“The Narrative World of Finnish Fairy Tales. Structure, Agency, and Evaluation in Southwest Finnish Folktales”

Finnish fairy taies represent the northern branch of the Western
European fairy-tale tradition. Although Finnish epic folklore and
mythology have been objects of great research interest, Finnish fairy
taies have been studied surprisingly little. This study answers not
only methodological but also the most important empirical questions,
such as: what are the themes, plots and characters which have
been able to entertain both fairy-tale tellers and their listeners from
one generation to the next? How can these contentual elements be
understood and interpreted within the framework of traditional
Finnish folk culture?
The methodological issues dealt with here indude the question of
how to approach traditional folklore material recorded in the 1800s,
of which there is an enormous amount but very little accompanying
contextual Information. In order to analyse the contents of the taies,
this study suggests the use of several semantic levels of abstraction
as well as the systematic analysis of variation; only then is it feasible
to present macrocontextual, interpretive hypotheses in which narrative
and cultural structures are examined side by side.
Satu Apo is Associate Professor of Folkloristics at the University of
Helsinki in Finland. In addition to fairy taies she has conducted
research on gender and folklore, for example in her anthology Naisen
väki (Woman’s Dynamistic Power, 1995). Her most recent
research deals with cultural models of drinking as well as Finnish
mentality. She has published numerous articles in English and the
Scandinavian languages.

FF Communications 256