and withdrew, and finally they started fighting. Thus
Tsjittar Grey now did what the Devil couldn’t do. From that time onward, the couple has
quarreled, not before. Tsjittar Grey is the one to accomplish it first, and the Devil had to
sew a pair of new boots for her, as he’d promised. He was sitting on the church roof sew-
ing them, and the wax-end laces reached to the ground. Once when he pulled up the lace
(it was a Sunday morning), he pulled up a woman at the same time. The Devil thought:
“the knot is too big”, but said: “it’ll surely be good enough for Tsjittar Grey anyway”, and
struck it a little with the hammer. When the boots were ready, the Devil dared not give
them to Tsjittar Grey, but carried them on a pole and handed them over the river to the
other side to Tsjittar Grey.
305
yet”, the bear answered. When they continued on their way, they met an old man, and the
lion asked: “Is that a man?” “No, he’s been a man, but is no longer” the bear answered.
They continued on their way until they’d meet a man. When they had walked a while,
they met a Cossack on a horse. “Is that a man?[”], the lion asked when it saw the Cossack
come riding. “Yes, that’s a man, and now I’ll be off”, the bear answered and walked beside
the road. “I’m not afraid of him”, the lion said and stayed on the road. The Cossack,
when he saw the lion, he started shooting as much as he could manage. Finally the lion
had to go away. Later, when it met the bear, he asked: “What did he say to you?” [“]He
spat as hotly as hell”, the lion answered.33
7) Sjömamsellen
Ejngang kom på e stjep’, to e just sku’ kom’ i land in mamsell undan fartyi’ om båol, o
stjepe städd’, just to ’un kom opp. Hun há e brejv, som ’un lemna’ åt in sjöman o bá’, he
’an sku’ skaff’ fram e til’ klokkun sex om morunin. Hun sá’ namne’ på gatun o numrun på
gålin tíd ’an sku’ gá, o nemd’ han o i namn, som sku’ há e. Sjömannin tåo’ brejve’ o lova’
för’ fram e o, o hun di mamsellin fåor undi’ stjepe’ tibák’. To ’an kom i land, so byra’ ’an
siup’, o dröjdd’ enda ti’ etmiddáin föri ’an hoxa he ’an ha’ e brejv, som ’an ’a’ lova’ skaff ’
fram. To ’an kom ti han di gålin, tíd brejve’ sku’ föras, so fanns injin tär, som ha e tuku
namn som ståo’ på brejve’. Sliutligen hoxa dem he kattun ha’ e tuku namn. Sjömannin biu-
ga’ se’ to o rekt’ kattun brejve’. Kattun tåo imåot e, men vart me ti sama in mensk o sá’: “de
här ha do båoda va’ jär me’ i morust klokkun sex.” Som ’un ha’ sakt he, so tåo’ ’un sjöman-
nin i örunin o fåor iut me’ ’an midt emillan två fönster, o gluddjin lemna’ opp báket’ från
ejtt fönster ti ti anna, fast e va’ stejnhius. Kattun ha’ vari sextun år i he di hiuse’. (R II 77)
307
i sama unjiform, som ’an va i, to konun’jin fåor fy’bíd ’an. Han kom. To ’an kom in på
håve’, so föll ’an på kné o bád om nåd. Konun’jin sá he ’an sku’ stíg’ opp, int’ va’ he na ti’
va’ redd. To ’an stejg opp, so fréga’ konun’jin åt håvfröknar, om naun vila hav ’an ti’ man.
Dem tejg. Kungen högd’ opp ’an ti’ löjtnant o fréga’ åter, om naun vila hav ’an ti’ man.
