The Genre of Trolls - Doria

2.2 The Sources
2.2.1 The Rancken Collection (R) and Its Contributors
The material collected in Ostrobothnia on the initiative of Johan Oskar
Immanuel Rancken (1824–1895) is one of the earliest sources of troll narratives.
As a senior master, and later headmaster, at Vasa’s secondary school,
he was in a perfect position to inspire his students to see the wonder and
importance of Swedish folklore to a country then in the process of constructing
a national identity, at that time solely envisioned in terms of the
Finnish language and Finnish folklore (see Honko 1980 and Anttonen
2003 for an account of Finnish nation building). The rhetoric of the Swedish-speaking
intelligentsia favoured a suppression of the Swedish language,
which was perceived as an obstacle on the way to real nationhood.
The Swedish language had to die in order to allow the Finnish language to
grow (Andersson 1967: 120; Wolf-Knuts 1997: 33). J. O. I. Rancken, credited
by Otto Andersson as the first official advocate of Swedish traditions
in Finland (Andersson 1967: 123), believed that the Swedish culture in
Finland bridged the gap between Finnish tradition and traditions in Sweden
(Wolf-Knuts 1997: 33).
Rancken wanted to carry out historical, comparative research in a patriotic
spirit, and folk culture was the key to the successful completion of such
inquiries, as it was more “archaic” and “genuine”. Ulrika Wolf-Knuts has
identified the key words in Rancken’s writings, and recurrent ones are peculiarities
(egendomligheter) and the peculiar (det egendomliga), whereby he
meant the typical (det typiska), the unique (det unika) or the non-universal
(det icke-universella), but also the odd (det underliga) and the original (det ursprungliga).
It was of prime importance to collect these peculiarities, as
they were being stunted by urbanisation and education, the latter activity
being one in which Rancken himself was deeply involved in (Wolf-Knuts
1997: 35–36, 40–43). Rancken was not, however, negligent of urban culture,
but encouraged the collection of urban traditions as well. Variants were
mandatory for comparative research, and Rancken found it desirable for
the collector of folklore to be well-acquainted with the district in which he
worked. He thought himself unsuitable in this respect, as he was not a
native of Ostrobothnia (Wolf-Knuts 1997: 32, 34, 36). Also the images in
folklore, interpreted by Wolf-Knuts as attitudes, norms and values, lay
within Rancken’s field of interest (Wolf-Knuts 1997: 43).
The Sources 47