I will diminish, and go into the West

Current events are exhausting; perhaps it is becoming cliché to point it out, but it remains true. Social media are full of current events. Social media are therefore exhausting. Now, as I withdraw from social media – for peace of mind’s sake – I shall increase my presence here, back on a personal blog, safe and free from the interference of various bad actors.

These blogposts appear on the website’s front page, are archived under their own banner (above), and are syndicated, allowing you to read them from the comfort of your own RSS reader, should you choose to do so. And as for content, all I can say is that they will reflect my interests, as abiding or as fleeting as they may be.

Here is a .pdf of a folktale published by Rikard Berge in 1914.

Download the .pdf here.

 

“Soria Moria Castle” is one of the most familiar folktales in Norway. It tells of Halvor, who, marooned in an unknown land, rescues three princesses, each one held by a troll in its castle. When he has killed all the trolls, he is free to choose the princess he likes best for wife. But Halvor is downcast; he misses his parents and his home. The princesses allow him to visit, transporting him by magic, but he must not mention them. Which of course he does. The princesses appear, as if summoned by magic, lull Halvor to sleep, and then disappear back to Soria Moria without him. Halvor has then to make the long, arduous journey to Soria Moria Castle by any means he can, where he arrives just in time to prevent his chosen princess from marrying another.

This version of the folktale was first published by Asbjørnsen & Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr in 1843. Erik Werenskiold illustrated it for the Asbjørnsen’s compendium edition of 1879, and these images are still those most often published; in fact, I have used Werenskiold’s images to illustrate my translation. (See my annotated edition, vol. 1, p. 187–200).

In 1900, Theodor Kittelsen exhibited a series of twelve paintings to complement a simplified retelling of the folktale, which he published in 1911.¹ The story is very weak, yet Kittelsen’s images have since become the most well-known illustrations of Soria Moria, perhaps because of his coloured medium, whereas Werenskiold’s work is in pen and ink.

In Kittelsen’s story, Halvor has been recast as Askeladden, the more conventional hero of the folktales. Instead of going to sea only to be marooned, he sees a vision of Soria Moria castle in the ashes he rakes at home, and decides go out to search for it. He soon spies the castle in the distance and heads in the right direction. He meets a number of increasingly dangerous animals on his journey, which he simply placates with food. Then he evades a mountain troll. He sees the castle, but has to creep past a sleeping dragon and a golden bird that can wake it if it screeches.

Inside the castle, the princess is nitpicking a troll. She shows Askeladden a huge sword and a magical strengthening drink, and he chops the troll’s head off. Wedding. Happily ever after. The end.

Askeladden barely broke a sweat.

Now, while Kittelsen’s retelling may be insipid, with little in the way of dramatic tension, his paintings are iconic, especially his vision of the distant golden castle Soria Moria, for which he which possibly drew some inspiration from Adam of Bremen’s description of the temple of Uppsala (History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, IV, xxvi).

To do the images some justice, Kittelsen’s tale may be worth recomposing…

Some time back, a friend suggested that I submit my annotated edition of The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe for consideration for the Katharine Briggs Award, the “annual book prize established by the Folklore Society to encourage the study of folklore, to help improve the standard of folklore publications in Britain and Ireland, to establish The Folklore Society as an arbiter of excellence, and to commemorate the life and work of the distinguished scholar Katharine Mary Briggs (1898-1980; Society president 1969-1972).”¹ I like big shiny things – an engraved goblet, no less – as much as the next manchild, so I looked into the submission process, but ultimately decided not to go through with it.

My sudden loss of interest is easily explained: the process requires that four copies of the book be submitted to the judges (a necessity I quite understand). My volumes are big and thick, and therefore expensive. What is more, because of where I live, I cannot get them at cost price; I have to pay full whack. To buy four copies of the whole three-volume edition, I would have to shell out more than £200, plus shipping, an expense I am unwilling to cover for no guaranteed return.

(Of course, I might win… yadda yadda yadda… exposure… blah blah blah…)

So now that The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe has been released (details here), I am now able to move on to the other publishing projects that I have in various stages of readiness.

First on the block are Regine Normann's legends, which I am calling Arctic Legends from Norway, a compendium of two volumes she published in the late 1920s. The legends are strange and unsettling, giving accounts of various preternatural intrusions in the lives of simple fisher farmers who populated the coastal regions of the north at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The manuscript is currently awaiting final editing, and the book will be published in the first half of the new year.

Next on the list is a volume of draug legends. Ostensibly the revenant of the sea dead who cannot be interred in consecrated ground, the draug haunts the seas, looking to cause calamity to those who travel by water, or perhaps it merely acts as a psychopomp to the fey (doomed to die). In either case, there are a good number of legends concerning these creatures, and my volume will bring them together in English for the first time.

The translation work is complete on most of these texts, and it shouldn't take too long to ready the work for editing.

Third is a volume of previously unpublished variants of Norwegian folktales. These incorporate some surprising elements, such as a gossiping squirrel running up and down the great linden tree in “Faithful and Unfaithful,” the troll confronting the billy-goats after they have eaten themselves fat, and even a shocking title – “The Princess Who Should Commit Fornication and Murder” (collected by Jørgen Moe, who later became a bishop).

The majority of these tales exist in sketches or even raw records, which means that I have to actually compose them so that they are readable and entertaining (the sine qua non of folk narratives). Although I have begun, there is still a way to go with this volume, and I dare not give it a deadline.

Lastly, there is the furtherance of my work on Asbjørnsen & Moe. I want to produce an ebook edition, and I want to release various selections of the folktales and legends – perhaps even a series of single tales. As the texts are already in publishable form, these projects will give me something to fiddle with while I am procrastinating.

There is enough work to fill my time, then, and it’ll all keep me off the streets until I’m done. Keep an eye out here for news of new releases.