Rituals around sudden Death in Recent Years.” Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 38 (2008): 23–44. © 2015 by the author; licensee MDPI

Abstract: Life is normally expected to proceed through childhood, youth, adult-hood and old age. What happens then if death occurs at some earlier phase of life and not at a far distant time in people’s everyday lives? This will most often be a sudden and unexpected death. How do the nearest family, friends and acquaintances of the deceased cope with this? How and why are new rituals created, how are they spread, and what meaning do they have for the people who are thrust into difficult situations? These are the questions that will be dis-cussed in this paper. The emphasis is on the present day. The public marking of sudden death by means of collective actions has be-come far more prominent in recent years in comparison to the past times. This can be seen at sites where a traffic accident, a murder, or manslaughter has occurred, and in connection with memorials to fishermen who have lost their lives at sea. A behavioural pattern having mostly to do with young people who have per-ished or been killed has obviously been the subject of fairly rapid cultivation.