Folklore Snippets: Thorsten and the Dwarf

 

 

Perhaps this is more of a fairytale snippet than a folklore snippet. The picture, which I rather like, is an imaginary reconstruction of Leif Eriksson's first glimpse of 'Vinland' painted by Christian Krohg (1893). The story hasn't anything to do with that, except that it's set in Vinland. It's a very tall tale of dwarfs and dragons, which I found in Thomas Keighley’s ‘Fairy Mythology’ (1828). Keightley claims it was taken from ‘Thorston’s Saga’ [sic]; I assume by this he means 'The Saga of Thorstein Vikingsson' which is similar in style - non-historical and full of adventures, sorcery and entertaining magical occurances - but I haven’t in fact been able to locate it there. If anyone knows, please enlighten me! Whatever its source, I love the laconic closing line. 

[Edited to add: the knowledgeable Simon Roy Hughes of the blog Norwegian Folk Tales has come to my aid to say, 'There are a few Thorsteins in the sagas. You’re looking for the third chapter of “The Tale of Thorstein Bæjamagn” (Þorsteins Þáttr Bæjarmagns) in the Heimskringla'. Interestingly, the dragon seems to be a 19th century mistranslation of Ørn (eagle) for 'Orm' (worm, dragon); unless perhaps the manuscript is unclear.]

 

When spring came, Thorsten made ready his ship and put twenty-four men on board of her. When they came to Vinland, they ran her into a harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself.

            He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock, and a little way out from it a Dwarf, who was horridly ugly and was looking up over his head with his mouth wide open; and it appeared to Thorsten that it ran from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came down to his knees. Thorsten asked him why he was acting so foolishly.

            ‘Do not be surprised, my good lad,’ replied the Dwarf; ‘do you not see that great dragon that is flying up there? He has taken off my son, and I believe that it is Odin himself that has sent the monster to do it. But oh, I shall burst and die if I lose my son.’

            Then Thorsten shot at the dragon and hit him under one of the wings, so that he fell dead to the earth; but Thorsten caught the Dwarf’s child in the air, and brought him to his father.

            The Dwarf was exceedingly glad, and rejoiced more than anyone could tell, and he said, ‘A great benefit have I to reward you for, who are the deliverer of my son; and now choose your recompense in gold and silver.’

            ‘Cure your son,’ said Thorsten, ‘but I am not used to take rewards for my services.’

            ‘It would not be right,’ said the Dwarf, ‘if I did not reward you; and do not think my shirt of sheeps’ wool, which I will give you, a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired when swimming, or ever get a wound, if you wear it next to your skin.’

            Thorsten took the shirt and put it on, and it fitted him well, though it had appeared too short for the Dwarf. The Dwarf now took a gold ring out of his purse and gave it to Thorsten, telling him that he should never want for money while he kept that ring. He next took a black stone and gave it to Thorsten and said, ‘If you hide this stone in the palm of your hand, no one will see you. And now I have few more things to offer that would be of value to you, but I will give you this fire-stone for your amusement.’

            He took the stone out of his purse, and with it a steel point. The stone was triangular, white on one side and red on the other, and a yellow border ran around it. The Dwarf said, ‘If you prick the white side of the stone with the point, there will come on such a hailstorm that no one will able to see through it; but if you want to stop this shower, you have only to prick the yellow part, and there will come so much sunshine that the hail will melt away. But if you should prick the red side, out of it will come such fire, sparking and crackling, that no one will be able to look at it. You can get whatever you want from this point and stone: and they will come back to you by themselves when you call them.

            ‘I can now give you no more such gifts.’

            Thorsten thanked the Dwarf for his presents and returned to his men, and it was better for him to have made this voyage than to have stayed at home.

 

Folklore Snippets: Stealing Cream

Stealing Cream for Butter

 

From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie 1896

Here’s a Norse version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in which we learn about theft, greed, and the power of multiplication, and in which a young person learns to follow instructions carefully or rue the consequences…

There was once a woman in Stödov on Helge-neas, who practised witchcraft.  She had the custom, when she was about to make butter, of saying, “A spoonful of cream from every one in the county”; and in this way she always got her churn quite full of cream.  One day it happened that she had an errand into town, just when they were about to churn, and said to the maid, “You can churn when I am away, but before you begin you must say, ‘A spoonful of cream form every one in the county’; I shall take care then that plenty of cream will come to you.”  She then went away, and the maid began to churn but when she came to say the words that the witch had taught her, she thought that a spoonful from every one was so very little, so she said, “a pint of cream from every one in the county.”

Now she got cream, and that in plenty.  The churn was filled, and the cream still continued to come, till at last the kitchen was half full of cream. When the woman returned home, the girl stood bailing the cream out at the kitchen door, and the witch was very angry that the maid had gone beyond her orders and asked for a pint instead of a spoonful, for now every one could easily see that cream had been stolen from them.  After this the girl never got leave to make the butter by herself.



