Berättelse, beskrivning, auktoritet

This article analyses the flow of speeches during a ”storytelling evening” in a northern Sweden village, where people had been invited to tell stories about the times and the work when timber and tarbarrels were floated down the river. Focus is on how speakers claim authority and entitlement to have something to say, and how a large-scale hyper-narrative of “the floating epoch” is negotiated. Discussed in William Labov’s terms, although the result tends to give a general description without a clear narrative structure, there is a narrative closure implicit in the theme of the evening: when the floating work ended, the social life described also ended. Furthermore, the relevance of the storytelling is not only to find in the pride of the local history, but also in giving opportunity to comment on the contemporary situation where the hydroelectric power plant regulates the river and affects the landscape and living conditions.