The Genre of Trolls - Doria

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och således misstron mot främlingen, som efterforskar folktrons relikter, är synnerligen
stor, följer härav att sådant arbete är svårt i dessa trakter. Jag har därför antecknat talrika
materiellt etnografiska notiser, då sådana om folktron icke står att erhålla. En del
allmänt förekommande vidskepelser har jag inte antecknat. (SLS 226:525)
Work here was hard. Already in the 1870s Fagerlund thought himself [able to] establish
the same, [the fact] that superstition has been almost entirely eradicated in Korpo
and Houtskär, and in the 1890s Elmgren said the same of Pargas. Their words should
be thus construed that folk customs in these seafaring parishes have long been in a state
of disintegration, and that merely fragments of folk belief survive. In addition, as adult
education has progressed at only half the rate as in Nyland, and suspicion of the stranger
inquiring into the relics of folk belief is therefore particularly great, such work is
consequently difficult in these areas. Therefore I have made notes on numerous materially
oriented ethnographic items, since ones on folk belief are not in my power to
obtain. Some generally circulating superstitions I have not recorded.
That Nikander’s comments concern previous scholarship is perhaps not all
too surprising, as he is one of the competent professionals enlisted by the
Swedish Literature Society, and we become well aware that he was not
spared the problem of encountering suspicion among his presumptive informants.
In this instance adult education is actually credited with a positive
influence on the folk, making them better equipped to understand the
inherent value of ancient folk belief and the importance of preserving it for
the nation, science and later generations, a mission education had not yet
fulfilled in Kimito. Like many other collectors (cf. chapter 2.2.2), Nikander
ignored very common tradition, and the records are made in standard
Swedish.
Jakob Edvard Wefvar collected for the Swedish Literature Society as
well, and here I have used one text from the parish of Vörå, recorded from
the rope-maker Kastell living in the village of Rejpelt (SLS 275: 87–88). The
narrative was documented some time in the 1870s.
Vivi Peters (1893–1945) was one of the few female collectors. She followed
in her father’s, K. P. Pettersson’s, footsteps as she submitted her first
collection to the Swedish Literature Society in 1916. She extended the Society’s
collecting activities to new fields and areas of research, such as food
and hygiene. Her premier collection was well received, which spurred her
to go on. Ernst Lagus, otherwise so severe in his criticism, held her in high
regard. The 1918 collection (SLS 320) contains a record from Fina Lilja, a
crofter’s daughter and party cook from Finnö on the island of Korpo (SLS
320: 80). Lilja was born in 1846.
Material and Context