Please define your terms, and differentiate what you are calling fairy tales from myths, legends, folktales, and even wonder tales. If you can't (and we know you can't – no one has been able to), do at least acknowledge the fuzzy, overlapping, organic scope of the concepts.
There is no such thing as a fairy tale. There are, however, many fairy tales. – paraphrasing Jack Zipes (I think) from memory.
The three volumes of The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, the non-annotated edition, are all-but ready. All the folktales. All the legends. All the illustrations.
This edition will be published at roughly the same time as The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, the annotated edition, which is only waiting for the final editing of my prefaces. All the folktales. All the legends. All the original prefaces and introductions. All the notes, both original and newly researched.
This huge translation and writing project I am fitting together in its final form is too big to fit in my brain all at once. I must therefore trust the decisions that numerous iterations of me from the past made. I have to resist the urge to revisit every detail, just because I may have had a bad night's sleep. In this way, I expect be able to publish a work bigger and more comprehensive than any I ever imagined producing, while still retaining some semblance of my sanity. That's the hope.
Did you know that the first choice of title for Asbjørnsen & Moe was an imitation of the Grimms’: “Norwegian Folk- and Children’s Tales”? Did you know their publisher wanted them to publish by subscription (crowd funding)? Did you know the publisher withdrew support when too few subscriptions were sold?
#WritersCoffeeClub - 3. May: Does your work include pictures, maps or other custom graphics?
Yes. More than 350 illustrations by various Norwegian artists, such as August Schneider, Erik Werenskiold, Theodor Kittelsen, P. N. Arbo, Hans Gude, Otto Sinding, Vincent St. Lerche, Adolph Tidemand, and Johan Eckersberg.
Parts of the whole Asbjørnsen & Moe collection have been translated and published before me. I am critical of every one that I have seen (which doesn’t necessarily mean I hate them). I am also critical of nearly every review of these translations I have read.
Any work of translation is a statement from the translator, and should therefore be approached with scepticism. Reviewers ought not comment on matters they know not of, such as faithfulness to the original, publishing histories, original editions, etc.
“There is no mention of the devil in the oldest accounts of these women who fare abroad in Holda’s company by night; he was only introduced later. But the whole thing is reminiscent of Odin when the witches are called caped riders. Their intercourse with the devil, and his choice of the one he likes best as witch queen on Walpurgis night is probably associated with the wedding feasts of Odin and Freya, which were celebrated at these times. It is likely that folklore has attached to these wedding dances the idea that the witches dance the snow off Bloksberg on the night of 1st May.”
Walpurgisnacht is fast approaching. If you want to fly to Blokksberg to meet the devil, but you’ve mislaid your greasehorn, this is the stuff you need to anoint your beesom with.
This one is on Peter Nicolai Arbo's artistic production, and how it shows a connection between witches, the wild hunt, valkyries, and the Old Norse goddess Freya.
“Don’t worry,” I thought, “it's only a preface; it won’t take more than an evening to translate. Put it off until later.”
It’s later.
The preface is 22 pages long. The language is old-fashioned, the argument is convoluted. It’s taken me a week so far, and I’m still only ⅔ of the way through.
On the other hand, it is one of the most interesting texts I have ever read, documenting the connection between (modern) folkloric witches and their familiars, valkyries, and the goddess Freya. The #folklore, #mythology, and writing communities need to read it.
A footnote from the text: A German journalist and poet [Julius Hammer] states in truth: “There are no poetic flowers that are so difficult to imitate as folktales and legends. Artificial flowers of this kind betray themselves as soon as they are made, even if they come from the most skilled hand.”