The Genre of Trolls - Doria

The move was an important and apparently beneficial one to judge by the
complaints filed against the male youth at the parish and municipal meetings
in the previous decades. The regulations of the parish of 1797, 1828 and
1841 were made more stringent in 1846, at the request of the dean, and the
next year the young men were prohibited to ride to and fro outside the
church during service on Michaelmas, as they thereby failed to attend mass
and had trampled children and old people. In 1867 the farm masters in the
northern parts of the parish started patrolling the countryside on weekends
and holidays due to the undisciplined behaviour of the youth, and in 1890
the county sheriff wanted to ban weddings because of the exaggerated consumption
of liquor at the feasts and all the trouble resulting from it. Other
problems at weddings were the wild shooting, reckless riding and gatecrashing
practised on those occasions. The creation of the association for
young men was thus a welcome event, and the association’s founder, Johan
Hagman, a teacher in the village of Koskeby, summoned the members
once a fortnight to hear lectures given by himself or other speakers. Singing,
declamation, debates and games were also included in the programme
of the association. It was succeeded by the youth association of Vörå, open
to both sexes, which was founded in Koskeby in 1891. This association
strove to educate the youth by giving courses in various subjects, by maintaining
a library and by arranging sport activities. During the same decade,
in 1896, a youth association in Rejpelt was added, occupying itself with
publishing a handwritten journal, training a choir and organizing other
events. The youth associations of Rökiö and Keskisnejden were established
in 1908; the former launched debates once a week and was much
focused on temperance. The association of Lotlax was instituted the year
after. The programme was varied; in 1913 the branch received two libraries,
and the facilities were eagerly utilized by the members. The next year the
association arranged a sports competition. The association of Kovik became
a combined youth association and temperance society in 1910. The
local temperance society launched its civilizing enterprise in 1906, and the
housewives got the opportunity to improve their domestic skills when they
joined the Martha organization in 1903. The Vörå branch was known as
the most active in terms of participation in courses arranged by the organization
(Lönnqvist 1972: 64–65; Åkerblom 1963: 107, 317–327).
Thus, the parish of Vörå was socially homogeneous and mostly agrarian,
with quite many social activities on offer.
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