In this paper I investigate the presence of the traditional narratives in short stories of Stig Dagerman, one of the leading Swedish writers of the 1940s’ modernism. The phenomenon is analysed with the use of theories proposed by Michael Riffaterre in connection to his notion of the referential fallacy. In the fi rst part of the article I briefl y expound on modernism in Swedish prose and clarify the understanding of the text, as viewed by Riffaterre. In the second part of the article I explain the term traditional narrative and analyse how Dagerman employs the potential of particular genres within traditional narratives in his short stories – I look into transtextual references to myths, fables, legends, folk tales as well as fairy tales. The third part of the paper includes conclusions from my analysis – Dagerman effectively weakens the mimesis in his short stories not only by establishing transtextual references to the genres within traditional narratives, but also by distorting these genres. This device signifi cantly impacts the construction of meaning in the short stories.