Dem tejg. Han vast sidan opphögd ti’ kaptejn o kungen fréga, om naun håvfröken vila
hav ’an ti’ man. Dem tejg. Han vast opphögd ti’ majór, o sídan ti’ öväst, men int’ naun
håvfröken vila hav ’an ti’ man. Sliutligen opphögd’ konun’jin ’an ti’ övastlöjtnant, o fréga’
åt håvfröknana, om naun vila háv ’an ti’ man. Nö va’ e ejn, som svara’ he ’un vila hav’ ’an
ti’ man. Han fi’ nö byr’ gá i skåolan o lär’ se’ ti’ ovastlöjtnant. (R II 79)
9) Portträttet (sic)
In pottrettmålar kom ejngang ti’ in herrgål, tär herrin vila he ’an sku’ mål’ e pottrett óv ’an
men i riddardrekt, me’ jälm, spjiut, hánisk o sväd. Målarin lova’ jer’ e, o ji’ i e anna rium o
mål’. Han måla’ herrin ti’ kokk me’ grytor, tsjittlar, pannor o slejvar. To pottrette’ va’ fä-
dit, so ströjk ’an yvi’ e me’ vattfergun o måla’ in riddar ovanpå. Han lemna’ nö pottrette’ åt
herrin, som tykt’ he va’ brá måla’, men he va’ so mulit. Målarin gáv ’an in svamp, o in flas-
ku o sá’ to fjåostun dagar ha’ vari’, so sku’ ’an hell’ iur flaskun på han di svampin o stryk på
pottrette’, so sku’ e få glansin på se’. Herrin va’ nögd o lova’ jer’ som målarin bifalt ’an. To
14 dagar ha’ vari’, so bjeöd herrin fremmand he dem sku’ få sí hur’ målarin ha’ stofära’ iut
’an. Når all’ va’ fy’sambla’, so held’ herrin iur hun di flaskun på svampin o ströjk yvi’
pottrette’, o to kom kotsjin fram, nå’ vattfergun ji’ bost. Herrin fi’ nö sí ’va’ målarin ha’
måla’ ’an til’, o han ha fari’ vejin sen, sidan ’an ha váli’ väl bitáld fy’ arbejte’ sett. All’ byra’
skratt’ åt pottrette’ hans, to dem så’ kotsjin, grytor, pannor, tsjitlar o slejvor. (R II 80)
9) The Portrait
Once a portrait painter came to a manor, where the lord wanted him to paint a portrait of
him, but in a knight’s dress, with helmet, spear, armour and sword. The painter promised
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10) The Three Suitors
Once upon a time there was a rich damsel who had three suitors who didn’t know of this,
but each of them thought he was the only one. Then it so happened one evening that all
of them came to her, but one at a time. When the first one came and stated his business,
the damsel said: “if you go to the belfry, there’s an empty coffin there, and lie down in it,
and lie there during the night, you’ll get a yes.” He went to the belfry and lay down in an
empty coffin that was there. When he had left, the second suitor came and stated his
business. “If you go to the belfry and knock with your cane on a coffin that’s there all
night, you’ll get a yes,” the damsel said. “I’ll dare to do it, surely,” the suitor said and left.
When he came to the belfry, he stood there and knocked on the coffin all night. After
him the third suitor came to the damsel and asked her to be his wife. She answered him:
“if you put on a white shirt, and walk on the graveyard the whole night, you’ll get a yes.”
He was content to do as she asked him: he put on a white shirt and walked to and fro on
the graveyard the whole night. When he was walking, he heard how the other knocked
on the coffin in the belfry, and the one doing the knocking saw the other walking in a
white shirt all night, without knowing who it was, and the one lying in the coffin heard
the knocking all night. When morning came, the one walking on the graveyard left first.
He went to the damsel, who asked him how he had felt during the night. “Well, but there
were knocks in the belfry and on the coffin all night,” he answered. Then he went to an
inn that was nearby to get a drink. When he had left, the one doing the knocking on the
coffin in the belfry came to the damsel. She asked him how he had felt during the night.
“Well, if a white man hadn’t been walking on the graveyard all night,” he answered. Then
he went to the same inn as the first one to get breakfast. When he had left, the one lying
in the coffin came to the damsel. She asked him how he had felt during the night. “Well,”
he thought, “but there were knocks on the coffin all night.” Then he went to the inn to
get a breakfast drink, and he met the other two suitors there. They started talking about
what had happened during the night without knowing each other. First, the one walking
on the graveyard said where he had been, and how there had been noise in the belfry all
night. When the one doing the knocking on the coffin heard that, he said: “It was surely
you, that white [man] walking on the graveyard last night?” “Yes,” he thought. As soon as
the one lying in the coffin heard that, he said to the one knocking: “It was surely you
knocking on the coffin all night, so that I couldn’t sleep?” “Yes,” he thought. Now the
three suitors got to know each other, and when they learned that the damsel had so many
suitors at the same time and had fooled them too, they all left her.
11) Bedragen
In kvinnu ji’ ejngang ti’ in gullsmed o bisteld’ se’ e par ny silverjiusstakar ti’ in bistemd dág.
