SEPTEMBER 2024
Sandis Laime
Latvian Witchcraft Narratives Over Time: Sources, Research Methodologies, and Key Findings
20 September, 2024., at 5 p.m. CEST
Speaker's Biography:
Sandis Laime, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Art at the University of Latvia. Since 2021, he has been the head of the digital archive of the Archives of Latvian Folklore (garamantas.lv). His scholarly interests have included the Latvian diaspora in Siberia, Medieval and Early Modern Latvian sandstone carvings, and place lore, particularly folklore associated with Latvia’s sacred sites (see his monographs The Sacred Underworld: Cave Folklore in Latvia* (2009) and *Svētupe Livs’ Offering Cave* (2016; co-authored with archaeologist Juris Urtāns)). Following the defense of his doctoral dissertation, *The Ragana Tradition of Northeastern Latvia* (University of Latvia, 2011), and the publication of his monograph *Witches in Latvian Folk Belief: Night Witches* (2013), he has continued to study the historical typology of Latvian witch beliefs. During his postdoctoral project (2017–2020), he compiled a corpus of 2,000 folklore texts on witches in the digital archive, which was used to develop type and motif indexes of witch legends and other folklore genres, soon to be published in a forthcoming book. He also chaired the organizing committee of the 19th ISFNR Congress, held in Riga, Latvia.
Abstract:
The goal of my presentation is twofold: while introducing my research on the historical typology of Latvian witch beliefs and presenting my latest book Latvian Legend Type and Motif Index: Witches, I would also like to familiarize the audience with the Archives of Latvian Folklore (ALF) and its digital archive, garamantas.lv. The year 2024 is special for ALF as the archive celebrates its 100th anniversary, while the digital archive marks its 10th anniversary. Thus, I will begin my talk with a brief overview of the history of ALF and its digital archive. In the second part of the presentation, I will focus on my recent research into the history of Latvian witch beliefs. Latvians use three words to denote witches: ragana, lauma, and spīgana. Each of these terms is associated with chronologically different traditions, which can be broadly divided into the layers of night witches, milk witches, and demonic witches. The study of witch legends offers folklorists the opportunity to work with a variety of research sources and methodologies. In addition to the 19th- and 20th-century folklore sources, there are also older historical records, primarily from the 16th to 18th centuries, such as chronicles, witch trial records, and religious texts. The research methodology provides various approaches, of which I will further detail the use of linguistic analysis, place valency, mapping, and comparative methods. I will also introduce the type and motif indexes of witch legends developed for the purposes of comparative research.