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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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.

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

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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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 was written.

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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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:

The first day the fox was herder he ate up all the wife’s goats. The second day he made an end of all her sheep. And the third day he ate up all the cattle.

When he came home in the evening, the wife asked him where he had left her livestock.

“Their skulls are in the river, and their carcasses in the thicket.”

– The Fox as Herder

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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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 flickering computer screen from the movie War Games, 1980. The text reads: "A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY. HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS?"

SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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“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 & )

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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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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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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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The Story of the Three Billy Goat what now?

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

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SimonRoyHughes , to folklore
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After pissing around with this article for much of the summer, I present to you, my dear Tooters, my findings:

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SimonRoyHughes OP ,
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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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