Phone Sun Shines Mind
by VERA KNÚTTSDÓTTIR
Reflections on HAUNTING THE SPECTRE AND THE METAPHOR
I enjoyed the symposium immensely and felt our talks reflected the widespread and seminal focus of spectralities, and how spectrality can encourage juicy research and analysis!
My phone decided to do a Simon in Icelandic: “Síminn sólin skín sinni einni dóminum síminn sólin komin aukin”, which roughly translates: “Phone sun shines mind one judgement phone sun arrived increased”.
Simon in Icelandic suggests the social-cultural connotations of spectres as discussed by Peeren and del Pilar Blanco in the introduction to the Spectralities Reader and I have two stories for you that illustrate that point in an Icelandic context:
The terms spectre (vofa) and ghost (draugur) are very different in the Icelandic language. The word “ghost” tends to have negative connotations, being close to terms such as “fjandi” (e. enemy or devil), and Icelandic ghosts, in particular in medieval texts, seem to be very physical beings, somewhat zombies, as well as spiteful, malicious and violent. A case in point is the ghost Glámur in the Saga of Grettir, who is said to have pested the farmers in the northern part of Iceland. A former shepherd, it seems as if Glúmur returns from death to kill sheep, make damage and harm farmers, his former employers. Grettir was a famous hero who wanted to test his physical and spiritual strength and fight the ghost. The fight is described in detail in the saga in a quite fascinating scene that ends with Grettir beating Glámur who, instead, curses him with misfortune, and states that from now on his eyes will follow Grettir wherever he goes, which makes Grettir terrified of the dark. After the fight Grettir is doomed to live with the curse which in the end causes him to become an outsider and finally his death. Glámur can be considered a classical ghost in Icelandic heritage; physical, strong, violent, with great spiritual powers and the potential of laying curse on people. The word “vofa” (specter) and its adjective “vofulegur” (spectral) are in a certain sense more neutral than the overly charged ghost. Vofa is defined as being a “spirit of a deceased man” and more precisely, in Icelandic folk belief, Vofa is considered referring to a supernatural being that is “less tangible and not as harmful as ghost.” Specter is thus perceived as an apparition of a deceased person and a harmless presence, but it relations to the terms “yfirvofandi” (e. imminent) and “vofa yfir” (e. loom threateningly) should also be highlighted, as they both indicate the anticipation of the apparition of the spectre, how it is bound to return, as well as an etymological relation to “imminent threat”. The latter approaches the idea of the uncanny that arouses anxiety and fear by bearing with it an undefined or defamilarized threat. Stories of spectres can be found within Icelandic heritage and national legends, the most famous one being a story titled “Móðir mín í kví kví” (e. Mother Mine, don’t Weep, Weep) that every Icelandic school child knows, as well as, by heart, a short poem included in the story. The story belongs to the category of new-born exposure stories which could almost be described as a specific genre within Icelandic ghost stories; telling stories of young women who become pregnant and are forced to give secretly birth to their children whom they leave out of doors to die. The dead infant later returns to haunt its mother which usually makes the woman go mad. In this particular story, the woman is getting ready to go to a party but regrets not having anything fancy to wear for the occasion. At that moment, she hears someone quietly singing:
Mother mine don’t weep weep
don’t you worry for, for
I shall loan you these rags of mine
rags of mine to dance in
I shall loan you these rags of mine
rags of mine to dance in
The woman instantly identifies the singing voice as coming from her dead baby, the story even describes how she recognizes the singing as being a “message” intended for her. It also recounts how frightened she becomes when hearing the message that she is driven mad. Unlike the physical and zombie-like ghost, the spectre makes its presence known with the untangible voice, and instead of attacking violently the haunted woman, it presents a different kind of threat in the form of an eerie message that frightens the woman to insanity. The story or legend can certainly be read differently — feminist analysis would perhaps be the most appropriate — but one quite evident reading would be from the viewpoint of memory; the baby ghost signals the traumatic memory, a hidden secret, dark deed and a sense of guilt, which the woman wants above all to forget but persists to be remembered. In this context, the spectre has an uncomfortable presence and bears with it an uncomfortable truth, suggesting a melancholic form of “impossible” mourning.
How this discussion of terminology relates to my Icelandic Simon is a different story. Perhaps I will get the chance to discuss that in-depth next time around…
//VK.
Vera Knútsdóttir holds MA degree in Literary Studies from the University of Amsterdam. She is currently a PhD candidate in the department of Comparative Literature at the University of Iceland, and spent this last semester as a visiting fellow at the Cultural Memory Studies Initative (CMSI) at Gent University in Belgium. Her doctoral thesis, written under the supervision of Prof. Gunnthórunn Gudmundsdóttir, deals with spectral memories in contemporary Icelandic culture, literary texts and visual works of art. The term “Spectral“ applies to memories that have for different reasons been forgotten, silenced and repressed in the cultural psyche, but have returned to the public realm by means of contemporary art and literature. Spectrality theory, and the seminal work of Jacques Derrida, Spectres de Marx, serve as a point of departure for the project, with the initial aim of relating the “spectre“ to ideas of memory and theories on cultural memory studies.
