I have finished writing the introductions, and there is now nothing left for me to do but edit a few incidental texts before publication. I hope this editing will be done before summer commences, and I am hoping to publish before the beginning of autumn.

What a wild ride it’s been!

Even for a Londoner, Norwegian folktales have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. At home, Vera Southgate’s “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” from 1968 was my first introduction. Robert Lumley’s illustration of the troll climbing on to the bridge (shown left) is forever etched into my psyche. I have vague recollections from school, of puppet films that include characters eating what appeared to be wallpaper paste, but which was called porridge; I had never seen porridge like that. Funnily enough, I can date these recollections, for I only attended that particular infants’ school for a year, so it must have been 1976. (The huge Betamax video player in the audio/ visual room also made an impression.)

Fifteen years later, I saw these films again, this time at an exhibition of Ivo Caprino’s work in Bergen, Norway. It was at this exhibition that I was at last made aware of the Asbjørnsen and Moe collection. I wanted to read it all.

Another ten years passed. I had by this time fathered three children, and taken far too much education. I was looking around for something to occupy my mind while I worked a part-time job and weighed the pros and cons of embarking on an academic career. It was my tenth year of living, studying, and working in Norway, and I wondered if I was competent enough to translate something from Norwegian to English. I decided a short trial would suffice, and had a go at one of Asbjørnsen’s folktales: “Bamse Brakar,” which I called “Goodman Bear.” I found the work satisfying, and translated a further handful of tales. Then I discovered that the whole collection had never appeared in English. And I realised I could remedy that situation.

The rest is really history, except that life intervened for another ten years, and it wasn’t until 2015 that I seriously attempted to complete the collection, with the support of the fine folk of #FolkloreThursday to cheer me on.

That was all half a million words ago, now.

Ilmarinen the Blacksmith never grew tired of hammering.¹ One day, as he was putting some iron in the forge, a maiden came to his smithy. She stood upon the threshold and called out to the Blacksmith: “If you knew what I have to tell you, Ilmarinen the Blacksmith, you’d not put that iron in your forge.”

“If you have something good to tell me,” he said, “then I’ll give you a beautiful piece of jewellery, but if it’s something bad, then I’ll drop this piece of red-hot iron right down your gullet.”

“There are two men out rowing in their boats; they are suitors to fair Catherine, the King of Hiisi’s daughter,” said the maiden.² Ilmarinen the Smith took the iron out of the forge, fell into contemplation, and went home.

“Mother,” he said, “make the copper sauna hotter than glowing stone, and give me a fine shirt and a smart set of clothes.” Then Ilmarinen the Smith went out to bathe in the sauna, and returned home – and he had no belt around his hips and no shoes upon his feet.

“Brother,” he said, “take my swiftest three-year-old foal and with the copper harness and the pewter breastplate, fasten it to the golden sleigh with the iron runners and the steel shafts.” His brother did so, but he couldn’t fasten the breastplate. So Ilmarinen the Smith himself went out and fastened the breastplate – and he had no belt around his hips and no shoes upon his feet.

Then Ilmarinen the Smith sat in the golden sleigh with the iron runners and the steel shafts, and drove his foal with the copper harness and the pewter breastplate across the wild lake as swiftly as it would go; he drove as swiftly as the wind, and the horse’s hoofs did not get wet and no track of the sleigh appeared upon the water. He caught up with the two who were rowing, each in his own boat.

Catherine, the King of Hiisi’s daughter, stood in the window – as white and as pale and as fair as could be – looking out over the lake. “Father,” she said, “three suitors approach – two are rowing boats; the third rides across the lake in a golden sleigh.”

The King of Hiisi received them and gave them food and drink; they declared their intention – they had come to court fair Catherine. The King of Hiisi replied: “Indeed. Which of you can plough my worm meadow, bare of foot and unbelted around the waist?”

“I can,” said Ilmarinen the Blacksmith. The others bowed and went on their way, but Ilmarinen the Blacksmith harnessed his strong, spirited foal to the plough and set about ploughing.

The worms writhed two cubits deep in the meadow; they hissed and squirmed around the plough and up over Ilmarinen himself, but they could do him no harm. He ploughed the worm meadow, and then he returned and bowed before the King of Hiisi.

“Now, can you get all the big fish in the lake to swim and the small fish to jump?” Ilmarinen the Smith went and did so, and then he returned and bowed before the King of Hiisi.

Now the King said: “Now go down to the shore of the lake and fetch fair Catherine’s bridal box.”

