Introduction to the Tales
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| Claude Monet: "Sunflowers". Modified detail. |
The collection of Norwegian classics was launched in 1996 when Norwegian Vebjørn Rodal won the gold medal in the 800 m at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Well done!Very much depends on interpretation, and interpretation depends on fairness and skills, including meticulousness. Bland fairness helps against being biased and odious in university circles. Figurative speech opens up for many divergent interpretations. It has to be accepted; it is in the evolved art, and examples are furnished to illustrate it further down.
Fables are richly interpreted, Grimm tales are often interpreted - Freudians do, Jungians do and others too. And Zen stories have been interpreted too, as evidenced [THE GATELESS GATE].
It is good if youngsters and students are equipped with fair means for doing it, since good understanding of figurative methods can help a heart many a time. We see it happen in excellent dream interpretation. We see it happen during studies of poetry, and so on. Common language is rich in metaphors, and if you learn to deal with such matter, it should not be to your loss, hopefully.
We go into some fairy tales together. Bear in mind there is no need to get biased. Freudians are Freudian-biased and so on. Fairness in the interpreter quest often adds up to being pragmatic and not dogmatic.
The following comments are tied in with the regular type identifications in Ørnulf Hodne's very good catalogue: The Types of the Norwegian Folktale, (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984). It is as decent a work as Ashliman's Europe-centred A Guide to Folktales in the English Language (New York: Greenwood, 1987). I have corrected one serious error in Ashliman's book, and added to their information in a sometimes innovative vein. Concerning that: A lawyer that read something I wrote twenty-seven years ago, commented; "I thought you had twenty screws loose." The language of the artist and that of the conform may differ. At that time I explored terse blank verse writing (modernism is like it) applied to prose and business writing, for example. Now I have moved on.
Remember to add "perhaps" to the interpretations that follow. Perhaps you want to add your own comments - some do. Compare the Comenius Project: [Link]
The pancake, or the fleeing pancake
Ørnulf Hodne: "A woman makes a pancake, which flees from the frying-pan. Various animals try in vain to stop it. Finally a hog or a fox eats it up." [AT number 2025]♦ When you run as fast as you can, you are the subordinate to flowing time and can be eaten.
[THE TALE]
Each likes his own children best
A snipe begs a hunter to spare her young ones - the prettiest in the wood. He pities her, assents, and shoots the ugliest he can find: the young snipes. [p. 46] [AT 247].♦ One's own sportsmen are always prettiest . . .
♦ The ugliest can be the prettiest if their features matter.
[THE TALE]
The theft of butter (honey) by playing godfather
The fox and bear jointly owned some butter or a butter-barrel. The fox pretended to be invited to stand god-father, and ate up the butter under that pretence.He rounded off by smearing a little of the butter left on the snout or tail of the sleeping bear. The antagonistic scoundrel betrayed his stout business associate and also founds a fox way to cover up; an outsider might in fact judge the bear to be the thief.
Let's beware of social sleep-walking, then, for many vicious scoundrels are out there, eager to "castrate" a great partner. A US proverb also:
♦ You can't spoil a rotten egg. [AT 15]
[THE TALE]
A tale where animals talk together
The hen reproaches the cock because she has not got the shoes he seems to have promised her. The cock asks her to sell eggs and buy shoes herself. [AT 2075][THE TALE]
"The black and white bride": Bushy Bride
On the surface of it a stepmother hates her stepchildren. The boy takes service at the court, the girls suffers at length at home. A supernatural creature tests her compassion, and rewards her with beauty and wealth. The woman's own daughter is unkind and is made ugly and so on.The brother has a picture of his sister; the king sees it and falls in love with her and sends the boy for her. The stepmother drowns her in order to promote her ugly daughter by fraud, and gets her wed to the king according to "a word is a word, and a man is a man". [AT 403]
♦ You, a truthful brother, can get severely mobbed or soap opera punished for your sister's ugly looks!"
♦ The true bride, miraculously transformed to a goose, comes to the king's court on three nights. The last time the king wakes and succeeds in disenchanting her.
♦ The kingly wed had better look beautiful.
[THE TALE]
OR
In the old days the sister who stayed at home
was treated worse than now -
no matter what she did they scolded and snarled:
"Serve more. Do menial work."
