Legends from Arctic Norway

Forthcoming in June.

The legend is a genre of folk narrative that purports to be a true account of mysterious episodes encountered by friends, family, or even the raconteur. Regine Normann's Legends from Arctic Norway follows Kari Aronste, revisiting her childhood home in the north one summer, and her circle of family and friends, who on every occasion recount such odd events for one another, and who also act out their beliefs to overcome the uncanniness of their daily lives.

We read of folk magic, the cunning arts, supernatural harm and help, preternatural creatures, and above all the dead - both on land and at sea. The vengeful will not let something as final as death stand in their way of exacting revenge. But there are ways and means of thwarting the restless dead at every turn.

Death was never so dead that a touch of life didn’t linger in the clay, giving it the power to drift around the neighbourhood, spreading dread and fear of darkness.
– The Churchyard on Kalvøya

If you like your folklore cold and dark, this is a book for you.

Table of Contents

Nordland Night (1927)

1. The Arrival
1. The Blueman Aboard the Johanne Marianne
2. Of Finn Jonetta and Her Daughter
3. To Force the Perpetrator Forth
2. On the Headland
1. The Other Wife
3. A Spectre in the Kitchen Loft
4. On the Wild Angelica Trip
1. Bjønn Jørn
2. The Milkmaid Who Was Taken by the Subterraneans
3. Bjønn Jørn’s Funeral
4. When the Baby Jesus Came to the Tusse Folk in Stormyrhammeren
5. Grave Rest
6. The Headless Corpse
7. The Girl Who Promised Her Sweetheart Her Faith in Life and in Death
8. The Gift the Subterraneans Gave Madam Berg
9. Fey Warning
10. The Light in the Jekt Cabin
5. Matgrass

The Gloaming of Autumn (1930)

1. The Churchyard on Kalvoya
2. The Pre-wedding
1. Fishing the Finnmark Season with Erik Nilsa
2. The Retribution
3. The Old Mother of Kringelhaugen
4. The Revenant Aboard the Cutter
5. Life in a Dead Man’s Bones
6. Forcing the Thief
7. The Mislaid Breadknife
8. The Old Gravedigger and His Dead Son
9. From the Time Our Lord Was a Small Lad
10. The Kven Who Followed the Revenants
3. The Stranger
4. Lovage Root
1. The First Grave
2. The Dream
5. Farewell Prayer

Additional

1. The Christmas Tree from the Sea
2. Fey Warning
3. How Svartisen Was Formed