What’s in a (hand)bag? Moominmamma’s handbag in The Moomins and the Great Flood as an assemblage ‘bundle’

Abstrakt

This article argues that Moominmamma’s handbag serves as a prime example of a bundle, a collection of items for medicinal, personal, or ceremonial use commonly associated with the archaeology of Indigenous peoples of a range of cultures. Here, I draw together examinations of archaeological bundles and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (Le Guin 1988 [2016]) to demonstrate the importance of the handbag as a participant in the Moomins’ first literary appearance. The bag holds the keys to the Moomins’ progress, a repository for healing and thriving in dark times, and plays a vital role as both a personal and medicinal bundle in The Moomins and the Great Flood. Using examples drawn from the new English translation of The Moomins and the Great Flood, I show how Moominmamma’s handbag contributes to the journey undertaken through the flooded valley, and how it acts as a critical example of Le Guin’s conception of the bag as an essential tool for survival against the dangers of a hostile fictional world.