19 h 57 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
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
You will love this book if you enjoy fairy tales told plainly, trolls and talking animals, clever youngest sons, or the old Norse gods hiding inside nursery stories. It rewards anyone curious about where stories come from.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Norwegian collection with a bold introduction
- The same tales turn up across the world
- Odin and Thor wear new names in the tales
- The lad from the ashes always rises
- Kind girls meet strange helpers on the road
- Wit beats strength in the beast tales
- Trolls, ogres and giants without hearts
- Rogues, fools and clever bargains
- Saints, quests and tales from the West Indies
Who’s who
- BootsThe youngest son who sits among the ashes, laughed at by his brothers but helped by good powers, and wins through kindness and wit.
- ShortshanksA tiny boy who sets out into the world on his birth day and faces three ogres with a magic sword and a pocket ship.
- Ritter RedA boastful knight who hides in a tree while ogres come, then tries to take credit for the rescue.
- Bruin the BearThe king of the beasts, strong but easily fooled by the fox who calls him lord.
- Reynard the FoxThe cunning trickster who outwits bears.
- The Master ThiefA cottager's youngest son who learns thieving from robbers and sets out to win a squire's daughter.
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- Large print hardcover
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Popular Tales from the Norse in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Popular Tales from the Norse
by George Webbe Dasent · 1859
A poor lad from the ashes outwits trolls, giants and kings in tales that match stories told as far as India.
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In short
Trolls and talking animals live in Popular Tales from the Norse, which Sir George Webbe Dasent translated from the Norwegian collection of Asbjornsen and Moe.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Norwegian collection with a bold introduction
Two Norwegian collectors, Asbjornsen and Moe, wrote down the folk tales told in the countryside, and Dasent put them into English. His second edition added thirteen tales, so the whole Norwegian collection stood complete. He chose not to soften the rougher tales, because he held that a collection of this kind is worth only as much as its faithfulness.
He opens with an essay that treats nursery tales as a science. He credits Jacob Grimm with raising such stories from old wives’ fables to a subject worthy of serious study. Before Grimm, he says, English children mostly met Cinderella and Bluebeard through French books.
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What is Popular Tales from the Norse about?
It gathers Norwegian folk tales such as East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Boots stories. An introduction explains how such tales spread among related peoples and carry traces of Norse myth.
Who is Boots in Norse fairy tales?
Boots is the name Dasent gives the youngest son, who sits by the fire among the ashes and is mocked by his brothers. With good heart and quick wit, he wins the princess in many stories.
Who collected these Norwegian tales and who translated them?
Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe collected them from country people in Norway. Sir George Webbe Dasent translated them into English and wrote the introduction on their origin.
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.
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