One day this badly treated one united with the ugly to look at:
she brushed it and tamed it,
she took it in hand - its matted locks,
ugly and loathsome -
so that eventually gold should drop from her hair,
gold should fall from her mouth.
Like mad that girl was envied or chased.
The boy came home to his dear sister, communicating:
"You must throw your virginhood overboard,
throw that little pet overboard."
The girl wept -
the brother was plunged into a pit full of coiling snakes.
"Out you go, ugly Bushy Bride -"
The magician and his pupil
Part 1: Transforming oneself to win a nice female
A man gives his son to a magician or human troll for some period to be tamed or taught. The other keeps the boy, contrary to the bargain, so the father sets out to find him. Three old women act as guides, and by means of a great eagle he sets free his son, who is transformed to an animal.They escape the wizard by throwing magic objects behind them in the air.
To show off to his mom and prove he's master all right, the son later transforms himself to an animal - a horse, an ox - and gets his father sell him to the wizard without a halter. The third time the father forgets to keep the halter out of the bargain, but the boy gets rid of the halter all the same. The follow-up is that he lives to get rid of the wizard in a transformation conquest.
♦ Finally he's free, not tamed by indecent schooling, to say the least. [AT 325]
♦ He also gets a fit girl for himself, a princess, as it's called.
Part 2: The windy farmer goes uphill
"You thought it all was tamed by now, or what?""I don't care what you make of your son; but you must bind him
so that he can learn to be master" said a mom.
The man started off, and at night reached what he hoped for,
God gave the old hag such a pinch of snuff
she got so happy she began to dance
"Hooray!" he growled.
"We'd better get on then," said the Eagle,
"Now something remarkably bad is close behind us."
The third day it was the same story over again;
ado turned into a black horse,
but however much he ate or drank, he was to stay with the windy farmer all his life
long.
"Oh, what a cruel master libido is to some!"
"I'm after you," it roared. It was perhaps the man's libido.
At last there was no other or better way out that getting richly married,
but Jack did not want to adapt in so selfless a way.
"Well," said the princess, "it's no good being cross about it.
Just give it a try, try me out, for heaven's sake," said the princess, "I've lots to
give."
That meant she lusted so bad.
So the big bad woman-farmer's dear old "son" - turned himself into a cock,
for a little while.
Remember the kingly medieval lesson: It will pass, even
zestful love-making and a pleasant marriage.
[THE TALE]
Lucky Hans
A peasant goes to town to sell a cow. Then he trades it for a horse, the horse for a hog, and so on downwards, till at last he has nothing left. He then bets with a neighbour that his wife won't get angry with him all the same, and wins the wager. [AT 1415]♦ The tale is about bartering.
[THE TALE]
Some bridge to the other side
Three brothers take service with a king, who orders them to her his foals - it can be oxen and hares also, in similar tales, and why not donkeys?The hireling that wins, enters communion with them and their church inside - and later cuts off their heads when asked to.
♦ Cut off the head of a friend to be a true friend - is not that insane? [AT 471]
[THE TALE]
Tom Thumb
A boy the size of a thumb travels with his mom to a king's court to propose to the process. On the way he amuses himself by disappearing in the horse's mane, ear and nose, or is swallowed by a cow. He returns safely home, or is drowned in a platter of porridge. [AT 700]A PROPOS. The godhead (Atman) deep inside is portrayed as "as small as a thumb, yet bigger than the universe" in ancient Indian texts called Upanishads - and marriage holds its dangers too.
