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What if kindness and quick wit are all you have against a hungry troll?
In Popular Tales from the Norse, youngest sons leave home with little, kings set hard tasks, and trolls threaten travellers. Boots, scorned by his brothers, meets the world with kindness, nerve and wit. Along the road, helpful animals and old women can matter more than strength.
Popular Tales from the Norse includes a long introduction by George Webbe Dasent to the old stories of the North. Meet The Three Billy Goats Gruff, follow the adventures of The Master Maid and Soria Moria Castle, and enjoy short comedies about foolish husbands and ordinary farm people.
What you’ll discover
- An unlikely young hero Follow Boots as kindness and quick thinking give the scorned youngest son his chance.
- Trolls along the road Meet huge, greedy creatures whose strength makes their encounters with clever travellers worth following.
- Hard tasks and helpers Discover a world where a stranger's help can matter when a royal task seems impossible.
- Laughter close to home Enjoy brisk comedies of foolish husbands, farm people, bargains and animals between the longer adventures.
- Stories told for generations Enter plain, quick tales where action moves briskly and wit matters more than strength.
Who will love it
Readers who love fairy tales, trolls and talking animals, clever youngest sons and brave girls, and who wonder where Cinderella-style stories and old Norse gods come from.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Bold adventures grow from folk voices
- Familiar stories have many cousins
- Old powers survive in new shapes
- The overlooked brother acts quietly
- Small kindnesses bring needed help
- Love becomes a search across distance
- Cunning unsettles the powerful
- Everyday folly becomes comic adventure
- Shared patterns hold the tales together
Who’s who
- BootsThe youngest son who sits among the ashes, is mocked by his brothers, and wins princesses and kingdoms with wit, kindness and nerve.
- ShortshanksA tiny boy with a magic ship and a sword who frees a princess from ogres and wants only to be recognized.
- The MastermaidA giant's clever daughter who tells a prince how to finish the giant's tasks, and who longs to escape with him.
- Katie WoodencloakA king's daughter who flees a cruel stepmother with a dun bull, then works in a castle kitchen in a cloak of wooden strips.
- Hacon GrizzlebeardA prince mocked by a proud princess who disguises himself as a beggar to teach her humility.
- TatterhoodA wild girl with a goat and a wooden spoon who rescues her twin sister from witches.
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Popular Tales from the Norse
by George Webbe Dasent · 1859
A lad rows a kneading trough across a lake and steals a Troll's seven silver ducks, then his bed-quilt.
Challenging10–20 hours to read20 languages
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“Fire and flame yourself!”
In short
What happens when a poor lad rows a kneading trough across a lake, scatters grain for seven silver ducks, and tells the furious Troll on the shore that he will very likely come back? He does come back, and the next thing he takes is the Troll's bed-quilt.
Popular Tales from the Norse at a glance
- Reading time
- About 11 h 10 min8 h 55 min fast, 13 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 159,800 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1859by George Webbe Dasent
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Dasent turns peasant tales into serious study
Popular Tales from the Norse is the English version of Norske Folkeeventyr, the folk tales collected by Asbjornsen and Moe. In a second edition he added thirteen more tales.
Dasent opens with a complaint. English nurses, he says, stopped telling these stories long ago, and children learned Cinderella and Bluebeard from polished French books. Then he credits Jacob Grimm, who showed that old tales deserve the work of grown scholars. A nursery story could now be studied like a language, with a history of its own.
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Details
- First published
- 1859
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 13 h 0 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Dasent, George Webbe. Popular Tales from the Norse. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/popular-tales-from-the-norse.
Dasent, G. W. (2026). Popular tales from the Norse. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/popular-tales-from-the-norse (Original work published 1859)
Dasent, George Webbe. Popular Tales from the Norse. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/popular-tales-from-the-norse.
@book{dasent2026popular,
author = {Dasent, George Webbe},
title = {Popular Tales from the Norse},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/popular-tales-from-the-norse},
note = {First published 1859}
}
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What is Popular Tales from the Norse about?
It is an English collection of Norwegian folk tales gathered by Asbjornsen and Moe and translated by Dasent, with a long introduction on where such tales come from. It features trolls, princes, clever lads and animals.
Who is Boots in these Norwegian fairy tales?
Boots is Dasent's name for the youngest brother, called Askefis, the one who pokes in the ashes. His brothers mock him, but he has kindness and wit, and he succeeds when they fail.
What is a Troll in Norse folklore?
In these tales a Troll is a strong, dim giant who lives in hills and forests and keeps gold. Dasent links Trolls to the old Frost Giants. Sunlight bursts them, and clever humans often trick them.
The author
George Webbe Dasent
1817–1896 · British writer and translator
Sir George Webbe Dasent (1817–1896) was a British writer and translator. He was born on Saint Vincent in the Caribbean and died at Ascot, England. He translated Scandinavian literature into English. His Popular Tales from the Norse appeared in 1859. He also worked for The Times newspaper.
“Fire and flame yourself!”
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