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Paper long abstract

The poster examines how the Swan Maiden tale-type (ATU 400) has adapted milieu-morphologically to the Faroese context in the form of the Kópakonan legend. It explores how the legend’s human-animal transformations, skin motif, and shapeshifting narrative interact with the cultural, social, and environmentally remote context of the Faroe Islands. The work emphasizes the legend’s etiological and moral functions, highlighting its embedded commentary on gender, autonomy, and social roles, as well as its role in sustaining communal memory, ecological reciprocity, and human-nonhuman boundaries. Attention is also given to the liminality of seals, whose ability to move between land and sea, as well as human and nonhuman forms, reinforces the narrative’s ecological and social boundaries, illustrating the Faroese understanding of interdependence between humans and the natural world. The legend’s didactic and cautionary dimensions are closely tied to its remote island setting, where rough weather conditions and maritime livelihood shape cultural narratives and reinforce social norms. Methodologically, the poster combines classification through motif indices (Boberg 1966; Thompson 1975) with contextual interpretation, demonstrating how folktale structures are adapted locally to produce a distinctive narrative ecology. This ecology reflects Faroese worldview, landscape, and intergenerational values, showing how oral traditions negotiate human, nonhuman, and environmental interactions. By situating the Kópakonan legend within the framework of critical remoteness studies, the poster highlights how geography influences narrative form, content and function, offering insights into the interrelation of folklore, cultural memory, and environmental ethics in remote communities.