Sagans förvandlingar: Eva Wigström som sagosamlare och sagoförfattare

The purpose of this thesis is to study how fairy tales can change when they are removed from one set of surroundings to another. This movement can occur on several levels; from an orally spoken to a written text, from a rural proletariat to an urban bourgeoisie. The point of departure has been the fairy tale collector and fairy tale writer Eva Wigström (1832-1901) who in the 1880s wandered throughout the Swedish province of Scania collecting folklore and popular narratives. A part of the material she collected she reused in different ways, and by choosing a couple of the fairy tales that she used many times, differences in content and the manner of presentation can be observed.

Four fairy tale types have been central to the investigation. Three of these are so called ”female” tales, which is to say with women as the main characters; ”The Name of the Helper” (AT 500), ”The Three Old Women Helpers” (AT 501) and ”King Lindorm” (AT 433b); one ”male” tale, that is with a man as main character, ”The Wild Man” (AT 502). Gérard Genettes narratolgical method has been used as an aid in analysis as has Walter Ong’s advice on the differences between oral and written tales and Bengt Holbek’s observations on popular storytellers in Denmark during the 19th Century.

The fairy tales studied were all published in works intended for researchers. A couple of them were reworked for a philanthropic bourgeoisie magazine, a couple of others were reworked for different children's magazines. Finally, Eva Wigström wrote a couple of tales in which she allowed herself to be loosely inspired by the fairy tales mentioned above and their theme cycle.

By working with these texts a wish to abolish the disparity folk tale – authored tale has arisen. A definition is presented which is based on the medium and the culture in which the tale is conveyed. The starting point is the abstract type of fairy tale. This is displayed in the orally spoken fairy tale as well as in the written text. A recording is a documentation, more or less carefully transcribed, of an oral tale. A recording which in language, but not in content, is reworked for publicaton I call a revised tale. If the recording is changed in both language and content I call it a rewritten tale. An writer's tale is finally one which is placed more freely in relation to the oral tradition and which frees itself from the type.