Hun sá’ se sku’ há’ dem åt in präst, som sku’ hald kálas. Gullsmedin jåol’ som ’un vila o
laga’ e par silverjiusstakar åt ’in ti tan dáin ’un bistemd. To hun di kvinnun ha’ gá’ från
gullsmedin, so ji’ ’un ti’ prästin o fréga’, om ’un int’ sku’ få kom’ til’ han me’ kárin sen, han
grublar, so ’un tråor ’an vál tåoku. Prästin sá’, he ’un sku få kom’ tan annan dáin, solejs just
tan sama dáin, to jiusstakan sku’ vál fädi’. Tan annan dáin so jig ’un ti’ gullsmedin o fréga’
om tem di jiusstakan va’ fädi’. “Jeo’,” tykt gullsmedin o tåo’ fram dem. Kvinnun linda’
dem i in vít handdiuk, o bá’ gullsmedin själv kom’ me’ ti’ prästin, so sku’ ’an få bitálning.
Gullsmedin fåld’ me’ ’in. To dem kom’ ti’ prästis, so bá ’un gullsmedin gá in i kamarin
11) Deceived
Once a woman went to a goldsmith and ordered a pair of new silver candlesticks for a cer-
tain day. She said she was getting them for a priest who was going to hold a party. The
goldsmith did as she wanted and made a pair of silver candlesticks for the day she had
fixed on. When the woman had left the goldsmith, she went to the parson and asked, if
she couldn’t come to him with her husband, he was brooding, so that she thought he was
going crazy. The parson said she could come another day, that is, the very day the silver
candlesticks were supposed to be ready. That day she went to the goldsmith and asked if
the candlesticks were ready. “Yes,” the goldsmith thought and brought them out. The
woman wrapped them in a white towel and asked the goldsmith to come along to the par-
son to get his payment himself. The goldsmith followed her. When they came to the
parson, she asked the goldsmith to go into his chamber, and he’d get the payment for his
candlesticks, and she pretended to go to the kitchen herself. The goldsmith went to the
place he was shown to, and the woman, she ran off, without anyone knowing where she
went. When the goldsmith came in to the parson, they stood for a good while looking at
each other without speaking a word. Finally, the goldsmith said he wanted to be paid for
the silver candlesticks he had ordered. The parson who thought he was the woman’s hus-
band brooding (on silver and gold) held a great sermon for the goldsmith, [saying] he
shouldn’t brood on silver and gold and earthly riches that he’d have to leave behind any-
way. [“]I’m not brooding on anything, I want payment for the silver candlesticks the pas-
tor has ordered for a certain day,” the goldsmith answered. When they mulled it over with
each other, they noticed they had been deceived, the both of them. The parson never-
theless paid for one candlestick in order to share the damage with the goldsmith.
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Kaptejnin fréga’ to, om dem int’ hár naun katt. He vist’ dem int’ ’va’ he va’ fy’ e jiur. Katt-
namne’ ha’ dem aldri höst. “Ja’ hár in kajiutpojk, som hár e lislat jiur, som hejter kattun,
hun tager nåok bost mössin” tykt’ kaptejnin. Kattun vast et’stjikka’. To kattun kom, so
tåo’ hun in hejl håop me’ möss, o skremd’ bost ti áder. Tem tsjöft’ nö hun di kattun óv
kajiutpojtsjin, o han fi in ståor siumu me’ pängar fy’ ’in. So vast ’an rík jinom kattun, fast
’an kasta’ i sjön ’va’ ’an fi’ erv. (R II 131)
12) The Errand Boy and His Cat
Once upon a time there was a poor, defenceless boy who happened to inherit a sum of
money from rich relatives who had no direct heirs. When he got the money, he went
down to the lake and threw everything in it, saying: the unjustly [gained] could sink and
the justly [gained] should float. Everything sank down so that just a two-penny coin float-
ed. The boy took the coin and went to a rich manor and stayed there as an errand boy.
When he had been there for some time, they sent a ship abroad. Every sailor could bring
something to sell in the country they were sailing to. All of them said the errand boy
should take something too[.] “I don’t have anything to take with me,” the boy answered.
“Well, take the cat with you!,” the captain said. He did so. When they arrived at the for-
eign country, they came to a castle to declare their cargo. When the captain went there,
an awful lot of mice ran there. The captain asked if they had no cat. They didn’t know
what kind of animal that was. They had never heard of the cat. “I have a cabin boy who
has a small animal called the cat, she’ll take away the mice,” the captain thought. The cat
was sent for. When the cat came, it took a whole lot of mice, and scared off the others.
