Folklore in the Nordic Countries (original) (raw)
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Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2024
The Nordic Institute of Folklore, internationally well known by its abbreviation NIF, left a lasting imprint on the history of Nordic and international folkloristics despite its relatively short operation period of less than four decades. The present article, first in a series of forthcoming articles on NIF, examines Lauri Honko’s directorship in the 1970s and 1980s and focuses on the changing of the institute’s field of operation from folkloristics to ‘tradition science’. The term ‘tradition sci- ence’ (traditionsvetenskap in Swedish, perinnetiede in Finnish) was never clearly defined in NIF, but was used – and it has continued to be used in folkloristics and ethnology in Finland – in three meanings: an approximate synonym for folkloris- tics, a joint term for folkloristics and ethnology, and (in plural) an umbrella term for an unspecified number of fields in the study of history, vernacular religion, and culture. The possible earlier history of the term is beyond the scope of this research, but there are indications that the term came into use in both Finnish-lan- guage and Swedish-language folklore research in the early 1970s, while the similar term ‘tradition research’ (traditionsforskning in Swedish, perinteentutkimus in Finn- ish) has a longer history. The term ‘tradition science’ was adopted into NIF’s stat- utes around the same time as the Nordic Council of Ministers – through which the inter-governmental funding of NIF was administered – initiated the expansion of NIF’s profile to cover folk culture “in its entirety”, suggesting specifically the extension of NIF’s field of operation to include ethnology. Whether NIF imple- mented this expansion or not, and to what extent, is a matter of debate, and the topic of this article.
Folklore as Tradition, Heritage and Profession
SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH
Folklore as a field of study and academic discipline was first recognized following the works of Johann Gottfried Herder in 1770s. The works of Herder, his collection of 'folktales' from German speaking regions is considered the base for later folklore collections, such as those done by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. Although the discipline of folklore is now well established in various institutions across the Americas, Europe and Africa and Asia. This paper tries to understand folklore in relation with the concepts such as Tradition, Heritage and Profession. How folklore in this fast changing world represents the heritage, tradition, and profession of a community? Can folklore and its performance be appreciated for its inherent economic potential as a profession? The paper, through certain examples and observation, will try to understand the significance of these concepts and attempt to answer such questions.
This book addresses the narrative construction of places, the relationship between tradition communities and their environments, the supernatural dimensions of cultural landscapes and wilderness as they are manifested in European folklore and in early literary sources, such as the Old Norse sagas. 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.
Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context
The Journal of American Folklore, 1971
Definitions of folklore are as many and varied as the versions of a well-known tale. Both semantic and theoretical differences have contributed to this proliferation. The German Volkskunde, the Swedish folkminne, and the Indian lok sahitya all imply slightly different meanings that the English term "folklore" cannot syncretize completely. 1 Similarly, anthropologists and students of literature have projected their own bias into their definitions of folklore. In fact, for each of them folklore became the exotic topic, the green grass on the other side of the fence, to which they were attracted but which, alas, was not in their own domain. Thus, while anthropologists regarded folklore as literature, scholars of literature defined it as culture. 2 Folklorists themselves resorted to enumerative, 3 intuitive,5 definitions; yet, while all these certainly contributed to the clarification of the nature of folklore, at the same time they circumvented the main issue, namely, the isolation of the unifying thread that joins jokes and myths, gestures and legends, costumes and music into a single category of knowledge. Disciplines
Folklore and Old Norse Mythology (ed. Frog & Joonas Ahola)
FF Communications 323. Helsinki: Kalevala Society., 2021
The present volume responds to the rising boom of interest in folklore and folklore research in the study of Old Norse mythology. The twenty-two authors of this volume reveal the dynamism of this lively dialogue, which is characterized by a diversity of perspectives linking to different fields and national scholarships. The chapters open with a general overview of how the concepts of “folklore” and “mythology” have been understood and related across the history of Old Norse studies, which is followed by a group of chapters that discuss and present different approaches and types of source materials, with methodological and theoretical concerns. The interest in folklore is bound up with interests in practice and lived religion, which are brought into focus in a series of chapters relating to magic and ritual. Attention then turns to images that link to mythology and different mythic agents in studies that explore a variety of usage in meaning-making in different forms of cultural expression. The next group of studies spotlights motifs, with perspectives on synchronic usage across genres and different media, cross-cultural exchange, and long-term continuities. The volume culminates in discussions of complex stories, variously in oral traditions behind medieval sources and relationships between accounts found in medieval sources and those recorded from more recent traditions. Individually, the chapters variously offer reflexive and historical research criticism, new research frameworks, illustrative studies, and exploratory investigations. Collectively, they illustrate the rapidly evolving multidisciplinary discussion at the intersections of folklore and Old Norse mythology, where the transformative impacts were recently described as a paradigm shift. They open new paths for scholarly discussion with the potential to inspire future research.
Role of Folklore in promoting National Integration
The term 'Folklore' is of recent origin. In the year 1846 William John Thomps coined the word 'Folk-lore' in lieu of 'Popular Antiquities'. As a branch of knowledge 'Folklore' has begun to be popularised since the nineteenth century. It includes a vast range of studies of the social tradition of unlettered or pre-literate and literate men and women. The study of folklore is essentially the study of human culture or civilization in its ethnographic sense as dependent on ecology, evolution, history, cultural ethnography, philosophy, social polity, economic and educational system etc. of the common men and women whose life and practice have not been affected by urbanisation and the spread of education.
When Ritual Texts Become Legendary. Practice and Fiction in Nordic Folklore
Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination, 2021
The article explores the relationship between the fictional reality of legends about magical books (Black Books) and the historical magical manuscripts in Norway during the long eighteenth century. Drawing on a rich collection of Norwegian legends and magical manuscripts from that period, the study suggests that the connection between magical practices and the narratives describing, interpreting, and reporting such practices was characterized by reciprocity in various ways. The physical Black Books incorporated fictional elements, while the fictional narratives incorporated historical elements, creating an ongoing cycle of mutual influences, adoptions, and responses. As a result, magical practices and narratives helped bridge the "gap" between the real and the unreal, the factual and the fictional, the diverse and the stereotypical. Additionally, the reciprocity between the written and the oral tradition appears to rely on a certain interdependence, with both genres relying on each other to maintain their stability.