[THE TALE]
The Cock, the Cuckoo, and the Blackcock
It revolves around quite elementary sharing. [AT number unsettled][THE TALE]
Wait for the Fat Goat
Three goats cross a bridge which is guarded by an ogre. The ogre lets the smallest and middle-sized go in order to catch the biggest. But that one proves to be too big, he butts the ogre into the river and is allowed to thrive on the other side along with his kind - [AT 122 E][THE TALE]
"Dapplegrim" Commented On
Part 1 of the study
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The Norwegian tale "Dapplegrim" is given the AT number 530 in a certain international catalogue [Agha 114], but the correct allotment is AT 531. Dr. Ørnulf Hodne has got it right. He specifically includes "Dapplegrim" in the AT group 531, and not the AT 530. Dr. Hodne gives the following chain of action, or sketchy content:
The hero obtains/inherits a supernatural horse. He is in service at a king's court, where envious fellow-servants are falsely asserting that he can rescue the princess. He succeeds, assisted by the horse. To win the princess he is, however, assigned new dangerous tasks, e.g. to remove a mountain for the king and fetch from hell a magic horse like his own. On the way he saves himself by throwing his supply of meat to the animals that try to stop him, and captures the magic horse assisted by his own, which fights against he other. Then the hero and the princess compete in transforming and hiding themselves from each other, and he wins. Finally he obtains her, and the magic horse changes himself into a prince." [Tyno 123].In the international folk tale catalogue by Dr. Ashliman we read:
FERDINAND THE FAITHFUL AND FERDINAND THE UNFAITHFUL. Ferdinand the Faithful received a key from his godfather, with the instructions that he should open a certain door when he turned fourteen. He thus found a marvelous horse, which became his faithful companion. Ferdinand gained another companion as well, a man named Ferdinand the Unfaithful, but this companion always tried to harm him. The two Ferdinands became servants to the king. At the instigation of Ferdinand the Unfaithful, the king sent Ferdinand the Faithful on a dangerous quest for a princess. With the help of his horse, Ferdinand the Faithful brought back a bride for the king, but the new queen did not love the king, for he had no nose. The queen, in order to demonstrate her magic powers, cut off Ferdinand the Faithful's head and then restored it immediately. The king let her try the same trick on him, but she did not replace his head. After her husband was buried, she married Ferdinand the Faithful. (Grimm) Cf. types 314, 502, 530.AT numbers are no panaceas. Such numbers represent different types of fairy tales. Dr. Ashliman tells that through the AT numbers we survey the motifs and plots that are used as building blocks in various stories of fiction. Some of these building-blocks or grouped elements get modified from one tale to another.
"Dapplegrim" is one of the many folk tales that share one AT number, and is linked to some more by similarities of the action or plot. An all right classification serves to present most plots and dominant motifs deep inside our common tales. There may be hundreds of fairly similar variants and look-alike tales after one AT number. Most often not as many.
The catalogue is handy in its way, but not conclusive, and not always unambiguous. Yet, with some measure of aplomb and skill we can use it, for its neat summaries explain what many popular tales are about in rough outline, and serves the comparison between tales too. A marked motif-string of events may be allotted its own AT number, and the typical, basic features of the chain of action and actants (persons) in that sort of tale are listed.
Another characteristic of the AT types is that the tale descriptions are of the surface. Depth study and relevant interpretation is the task of other domains. To make good and salient summaries of the main chain of action and other messages of a tale, your own thinking may work well if you apply time to the task. There is far more to associate with key elements and events of fairy tales than what AT numbers tell of. Accordingly, there are many schools of interpretation. Jungian, Freudian, and others. Pragmatic Interpretation is explained elsewhere on the site.
Part 2
THE SKETCHY abstract of the what each type of tale with its own AT number is about, can be quite descriptive. Still, it is just a description of main events, and very much relevant information may (or may not) be missing.The notorious Bruno Bettelheim's angling was psychoanalytic and in part rather therapeutic. Above psychoanalytical interpretations there may be far better or useful analyses; keep an open mind.
Part 3
The wise "horse" knew how to rise in worldly power by getting staunch in its way. By being allied to it, humans rose in power too. It is reflected in tale after tale, including "Dapplegrim", where a young boy had to get tougher, horrible scenes grew wilder and climaxed in a plotted wedding.This Norwegian favourite tale is quite a macho tale for beginners, advocating the horse and balance enough.
[THE TALE]
The Smith Outwits the Devil
A blacksmith makes a contract with the devil so that in return for becoming a master smith he's to belong to the devil after a certain time. God or St. Peter - one or more of them - comes visiting the smith. They work miracles the smith did not hear of and can't copy either. He is, however, given three wishes for being a very good sport, and he wants to have objects that give him power over the devil. The devil in turn becomes afraid of him, and at last refuses him admittance to hell. The smith tries his luck in heaven as his next try. The final outcome of it is much unsettled. [AT 330].♦ You should have a place to go to - a few options.
