Swedish Year Walk. From Folk-tradition to Computer Game. (original) (raw)

Abstract

"Tommy Kuusela (Stockholm University, Sweden) Swedish Year Walk: From Folk-tradition to Computer Game. "Year walk was a complex form of divination in Swedish folk tradition. The source material consists of collections from different Swedish folklore archives. The tradition of year walking is predominantly recorded from Southern Sweden, and was usually practised at Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Different regions of Sweden give contrasting explanations for how this was accomplished. From the provinces of Småland and Blekinge, the year walker was supposed to lock himself up in a dark room, without speaking to anyone nor taste food or drink. At midnight, he (or she) walked to the parish church – or a cluster of different churches – and circled it three times (or more), then he (or she) blew into the church’s key hole. With this the year walker temporarily lost his (or her) Christianity. When this happened, supernatural beings appeared and challenged the year walker. If the walker managed these tests, glimpses of the future could appear; either in vision or by sounds. These could be interpreted as glimpses of what would happen the following year. The phenomena could vary greatly regionally or even in the same district. In this paper, I will compare the old tradition with how the tradition is interpreted in a new Swedish computer game called ‘Year Walk’, and see how the tradition is viewed in a contemporary popular culture." This talk has been turned into a chapter, “He met his own funeral procession: The Year walk-ritual in Swedish folk tradition" in Tommy Kuusela & Giuseppe Maiello. Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural. Beewolf Press 2016, pp. 58-91, (look above, it can be accessed for free on my Academia page)."

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