Notes to Norwegian Folktales - 1
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Notes to Norwegian Folktales - 1 | |||||
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Introduction to the Tales
Many folk tales contain figurative elements. Much understanding depends on interpretation - also of figurative elements. Figurative speech opens up to many divergent interpretations. So it has to be accepted that there may not just one interpretation of a folk tale; there can be many. Interpretation depends on skill, including meticulousness. Bland fairness helps against being biased and odious. 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 during poetry study too. 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 excellent catalogue: The Types of the Norwegian Folktale, (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984). There is also D. 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. Recently Hans-Jörg Uther has revised the international classification system of fairy tales, and introduced ATU numbers (from Aarne, Thomson, Uther). They are to replace the AT numbers, but most of the tales in this collection have unchanged numbers. Thus, their ATU numbers are like their AT numbers. I have also explored terse blank verse writing (modernist telling) applied to folk tales, and furnish some examples to loosen up things somewhat. Remember to add "perhaps" to the interpretations that follow. Perhaps you want to add your own comments. Compare the Comenius Project: [◦Link] These TalesNOT 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. Tales often contain metaphors and symbols. By interpreting them somewhat according to some consistent pattern or otherwise, you can at times guess or suggest what the deeper instructions embedded in tales might be. There could be sound reason for some advanced hunches. But have fun too. The types of Norwegian tales favour many sorts of life lessons - things or attitudes to learn. See a sample of some 140 maxims related to ninety types of Norwegian tales: [LINK] Good folk tales serve to instruct the young ones 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, cruel and base and somewhat naïve, 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 propagate or advocate, and points 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 events and characters still further for Norwegian folktales. Irene Engelstad has sought to apply Propp and Greimas to Norwegian folktales. References to their works are furnished below. And now for the fairy tale comments. - TK
The pancake, or the fleeing pancake - AT 2025Ørnulf 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." [THE TALE] ❖ When you run as fast as you can, you are the subordinate to flowing time and can be eaten. Each likes his own children best - AT 247A 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. [THE TALE] ❖ One's own sportsmen are always prettiest . . . ❖ The ugliest can be the prettiest if their features matter. The theft of butter (honey) by playing godfather - AT 15
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. The tale, which is the best known animal tale in Norway, stems from a cotter's widow in Flatdal, Telemark. The type of tale is in the the French book "Roman de Renart" from Medieval times, and variants are found in Asia, the Americas, and Africa, apart from Europe. [THE TALE] ❖ You can't spoil a rotten egg. A tale where animals talk together - AT 2075The 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. [THE TALE] "The black and white bride": Bushy Bride - AT 403On 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". [THE TALE] ❖ 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 magician and his pupil
Part 1: Transforming oneself to win a nice femaleA 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. [THE TALE] ❖ 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.
POEM Lucky Hans (Gudbrand on the Hill-side) - AT 1415A 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. Bartering tales like this were popular in the old days, and are found in the Buddhist Tripitaka from 492 CE also. This type of tale is common in Europe, and is also found in India, Indonesia, and among some Native Americans. [THE TALE] A Bridge to the Other Side (The Seven Foals) - AT 471Three brothers take service with a king, who orders them to herd his foals. The one who succeeds and stick to the arduous task, learns that the foals have communion too, far away. The hireling that wins, enters communion with them and their church inside - and later cuts off their heads when asked to. Features of the tale - the landscape, the river with the bridge across it, and the paradise church - relate to Medieval visionary poetry. There are striking parallells with the Norwegian Medieval poem "Draumkvedet" in some variants. Still, the shape-shifting and the bridge to the beyond are tied in with mythology which is older than Christianity in the North. [THE TALE] Tom Thumb (Thumbikin) - AT 700A 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. The tale has been popular Europe, and has been taken to the the US southern states, for example. Stories of unusually small persons were popular with the ancient Greeks too (Homer), and Jonathan Swift used the idea in Gulliver's Travels. The Atman (soul) 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 