Culture and Society
1Comment
Researchers in Poland have published a cartometric map that shows the distribution of supernatural beings from Polish folklore along the Polish-German border. The map is beautifully designed to resemble Renaissance maps, and depicts various reported phenomena, including devils, spirits, the wild hunt, gnomes, will-o’-wisps, giants, dragons, mermaids, ghosts, werewolves, and nightmares.
The map, which is freely available as part of the publication, forms part of a wider study that explores the origins of stories about these supernatural entities in the historical regions of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To create it, the researchers examined 1,500 supernatural accounts collected by ethnographers and folklorists during the 19th and early 20th centuries, 600 of which were linked to landscape features in the region.
During this period, academics interested in folk stories attempted to spatially represent their research findings in various ways. This resulted in collective studies that translated the belief narratives of local communities into visual data that appeared in maps and atlases by the 20th century. These maps demonstrated the locations of specific cultural significance as well as the range of cultural phenomena and their patterns of diffusion.
“Images of the supernatural world are recognised as valuable and important intangible aspects of heritage, and their mapping has been an integral part of ethnographic works”, the team explains in their paper.
“Thanks to the quantitative approach in Computational Folkloristics, databases of verbal folklore are now being created that allow a quick spatial analysis of the occurrence of individual belief motifs, but also capture their socio-cultural-landscape context.”
In addition, the Intelligent Search Engine for Belief Legends (ISEBEL), which contains around 90,000 folktales and metadata from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Northeastern Germany, provides a valuable source for geospatial research. This database has already been utilized by others who have used it to map out the distribution of mythical creatures in other European contexts.
For this latest map, the team was mainly interested in local stories concerning the uncanny events associated with specific points in the landscape. This could include unusual rock features associated with giants, or hills that were thought to be the gathering site of witches.
“Considering the nature of the data obtained, we decided to create a map that would combine different research and artistic perspectives. Our map stems from the aspiration to merge artistic and symbolic elements reminiscent of Renaissance maps with the capabilities afforded by modern [Geographic Information System (GIS)] tools,” they explain.
“It serves as both a homage to the distinguished cartographers of the 17th and 18th centuries and a manifestation of the postmodern concept of synthesising and juxtaposing diverse forms, structures and methodologies, which facilitates the creation of maps of rich multidimensional significance.”
The study is published in the Journal of Maps.
