At 840 pages, with more than two dozen chapters, a collective bibliography running over forty pages, 45 maps, and well over 150 figures and illustrations, Masks and Mumming in the Nordic Area does nothing less than establish a field: the socially-informed study of masks in performance and performers in masks in the Nordic countries and in areas with considerable Nordic influence. The scholarly paradigm is that of Halper and Story’s influential 1969 collection of essays on mumming in Newfoundland. Carsten Bregenhøj had led the way in applying this paradigm, based on fieldwork on Twelfth Night tradition on the Danish island of Agersø (1974) and in numerous other publications touching on Nordic mumming, and others followed. Meanwhile, Terry Gunnell (1995) offered a deep historical view. Now these and other scholars articulate the materials and methods of the field their works imply.
The opening section offers a welcome survey of national and area traditions: Christine Eike on Norway, Eva Knuts on Sweden, Carsten Bregenhøj and Hanne Pico Larsen on Denmark, Terry Gunnell on the North Atlantic area, Urpo Vento on Finland and Karelia, Ülo Tedre on Estonia, and Adriënne Heijnen on Greenland. These chapters fill more than half the book and, taken together, comprise an invaluable reference work coupled with various theoretical insights (e.g., Gunnell’s explication of and explanation for the thriving of mumming in Shetland and the Faroes, as opposed to Orkney and Iceland). The chapters have similar structures, beginning with introductory material on the country or area, the earliest references to mumming, and the materials available for study, usually followed by a discussion of the general features of masks and mumming or ritual visiting traditions, and then moving on to the main course: a survey of masks and mumming traditions following the old farming calendar, except of course in Greenland, where Heijnen relates this survey to the “seasonal calendar.” Most authors then discuss modern or non-calendrical traditions, and all end with a concluding section in which they contemplate the traditions they have so skillfully set forth. Where the extensive archives permit it, the authors make use of the tried-and-true method of mapping archival variation (though not, however, Bregenhøj and Larsen on Denmark), and all offer extensive illustration, mostly photographs (this may be said of the entire volume).
The rest of the book comprises essays grouped into five categories: Themes, Local Case Studies, Related Traditions in the Nordic Area, New Traditions, and Comparable Traditions in Neighboring Countries. In the first of these, three of the authors of the surveys are able to take up aspects of their topics in detail. In “Talking about the Talking Masks of Ærø,” Hanne Pico Larsen extracts a set of rules for mumming on a Danish island and analyses a post-performance dialogue in which, she shows, the hosts overtly discuss the potential identity of the masked performers but covertly comment on the quality of their performance. Christine Eike discusses “Disguise as Ritualized Humour” (by which she seems in some cases to mean the pleasure that people feel) in Norway over time and concludes that more disruptive or subversive behaviors are funnier (or more fun). Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj (“Eros in Disguise: Eroticism in Mumming Interaction”) also discusses fun, namely the fun that erotically charged mumming conferred on young adults in Finland in the 1970s, a kind of fun that no longer seems necessary in the more sexually open world of the twentieth century; here Kaivola-Bregenhøj sees an explanation for the mumming tradition she studies now being taken over by children. Eva Knuts also ties social change to changes in mumming practice. In “Mock Brides, Hen Parties and Weddings” she shows how the Mock Bride traditions are products of an older rural environment in which unmarried women faced serious challenges, whereas Hen Parties connect with modernity and growing equality between the sexes.
The local case studies all have historical depth, as the titles tend to indicate: Fredrik Skott, “Easter Witches in Sweden”; Ane Ohrvik, “’May the Star Come in?’ The Process of Tradition in Grimstad, Norway”; Mari Kulmanen, “Changes in the St Knut’s Day Mumming in Äetsä, Finland”; Siv Ekström and Susanne Österlund-Pötzch, “Tjugondag Knut Mumming on the Åland Islands, Past and Present”; Kristín Einarsdóttir, “Ash Bags in the Country, Costumes in Town: Ash Wednesday Traditions in Iceland, Past and Present”; Vilborg Davíðsdóttir, “Elves on the Move: Midwinter Mumming and House-Visiting Traditions in Iceland.” The fascinating chapters on new tradition are Terry Gunnell, “Carnival in the Classroom: Icelandic Pre-Graduation Mumming Traditions at Upper-Secondary Level,” and Bodil Nildin-Wall, “Black Elves and Orcs in Swedish Woods: Examples of Non-Traditional Masks in Live Role-Playing Games.” Chapters on Related Traditions in the Nordic Area include Urpo Vento, “’Oven Breakers’: Men’s Ritual Visits during the Season of Hallowmas and Christmas in Finnish Karelian Communities”; the late Reimund Kvideland, “The Killing of the Christmas Goat”; and Nils-Arvid Bringéus, “Mumming in Effigy around St Knut’s Day in Southern Sweden: An Example of the Popular Exercise of Justice.” Chapters on comparable traditions include Emily Lyle, “Galoshins: The Scottish Death-and-Revival Play Performed by Boys at Yule or Hallowe’en”; Séamas Ó Cathláin, “Aspects of the Development of the Irish Christmas Mummers’ Play”; and Paul Smith, “Remembering the Past: The Marketing of Tradition in Newfoundland.” This is a truly impressive group of authors, who have clearly put energy and thought into their contributions. Not a one disappoints.
Just as the national and regional surveys constitute an impressive and rewarding introduction to Nordic mumming, so the essays I have just enumerated would constitute several issues of a Journal of Nordic Mumming, if there were such a thing. At least we can say that the field is now firmly established, thanks to the first-rate scholarship that informs this welcome volume.
WORKS CITED
Bregenhøj, Carsten. 1974. Helligtrekongersløb på Agersø: Socialt, Statistisk og Strukturelt. Dansk Folkemindesamling, Skrifter 3. København: Akademisk Forlag.
Gunnell, Terry. 1995. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Halpert, Herbert, and G. M. Story. 1969. Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Essays in Anthropology, Folklore, and History. Toronto: Published for Memorial University of Newfoundland by University of Toronto Press.
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[Review length: 1010 words • Review posted on October 20, 2010]