Sägen som modell till handling. Mannen, graven och sägnen: En studie om Falks grav

Abstract

In the woods of Hökensås, in the province of Västergötland, lies a grave. The grave belongs to Jonas Falk who was executed in the year 1855 for robbery and manslaughter. Falk was buried in unbridled soil but some time after the execution somebody marked the grave with a cross. The legend tells that every night there are fresh flowers on the grave, but why does anyone want to honor this robber and murderer? Nobody knows. This study is about Falk ́s grave and the legends that surrounds Falks life and his grave. For decades adolescents have been visiting the grave on legend trips and to “test” the legends out; is it true that Falk is going to hunt us if we touch his grave cross? I wonder which legends are told, and how. What is a legend trip and how are those trips taking place? This study is based on interviews, observations, Youtube clips, and discussions from Internet. These questions I try to answer with notions like Legend, Ostensive, Legend Tripp, Ritual and Performance, but with Swedish folkloristic notions. In this study I write about the different classifications of the legends that surrounds the grave and analyses them. I notice that the oral version and the written version is not quite the same, and many of the legends are based after the interpretation framework that usually defines how people are interpreting their surrounding before the industrial revolution. I also noticed that legend trips to the grave are about performance, the staging of roles, and the rituals that are taking place. Like the daring of vandalizing the grave cross and to snatch sacrificed coins from the grave. Legend trips are about creating a horrifying mood, half-belief, and the questions about life after death but they are also for entertaining. My conclusion is that the oral tradition is secure and sound, in the surrounding district, and in the digital world. I also question the concept of tradition; I think the term lacks a dimension and I state that it also needs to have the dimension of the future. Without future there is no tradition. I argue that the legends of Falks grave have become something more than only legends. It is something that binds the individuals in the surrounding districts. The grave and Falk as a person is seen in different ways depending on the generation that has given the place it ́s definition. The legend trips make the legends, and the legends make the legend trips. Internet makes the legends spread over the country and they are acted out in the real world. In the end I ask myself if my study have “ruined” the mystery of the legends and the grave. I also ask myself if the legends only belong to the surrounding districts heritage? The legends are now available on the Internet; maybe it ́s all of Sweden’s heritage or maybe even the world?