[THE TALE]
The Table, the Ass and the Stick
A poor lad gets wonder-working objects from such as the north wind, the elves and other sources left open here. He gets a table cloth that supplies itself with food; a gold-dripping he-goat; and a purse that never gets empty. He sells or is robbed of these objects. Finally he receives a stick that beats an enemy until called off by its owner. By means of it the other objects are recovered. [AT 563]The tale lets one person repeat the various attempts at having a good life through savoury outfit, and have them spoiled by crooks. Other tales under the same AT number have three brothers that go for it, one after another. Finally, the most stupid-looking and yet most clever of them wins - or so it seems.
The three brothers can be taken to represent three attempts marked by less and less credulity or inexperience. Some lessons embedded in the tale:
♦ Young ones are often taken in by their good will and innocence, and drinking too.
♦ Three brothers; three attempts to identify with so as to compete in the fight for living.
♦ One is to guard valuable assets by being cleverly circumspect and on one's guard and not trust in all smiling faces.
♦ You have to get brutal enough to get out of a deep fix.
[THE TALE]
The Witch or Devil Carries Someone Home in a Sack
A small boy is enticed and next fooled. He gets carried off in a sack by a witch. He tricks her, gets out before she kills him, and runs home. The third time she succeeds in taking him all the way to her own home, where she fattens him. The witch's daughter tries to slaughter him, but he fools her, kills her and boils her. Unwittingly the ogre's guests praise that meal. The boy lures them outside and smashes them all by surprise attack. And he ends rich. [AT 327 C]♦ You have to be on your guard against "strangers (Greeks) carrying gifts", as the proverb goes. And rather many gifts come with strings.
[THE TALE]
The Three Stolen Princesses
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| The cat lets himself be lowered, thinking: "What if we all are of supernatural origin?" |
Our hero never succumbed to depraved falsity and corrupt role-playing.
♦ It should help to be authentic, that is, the one you are, and in good and decent progress.
[THE TALE]
The Beautiful and Ugly Twin
This story is associated with sibling jealousy, and menial outcomes.
A childless queen gets advice from a witch on how to have a child much like the test-tube baby, or outside the normal channels.But something goes wrong. The wilful mother breaks a condition tied in with the counsel, and has twin girls: a darling and an ugly deformed one. The ugly sister always helps and assist the handsome one, and is at last to marry a prince, wherever they could take him from. On the wedding day she sheds her ugliness and is found to be as pretty as her sister - or everyone else. [AT 711]
Add "Maybe, maybe not; other factors may get into the display" as you like to the comments:
♦ The ugly one serves in this tale. Consider in passing how ugliness protects, whereas good looks may puff up and may become a cause of downfalls.
♦ It may help a lot to be rich and royal - or to have plastic surgery - at least dressed in very costly and surrounded by jewels, pomp and lots of servants. Compare the Norwegian: "Pretty women don't need clothes at all."
♦ - .
[THE TALE]
The Two Travelling Ones
This sort of tale allows for many interpretations, as there are many versions. On the one hand it tells of how a credulous, trusting traveller first is blinded, and next gets much favour due to miraculous help: He overhears a meeting of animals, and learns some of their costly secrets.By means of the secrets he restores his sight an performs many difficult tasks (cures a suck princess etc.) and becomes a rich magnate - The false companion attempts in the same way to try his luck, but fails and ends up like some degraded skulk. [AT 613]
The false companion may be a sibling og partner who is in for losing in life. As the dominant one of the two he exploits the other and leaves him blind.
Takes:
♦ A dangerous fellow is too occupied with himself by "Me first". Also, clumsy cruelty hardly brings many long-lasting benefits - let us hope that.
♦ One interpretation may be that the blinded man learnt instinctive, regular tact and coping conduct from the "animals" or libido outlets within himself so as to enter on useful adaptations.
If you chance to overhear deep secrets that can make you succeed in a really great way, you have to have lots of luck too in order to master the social ramifications or implications that tend to go along with success.
Norwegian upbringing
Many folk tales are rife in metaphors or standard symbols. You can at times guess or suggest what the deeper instructions might be. Maybe there's sound reason for some advanced hunches. But have fun too.
Take heed, there's marriage without love, though he plays
best that wins, and success makes a fool seem wise (1,2) (Three proverbs).
After the drive to get married creeps in, poor ones seldom win.
You can't win them all.
Being a chip off the old block often makes an all right marriage at least. (4)
As the good wife says, so must it be. (5)
"Success makes the schoolboy seem wise." (alternative, lofty take in the school of life and university of hard knocks)
Now, you can think as you will.
