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examples where a neighboug was accusing another by stealing "butter lucky" with
"para".
"Para" is just the same "trollcat" as it was in Sweden and Norway. You can find "Para" in
court protocolls in western part (Swedish speaking part) in Finland (1520-1600), but not
in finnish speaking parts on the country. So "Para" can't be shamanistic (Lappland)
phenomenom, but it surely is known all parts of Scandinavia.
As time goes, You could find "Para" in finnish speaking areas too, but in in 1500-1700.
So we have learned it from swedish speaking people. But, as we are dealing with
animals, you can find other animals than "trollcat" too. We have cases with "trolldog"
which I mean the Devil with a shape of a dog. Some of our accused had meet the devil
with a shape of a dog (and a coat).
We have at least one case with a "metapmorphose", where people have been accused of
being "werewolves". In Estonia the tradition of those being wolves in night time was
strong. There were many cases like that.
I think, the idea of "trollcats" is not shamanistic, it is surely Scandinavian!
There is quite a lot of articles abou "Para" (Trollcat) but only few of them would be
available in english.
But, there is one point we have to keep in mind. People were ACCUSED of having
"Para" and they were CONVICTED to using witchcraft, but they were never
CONVICTED TO HAVING PARA! The matter of trial was not, is there really animal
shaped "butter stealing" para, but it was a question of practicing witchcraft or
superstition!
In Scandinavia we have very old "lore", written by one historian about 1200-1300, were
a man was killed by "Mara" (bad dream animal?) because he had not kept his promise to
his Finnish wife.
Another instance of using "para", other than trying have luck in stealing butter, was a
"Finnish way" to use a bear as a helper for killing someone's cattle. People believed that
some (almost always a man) people had ability to force bears to kill enemy's horse or
cattle. But I have no idea, if the bear wanted some price of it's doings (nourishment or
protection).
Even in the oldest witch trials (before people had any idea about satanistic pact with
devil) witches were believed to use some animals as a helper of their maleficium. So, this
belief must be older than the christian theory of pact.
The bear cases seems to be common way to do harm among finnish speaking people. In
some rare cases the helper was a wolf. In some cases (1670s) the helper was a dog, but it
seems that the dog was not really an animal, but it was a Devil with a shape of a dog.
Some ladies used cows (or even a pig) to ride to "Bl=E5kulla" (the Sabbath), but those
animals were usually "borrowed" for some neighbour and they were not acting like a
helper - they were forced to do so.
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