Trolls, polar bears, and other Norwegian classics (Following folktales around the world 52. - Norway)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts under the Following Folktales label, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

With today's post, the series goes on a CHRISTMAS BREAK. It will continue in January!

Háncsvirág
Norvég népmesék
Vaskó Ildikó (szerk.)
Móra Kiadó, 2004.

This book is a lovely Hungarian edition of 23 tales translated from the well-known 19th century Norwegian folktale collection by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. You can find their tales in English in various formats online, including this wonderful blog. My particular edition was meant for children and families, therefore it is gorgeous (illustrated by artist Szegedi Katalin) and readable, but lacks notes and sources. Still, it was a very good selection.

Highlights

One of my favorite stories from the collection is Boots and the Beasts; I included it in my own book about superpowers, since the hero can transform himself into a lion, and ant, and a falcon. He uses this ability to save princesses from trolls, which is pretty neat. I also love, and frequently tell around Christmas, the story of the Cat on the Dovrefjell, in which a polar bear scares off a bunch of trolls that try to wreck a house on Christmas Eve.
I really enjoyed Espen Ashlad and the Redfoks, in which a boy could find out all kinds of secrets by looking through the ring of a magic key. Among others, he discovered that trolls were afraid of thyme (and used this knowledge to rescue a princess, obviously).
Easy for those who are loved by women is an interesting story about a boy that wishes that all women would love him at first sight - and succeeds in life because women are helping him along. I heard Janice Del Negro tell her own amazing version of it, and I will never look at this story the same way again.

Connections

The book opens with a classic trickster story, that of Peik the Mischievous who outsmarts a king several times, using such classics as selling him a "pot that cooks without fire" (it doesn't), and also getting the king's daughters pregnant. In the end, he is caught and locked into a box, but he manages to switch places with an unsuspecting merchant.

The tale of the Three Aunts is essentially the same as Grimm's Three Spinners, although I liked these ladies better. Hakon Grizzlebeard is the Norwegian counterpart of King Thrushbeard, Grass Girl is the tiny fairy bride stepping in for the tale type of the Frog Princess, and King Valemon the White Bear is the well-known Norwegian variant of Beauty and the Beast (and probably the European source for the American White Bear Whittington). In this last one I especially loved the part where the woman seeking her husband was helped by three little girls, and only found out later that they were her own daughters, hidden by her husband with other families to protect them from the curse. Katie Woodencloak is the Norwegian variant of Catskins; I liked it that she was helped by a great black bull, who gave his life to save her, although I felt a little sorry that it did not turn into a prince at the end.
This book is also the first European collection in the series featuring one of my favorite tales, The Husband who had to Mind the House, in which a woman and a man swap chores for a day, to prove that women don't just "sit around at home" all day.

Where to next?
Sweden!