THE GENRE OF TROLLS THE GENRE OF TROLLS The Case of a Finland-Swedish Folk Belief Tradition Camilla Asplund Ingemark Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av Humanistiska fakulteten vid Åbo Akademi framläggs till offentlig granskning i Auditorium Armfelt, Arken, Fabriksgatan 2, Åbo, fredagen den 28 januari 2005 kl. 12 Åbo Akademis Förlag – Åbo Akademi University Press Åbo 2004 THE GENRE OF TROLLS The Case of a Finland-Swedish Folk Belief Tradition Camilla Asplund Ingemark Åbo Akademi University Press Åbo 2004 ©Åbo Akademi University Press & Camilla Asplund Ingemark 2004 Typographic design and prepress: Pär Sandin Cover: Tove Ahlbäck Cover illustration: Emma Rönnholm Printed at Ekenäs tryckeri AB, Ekenäs ISBN 951-765-222-4 CIP Cataloguing in Publication Asplund Ingemark, Camilla The genre of trolls: The case of a Finland-Swedish folk belief tradition / Camilla Asplund Ingemark. – Åbo : Åbo Akademi University Press, 2004. Diss.: Åbo Akademi University. ISBN 951-765-222-4 PREFACE 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. Lund, November the 25th, 2004 Camilla Asplund Ingemark 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 2 Material and Context 46 2.1 General Considerations 46 2.2 The Sources 47 2.2.1 The Rancken Collection (R) and Its Contributors 47 2.2.2 The Collections of the Swedish Literature Society