Vernacular Economics and Stories of Fights: Finnish Folktales through the Lens of the Civilization Process

Using Norbert Elias's theory of the civilizing process, this article explores Finnish folktales on petty trade and markets collected in the early twentieth century. In folktales, the marketplace as the arena of commercial dealings was understood as a distinct zone with its own code of behavior. It was a public place that differed from the private sphere. As part of folk life, the marketplace required social interaction, which provided both literal and metaphorical spaces especially for masculine performances. One outcome of this performance was aggression. The analysis is based on the exploration of the tale structures where the sequence of events follows the fight tale structure.