Bengt af Klintberg:
The Types of the Swedish Folk Legend. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia Scientiarum Fennica). 2011. 501 pp.
ISBN 978-951-41-1053-5 (hardback)
40 euros
The documentation of folk legends in Sweden was begun already in the sixteenth century by Olaus Magnus, the last Catholic archbishop, and reached its peak as late as in the first half of the twentieth century. This rich material has hitherto been accessible to international study only to a limited degree. The over 1800 legend types listed in the present catalogue give a vivid picture of the Swedish peasant society with its trolls, ghosts and witches and illustrates its concept of history. The index is based on unprinted records in the four largest folklore archives of Sweden and about 150 printed sources, covering all provinces in Sweden and the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland. Each section of the catalogue contains an introduction, in which the general background of the legends is described.
BENGT AF KLINTBERG is a folklorist and writer who taught folklore at the University of Stockholm in 1967–87 before he became a full time writer. His publications amount to over thirty books and numerous articles. He is known especially for his collections of traditional and contemporary legends, but his oeuvre also includes poetry and essays. In 2006 he was appointed honorary proessor by the Swedish Government. His work on the present catalogue, undertaken on the initiative of his scholarly mentor Carl-Herman Tillhagen, started already in 1962.