They bought the cat from the cabin boy, and he got a big sum of money for it. Thus, he
got rich through the cat, even though he threw what he’d inherited in the lake.
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the midnight sun. Her husband didn’t want to let her go, but when she didn’t relent, he
said she could go, but he’d accompany her, but she didn’t want that. At last he had to let
her go alone. When she was going, she broke her wedding ring that had her and his name
in it in two pieces, and gave the piece with her name in it to her husband, and took that
piece herself which bore the husband’s name. Then she went, but never returned. When
she didn’t come back, her husband went looking for her. He sought for her around the
world, as he thought, but didn’t find her. Finally, when he had searched everywhere and
didn’t find [her], he went to the forest to search, if he’d find her there. When he was
searching in the forest, he came to a large castle, where a dragon stood guard by the gate.
As the man saw it, he thought to himself: “be whatever you want, I’ll surely shoot”. He
shot and the dragon fell down to the ground. When the dragon fell, the man went to the
gate and started knocking on it. When he knocked, a damsel came to open it. When he
passed through, she asked him what his business was. He stated his business: that he was
looking for his wife who was from the kingdom of the midnight sun. As he’d said that,
the damsel said she was the head of all birds, and if they didn’t know, she’d surely say
where the kingdom of the midnight sun was. At once she blew in a pipe, and then all
kinds of birds came there. She asked them if they don’t know where the kingdom of the
midnight sun is. They didn’t know that, but one bird was still missing, a big eagle, and
they believed it’d know it. Finally it came too. It had been in the kingdom of the mid-
night sun, and that’s why it had taken so long for it to arrive. When the eagle came, the
damsel asked it, if it didn’t know where the kingdom of the midnight sun was. “Yes,” the
eagle answered and told them that it had just been there. She said it should take the man
who was looking for his wife there. “I’ll do that,” the eagle answered, and took him on its
back and brought him to the place he wanted to go to. When they came to the kingdom
of the midnight sun there was a large castle there. The eagle, it knocked on the gate to let
the man in. They opened the gate, and when the man came in, there was a whole lot of
damsels there, the same geese that used to come and trample the outlying field. His wife
was among them. When she caught sight of him, she fell on his neck and took him in her
embrace. Then they held a feast, and it was bigger than any other. When the king, whose
daughters those damsels were, died, the man reigned in the kingdom of the midnight sun
up until now.
1) En karl vart bergtagen och vart gift med trollen, och hade flera barn. Han var gift förut
och längtade bort. En gång slapp han till kyrkan och var där osynlig, men så kröp han un-
der kappan på prästen och vart då synlig och trollen hade ingen makt med an mera. (SLS
280: 136)
1) A man was abducted and married to the troll, and had several children. He was previ-
ously married and longed to get away. Once he was allowed to [go to] church and was in-
visible there, but then he crept under the parson’s gown and became visible, and the trolls
had no power with him any more.
3) En kvinna hade råkat ut för ett bergtroll, som aldrig ville lämna henne i fred. Hon
tänkte då ut en list och sporde en dag bergtrollet: “vad skall jag göra åt korna mina, som
inte får gå i fred för bergtjuren?” “Du skall skaffa dig dyvelsträck, bävergäll och ålandsrot
och giva dina kor”, sade bergtrollet. Då tog kvinnan själv in det som trollet ordinerat åt
hennes kor och sedan hade han ingen makt över henne mer. En dag, när hon gick i skog-
en i närheten av trollets berg, hörde hon honom säga:
“dyvelsträck, bävergäll och ålandsrot,
och tvi vale mej som dig gav bot!”
(SLS 215, 250: 80–81)
3) A woman had encountered a hill troll which never wanted to leave her alone. She in-
vented a trick, and one day she asked the hill troll: “What should I do about my cows
which are not left in peace by the hill bull?” “You should get asafoetida, castor and inula
helenium and give to your cows”, the hill troll said. Then the woman herself took what the
troll had prescribed for her cows, and after that he had no power over her any longer. One
day, when she was in the forest in the vicinity of the troll’s hill, she heard him say:
“asafoetida, castor and inula helenium,
and woe is me who gave you the cure!”
