Popular Tales from the Norse - Anonymous

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old natural powers and Frost Giants, the minds of the race which adored Odin and the Aesir soon engendered a monstrous man-eating cross-breed of supernatural beings, who fled from contact with the intruders as soon as the first great struggle was over, abhorred the light of day, and looked upon agriculture and tillage as a dangerous innovation which destroyed their hunting fields, and was destined finally to root them out from off the face of the earth. This fact appears in countless stories all over the globe, for man is true to himself in all climes, and the savage in Africa or across the Rocky Mountains, dreads tillage and detests the plough as much as any Lapp or Samoyed. 'See what pretty playthings, mother!' cries the Giants' daughter as she unties her apron, and shows her a plough, and horses, and peasants. 'Back with them this instant', cries the mother in wrath, 'and put them down as carefully as you can, for these playthings can do our race great harm, and when these come we must budge.' 'What sort of an earthworm is this?' said one Giant to another, when they met a man as they walked. 'These are the earthworms that will one day eat us up, brother,' answered the other; and soon both Giants left that part of Germany. Nor does this trait appear less strongly in these Norse Tales. The Giants or Trolls can neither brew nor wash properly, as we see in Shortshanks, No. xx, where the Ogre has to get Shortshanks to brew his ale for him; and in 'East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon', No. iv, where none of the Trolls are able to wash out the spot of tallow. So also in the 'Two Step-sisters', No. xvii, the old witch is forced to get human maids to do her household-work; and, lastly, the best example of all, in 'Lord Peter', No. xlii, where agriculture is plainly a secret of mankind, which the Giants were eager to learn, but which was a branch of knowledge beyond their power to attain.

      'Stop a bit', said the Cat, 'and I'll tell you how the farmer sets to work to get in his winter rye.'

      And so she told him such a long story about the winter rye.

      'First of all, you see, he ploughs the field, and then he dungs it, and then he ploughs it again, and then he harrows it,' and so she went on till the sun rose.

      Before we leave these gigantic natural powers, let us linger a moment to point out how heartily the Winds are sketched in these Tales as four brothers; of whom, of course, the North wind is the oldest, and strongest, and roughest. But though rough in form and tongue, he is a genial, kind-hearted fellow after all. He carries the lassie to the castle, 'East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon', whither none of his brothers had strength to blow. All he asks is that she won't be afraid, and then he takes a good rest, and puffs himself up with as much breath as ever he can hold, begins to blow a storm, and off they go. So, too, in 'The Lad who went to the North Wind', No. xxxiv, though he can't restore the meal he carried off, he gives the lad three things which make his fortune, and amply repay him. He, too, like the Grecian Boreas, is divine, and lineally descended from Hraesvelgr, that great giant in the Edda, who sits 'at the end of the world in eagle's shape, and when he flaps his wings, all the winds come that blow upon men.'

      Enough surely has now been said to shew that the old religion and mythology of the Norseman still lives disguised in these popular tales. Besides this internal evidence, we find here and there, in the written literature of earlier days, hints that the same stories were even then current, and current then as now, among the lower classes. Thus, in King Sverri's Saga we read: 'And so it was just like what is said to have happened in old stories of what the king's children suffered from their stepmother's ill-will.' And again, in Olof Tryggvason's Saga by the monk Odd: 'And better is it to hear such things with mirth than stepmother's stories which shepherds tell, where no one can tell whether anything is true, and where the king is always made the least in their narrative.' But, in truth, no such positive evidence is needed. Any one who has read the Volsung tale as we have given it, will be at no loss to see where the 'little birds' who speak to the Prince and the lassie, in these tales, come from; nor when they read in the 'Big Bird Dan', No. lv, about 'the naked sword' which the Princess lays by her side every night, will they fail to recognize Sigurd's sword Gram, which he laid between himself and Brynhildr when he rode through the flame and won her for Gunnar. These mythical deep-rooted groves, throwing out fresh shoots from age to age in the popular literature of the race, are far more convincing proofs of the early existence of these traditions than any mere external evidence'. [32]

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      We have now only to consider the men and women of these Tales, and then our task is done. It will be sooner done, because they may be left to speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own words and actions. The tales of all races have a character and manner of their own. Among the Hindoos the straight stem of the story is overhung with a network of imagery which reminds one of the parasitic growth of a tropical forest. Among the Arabs the tale is more elegant, pointed with a moral, and adorned with tropes and episodes. Among the Italians it is bright, light, dazzling, and swift. Among the French we have passed from the woods, and fields, and hills, to my lady's boudoir—rose-pink is the prevailing colour, and the air is loaded with patchouli and mille fleurs. We miss the song of birds, the modest odour of wild-flowers, and the balmy fragrance of the pine forest. The Swedes are more stiff, and their style is more like that of a chronicle than a tale. The Germans are simple, hearty, and rather comic than humorous; and M. Moe [33] has well said, that as we read them it is as if we sat and listened to some elderly woman of the middle class, who recites them with a clear, full, deep voice. In Scotland the few that have been collected by Mr. Robert Chambers [Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Ed. 1847).] are as good in tone and keeping as anything of the kind in the whole range of such popular collections. [34] The wonderful likeness which is shown between such tales as the 'Red Bull of Norway' in Mr. Chambers' collection, and Katie Woodencloak in these Norse Tales, is to be accounted for by no theory of the importation of this or that particular tale in later times from Norway, but by the fact that the Lowland Scots, among whom these tales were told, were lineal descendants of Norsemen, who had either seized the country in the Viking times, or had been driven into it across the Border after the Norman Conquest.

      These Norse Tales we may characterize as bold, out-spoken, and humorous, in the true sense of humour. In the midst of every difficulty and danger arises that old Norse feeling of making the best of everything, and keeping a good face to the foe. The language and tone are perhaps rather lower than in some other collections, but it must be remembered that these are the tales of 'hempen homespuns', of Norse yeomen, of Norske Bonder, who call a spade a spade, and who burn tallow, not wax; and yet in no collection of tales is the general tone so chaste, are the great principles of morality better worked out, and right and wrong kept so steadily in sight. The general view of human nature is good and kindly. The happiness of married life was never more prettily told than in 'Gudbrand on the Hillside', No. xxi, where the tenderness of the wife for her husband weighs down all other considerations; and we all agree with M. Moe that it would be well if there were many wives like Gudbrand's. The balance too, is very evenly kept between the sexes; for if any wife should point with indignation at such a tale as 'Not a Pin to choose between them', No. xxiv, where wives suffer; she will be amply avenged when she reads 'The Husband who was to mind the House', No. xxxix, where the husband has decidedly the worst of the bargain, and is punished as he deserves.

      Of particular characters, one occurs repeatedly. This is that which we have ventured, for want of a better word, to call 'Boots', from that widely-spread tradition in English families, that the youngest brother is bound to do all the hard work his brothers set him, and which has also dignified him with the term here used. In Norse he is called 'Askefis', or 'Espen Askefjis'. By M. Moe he is called 'Askepot',[35] a word which the Danes got from Germany, and which the readers of Grimm's Tales will see at once is own brother to Aschenpüttel. The meaning of the word is 'one who pokes about the ashes and blows up the fire'; one who does dirty work in short; and in Norway, according to M. Moe, the term is almost universally applied to the youngest son of the family. He is Cinderella's brother in fact; and just as she had all the dirty work put upon her by her sisters, he meets with the same fate from his brothers. He is generally the youngest of three, whose names are often Peter and Paul, as in No. xlii, and who despise, cry down, and mock him. But he has in him that deep strength of character and natural power

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