Ilmarinen the Smith went down to the shore of the lake, where sat three Maidens. “Good maidens,” he said, “tell me, where is fair Catherine’s bridal box?”

“Old Untamo has the chest,” replied the maidens.³ “There away, you can see where he dwells; many tracks lead thither, but few come thence.”

Ilmarinen went to Untamo’s dwelling. He was lying out in the field, and had dragged himself around the whole house so that his head and feet met at the door. Ilmarinen the Smith leapt through the door into the midst of the parlour. “You, old Untamo, bring me fair Catherine’s bridal box,” he said.

“I shall give it to you,” replied Untamo, “if you can step on to my tongue and dance there.”

Ilmarinen the Smith did so: he stepped on to his tongue and jumped and danced about. Old Untamo gaped a cubit and a half, and showed his teeth, which were a cubit long, and swallowed Ilmarinen the Smith whole, down into his belly, without a bite.

Once Ilmarinen the Smith was there, he took off his shirt and fashioned it into a forge. He fashioned bellows from his trousers. He used his left knee for an anvil, his left hand for tongs, and his right for a sledgehammer. He took the copper button from his shirt and forged from it a bird with iron claws and a steel beak. Then he sang a ballad that gave life to the bird. It fluttered around in old Untamo’s belly, tore at veins and tendons, and made a hole in his side.

Ilmarinen the Smith climbed out through the hole and returned to the maidens who were sitting by the beach. “Maidens,” said he, “give me fair Catherine’s bridal box.”

The maidens replied: “There away it lies in the sand; take it and go.”

Ilmarinen the Smith picked it up and took it back to the King of Hiisi, where he bowed and said: “Here is fair Catherine’s bridal box.”

Thus did Ilmarinen the Smith win fair Catherine, the King of Hiisi’s daughter.

Ilmarinen the Smith and his bride got into the golden sleigh with the iron runners and steel shafts, and drove his quick, spirited foal with the copper harness and the pewter breastplate across the wild lake as swiftly as it would go; he drove as swiftly as the wind, and the horse’s hoofs did not get wet and no track of the sleigh appeared upon the water. Ilmarinen the Smith drove on, and night fell. Then he sang a ballad so that an islet grew up in the midst of the lake. There Ilmarinen the Smith lay down to sleep beside his bride.

When he awoke in the morning, she was gone. He went and counted all the ducks that were around the islet, and there was one duck too many. So Ilmarinen the Smith sang a ballad: “Don’t hide, Catherine,” and then she returned.

He drove out onto the lake again. He drove and drove, and night fell. The Blacksmith again sang up an islet on the lake and lay down there with his bride.

When he awoke in the morning, she was gone again. He went and counted the trees on the islet, and there was one tree too many. “Don’t hide, Catherine,” said the Blacksmith to the tree. “There you are.” And he sang a ballad until she returned.

Then he drove out again with his bride. He drove and drove on the lake until night fell. Then he sang up an islet on the lake and lay down there to sleep with his bride, and in the morning when he awoke, she was gone again.

Ilmarinen the Smith went and counted all the stones on the islet, and there was one stone too many. “Don’t hide, Catherine. There you are,” said the Blacksmith, singing a ballad. Then Catherine returned.

“Catherine, I have suffered much on your account without fearing the worst. So now you must go and dwell upon the lake forever, and for your punishment you shall always have the wind against you.”

That’s what Ilmarinen the Smith said, after which he turned his bride into a herring gull.

Over the last week or so, I have been translating the last of Asbjørnsen’s prefaces I had left (the preface to the 1859 second edition of the first volume of Norske Huldreeventyr og Folkesagn). I thought it would be a trivial job; it's just a preface, after all. This particular preface is >5000 words long, though; it has proven to be quite a job, and I wish I had tackled it earlier. That said, the text is very interesting, and goes a long way towards documenting the link from contemporary accounts of witches, to legends of the Asgårdsreie (the Norwegian edition of the Wild Hunt), to the valkyries of Old Norse and other Germanic literature, and back to the goddess Freya (who obviously liked cats).

I won’t pre-empt publication here; I shall be including the preface in my third volume, later this year. Something I can write about, though, is the artistic production of the Norwegian painter and illustrator Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831–1892), who appears to have understood Asbjørnsen’s argument. This understanding may be seen in his artistic production.

