Preface Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter 1 Introduction Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter 3 The Use of the Fantastic in a Historical Perspective Dragons and Kingdoms: Political Authority and Fantasy in the Histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Saxo Grammaticus Hans Hägerdal 20 Egyptian Mummies, Medicine and the Supernatural in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Joachim Östlund 37 A Double-Edged Sword: Promises and Dangers of Hypnotism in Sweden, 1880–1915 Cecilia Riving 49 The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Contemporary Culture A Friend and Foe: The Portrayal of Otherness and Disease in Vampire Fiction Anna Höglund 68 Priestesses of Avalon: Fantasy Fiction and Contemporary Goddess Worship Åsa Trulsson 88 Dwarfs Are Not Religious, Sir! Gradually Reclining Dwarven Irreligion in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Universe Jonas Svensson 106 Bringing Dragons Back into the World: Dismantling the Anthropocene in Robin Hobb's The Realm of the Elderlings Mariah Larsson 124 Our World Is Dew: Tor Åge Bringsværd's Fable Prose as a Chthulucenic Exploration Marit Ruge Bjærke and Kyrre Kverndokk 140 The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Memory Culture "And this is how I tried to fathom the Lindenborg Pool": William Morris, Medievalism and Modernity Per Klingberg 156 Fairy Tales Transformed: Analyzing a New Wave of Feminist Retellings of Fairy Tales Maria Nilson 173 Remediation of Cultural Memory in the Dragon Age Videogame Series Cecilia Trenter 188 Fallout, Memory and Values: The Uses of History and Time in a Fantasy-Driven Videogame Derek Fewster 203 About the Contributors 221 Index 223