Per Gynt (Legends)
Legends of the hunter Per (Peer, Peter) Gynt from Kvam formed the background of the play Peer Gynt (1867) by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. In it, trolls serve as symbols of destructive instincts.[THE TALE]
Biting the Tree Root (Let Go of the Root, Catch the Fox-foot) - AT 5
The fox irritates the bear and is caught by the foot. The fox says: "Let go the spruce-root, and take the fox-foot." Thus he pretends that the bear has only a tree root in his mouth, so the bear lets go and releases the fox unwittingly.[THE TALE]
The Crop Division (Bruin and Reynard as Partners) - AT 1030
The bearn and the fox agree to divide the drop. The bear is made to chose the green top of root crops and the root of other crops (cabbage, grain, corn), and comes away empty-handed two years in a row.The type is an ogre (devil) tale too, and documented in the early 1300s in Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor (No. 43).
[THE TALE]
The Fox Hangs Onto the Horse's Tail (Reynard wants to Taste Horse-flesh) - AT 47A
The bear fools the fox into hanging by his teeth to a horse's leg; he hangs on firmly and is soundly drubbed. A hare witnesses the event and laughs so hard that his lip splits.[THE TALE]
The Bear on the Hay-Wagon (Bruin Goodfellow) - AT 116
A bear enters a horsedrawn sledge in the forest. The horse starts and the bear rides on and is mistaken for the priest, the bailiff, and others, and eventually rides to death.[THE TALE]
The Three Old Men (The Father of the Family) - AT 726
A wayfarer asks for a night's lodging at a farm. He meets a very old man outside, but he is shown to his father, who has to decide, and so on up to the seventh generation, who is hanging in a horn on the wall.[THE TALE]
Key in Flax Reveals Laziness (The Storehouse Key in the Disdaff) - AT 1453
A suitor puts a key into the flax which a seemingly-industrious young woman (according to her mother's or her own statement) is about to spin into thread. On a later day he finds the key still there, and thus knows that the woman is lazy. He did not return.[THE TALE]
The Three Clever Wives Wager (Silly Men and Cunning Wives) - AT 1406
Two wives wager which can best fool her husband. One makes her husband think that he is dead, the other makes hers believe that he has invisible clothes. The 'dead' man in the coffin revives when he sees the other man walking naked at his funeral. In this way it comes out how the women had tricked their husbands.Documented in the Middle Ages, such as in Des trois dames qui trouverent l'anel (two versions).
[THE TALE]
The Twins or Blood Brothers (Shortshanks) - AT 303
A woman gives birth to supernatural twins. The twins agree on a danger signal when one of them is in mortal danger and needs help. One of them rescues a princess from a troll, but another person (Red Knight) claims to be the rescuer. At the wedding the impostor is exposed by proof. The hero next goes to sea to rescue the sister of the princess, and after he has succeeded in that, he has two of them to choose among unless he marries both of them. In his dilemma he calls on his twin brother, and they marry a sister each.[THE TALE]
The Substitute for the Clergyman Answers the King's Questions (The Priest and the Clerk) - AT 922
The type is also called "The king and the abbot". A king commands a bragging priest to appear before him and answer three questions correctly if he wants to keep his office. The priest is not good at answering questions, and therefore sends another person in his place, and he answers the questions so intelligently that he is rewarded with the priest's position.Many of the questions require measuring (counting) something that cannot be measured or counted. A few questions that are not included in this variant, are: "How many seconds are there in eternity?" "How far is it from fortune to misfortune?"
The type is probably of Jewish origin. There are Arab sources from the 800s. Its first European literary treatment was in the 1200s.
[THE TALE]
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.
Bø, Olav, mfl, redr. Norske eventyr (Norwegian Fairy Tales). Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1982.
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?
Hodne, Ørnulf: The Types of the Norwegian Folktale. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1984.
Uther, Hans-Jörg. The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Vols 1-3. FF Communications No. 284-86, Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004.
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