4) i måun ha e stjedd he in bundtjärng, såm jig i skåujin åsta sök et fårin sin, ha vali bjärg-
teji. tå un kåm pu na låg hellur såm je jyst veder nygåls heimani, så tykkt un he un va pu i
hökt bjärg, såm va så brant, så un åumöyli sku kunn slipp tedan elu eis tröst freist jev se
nederet in tukan högd. men hur un nu bisinna se, så sveipa un tjåulan sin kring lårin å
sestist neder pu steinin å sa: jissus velsini me! å tängkt let e byr ga nederet, men me ti sama
fi un fötrin pu jåulin, å tå un skåda bak se et bjärji, så findist int e na. (Freudenthal 1889: 197)
4) In [the village of ] Monå it has occurred that an old peasant woman who was walking in
the forest in search of her sheep was abducted. When she came onto some low rocks which
are just by the Nygård homestead, she thought she was on a high hill that was so steep that
she could not possibly escape from it or even dare to try to descend such a hill. But she
collected herself somehow, swept her skirts around her thighs and sat down on the rock
and said: Jesus bless me! and was going to start the descent, but immediately she got her
feet on the ground, and when she looked back on the hill, it no longer existed.
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5) Vanligtvis hålla sig trollen i rörelse när det är halfskymning och dimmig väderlek. Un-
der sådana förhållanden såg en qvinna en gång bergtrollens barn i landsvägsdiket. De voro
mycket vackra, prydligt klädda och qvicka, men strax som hon tilltalade dem: “Kva i Jisu
namn jär ni út i réinveddre?” försvunno de och först då visste hon att det ej var verkliga
menniskobarn hon talat till. (SLS 56: 153)
5) Usually the trolls are moving when it is partial dusk and foggy weather. In such condi-
tions a woman once saw the hill troll’s children in the ditch by the main road. They were
very beautiful, neatly dressed and swift [or clever], but as soon as she spoke to them:
“What in Jesus’ name are you doing out in the rain?” they disappeared, and only then did
she know that it was not real human children she had spoken to.
6) En gång i medlet av 1800-talet var ett notlag från Söderby och drog not i fjärden på (?)
sidan om Pellinge, på kvällen lämnade de noten och båten i Båtsviken och gick hem däri-
från. Ett ovanligt åskväder rådde den kvällen med täta blixtrar, åskknallar och regn. Då
de komma till Bötet (en äng som ligger nära berget) gick där en vit häst på bete. Notan-
föraren en gammal man från Brandts vist genast att det var trollet som visade sig, då ingen
vit häst fanns på ön och sade: Har du inte haft tid att gå i bete förr änn vi sku kom jär för-
bi [i marginalen: ] eller jaså de har lämnat dig utan havre i kväll [marginalanteckning slut].
Då for hästen upp i berget, med en stark fart och gnistor slog under hovarna. Några av not-
folket bland dem en kvinna blevo så rädda att de inte ville orka gå hem. (SLS 374: 11–12)
6) Once in the middle of the 19th century a seine team from Söderby was fishing with a
seine in the bay on the (?) side of Pellinge, in the evening they left the seine and the boat
in Båtsviken and walked home from there. An unusual thunderstorm reigned that evening
with frequent flashes of lightning, thunderclaps and rain. When they came to Bötet (a
meadow situated close to the hill) a white horse was grazing there. The leader of the team,
an old man from Brandts knew immediately that it was the troll showing itself, when no
white horse existed on the island and said: Didn’t you have time to graze before we passed
by here [in the margin: ] or indeed, they left you without oats this evening [comment in
margin ended]. Then the horse went up in the hill, with high speed, and sparks flew under
the hooves. Some of the team members, among them a woman, were so frightened that
they hardly managed to go home.
7) För omkring 50 år sedan skall en yngling från Böle by i Mustasaari hava blivit bergtagen.
Han försvann under vistelse i skogen och kunde oaktat träget letande ej återfinnas. Hans
föräldrar, som trodde att han omkommit, läto ringa för honom i kyrkan. Strax därefter
återvände ynglingen och berättade, att han av en gammal gubbe blivit förd in i ett bärg,
men då kyrkklockorna ringde förlorade bärgstrollet sin makt över honom. (Hembygden
1910: 145)
7) About 50 years ago a youngster from the village of Böle in Mustasaari [Korsholm] had
been abducted. He disappeared during a sojourn in the forest and could despite assiduous
searching not be found. His parents who believed he had died let the bells ring for him in
church. Soon thereafter the youngster returned and told them that he had been brought
to a hill by an old man, but when the church bells rang the hill troll lost its power over him.