First to See the Sunrise (The Cock, the Cuckoo, and the Blackcock) - AT 120Birds wager about a cow. He that first awakes, is supposed to win her. [THE TALE] Wait for the Fat Goat (The Three Billy-Goats Gruff) - AT 122EThree 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. [THE TALE] The Clever Horse (Dapplegrim) - AT 531This miscellaneous type comprises various tales dealing with a clever horse. There are classical origins for some motifs in it. Ørnulf Hodne Hodne gives the following chain of action, or sketchy content: 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. In "Dapplegrim" a young boy had to get tougher, till horrible scenes grow wilder and climax in a plotted wedding. Norwegian Fjord Horses: [LINK] [THE TALE] The Smith and the Devil (The Master-Smith) - ATU 330A 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 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 to let him enter hell. The smith tries his luck in heaven afterwards. The final outcome of it is unsettled. [THE TALE] ❖ You should have a place to go to - a few options would be nice. The Table, the Donkey and the Stick (The Boy Who Went to the North Wind) - AT 563A poor lad gets wonder-working objects from the north wind: a table cloth that supplies itself with food; a gold-dripping he-goat; and a purse that never gets empty. He is robbed of these objects at an inn by the greedy innkeeper and his wife. Finally he receives a stick that beats the thieves until called off by its owner. By means of it the other objects are recovered. [THE TALE] ❖ Young ones are often taken in by their good will and innocence, and drinking comradery too. ❖ Three brothers; three attempts to identify with so as to compete in the fight for living - as in some variants of the tale there are three brothers, and, by the way, in many tales three brothers can be taken to represent three attempts marked by less and less credulity or inexperience. ❖ One is to guard valuable assets by being cleverly circumspect and on one's guard and not trust in all smiling faces. ❖ We have to get resolute enough to get out of deep fixes, but not to get into it is far better. The Witch (or Devil) Carries the Hero Home in a Sack (Buttercup) - AT 327CA small boy is enticed and fooled by a witch, who carried him off from his home in a sack. On the way he gets out twice by putting heavy objects in the sack, 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 inexperienced daughter is put to the task of slaughtering him, but he fools her, kills he, boils her, and serves her as a meal to her family. The ogre's guests praise the meal. The boy lures them outside and smashes them all by surprise attack. And he ends rich. [THE TALE] ❖ To be on our guard against "strangers (Greeks) carrying gifts" is an old lesson. And rather many gifts come with strings. The Princess' Ring (Big Bird Dam) - ATU 301D*Twelve princesses out for a walk, disappear. Twelve princes of another country go to search for them by boat. On an island the youngest prince finds the youngest princess, gets a sword, and goes on board again. Later he kills the troll that has abducted the princesses, and the princesses get on board. When they remember they forgot their golden crowns, the youngest prince goes ashore for them. But in the meantime the captain betrays him by sailing off, and subjugates the eleven princes. However, the stranded prince gets helped by a big bird and a troll. He sails off in an outstanding boat and arrives home long before the others. When they come, he is recognised as the one who rescued the princesses, the captain is executed, and the twelve princess get a prince each. [THE TALE] The Beautiful and Ugly Twin Sisters (Tatterhood) - AT 711A childless queen gets advice from a witch on how to have a child outside of normal channels. But the wilful mother breaks a condition tied in with the counsel, and gets 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. On the wedding day she sheds her ugliness and is found to be as pretty as her sister. [THE TALE] ❖ Consider in passing how ugliness protects, whereas good looks may puff up and may cause downfalls. ❖ "Pretty women don't need clothes. (Norwegian)" The Two Travellers (True and Untrue) - AT 613This 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 spends the night in a tree and overhears a meeting of animals, and learns some of their secrets. By means of the secrets he restores his sight an performs many difficult tasks, cure his blindness, cure an ill princess, becomes rich and honoured, and marries the princess. - The false companion attempts in the same way to try his luck, but fails. [THE TALE] ❖ A dangerous fellow is too occupied with himself by "Me first". ❖ 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. Strong John (Mumble Goose-Egg, aka The Greedy Youngster, and Murmur Goose-Egg) - AT 650A