Arbo began with a maiden of the slain, the Valkyrie we see above, in 1869. He moved on to depicting the Asgårdsreie in 1872, a wild procession across the sky, driven at times by Guri Ryserova, at times by Odin or even Thor. These legends represent the crossover from earlier mythology to later folklore – the figures from the old religion being replaced as we move into the modern ages.

Lastly here, he illustrated some of Asbjørnsen’s legends, beginning in 1879. Below is Arbo’s portrayal of a legend embedded in the hulder tale and folk legend, “Legends from the Mill,” in which a tailor who spends the night in a sawmill is thronged by a flock of cats which turn out to be witches.

This short series of images, reproduced here in chronological order of production, also demonstrates the folkloric development of the valkyries into sky riders into witches. Asbjørnsen’s preface tells the story that the pictures cannot, however: the connection between the concepts.

Back in the days when I was still considering a traditional publishing contract for The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, one of the questions agents and publishers often asked was “Why you?” meaning, I suppose, why does the author want to publish the submitted work. So I shall try to answer that question here.

The most obvious reason for my wanting to publish The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe is because it has never been done. There have been selections of the whole collection, yes, but no one before me has taken the trouble to immerse him or her­self in the material and see it through to the end. My most personal reason for doing it is that it deserves doing. The Per Gynt legends have never appeared in English before, despite the enthusiasm (especially in America) for Ibsen; the hulder folk (fairies/ elves?) have never been properly introduced to an English-speaking audience; the Norwegian cunning arts are more or less unknown; the troll, that cornerstone of Norwegian folklore, has never been portrayed in its fulness.

And then there is the sorry state of the translations that have appeared; unnecessary inaccuracies abound. In the original, the cat is a female, not a tabby; the horse is a buckskin, not a dapple; the goats have an old Norwegian name, not a repurposed English adjective, and humans take them to where they are going – they're not just wandering around by themselves. Lastly in this regard: THERE ARE NO GRIFFINS IN NORWEGIAN FOLKLORE.

Indeed, the job I have taken upon myself has never been done before, and it deserves doing and doing well.

So what makes me the person to do this job (another favourite question from publishers and agents)?

The answer is simple: I am best qualified and best positioned to do it. In a couple of months from now, I will have been living in Norway for 32 years. I lived in Sweden for about a year before that. I earned all of my education in Norway – most of my studying (literature/ philosophy/ religion/ education) was accomplished in Norwegian. (I also studied English for the three-and-a-half years.) I have lived with two Norwegian women (consecutively), brought up 4 + 2 children. I have taught several thousand Norwegian children, youths, and adults in the Norwegian school system. I read and write Norwegian and English at comparable levels. I would not consider myself a native speaker of Norwegian, but I’m as close as you can get without having been born here.

And of course, there is the love I have for the material. I heard the story of the billy goats and the troll as a child, of course, and I have some vague school memories of stop-motion puppets eating porridge, but it was while I lived in Bergen for six months in late 1992 that I was properly intro­duced to Asbjørnsen & Moe, through the medium of Ivo Caprino’s short animated films. I was hooked, and have been ever since. Geekily, nerdily hooked. I still wander around with my head full of tusses and trolls.

I am near completion of the project of publishing the full Asbjørnsen & Moe collection, and I can honestly say that every single session of translation, editing, and writing has been a pleasure. Unlike the epic journeys within the tales and legends, my road has been a straight one. Uphill at times, yes, but I have always been able to see my destination in the distance, and I have always known I am going to reach it.

At the time of writing, I have one introduction to complete. Then my introductions need editing. Then a last edit of the completed volumes, making sure the images don’t disturb the pagination, etc. And then the project shall have been accomplished.

Man, what a ride it’s been!

Jørgen Moe implies that the the phrase, “I think this is how it goes,” is an important mechanism of folklore development.

Or perhaps it’s, “Let’s see if I can remember this one…”

From his Introduction to the second edition of Norske folkeeventyr, 1852:

Still two things remain, which confirm that the folktales have been at home in our country for a very long time, even from the age of paganism. The first is the faithfulness and conscientiousness with which the best storytellers always recount the traditions – the fear they have of taking away, adding to, or even just changing the individual motif a little. This carefulness goes so far that when the story is recounted, it is told predominantly in the same words and phrases that were used the first time, certainly in the most important points and the dialogue. We find this when two people tell the story, one of whom having received it from the mouth of the other. By this conscientious accuracy we may be assured against any deliberate distortion of the original content, and this likewise suggests an instinctive respect for the folk literature’s ancient and domestic origins.