[THE TALE]
Strong John
A boy of supernatural origin has to leave home because of his alarming size and
corresponding giant appetite. He makes a contract to work for a peasant and a king, and they
give him hard jobs to try his strength or keep him down, rather (chop wood, thresh, pull
heavy loads). He acts quite likea berserk in turn. To be quit of him the master (or king)
orders him finally to perform utterly dangerous tasks (waging war, going to hell for the
devil's tax), but the giant succeeds in all and wins the king's daughter, consent or no
consent. [AT 650 A]
TAKES
♦
Our hero outsmarted the devil. To outwit the devil you have to be smart and subtle.
♦
The hero did not get a likeable companion on the way up.
♦
On his way up to the hero faces lots of situations where the quite "normal" reactions are to withdraw and adjust beneath those in power. However, the hero is fearless and staunch an keeps it up.
♦
To get your own family you have to be quite without fear of the in-laws, you too
[THE TALE]
A note on this version
CLARIFYING THE RENDITIONThings have been simplified, altered and re-constructed for the sake of a more cogent version with quite elementary human dignity taken care of too, so there is no pauper-boy sacrifice in this version. By the way, to alter and tailor folk tale segments is a still living tradition.
Also, some sections and major parts here are simplified and rearranged for the sake of getting to a better "flow of action". Basic changes were made near the end to make the hero appear less tactless. That could be one of his dominant needs, many things considered.
To make the quite long tale less alarming, these elements were dropped near the end: a) a beastly killing of a pauper-boy, b) foul play; and c) a bargain with the devil that amounted to nothing. Also, the king is allowed to live and retire with some shreds of dignity instead of "sailing along between heaven and earth" after a stout whack by Mumble.
None of the changes should constrict us.
A Viking Relative of Strong John
Several of the carrying parts of the "Strong John" tale were actually lived out by Norsemen, or vikings. Viking history contains tales in this vein. The story of Gange-Rolf (French: Rollon, Rollo) is told of as one of the ancestors of the British royalty. He was so large that a viking pony could not carry him, the sagas tell. He made the French king Charles the Simple hand over Normandy to him, and protected the Seine and Paris in return. Material on Rolf is here, and on his relatives, who took over the Orkneys and northern parts of Scotland too.Literature:
- Heimskringla (see chapter 24 in the saga of Harald Harfager) from the 1200s.
- Orkneyingers' Saga, which is about as old.
The Ashlad Who Made the Princess Say "That's a Lie"
A PRINCESS who is a master at telling lies is offered in marriage to the man who can tell so
big a lie that she says: "That is a lie", and thus tell the truth. She is brought to say the required words in protest when the hero makes up shameful lies about herself or her family. - Cf. Ørnulf Hodne [AT 852]FORCING THE PRINCESS TO SAY "THAT'S A LIE!" A princess was such a storyteller that her father promised her hand to anyone who could make her say "That's a lie!" A simple boy tried his luck by telling one tall tale after the other, but the princess responded to each with a casual "I dare say." Finally the boy claimed to have seen his mother boxing the ears of her father, to which the princess angrily remarked: "That's a lie!" Thus the simple boy won the princess. (Asbjørnsen and Moe) Cf. type 1920H. - D. L. Ashliman
The tale is about boasting and
winning one's way. Are there useful enough lessons to derive from it? Those who consider it, may come up with:
♦ If telling the truth is so rare in high or famous circles, it could be the most needed thing for a successful marriage, and seems to be recognised by the king. "Be yourself," is a quite typical royal advice today too.
[THE TALE]
Three Strong Waves
THIS IS a fine folk tale from "Makrelldorg" about mackerel trolling. I have not come across any AT number of it so far.In this folk story, the three waves are three wives who are witches, and not at all fond of their husbands, as they decide to drown them all. But a clairvoyant youngster onboard overhears the women plotting, and is given the means to combat their swelling influences (three waves) when the time come. In other words, there is superstition and magic in this yarn too.
On one level of interpretation or comment we may agree that life at sea or in the open, in nature, can combat splashing and drowning faking. And life partners may not be as friendly as they seem to be either. Yet, we should allow for differences among wives too, just as there are differences among pussycats.
