N is for...Norwegian fairy tales!

First of all, apologies if this post doesn't make sense, I'm writing it while listening to music really really loud to block out the drums from next door, and I tend to get lost in my music! I struggled quite a lot coming up with an 'N' word to do with fairy tales (I'll probably think of loads when I've published this post) so the idea I'm using was actually inspired by one of Inspire Nordic's comments on my Brothers Grimm post. (By the way you should stop by her blog, it's awesome!) She mentioned Asbjørnsen and Moe, who are apparently Norway's version of the Brother's Grimm, so I decided to do my 'N' post about them!

The cover of Norwegian Folktales taken from here

Asbjørnsen and Moe wrote a collection of fairy tales called Norwegian Folktales (or Norske Folkeeventyr in Norwegian). Like Grimm's Fairy tales,  this collection of folktales was a symbol of nationalism for Norway. Asbjørnsen, who was a teacher, and Moe, who was a minister, had been friends since they were 13 or 14. They had both been interested in folktales for years before completing their collection. The authors considered the stories that they collected as remains from Old Norse mythology. Their fairy tales were first published as pamphlets, and were later published in one collection in 1845 and a second in 1848. In 1870 the collection available today was published.

Taken from here

There's only one fairy tale in their collection that I recognise, so I'm going to pick a random selection to talk about. The first is the one I've heard, Three Billy Goats Gruff, which I loved when I was little! I still love it, but now it has the added bonus of reminding me of J. K. Rowling's Tale of the Three Brothers, which is like the human version of this one! (Kind of) The plot of the story goes like this: there's a troll living under a bridge, who eats anyone who passes. Three billy goats need to cross the bridge, and the smallest goes first. When the troll tries to eat him, the goat says that a bigger goat will be crossing soon, so the troll should eat him. The troll lets the smallest goat past, and the bigger one crosses the bridge. When the troll tries to eat him, he says the same thing, so the troll lets him cross. The biggest goat then crosses the bridge, and when the troll tries to eat him, the biggest billy goat easily tosses him off the bridge. The three goats live happily ever after, and the troll is never seen again. I always liked that story :)

Taken from here

The next tale I'm going to talk about is Why the Bear is Stumpy -Tailed, because I liked the title! I've never heard of this tale before, but I really like it! According to the tale, bears used to have lovely long tails. One day, a bear met a fox on the ice, who was dragging some stolen fish. The fox told the bear that he had fished for them, and told the bear that all he had to do was lower his tail into the water to get the fish. The bear did this, got his tail stuck, and yanked so hard to pull himself free that he left his tail in the ice!
Ok that's all for today, my music is really distracting me! Hope you enjoyed the post nevertheless :)