9) Vid Idureve, en vik i Norra Vallgrund i Replot, säges ett kvinnligt bergtroll ha haft sin
bostad. Flere gånger hade hon blivit sedd, klädd än i vitt, än i rött, än i svart. En gång
hade hon hängt ut en mängd kläder, av vilka somliga skimrade av silver, andra av guld,
men när folk kom närmare, försvunno kläderna. Bergtrollet brukade även röva kor. En ko
hade hon tagit flere gånger, men så snart kons ägare kastade skällkons klave och tre på-
tända stickor i ugnen, kom kon hem, ty bergtrollet hade då ej längre makt att kvarhålla
den. (Bygdeminnen 1912: 56–57)
9) By Idureve, a bay in Norra Vallgrund in Replot, a female hill troll is said to have had
her dwelling. She had been spotted several times, dressed in either white, red, or black.
Once she had hung out some clothes of which some shimmered of silver, others of gold,
but when people came closer, the clothes disappeared. The hill troll also used to steal cows.
She had taken one cow several times, but as soon as the cow’s owner threw the bell cow’s
collar and three burning sticks into the oven, the cow came home, because the hill troll
then had no power to keep it any longer.
10) Ejn bond vistast för langa tid tibaka i värde i skoje å bränd potasko. Bäst som ha sjöjtt
om eldn, byrja a hör huru hä hviska å tassla emilla trädä å sa: kom ti bröllops åt fridasqväldi
klocko nie”. Hä va trollä, som bjöud ti bröllops. Tå sku ä va lustot ti vara me, tänkt gubbe,
som int just var na rädd åf sä. Får ja kåma na? fråga a. Jo, bara dö klocko 12 om fridasnattä
slår 3 hugg me yxklattje på häte bjerje som ä jär nära til, så slipper dö in, svara bjergtrolle.
Bondn gick djena väje te prästn åsta funder om satjä. Prästn gaf a na lite nattvardsvin å ba
a ti spill na droppor åf hä i matn, som trollä sku äta på bröllope. På hate föresatta tin gick
bondn ti bjerje å slo mä yxklattje tri hugg, som hä va sagdt å vart insläft i ejn vakera bröl-
lopssal. Tär vardt ha lika väl emottäje, som ejn präst i helviti, å tär satt spelman ve bole å
spela å ti ar dansa å hadd så hjärtandis rolit. Tå di sku byri rejd ti bröllopsmeddan, ba
bond, att ha sku få vara kock, å hä gick trollä in på. Oförmärkt spillt a några droppor vin i
matn. Täråf vardt trollä så i strykfyllo, så int visst ti nahanda, hva di huld på, utan ti byrja
sifvas å slåas senemillan. Ti slut så sa ejn åf trollä, hä ä hate karn, som ni ha slarva hi, som
rår för de här krakele, å tärför ä hä bäst a ha tar sä järifrån så fort som möjlidt. Brögumme
317
gick tå å sa åt bondn, hä a sku laga sä bort. Men a svara: “Int vil ja ga förn bröllope ä över-
stäje”. Bara dö gar nö, sa brögumme, så ska dö få så mytje pängar, som dö orkar bära”. Så
to a fram ejn säck å öjst ti nie skoflar silfvermynt å gaf sättje åt bondn, som lag a (?) på
ryddje å gick nöjd å glad hem. (SLS 71: 32–34)
10) Long ago a peasant stayed in the forest in order to burn potash. While he was tending
the fire, he started hearing how it whispered between the trees and said: [“]Come to the
wedding on Friday night at nine o’clock.” It was the troll giving invitations to the wedding.
