Swedish Folktales

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Introduction

Collectors and Collections

Scary . . .

Swedish folktales and legends are at times humorous, enjoyable to read. It has come down to us thanks to collecting efforts of such industrious field pioneers as Gunnar Olof Hylten-Cavallius, Gabriel Djurklou, George Stephens, Per Arvid Säve, and many others. Many Swedish fairy tales and legends were put down in writing between mellom 1837 og 1850 by Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius. He left a large collection of folktales and legends from the mid-1800s, Svenska Folk-Sagor, Legender och Äfventyr (Swedish Folktales, Legends, and Fairy Tales)., and added to his collection until 1882. In his collection there are recordings by men and women, ministers, nobles, farmers, servants, and so on. In the early half of the 1900s the Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien (a Royal Academy) published series of of Swedish fairy tales and legends of uneven quality, as well as fragments.

Swedish Folktales in Translation

Some Swedish tales are found in Yule-Tide Stories (1888), edited by Benjamin Thorpe. The Swedish tales flow more smoothly and felicitously in his translation.
Baron Nils Gabriel Djurklou (1829-1904) collected many tales in the 1850s and 1860s, and many of his tales were early translated into English. Other Swedish folktales too were translated into English.
Other early Swedish regional tales are found in Swedish Fairy Tales by Herman Hofberg, translated by W H. Myers (1895). The tales from the Hofberg collection are short, but poetic.

What Some Folktales Do

It has been observed that culture is transmitted and consolidated by stories - also called narratives. Stories is a mode of describing sides to the world we experience, and may persuade the infantile mind. Cosy tales help children and young ones to get on the track of personally relevant meanings of life - first of all succeeding, and not to be fooled too much. There are many hints for both these sides to living. Stories also transmit values and key outlooks and structure events in ways that delight children. The cultural psychologist Jerome Bruner goes into such aspects of tale-telling. [Coe 39-40].
Tales often need interpretations later in life to stand out as culture transmitters, value transmitters, and a sort of riverbed for maturing, intellectual insights. In Waldorf Education this is one of the founding principles of schooling.
The language of the original Swedish fairy tales is stiff, stilted, and at times artificial. Sides to it are explained in the series by Kungliga Adolfs Akademin [Kungliga, Vol 2 19, 202]. The content, however, can be first-class.
Tormod Byrn Kinnes

Literature

1. English Translations

Swedish Fairy Tales by Herman Hofberg, translated by W. H. Myers (1890). Online.
Clara Stroebe's The Swedish Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). Online.
Nils Gabriel Djurklou's Fairy Tales from the Swedish, translated by Hans Lien Brækstad. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1901. Online.

Two anthologies:

Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales: Tales from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland.

Benjamin Thorpes Yule-Tide Stories: A Collection of Scandinavian and North German Popular Tales and Traditions, from the Swedish, Danish, and German from; 1910. Online.

2. In Swedish

Djurklou, Gabriel. Folke-eventyr. New edition. Oslo: Fabritius, 1971.
Gidlunds. Svenska folksagor, Vols 1-4. Stockholm: Gidlunds, 1981.

Series by Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien:

1. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 1. Mickel i Långhult sagor. Stockholm: Bokförlags Aktiebolaget Thule, 1937.
2. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 2. Sven Sederströms sagor. Stockholm: Bokförlags Aktiebolaget Thule, 1938.
3. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 3. Sagor från Småland. Stockholm: Bokförlags Aktiebolaget Thule, 1939.
4. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 4. Sagor ur G.O. Hyltén-Cavallius och George Stephens samlingar. Uppsala: A.B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1942.
5. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 5. Sagor och sägner upptecknade av Gabriel Djurklou I. Jöran Sahlgren. Stockholm: Tryckeri Aktiebolaget Thule, 1943.
6. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 6. Sagor och sägner upptecknade av Gabriel Djurklou II. Jöran Sahlgren. Uppsala: A.B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1953.
8. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 8. Sagor från Närke. Maja Forsslund. Stockholm: Tryckeri Aktiebolaget Thule, 1943.
9. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 9. Sagor från Åsele Lappmark. Herman Geijer, Sven Liljeblad och Karl-Hampus Dalhstedt. Stockholm: Tryckeri Aktiebolaget Thule, 1945.
10. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 10. Gotlandska sagor upptecknade av P.A. Säve. Herbert Gustavson. Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells Boktrykkeri, 1952.
11. Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien. Svenska sagor och sägner: 11. Folktro och sägner från skilda landskap. Upptecknade och samlade av Eva Wigström. Aina Stenklo. Uppsala: A.B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1952.

Literature

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