The Genre of Trolls - Doria

to the everyday world in the manner of the previous examples. Nevertheless,
it is not without its dangers, as this record from the nearby parish of
Munsala attests:
160
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 ögonen
öpnade, så skulle han upphöra att supa och därföre gaf hon honom af dessa droppar
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 something
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 man’s prescience is not much of a blessing; it drives him to commit
suicide rather than being an incentive for him to mend his ways, as his wife
had hoped for. The process of gaining this visionary proficiency is described
in detail: “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”.
Normal sight takes place through a haze, blocking the view of things beyond
(cf. 1 Corinthians 13: 12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly”;
2 Corinthians 3: 18: “With open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord”). It is the reverse of the case in the Acts, where “immediately there
fell from his eyes as it had been scales” when Saul regains his normal sight
and drops out of his visionary state (text 12). The text is contradictory in
one respect, as the paratexte mentions application of the soul water onto
the eyes of the recipient as the primary means of assimilation, while the
Intertextuality as Ideological Critique