It’d be nice to participate, the old man, who was not exactly timid, thought. Can I come
too? he asked. Yes, if you just knock with three raps of the heel of your axe on the hill
that’s here nearby at 12 o’clock on Friday night, you’ll get in, the hill troll answered. The
peasant took a shortcut to the parson to deliberate on the matter. The parson gave him
some sacramental wine and asked him to spill some drops of it in the food the trolls were
supposed to eat at the wedding. At the appointed time the peasant went to the hill and
knocked with three raps with the heel of his axe, as agreed, and was let into a beautiful
wedding hall. There he was as well received as a priest in hell, and there the fiddler sat by
the table playing and the others danced and amused themselves heartily. When they were
going to prepare dinner, the peasant asked if he could be the cook, and the trolls agreed to
that. Stealthily he spilt some drops of wine in the food. The trolls were so inebriated by
this that they didn’t know what they were doing, but started squabbling and fighting be-
tween themselves. Finally one of the trolls said that it is that man you’ve dragged here
who’s responsible for this mess, and therefore it’s best if he leaves as soon as possible. The
groom then went to tell the peasant that he should go. But he answered: “I don’t want to
leave before the wedding is over”. [“]If you just go now[”], the groom said, [“]you’ll get as
much money as you can carry”. He took out a sack and scooped nine shovels of silver
coins in it and gave the sack to the peasant who put it (?) on his back and went home
happy and content.
11) En gáng händ e se ’at to in kvinno va’ ömsand hejm i stugun sín, so kom in gobb upp
úr tjällarin o bá at hústrun i húsi sku’ kóm jelp tsjeljin hans, som va’ barnshúk. Hun je’ me’
gobbin o he va’ líksom trappor nér i berje. To dom kóm nér va’ ter et stórt rúm o lampor
lyst op bóle o väddjen. Tsjeljin jól kva’ un kuna’ o förlöst bergtrolles tsjelg. To båne vart
född, lest un som vi brúkar: “Herrens välsignelse öve e. Når bergtrolle hört he, so sá e:
“kva’ ska’ vál ov hitsje barn, to en kristen kvinno ha förlöst e!” Når alt va’ slút o tsjeljen sku’
böri gá bot, sá bergtrolle: “ni hittar ful int hejm, ja’ ska’ kóm o föli er” Hun sku’ ny böri
gá, men to sa bergtrolle: “ja’ ska’ föst jev en betálning för he ni ha kumi o jelft tsjeljen
mín, kóm in hít ti tsjistun so ska’ ni få!” Hun jíg o bergtrolle sá at un sku’ bejd upp förkle
sitt. Hun jól så, o to öjst bergtrolle so mytji som ji i förkle henars som hun tykt
hövelspånor. Hun kuna int na anna än tá, o han lá so mytji an fi ti gá i förkle henars me
rogan åp. To un int kuna tá na mejr sá an: “ja ska’ kóm o föli er” o so ji dom. To un kom
hejm, so tänkt un för se shölv: “kva’ jér ja’ me hitsje o kasta altihóp i brasun. Men so snart
dom kóm i eldin vart dom ti gulltsjedjor o anna dyrbara klénóder, so at un skúnda se’ so
fort som möjlit at me branstakan drá dom ti bák úr eldin. (R II 339)
11) Once it happened, when a woman was home alone in her cottage, that an old man
came up from the cellar and asked the mistress of the house to come and help his wife who
was in labour. She went with the old man and there were sort of stairs down into the rock.
12) På Antus var pigan i gården, “gammelSåndån”, och måkade ihop dyngan undan korna.
Bäst det var vart det bara blanka silver pengar. Hon vurt rädd och sprang bort. Om natten
kom trollet och sa åt husbonden, att han sku ta bort den ko, som var sist i nötset för att
det vurt vått på bordet var gång hon lät sitt vatten rinna. (SLS 280: 362)
12) At Antus the maid in the house, “old Såndån”, was clearing out the dung of the cows.
Suddenly it just turned into shiny silver money. She was afraid and ran away. At night
the troll came and told the master of the household to remove the cow standing farthest
away in the cow-shed because the table got wet every time she let her urine flow.
13) En kvinna från Kvevlaks säges ha varit gift med ett bergtroll. De levde samman i sju år
och kvinnan hade ett gossebarn med trollet. När de sju åren var gångna, försvann trollet
utan att sedan låta höra av sig. (SLS 215, 248: 80)
13) A woman from Kvevlax is said to have been married to a hill troll. They lived together
for seven years and the woman had a boy with the troll. When the seven years had elapsed,
the troll disappeared without any further news from it.
