The Genre of Trolls - Doria

marked. It is a reversion of Saul’s predicament (text 12); he both sees and
hears in the otherworld, but is confined to aural perception in the real
world, while Sussas-Matt and the ego of the text are fully equipped for
their own sphere, but disabled in the other. The situation is reminiscent of
the circumstances of those supernatural encounters taking place in the everyday
environment, without any ritual elements, involving visions, auditions
or merely a vague sense of the presence of some other, like in the
following account from Vörå:
166
19) En gubbe trodde ej, att det finns tomtar. Han byggde en ny stuga och flyttade sitt
bohag från sin gamla förfallna bostad till den nya. När han fått det sista flyttningslasset
färdigt, tyckte han, att han gärna kunde bränna upp sin gamla stuga, som var så eländig
och bofällig, att den ingenting var värd. Tänkt och gjort. När stugan började brinna,
sade gubben, i det han satte sig upp på lasset: “Finns det någon tomte där, som folk
tror, så nog brinner han upp.” I detsamma hörde han en röst bakom sig: “Vi slapp undan i
lagom tid.” När gubben såg sig om, syntes dock ingen på lasset. (SLS 324: 292)
19) An old man didn’t believe brownies existed. He built a new cottage and moved his
furniture from his old run-down house to the new one. When he had got the last vanload
ready, he thought he might as well burn down his old cottage, which was so lousy
and decayed that it was worth nothing. No sooner thought than done. As the cottage
started burning, the old man said, as he climbed onto the load: “If there is a brownie in
there, as people think, he will surely burn.” At that moment he heard a voice behind him:
“We escaped just in time.” When the old man turned around, though, no-one was visible on
the load.
The old man is moving to a new home, and sets his old ramshackle house
on fire. The provocation inherent in denying the existence of brownies
leads to a response affirming their presence in audible, but not visible terms.
Invisibility rather boosts the impression of an other, intangible to man.
Here the presumptions of the old man are refuted in a gentle, but highly
efficient way.
Although the association of the second witchspotting text (text 18) to
tales of more accidental encounters with the supranormal is distinct, the
notion of hearing yet not seeing recurs in a context much closer at hand—it
is another variation on the witchspotting theme:
20) he va två karar, såm va å hört pu påsktrulluna pu i lidertak, såm a vali flytta tri gangur
tå dem a kumi se åp pu tatsji, sa dem: “nu vill vi hör, men int si.” måut klåkkun tålv
hört dem, hur e stsjåstsja i stsjyin å in stånd bakett hört dem hur kåm eín åpp ett knutin.
karan byra skratta. så måtta dem håpp neder å fik int hör na meir hun gangun. (SLS 37, 11:
35)
Intertextuality as Ideological Critique