Haunted by the memory of WWII: folklore, hauntology and the spectre of war in the Northern Norwegian landscape

Abstract

ABSTRACT On the following pages the folklore of the landscape with a narrative connection to the Second World War in Northern Norway will be reviewed, focusing the scope on hauntings and ghost stories. I will take a hauntological approach to analyse these narratives in addition to engaging with selected theories regarding social memory and post-war national identity. Furthermore, an overview of stories of hauntings in connection to WWII will be examined. These will be analysed and placed within one of three appropriate categories. An overview of the statistics and numbers will also be provided. Subsequently, the scope then will be narrowed to the examination of selected stories regarding the landscape and the hauntological theories will be applied to the analysis. This paper finds that the narratives gain authenticity through their historical engagement, and the local history knowledge of the people experiencing these hauntings. In addition to this, the article argues for the everchanging nature of social memory, and how this is visible in the local folklore of Northern Norway. Finally, the article will conclude by examining the discovery of the mutability of Norwegian WWII history perspective and its reactive effect regarding the spectral haunting of the landscape.