[THE TALE] ❖ To outwit the devil you have to be smart and subtle, and not just strong. ❖ 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. Some sections and major parts here are simplified and rearranged for the sake of getting to a nicer or better "flow of action". Basic changes are made near the end to make the hero appear less tactless, 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. d) 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. A Viking Relative of Strong JohnSome of the vital parts of the "Strong John" tale were actually lived out by Norsemen, or vikings. The story of Rolf Ganger (French: Rollon, Rollo), one of the ancestors of the British royalty, runs quite like a "Strong John" fairy tale. [LINK]. Rolf was so big that viking horses could not carry him, sagas tell. He made the French king Charles the Simple hand over Normandy to him, and protected the Seine and Paris in return. Compare:
Lying Contest (The Ashlad Who Made the Princess Say "That's a Lie") - AT 852A 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". She is brought to say the required words in protest when the hero makes up shameful lies about her family, and then she has to marry the suitor. - Cf. Ørnulf Hodne. [THE TALE] ❖ 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. Three Strong Waves, aka Storm Magic (Stroebe)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. 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 there are differences among wives, as there are differences among pussycats. Klara Stroebe: "A weird tale of the sea and of witches is that of "Storm Magic" (Asbjornsen, Huldreeventyr, I, p. 248. From the vicinity of Christiania, told by a sailor, Rasmus Olsen) . . . It would be interesting to know the inner context of the cabin-boy's counter magic, and why it is that the birch-wood, cast into the sea billet by billet, had the power to destroy the witches." [p. 68]. Indeed. [THE TALE] The Cormorants of UdrostThis story is another Norwegian 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. The great help or luck he is given, 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. Clara Stroebe: ""The Island of Udrost" (Asbjornsen, Huldreeventyr, Part I, p 259, from Nordland, narrator not specified) is a legendary paradise, which appears at the moment of extremest peril to the Norsemen helplessly shipwrecked in the stormy sea . . . Udrost is almost an Isle of the Blest, an Avalon, to the fisherfolk whose lives are passed in want and constant danger." [THE TALE] ❖ 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 Giant's MountainTHIS ELEGANT little story about travelling by air, is parallelled by a Swedish tale from the Torsjö area, and 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, who was reputedly an expert in travelling by air, sitting cross-legged in so doing. [See Evans-Wentz 1969] 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 a bold imagery of certain miracle-capable sides of man's spirit. Cf. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. [THE TALE] A stiff tale allows for different interpretations, and some of them can be according to our mood at the time. The Search for the Lost Husband (East of the Sun and West of the Moon) - AT 425 and 425AAT 425 is called The Search for the Lost Husband. This type refers to a cycle of related tales. AT 425A is called The Animal as Bridegroom. A bear wants a human mate. A man talks his daughter into the match, and she rides away astride the beast. Thus she gets gets an animal husband and lives together with him. He becomes a handsome man at night, however. They lived together happily, but with time she became homesick. The bear gave her leave to visit her family, but warns her against listening to her mother's advice. The young wife listens to her mother anyway, and as a result breaks the "contract" at hand. When she on the advice of her mother looks at him in the light of a candle during the night, drops of tallow awakened her sleeping husband, and the bear-man resolutely goes away because of a spell cast on him by his stepmother: He would now have to go to a castle east of the sun and west of the moon and marry a woman with a nose three ells long. With that he disappears. Hence, 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 fit for a couple. Undaunted, his true wife set out to find him anyway, and undergoes a sorrowful wandering to recover him. The second part of the tale is about that, and how it ends. The young wife sets out for a long and difficult quest for him, in part using iron shoes for climbing. On her way she is given directions and precious gifts by helpful people. She arrives at her bridegroom's far-away residence by climbing a mountain. She takes service as maid and trades her precious things for three nights by the side of her lost husband. She wants to awaken his memory of her, but two times he is drugged by a soporific. He spills the soporific on the third night, stays awake, and recognizes her as his true bride. The false bride is unveiled and dies. [THE TALE] ❖ The tale is about finding ones true mate and keeping him too, getting independent enough for that. 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 Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker - AT 751AThe tale is classified as a religious folktale. It explains woodpecker characteristics on some folk moral grounds, and is also a tale of origins (of this and that, ie, aethiological). Christ and 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 stinginess by being transformed into a 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] ❖
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. |
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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].
