How long it will be, I don’t know, but my book of The Draug is coming. Take a look at the announcement on my Website: Forthcoming: The Draug.
Showing posts with label Legends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legends. Show all posts
2026-07-03
2026-06-06
Ten details of the annotated edition of The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe
Three chunky volumes (815 pages, 617 pages, and 665 pages).
Original prefaces from eight editions.
Jørgen Moe’s substantial introduction to the folktales, in which he discusses the origins of folk narratives, and how the Norwegian material exemplifies his ideas.
All 122 folktales Asbjørnsen & Moe published during their careers.
28 hulder tales and folk legends, a genre Asbjørnsen defined, in which he embeds the legends of the hidden folk.
Approximately 350 illustrations by some of the most accomplished artists Norway has known, including Hans Gude, Erik Werenskiold and Theodor Kittelsen.
Asbjørnsen & Moe’s notes on the folktales, which detail the variant(s) the collectors used to compose each folktale, sketch out other variants they collected, and compare the Norwegian folktales with similar traditions from other regions.
Newly-researched editor’s notes, which identify the collector responsible for the composition of each text, give collection data, including tale type, geographical origin, collector, informant, and date of collection, sketch biographical details of informants, where known, give previous publication and translation details, trace historical and literary sources, and draw attention to points of particular interest.
Editor’s prefaces to each volume, which trace the publication history of the original volumes represented, as well as previous translations.
Comprehensive – perhaps even exhaustive – bibliographies to each volume.
2026-05-31
Regine Normann’s Legends from Arctic Norway
A legend belongs to a genre of folk narrative that purports to relate true accounts of inexplicable episodes encountered by friends, family, or even the raconteur. Regine Normann's Legends from Arctic Norway follows Kari Aronste on her summer holiday, revisiting her childhood home in the north. She is reunited with her circle of family and friends, who on every occasion recount such odd events for one another. Moreover, we also read of how, from time to time, circumstances force these people into action, employing their knowledge of the hidden world to overcome the uncanniness of their daily lives.
The mysteries of the north are manifold. We read of the hidden tusse folk, who live in mounds close by the human settlements, and aid their farmers and fishermen. The cunning folk possess skills that allow them to manipulate circumstances and folk through their use of plants, animals, and above all words. Alongside these settled folk, the shamanistic Sámi folk possess even greater knowledge, which allows them even to manipulate physical objects at a distance. And of course, there are the dead, who never really leave this world at all: the restless dead, the vengeful dead, and the sea-dead draug, who shall never find peace in consecrated ground.
Regine Normann has spun a narrative around all of these uncanny stories. Through it she relates the lives of people who, but a hundred years ago, lived in the small settlements of the wind-swept fjords north of the Arctic circle. Yet she also demonstrates how the world of the stories and the real world are not really separate at all. The uncanny world of the legends is one with our world.
Death was never so dead that a touch of life didn’t linger in the clay, giving it the power to drift around the neighbourhood, spreading dread and fear of darkness.
– The Churchyard on Kalvøya
If you like your folklore cold and dark, this is a book for you.
Get your copy here
Buy a paperback edition
Buy an ebook edition
- Directly from me (ePub) through Ko-Fi.com (best price for you; best royalty for me)
- From Amazon.com (Kindle)
The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe
Every single folktale and legend published by Asbjørnsen & Moe in English for the first time. These are the most comprehensive editions in any language.
Two editions are available: one is annotated (details here) and includes a number of original introductory texts; the other has just the stories (details here). Both editions are fully illustrated.
Oh, and if you choose to buy the .pdf copies directly from me at ko-fi, they'll cost you less than half the price of the paperback volumes.
The links to the books
The Annotated Edition
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Volume one
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Volume two
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Volume three
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Just the Stories Edition
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Volume one
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Volume two
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Volume three
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