First volume now at close to 900 pages, making publication on a POD site impossible. Second volume just over 500 pages. Third volume <200 pages. This gives me cause to consider compiling volumes two and three in a single binding.

Volume one is a pain, though. I'm either going to have to increase the paper size or shrink the type.

(Vols 4–6 still unknown.)

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“But all collections have wellnigh been overtopt lately by the Norwegian (still unfinished) of Moe and Asbjörnsen, with its fresh and full store”

- Jacob Grimm. Teutonic Mythology, vol. III (1835). James Steven Stallybrass (trans.). London: George Bell & Sons. 1883, p. xv

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“No complete edition exists in English of the Asbjørnsen and Moe Norwegian collections similar to that in which Grimm’s [sic] German Märchen have been given almost in full to English readers.”
– Martha Warren Beckwith, in a review of John and Helen Gade's Norwegian Fairytales (1925).

It does now. 150 primary texts, which includes the 148 usually published in Norwegian editions, plus two that I have restored to the collection, distributed across four volumes that emulate the original editions, and two extra volumes of the tales and legends that were later added. Six volumes in total.

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

”If it had been possible to make room for a few notes as to type numbers, sources and locality the book would have been as useful as it is delightful.”
– Katharine Briggs, reviewing Pat Shaw Iversen and Carl Norman’s translation of selected folktales (1960).

Well, my edition of The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe will also include:

- Asbjørnsen & Moe's original notes (sketches of other variants, surveys of related folk narratives from other parts of the world, etc.) and appendices (forewords, prefaces, and Jørgen Moe's 58-page introduction in full – >73,000 words).

- My own notes (type numbers; sources, including biographies where possible; locality; numbers of variants collected; etc.) and introductions (~55,000 words in total).

- A full bibliography

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

“The reason so little has been written about [Moe’s 58-page Introduction to the 1852 edition of Norske Folkeeventyr] is probably because it appeared in academic Norwegian, was originally published in Gothic print, and has unfortunately never been translated.”
– Professor Terry Gunnell, 2010.

It has now.

The “Gothic print” (in fact blackletter type – Fraktur for the body text and Schwabacher for titles and boldface) has not really been a problem.

I’m in the process of cleaning up the copy before sending it to @wolfofthewisp for editing. The “academic Norwegian,” which favours long, back-heavy (Germanic) sentences, does slow me down somewhat.

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

Jørgen Moe drinks the Kool-Aid. It’s seductive idea, but can never be satisfactorily investigated.

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We were blessed beyond measure when Erik Werenskiold and Teodor Kittelsen et al. took over the illustration of Norwegian folktales. Here's a rather phlegmatic troll by Johan Eckersberg, 1850.

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Did you know that some storytellers push the traditions they want to spread by using established traditions to endear themselves to the collector?

And that's the story of how #PeerGynt was written.

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

They say folktales have a pedagogical function, teaching children how they should behave.

The folktales:

“Their parents are very sad that they cannot by any means separate the sisters from one another, and when the children are twelve years old, they decide to get rid of them both. So they have a large barrel made, into which they put both girls, provide them with food and drink, nail down the lid and throw it into the sea.”

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Ringelihorn, and other tales from Northern Norway

20 wonderfully charming folk and fairy tales by Regine Normann

More information here: https://wiki.norwegianfolktales.net/index.php/Ringelihorn_and_other_tales_from_Northern_Norway

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Asbjørnsen & Moe investigate new methods of collecting folktales:

"The undersigned would consider themselves particularly indebted to those who would recount for us either folktales that have not been told in this part or variants, supplements, etc. to those already told. Please send such contributions to the address: Johan Dahls Boghandling.

Christiania, 1842. The Publishers."

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When the cat knocks, a man of the mountain with three heads comes out. “I know some tricks, I do,” says the cat.

“What tricks?” asks the mountain troll.

“I can make myself big as a house.”

“That’s certainly some trick.”

“I can make myself as small as a mouse.”

“That’s certainly some trick! So can I,” says the troll.

“I want to see that,” says the cat.

Then the mountain troll makes himself as small as a mouse, and the cat bites all three of its heads off.

– An unpublished variant of Herre Per.

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"Like most children's folktales, less widespread." – Asbjørnsen & Moe.

I wonder what the Opies would say.

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The upshot of all this is that my article on the billy-goats on the bridge will be much more comprehensive, including as an appendix translations of five Norwegian variants and an original composition of a sixth. Hell, I might even have a go at writing the ultimate story of the billy-goats and the troll, giant, fox, bringing all the variants into one epic story.

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore #Folktale @folklore @folklorethursday

At last I have been able to verbalise (textualise) my thoughts concerning the publication of my work. My attitude may be summed up by reference to the attached .gif.

https://wiki.norwegianfolktales.net/index.php/User_blog:Simon/Publishing

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A wild #FolktaleMoment, if ever I read one.

On a wild island he meets a woman whose upper portion is like a fish and below like a human. She asks if he will have her. “No, I can’t have you, the way you’re formed,” says the boy. Later he meets another, whose nether portions are like a fish and upper like a human being. “Yes, since there are no other folk here, then I may as well have you,” says the boy.

“Oh yes, you may certainly have me,” says the woman, “for I own the gilded castle. But first you must lie in my chamber with me for three nights.”

Woohoo!

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

“The legend is the mother of history; the folktale is a relative of both. All three are the dearest friends of youth.”
– Guldberg & Dzwonkowski (the earliest publishers of #Asbjørnsen & #Moe)

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

I have long wondered about the rhyme the biggest billy-goat recites before it kills the troll. In modern Norwegian, thus:

Jeg har to spjut, med dem skal jeg stange dine øyne ut!
Jeg har to store kampestene, med dem skal jeg knuse både marg og bene!

Literally translated thus:

I have two spears, with them I shall poke your eyes out!
I have two great boulders (the sense is rounded stones), with them I shall crush both marrow and bone!

Read that last line once more, and tell me that it doesn't sound as if he's going to batter a troll with his testicles. But isn't this a children's tale? And aren't testicles a little delicate to use as offensive weapons?

So I have been looking for a different interpretation.

Sometimes the world doesn't work the way we would like.

1/2

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The Story of the Three Billy Goat what now?

https://archive.org/details/wondertalesretol00pyle/page/68

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Thank you for your input. The votes are in, and everyone's a winner. The Three Billy-Goats tale has been collected a number of times, and each of my poll’s alternatives corresponds with at least one record.

The earliest record, the one published in 1843, has the goats going off on their summer holiday together with the rest of the farm – up into the mountains for the summer grazing season. There was a dairy farm up there, milkmaids would have worked making cheese and other dairy products, and herders would have tended the livestock. A whole community.

However, when this version was translated into English, the translator, not quite knowing how to address such a concept for English readers, simply glossed over it: the goats were just going up the hill-side to get fat. English-language versions spawned by that translation invariably follow the same formula, but there has been speculation – didn't they have enough food where they were? Is the grass greener on the other side of the falls? As each speculator adds and subtracts from the story as they received it, we see a proliferation of English-language variants that have little-to-nothing to do with the Norwegian sources.

Interestingly enough, though, this line of speculation agrees with a Norwegian variant in which the goat mother finds better fodder for her hungry offspring, except they meet the troll (actually a giant in that variant) on their way home again.

It is a simple tale, but not quite as simple as we might have thought.

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