[THE TALE]
The Cormorants of Udrost
This story is another Norwegian folk tale with no allotted AT number. The story pivots on a humble, decent man who is taken miraculously care of in a pucker and from then on. He is given great help, which is ascribed to the little people.The man rises into wealth - the big motif of the story - by friendly co-operation from beings of the sea - now birds, now humans, and most of the time invisible to humans.
You can say the tall tale dramatises some typical plights in part brought on by harsh climate, barren soil and greedy neighbours - or unfriendly and at times warring neighbours. If so, the tale frames and evolves out of rather bad everyday conditions and the longings for a better fare and better life they give rise to in a human soul.
LESSONS ON COOPERATION:
♦ If a bundle of sea-birds fish for you and help you travel to Bergen to sell it, it reflects wishful thinking or advanced cooperation.
♦ In the old days people learnt to tame falcons for getting game, and some still do.
♦ Even trained otters help Indians by the northern Ganges River to catch fish.
[THE TALE]
The Giant's Mountain
THIS ELEGANT little story is about travelling by air, and there are some parallells found in a story of a saint that travelled in the same way from Rome to Denmark, and then there is Milarepa, Tibet's patron saint from the 1200s. He was reputedly an expert in travelling by air, sitting cross-legged in so doing. [See Tm]Unknown to many, there are many amply documented stories of levitation handed down, as of the Catholic saint Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663), and levitation per se. My personal preferences are in this vein: Yogic Flying The giant in the mountain can be looked on as bold images of certain miracle-capable sides of man's spirit and what it appears to be able to do - maybe not "here and today", and yet -
♦ A stiff tale allows for different interpretations, and some of them can be according to our mood at the time.
[THE TALE]
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
This tale is given the AT number 425A or 425 - or both, alternately. It is about finding ones true mate and keeping him. He may not look like a million dollars at first sight, but see what he can do each night as time passes. Much depends on that.The first part of the tale revolves around young love and its whereabouts - including staying away from the in-laws and parents in fair ways to get a "thing" going with one's sleep partner in the long run, which is a "thing" fit for a couple.
Then young loven resting on faith in one another gives way. The wife breaks the "contract" at hand, and the bear-man shakes his once preferred woman off and finds another one. But the first one will not resign at all. The second part of the tale is about that, and how it ends. By some special gadgets she wins him back and the other woman loses all her gold, or her heart.
Below is what folklore expert tell you: the chain of action and events as the tale evolves - but as usual without looking into symbolic meanings, if such ideas are found or purported: interpreters are for that.
AT 425A: THE ANIMAL BRIDEGROOM. A poor farmer was approached by a bear, who offered him great wealth in return for his daughter. The man talked his daughter into the match, and she rode away astride the beast. At the bear's castle, she learned that her husband was a bear only by day; at night he turned into a handsome man. They lived together happily, but with time she became homesick. The bear gave her leave to visit her family, but
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Take heed is a fair thing. (British) |
FROM AT 425: THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST HUSBAND. ... [She] set out to find him. On her way she acquired three magic nuts [they are not in Asbjörnsen and Moe's tale]. Arriving at (the other woman's) castle, she opened the first nut. Inside was a golden loom, which she offered to the queen [i.e. the other woman], if she could spend one night with her husband. The queen agreed, but drugged [the darling's] wine, so he did not recognize his true bride. Similar gifts from the second and third nuts bought the princess more nights with [him], and finally he recognized his true wife. Together they escaped to their own country. When [the other woman] discovered her loss she tore off her own head and perished. (Calvino, "The Handmade King") - Note: Convention differs in distinguishing between types 425 and 425A. Many of the tales listed below could also be categorized under type 425A. - [Main source: D. L. Ashliman]
THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST HUSBAND - AT 425
For certain reasons a girl is promised to a monster (white bear, wolf), a
transformed prince who is a man at night. After a while she visits her home, but is warned
against listening to her mother's advice. She breaks the prohibitions (kisses him, shines a
light on him) and loses him. She undergoes a sorrowful wandering to recover him, and
receives the magic objects she needs and is helped to reach the ogre's castle, where he is
living with a witch. She succeeds in disenchanting him and regains him. The false bride is
unveiled and dies. [Ørnulf Hodne]
[THE TALE]
The Peasant Woman Who Was Changed into a Woodpecker
The tale is given the AT number 751 A, and is classified as a religious folktale. As such it "seeks" to explain woodpecker characteristics on some folk moral grounds, which abound in so-called aethiological folktales (tales of origins) too.The gist: Christ and St. Peter ask for something to eat from a peasant woman who is baking. But all her bannocks turn out too large, and she gives them only a little or nothing at all. She is punished for her avarice, and is transformed into a bird (woodpecker).
