Pre-modern Seminar No 54

On Tuesday, 21 May 2024, at 16.00, Dr Tommy Kuusela from The Institute for Language and Folklore in Uppsala will give a talk called:

"Scandinavian werewolves".

The seminar will take place online at 16.00 (Estonian time; at 15.00 Central European time) at 16.15.

A short presentation of the lecture:

In this talk, we will meet the werewolf from Old Norse sources through to contemporary popular culture in Scandinavia. The talk will mostly focus on descriptions of the werewolf as recorded in Swedish folklore archives, where it differs from later depictions in popular culture. Werewolves abound in Scandinavian folklore and we have thousands of descriptions of them in the archives. The talk will also address the question of animal transformation in folklore.

Tommy Kuusela is a researcher and archivist at The Institute for Language and Folklore in Uppsala, Sweden. He has a PhD in History of Religions and is a folklorist who has written more than 50 articles on his research interests. He is also the host of Sweden’s biggest podcast on folklore – När man talar om trollen.

Everybody is welcome!