This study examines stories from the 1800s about the Swedish folklore creature Näcken with the purpose to define what kind of view on gender they are presenting. The geographical area in focus is the Swedish south province Småland. The ambition is to see how the stories describe the thinking, acting and meaning about gender and authority. This will also be studied in relation to the norms and ideals of gender that dominated in the 1800s. Former studies has shown that the view of folklore and gender interacted and carried each other in the 1600s and the 1700s. There are also research that indicate that the creature Näcken maintained gender patterns in the 1800s. This research determines more general patterns concerning gender and has not done a more firmly analysis in relation to the change in the view on gender which took place between the 1700s and the 1800s, which this study intend to do by using Yvonne Hirdman’s gender system as a theoretical framework. The result has shown that the understandings of Näcken had a role to play in the context of social control, seeing as the understandings affected the behavior of people. The most clear message the stories expresses is that men had more capacity to act than women, which is in line with the 1800s ideals about gender that derived from a polarization norm. This can also be seen in the context in which the meeting with Näcken took place, namely the in the context of work and other activities, but not in connection to physical places in line with the polarization norm, in which the women should have met the creature closer to the farm and the men’s meeting should have more distance from the farm. The stories also expresses a valuing of characteristics which were highly valued as norms in the 1800s. The characteristics also have a moral dimension. Men with highly valued characteristics were more likely to succeed with their attempts and had bigger chances of escaping Näcken. Within the moral spectrum one can find a Christian motive as well, since warnings about neglecting the religion takes place. For women though, the stories’ moral dimension spoke about precepts and the negative consequences which could follow if the women did not practice restraint and carefulness. From the 1600s and 1700s to the 1800s Småland, there is also a continuity regarding sexual relationships between women and Näcken to be found. Those kinds of relationships are rare to find in the sources.

This essay is a creative study of how characters are depicted in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, based on three novels of Pratchett, translated to Swedish: Häxor i Faggorna (1994), Svinvinternatt (2005), and Levande musik (2001). The creative part will be a short story written by me, where I put the well-known character Näcken from Swedish folklore into Pratchett’s imaginary world Discworld. I will use two academic texts about Näcken, Näcken (2008) by Jochum Stattin and Erotiska väsen(2010) by Ebbe Schön, as a base for my creative writing. To study how Pratchett writes and uses allusions in his works, White Knowledge and the Cauldron of story: The Use of Allusion in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by William T. Abbott and The intertextual use of the Fairy Tale in Postmodern Fiction by Kevin P. Smith will guide me. The purpose of this essay is to study how Pratchett changed folklore characters to fit into his world.

The subject of this master’s thesis is depictions of Old Norse mythology and related motifs in the visual arts during the period 1775–1855. The main question of this research is how the motifs were visualized and how the depictions are related to the classical tradition. Three artworks are objects of detailed study: Johann Heinrich Füssli’s painting Thor Battering the Midgaard serpent (1790), Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg’s The death of Balder (1817) and Nils Jacob Blommér’s painting Näcken and the daughters of Ägir (1850). The paintings are compared with literary sources and analyzed in relation to classicism as well as ideas about history and the Old Norse. It is argued that symbols, themes and compositions from the classical tradition, such as the heroic nude, were used by artists to visualize motifs from Old Norse mythology. It is also argued that the depictions, which by previous scholars have been considered primarily classical, are in fact characterized by a resistance against likeness with the Olympic gods and antique costume.