14) Ett stycke in mot Esse-skogen finnes ett af stora flata stenhällor bestående berg, som
kallas Blå-berget. Der sägas trollen hålla sitt “plenum plenorum” midsommarkvällen. De
roa sig derunder med danser, vilda, bullersamma, under det spelmännen sitta i grantop-
parna och spela flöjt. En gammal vallgumma hade gått vilse en midsommarkväll och kom-
mit dit bland trollen. Hon kvarhölls der tills man ringde helig på lördagskvällen, då hon
af ett troll beledsagades till skogskanten, der hon lemnades ensam. Här fann hon sin ef-
tersökta boskaps hjord, men sitt förstånd hade gumman förlorat. Hon talade ständigt, men
oklart och utan sammanhang om sitt besök på trollens samlingsplats. (R I 86: 2–3)
14) Some distance toward the Esse forest there is a hill consisting of large flat rocks which
is called Blue Hill. There the trolls are said to hold their “plenum plenorum” on Midsum-
mer’s Eve. They amuse themselves with dances, wild, noisy, while the musicians sit in the
tops of the spruces playing flute. An old shepherdess had gone astray on a Midsummer’s
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Eve and come there among the trolls. She was detained there until they rang the church
bells on Saturday evening, when she was accompanied by a troll to the edge of the forest,
where she was left alone. Here she found her sought-for cattle herd, but her sanity the old
woman had lost. She constantly talked, but vaguely and incoherently, about her visit to
the meeting point of the trolls.
15) En tsjelg va’ engáng o to’ löve vär Bösberje o hág e bån me se som un sätt osta siti vör
berje, so léng un sku’ arbet. To un ha vuri i arbete in stond, so försvann båne. Módren
kom i ångest o byrja lejt et a, men hitta int a. Slútligen so så un tvinna fälan upp et berje i
sándin, liksom óv in bäsmansklapp. (trä besman, som är rund i båda ändarne). Hun jissa
to at nó ha na bergtroll furi óv me båne henars. Hun fár sidan ti prestin at han skú kóm tít
o skaff oter båne henars ur berje. Prestin kom ti sama ställe, o byrja tross’ tibak tsjeljinas
båne o all ars me, som dem ha taji bånen óv. Han va mytji iveri o predika degligt, o stött
me tsjäppin i berje o sá at dem sku för ti bák, hva dom ha täji. För än an byrja predik, so
sag’ an åt tom, som va me an, at dem sku’ va’ sakta. Tom va som an ság, o nog byrja dom
hör bånstej in i berje jude kóm alt höger o höger upp åt. Men so kóm me he samm två
vildgastar (elaka pojkar) o han di in sá åt han anin o skratta “Sir et hande prestin me langt
tsjeddje sett, o spotte som yr om in munin to an predikar”. Mejr behövis int för än bån-
jude sank läger o ti slút försvann. Anin dájin fór prestin tít ömsand, o let int najn kom me
se o byrja oter predik och tros’ fram bånen, o stött nu tsjäppin i berje. To kom tsjeljinas
bån o máng ár bån me upp. Nagir sá de va’ hundra o óvi hundra år gambel, men va änto
små som dom ha vari, to dem ha váli täji. Prestin kresna dem, o tó vat tom, som va óver-
åldri ti bare stoft. Tom ár, som va ynger byrja lev. (R II 325)
15) Once an old woman was collecting leaves by the Bötom Hill and had a child with her
which she placed to sit by the hill while she was working. When she had been working
for a while, the child disappeared. The mother was in anguish and started looking for it,
but couldn’t find it. Finally she saw twin footprints along the hill in the sand, as if from
the tongue of a steelyard. (Wooden steelyard which is round at both ends.) She guessed
that some hill troll had stolen her child. Then she went to the parson so that he’d go there
and get her child back from the hill. The parson came to the same place, and started coax-
ing the old woman’s child back and all others’ too, from whom they had stolen children.
He was very eager and preached well, and rapped with his stick on the hill and said that
they should return what they had taken. Before he started preaching, he told those who
were with him to be silent. They were [silent] as he said, and they did start hearing the
steps of children in the hill; the sound came higher and higher upward. But all of a sud-
den two madcaps (naughty boys) came and one said to the other and laughed “D’ya see
that priest with his long beard, and the spittle flying out of his mouth when he’s preach-
ing”. More wasn’t needed before the sound of the children was muted och finally van-
ished. The second day the parson went there alone, and didn’t let anyone come with him
och started preaching and coaxing the children out once again, and now he rapped with
his stick on the hill. Then the old woman’s child and many other children too emerged.
Some said they were a hundred and more than one hundred years old, but were still small
as they had been when they were taken. The parson baptized them, and those who were
too old turned into only dust. The others who were younger started to live.