The aim of the study is to show how this scientifically not yet validated creature, gets to represent the borderland between the real and the imagined.
- For me, Storsjöodjuret has been a way into the borderland between the nature of reality - where cryptozoologists and observers believe they have seen an as yet unidentified, very real animal - and people's fantasies, hopes, dreams and meaning-making about it, says Sanna Händén Svensson about her research.
In her study, Sanna has also looked at how perceptions of this specific example change along with changes in society, and thus continue to be a meaningful phenomenon for people. The project shows the power of these perceptions to not only take shape, but also transform over time. In this way, the study also sheds light on questions of when, where and for whom the Storsjöodjur matters.
Why do you think the Great Lakes Monster has fascinated people for so long?
- I think that question holds many different answers. The older ideas of a sea serpent in Lake Storsjön were an integral part of everyday life, there were lots of different kinds of creatures to relate to. The sea serpent was one of them. The later ideas are based on the earlier ones, but as society, science and our way of being in the world changed, the idea of what the sea serpent is, was renegotiated. Nowadays, it's partly about this whole story, but also about the exciting idea that there might be things we're not quite sure about yet - big discoveries about our own, local nature/environment/landscape. The idea of the Storsjöodjuret - and cryptids in a broader sense - contains thoughts about the relationship between man and nature.
Can you give examples of how people related to the Storsjöodjur in the past compared to today?
- In my dissertation, I describe how ideas about the Storsjöodjur are renegotiated in line with social changes and scientific progress. At the end of the 19th century, the sea serpent, a previously commonly held idea about the Great Lake (Storsjön), moves into a scientific sphere and interests zoologists and archaeologists. They fail to verify the species and there the Beast gets stuck in 'limbo', so to speak. The humorous and entertaining, which is already visible in 19th century writings, comes into focus to some extent and the cryptid enters the arena of tourism.
- Today we have popular culture examples such as Birger - the little big seal cub (a book character and creation of author Sara Strömberg and illustrator Anders Nilsson), which is aimed at a new audience (children) but can also be seen as one in a long line of different dragons that have been Disneyfied and made cuter and more harmless than the older models.
*A cryptid is a creature that exists in the stories and that many believe exists but whose existence has never been witnessed or scientifically proven.
Read the thesis at Lund University Research Portal