The Land and Water Ship (The Ashlad and His Crew) - ATU 513B
(Formerly: "The Extraordinary Companions", AT 513). A king has promised his daughter to the man who can build a ship that goes both on land and on water. Three brothers want to try their luck in this. However, the older two are unkind to an old man who asks what they want to do, and fail. Only the third answers the old man honestly and gives him food, and gets help from him in return: the man builds the magic ship in return.On the way to the king's court the hero is joined one after the other by extraordinary companions (a man eating stone, another hearing the grass grow, and others with other unusual abilities). When the young man brings the ship, the king is amazed, but since the young man is of humble origin, the king tries to back away from his bargain and constantly invents new and more difficult tasks to get rid of them. But the hero, assisted by his helpers, accomplishes them all and marries the princess.
The type number (AT 513) refers to a cycle of related tales. The type of tale goes back to Argonautica of Appollonios Rhodios (ca. 250 BCE).
[THE TALE]
The Old Woman and the Wolf Fall into the Pit Together (Father Bruin in the Corner) - AT 168A
A man uses a little dog to trap wild animals (fox, wolf, bear) in a pit. An old woman falls into it too. The man comes and sees the catch. He rescues the woman and kills the animals.[THE TALE]
The Three Stolen Princesses (The Three Princesses in the Blue Mountain) - AT 301
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| The cat lets himself be lowered, thinking: "What if we all are of supernatural origin?" |
[THE TALE]
Pork and Honey - AT 49. The Bear and the Honey
After a wager a fox takes the heart of the pig the bear is carrying, but when the bear threatens to retaliate for it, the fox promises to take him to a beehive. Instead he takes the bear to a wasps' nest. The bear bites into it to suck honey from the nest and is badly stung.[THE TALE]
Dyre Vaa - ML5020
Retold by Tormod Kinnes. Reidar Christiansen, devised a catalogue of Norwegian Migratory Legends, and "Dyre Vaa" is classified in it as is shown above. It is a type of legend that deals with ferrying trolls. There exist a few Norwegian variants of the tale. Two variants are from the hands of the early collector Andreas Faye, and another is by the son of Jørgen Moe, Molkte Moe. These texts are publicly available in Norwegian at Ariadne, located at the University of Oslo. [Link]This legend from Telemark is from a Norwegian ballad and a prose rendering by Martha G. Sleeper, in her Sweden and Norway; Sketches and Stories of their Scenery, Customs, History, Legends, etc., New York: Sheldon, 1867, p. 34-38.
There is also a ballad on Dyre Vaa from 1846 by the Norwegian poet Johan S. Welhaven (1807-73).
[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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