My essay explores how people talk about a woman´s supernatural ability in relation to normality and abnormality. In order to find this out I´ve made interviews with people inclose relations to Hildur Lawergren. Hildur lived all her life in Fole on Gotland where she was often interviewed in local papers and on the radio about her predictions on the coming weather. She used melted candles to make her predictions. The candles were melted down on Christmas eve. From patterns that the melted candles made Hildur claimed to make out pictures in her mind of the coming weather.

When I analyzed my interviews I could see how the people close to Hildur struggled with understanding Hildurs ability. They had to find ways to handle the borders between normal and accepted abilitys and Hildurs more unusual ability. People often confronted Hildurs close relatives with questions of how the ability functions and if the relatives also had the ability. In some ways the people closest to Hildur separated her ability from the person Hildur, that was a beloved mother and grandmother. This shows when they mention the ability as “it” or “that”. I´ve concluded that the ability is seen as inheritable and is then possible to develop further using certain techniques. But if a person has not inherited the ability from birth it’s not at all possible to develop it later.