There are 39 variants of the tale in Norway. The source of this version is Olav Bø et al (editors): Norske eventyr. Det norske Samlaget. Oslo, 1982, p. 241-42)
♦ The tale inculcates the shared, cultural values ("baggage") of sharing or giving, reflecting the very great need for them in years gone by in the North.
[THE TALE]
There are more notes on the next page.
Quite endearing
NOT FAR from the end of the 1850s one of the Grimm brothers, Jacob Grimm, wrote that "The Norwegian folk tales are the best there is . . . They surpass almost any other." Also, the US author Aaron Shephard says. "No one tells a tale better than the Scandinavians" and "Storytelling doesn't get better than this." He is commenting Dasent's translation, the one made most often use of by me.Be that as it may, many fables of Aesop and some European folktales, including Norwegian tales and Grimm tales, are splendid entertainment, giving handy and sensible underhand instructions at times too.
Good folk tales serve to prepare underlings for life. At any rate they serve to instruct them in good and not so good ways of culture, as Jerome Bruner points out - they are cultural transmitters. The kind of living they advocate in figurative ways and others, may not the best kind of life, but perhaps ways that were available there and then - maybe too limited ways and ways with flaws and defects, but all the same indicators of what was acceptable within the culture then. [Bruner 1990: 42-43; 1996: passim] [LINK]
In the figurative language of Nordic folktales, trolls may serve as indicators of people with icy cold hearts, and too uncultivated people too. The tail of the siren may likewise suggest psychological suppression and projection, "thinking with one's . . . protruding tail" - and a mountain might suggests a body many times. If the hero finds a female and a troll in a mountain hole, it may be interpreted to suggests delicates aspects of union, and what may follow in some cases. Other interpretations are possible too. These are analytic ones, by and large. Paul Brudal exposes in part psychoanalytic thinking in his Det ubevisste språket (The Unconscious Language), and Jack Zipes reflects on some propagandic sides to folk tales - certain values that some of them appear to advocate, and pointed out that they often serve the ruling classes, and this is obvious in some French tales from before Napoleon, by both Charles Perrault and the notorious Madame d'Alnoy.
Other handles include structural grasps on the chain of action and the participants in some types of fairy tales. The Russian Vladimir Propp has exposed these matters well, and others - notably Algirdas Greimas - have modified or simplified the structural description. Guldleif Bø has simplied the structural layout of event and characters still further for Norwegian folktales. Irene Engelstad has tried out parts of it by seeking to apply Propp and Greimas to Norwegian folktales. References to some of their works are presented below.
- Tormod Kinnes
Literature
Asbjørnsen, Peter, og Jørgen Moe. Samlede eventyr, bd 1-3. Oslo: Kunstnerutgaven, Gyldendal, 1965.
Ashliman, D.: A Guide to Folktales in the English Language. New York: Greenwood, 1987.
Bruner, Jerome S. Acts of Meaning (the Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Bruner, Jerome S. The Culture of Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Brudal, Paul. Det ubevisste språket: Psykologi og symbolbilder i folkeeventyrene (The Unconscious Language: Psychology and Symbol Pictures in the Folktales). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984. [The terapeutic uses of fairy tales]
Bø, Gudleiv, in Egil Sundland. "Det var en gang - et menneske (Once on a Time There Was a Human")" Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, 1995:20.
Dasent, George Webbe, tr. Asbjørnsen, Peter Christen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe. East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon.. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1921 [Here are 59 tales of about a hundred. Other translations and editions may contain the ones that are lacking in Dasen'ts translations, many of which are on-line. Compare the next item:]
Dasent, George Webbe, tr. P. Chr. Asbjørnsen. Tales from the Fjeld.. New York: Putnam, 1917?
Engelstad, Irene. Fortellingens mønstre: En strukturell analyse av norske folkeeventyr. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1976.
Greimas, Algirdas. Strukturel semantik (Structural Semantics). Odense: Borgen, 1983.
Hodne, Ørnulf: The Types of the Norwegian Folktale. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1984.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas, 1968.
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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