Kolga mõisa kummituslood Ulvi Meieri jutuvaramus

Abstract

Kolga Ghost Stories in Ulvi Meier`s Repertory. The aim of the current B.A. thesis is to analyze and discuss one storyteller´s repertory with a focus on ghost stories. The informant Ulvi Meier lives in Kolga hamlet next to Kolga manor. She was born in 1961 and has lived almost her whole life near Kolga or in Kolga. Ulvi has guided excursions to Kolga mansion since early 1990`s. Although she is not a professional guide, her excursions are quite popular among tourists, schoolchildren and local people. Ulvi is respected and valued as a storyteller, she can perform her ghost stories very enjoyably. The present thesis is based on the recordings of four excursions, which took place between November 10th 2007 to March 29th 2008. The audience of these four excursions was each time different, therefore it is possible to observe the influence of the different listeners on the narrator. To place my thesis into the context of Estonian folkloristics, I begin with an introduction to the works of different Estonian folklorists, who have studied and focused on specific storytellers. After that I give a short overview of the history of Kolga and Stenbock family, because Ulvi`s repertory is based on Kolga manor`s and on Stenbock family`s ghost stories. Then I move on to introduce my informant Ulvi Meier, to find out how she has found her way to Kolga ghost stories. To “place” Ulvi into some kind of storytellers category, I briefly write about categorizing of narrators in Estonian folkloristics. Then I characterize Ulvi as a storyteller and describe the structure of her excursions. As I try to reflect the influence of different performing situations and the variety of performances I analyze two different variants of one legend. After that I give an overview of Ulvi`s repertory and I divide stories into genres. There are at least four different genres represented in Ulvi`s repertory: memorate, legend, historical lore and even fabulate. As other genres are blended and no ghosts appear in them, they remain out of the scope of this work. In the end I name some sources of Ulvi`s repertory. And finally, as I am quite close person to Ulvi, I can`t leave out my personal influence on Ulvi`s repertory and storytelling situations. The role of one storyteller as a designer of lore can`t be underestimated, especially in today`s guiding tradition. A good narrator has to be creative and has to perform his/her story the way that the listeners are amused. But the situations of the storytelling and the public have a great influence on a narrator, so the tradition of folk narratives depends on both.