Storied and Supernatural Places: Studies in Spatial and Social Dimensions of Folklore and Sagas
About this ebook
The first section “Explorations in Place-Lore” discusses cursed and sacred places, churches, graveyards, haunted houses, cemeteries, grave mounds, hill forts, and other tradition dominants in the micro-geography of the Nordic and Baltic countries, both retrospectively and from synchronous perspectives. The supernaturalisation of places appears as a socially embedded set of practices that involves storytelling and ritual behaviour. Articles show, how places accumulate meanings as they are layered by stories and how this shared knowledge about environments can actualise in personal experiences.
Articles in the second section “Regional Variation, Environment and Spatial Dimensions” address ecotypes, milieu-morphological adaptation in Nordic and Baltic-Finnic folklores, and the active role of tradition bearers in shaping beliefs about nature as well as attitudes towards the environment. The meaning of places and spatial distance as the marker of otherness and sacrality in Old Norse sagas is also discussed here.
The third section of the book “Traditions and Histories Reconsidered” addresses major developments within the European social histories and mentalities. It scrutinizes the history of folkloristics, its geopolitical dimensions and its connection with nation building, as well as looking at constructions of the concepts Baltic, Nordic and Celtic. It also sheds light on the social base of folklore and examines vernacular views toward legendry and the supernatural.
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About the author
Ülo Valk is Professor of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu. His publications include the monograph The Black Gentleman: Manifestations of the Devil in Estonian Folk Religion (2001), and Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expressions of Belief (co-edited with Marion Bowman, 2012). His current research is focused on belief narratives, folklore in social context, and the history of folkloristics.
Daniel Sävborg, is Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Tartu. Sävborg has a background in studies of Classical Philology and Comparative literature and wrote his Ph.D. about grief in Eddic heroic poetry. He has published several monographs and articles on medieval Scandinavian literature, religion, manuscript philology, folklore and historiography. His special research interest is the role of the supernatural in Old Norse literature in the light of later recorded folklore and folkloristic theory.
