Opening Passages: Just a sample. From "About Ash Lad, Who Stole the Troll's Silver Ducks, Coverlet, and Golden Harp", the first tale in the collection:
There once was a poor man who had three sons. When he died, the two older sons were about to set off into the world to try their luck, but they refused to take the youngest with them.
"You!" they said. "The only thing you're good for is sitting here and digging in the ashes."
"Then I suppose I'll have to go alone," said Ash Lad. (p. 3)
From "The Virgin Mary as Godmother":
There once was a poor couple who lived far, far away in a great forest. The wife gave birth to a beautiful daughter, but they were so poor that they didn't know how they could afford to have the child christened. (p. 32)
From "Nothing Is Needed by the One All Women Love":
There once were three brothers. I don't really know how it happened, but each of them had been given one wish so they could have whatever they wanted. Two of the brothers didn't take long to decide. They wished that whenever they stuck their fist in their pocket, they would always find money. "For if a person has as much money as he wants, he will always make his way in the world," they said.
But the youngest knew to wish for something even better. His wish was that all women should fall in love with him the instant they saw him. As you will hear, this was better than either possessions or money. (p. 171)
From "East of the Sun and West of the Moon":
There once ws a poor farmer who had many children and not much to given them of either food or clothing, but the most beautiful of all was the youngest daughter, who was lovely beyond measure. (p. 182)
Summary: In this collection of folktales we have everything one has come to expect from an anthology of fairy tales: beast fables, adventures of youngest sons of poor families, fantastic happenings, strange ingenuities, trolls, clever maidens, royal princesses, transformations, all mixed with vivid depictions and dry humor.
Reading them all together, one notices some patterns. One very common pattern is that of the small thing that is actually big, whether literally or figuratively -- a ship that can be put in the pocket (derived from Freyr's ship in Norse myth), a person who seems insignificant but is great of heart or mind, and the like. One of the recurring figures is Askeladden, Ash Lad, who is the Norse counterpart of the English Jack. (Apparently in the original tales, he was usually called Askefisen; but Norway has a curious language problem, in that there are different versions of the language, the Danish book-tongue and the more purely Norse dialects, and which you use can be politically charged. In the time of Asbjornsen and Moe, it was usual to 'Danicize' names, but there was a movement pushing for return to Norwegian roots, so rather than use Askefisen or the Danish equivalent, Askepot, they used one of the occasional nicknames, Askeladden. Of course, due to Asjbornsen and moe, Askeladden is now the dominant way of referring to him.) Ash Lad is not so much a character as a role. He is always the youngest son, generally the youngest of three. What family he has varies depending on what the story requires -- in some stories the family is royal, in others common; in some stories the family is wealthy, in most of them it is poor. He gets his name from the job of making sure that the fire does not completely go out, not a glamorous position, but one that figuratively seems quite significant. In the course of the story he goes on an adventure where he has to face a set of apparently unsolvable problems. He is sometimes innocent and sometimes mischievous, but he is always courageous and ingenious, and he tends to solve the problems in a fantastic way using unlikely means and a bit of quick wit. Faced with difficulties, he often finds them amusing rather than frustrating, and he always succeeds, winning the wealth, the kingdom, or the princess, as the case may be.
The stories that are best known from this collection are Norway's own perennial favorite, "Soria Moria Castle" (which I've talked about before), "The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Who Were Supposed to Go to the Mountain Pasture to Fatten Up", and the Scandinavian version of the Cupid and Psyche story, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", which is probably, worldwide, the most highly regarded tale in the collection. There are also specifically Norwegian versions of tales that have better-known counterparts in other langauges, like "The Hen Who Had to Go to Dovre Mountain or Else the Whole World Would Perish", which is a version of what we would usually call "Chicken Little". A few others, like "The Mill That Keeps Grinding at the Bottom of the Sea", have alternative versions from other sources that are also popular.
The tales don't strictly enforce a moral, and they are occasionally shot through with a bit of pessimism about life, but there are a few recurring moral features. Courage and wisdom are needed in order to have luck; the wise are lucky in exactly the circumstances that the foolish are most unlucky, precisely because they are not foolish. Fortune favors the brave, but perhaps favors the clever more. Advice is not always good, but it should never be treated lightly. And most of all, making a small sacrifice to do someone a favor may often be the key to success, because what seems small to you may -- not always, but sometimes -- mean the world to them, and they may -- not always, but sometimes -- return your small favor with a grand favor. A favor economy is a good economy for a fairy tale world; like so many other things in the fairy realm, a favor has a great power of amplification. All of these are true in our world as well, of course; precisely one of the values of a folktale is that its fantastic elements make it easier to see things that we forget because they are so obvious.
Favorite Passage: I like how the opening from "Well Done and Poorly Rewarded" is handled, with a neat twist in which the threat of the bear turns out to be rather different from expectation:
There once was a man who had to go to the forest to get some firewood. Then he met a bear.
"Give me your horse, or else I'll kill all your sheep in the summer," said the bear.
"Oh, God save me, no!" said the man. "There's not even a stick of firewood left back home. You have to let me take home a sled full of wood, or else we'll freeze to death. I'll bring the horse back to you tomorrow."
They agreed that he would do just that. But the bear told the man that if he didn't come back, he would lose all his sheep in the summer. (p. 217)
Recommendation: Highly Recommended. Norwegian Folktales is a lot like Grimm's Fairy Tales, but the Norwegian collection is much funnier than the German usually is.
****
Asbjornsen and Moe, The Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales of Asbjornsen & Moe, Nunnally, tr., University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis: 2019).