Picture credit: Study for Woman Churning Butter, Jean-Francois Millet, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Wikimedia Commons

Folklore Snippets: The Fisherman and the Merman

The Fisher and the Merman
From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie, 1896

Here’s a nice story about inter-species co-operation and the gratitude that follows a good deed. One good turn deserves another…

One cold winter day a fisherman had gone out to sea.  It began to grow stormy when he was about to return and he had trouble enough to clear himself. He then saw, near his boat, an old man with a long gray beard, riding on a wave.  The fisherman knew well that it was the merman he saw before him, and he knew also what it meant.  “Uh, then, how cold it is!” said the merman as he sat and shivered, for he had lost one of his hose. The fisherman pulled off one of his, and threw it out to him.  The merman disappeared with it, and the fisherman came safe to land.  Some time after this, the fisherman was again out at sea, far from land.  All at once the merman stuck his head over the gunwale, and shouted out to the man in the boat,

“Hear, you man that gave the hose,

Take your boat and make for shore,

It thunders under Norway.”

The fisherman made all the haste he could to get to land, and there came a storm the like of which has never been known, in which many were drowned at sea.



Picture credit:

''Sævarmaður'' (merman) by Anker Eli Petersen: 1998, 55x60cm, Føroya Læraraskúli (Teacher's highschool of the Faroe Island) Wikimedia Commons

Folklore Snippets: The Silver Cup

The Silver Cup from Dagberg Daas

From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie, 1896

Here’s a version of an old tale I used in ‘Troll Fell’, although for my version the cup was golden, and my troll girl was rather more attractive. ( I love the practical but horrific way the 'berg-woman' deals with her long, drooping breasts.) A ‘berg-man’ is a mound dweller, hill-man, elf or troll.

In Dagberg Daas there formerly lived a berg-man with his family.  It happened once that a man who came riding past there took it into his head to ask the berg-woman for a little to drink.  She went to get some for him, but her husband bade her take it out of the poisoned barrel.  The traveller heard all this, however, and when the berg-woman handed him the cup with the drink, he threw the contents over his shoulder and rode off with the cup in his hand, as fast as his horse could gallop. The berg-woman threw her breasts over her shoulders, and ran after him as hard as she could. (The man rode off over some ploughed land where she had difficulty in following him, as she had to keep to the line of the furrows.)  When he reached the spot where Karup Stream crosses the road from Viborg to Holtebro, she was so near him that she snapped a hook (hage) off the horse’s shoe, and therefore the place has been called Hagebro ever since.  She could not cross the running water, and so the man was saved.  It was seen afterwards that some drops of the liquor had fallen on the horse’s loins and taken off both hide and hair.

'Troll Fell' by David Wyatt

In 'Troll Fell', Ralf tells the tale thus:

I was halfway over Troll Fell, tired and wet and weary, when I saw a bright light glowing from the top of the crag, and heard snatches of music gusting on the wind.  I turned the pony off the road and kicked him into a trot up the hillside.  I was in one of our own fields, the high one called the Stonemeadow.  At the top of the slope I could hardly believe my eyes.  The whole rocky summit of the hill had been lifted up, like a great stone lid!  It was resting on four stout red pillars.  The space underneath was shining with golden light and there were scores, maybe hundreds of trolls, skipping and dancing.

But the pony shied.  I'd been so busy staring, I hadn't noticed this troll girl creeping up on me till she popped up right by the pony's shoulder.  She held out a beautiful golden cup filled to the brim with something steaming hot - spiced ale I thought it was, and I took it gratefully from her, cold and wet as I was.

Just before I gulped it down I noticed the look on her face.  There was a gleam in her slanting eyes, a wicked sparkle!  And her ears, her hairy, pointed ears, twitched forward.  I saw she was up to no good!

So I lifted the cup, pretending to sip.  Then I jerked the whole drink out over my shoulder.  It splashed out smoking, some on to the ground and some on to the pony's tail, where it singed off half his hair!  There's an awful yell from the troll girl, and the next thing the pony and I are off down the hill, galloping for our lives.  I've still got the golden cup on one hand - and half the trolls of Troll Fell are tearing after us!

I had one chance.  At the tall stone called the Finger, I turned off the road on to the big ploughed field above the mill.  The pony could go quicker over the soft ground, you see, but the trolls found it heavy going across the furrows. I got to the mill stream ahead off them, jumped off and dragged the pony through the water.  I was safe!  The trolls couldn't follow me over the brook.  They were spitting like cats and hissing like kettles.  They threw stones and clods at me, but it was nearly dawn and off they scuttled back up the hillside.  And I heard - no, I felt, through the soles of my feet, a sort of far-off grating shudder as the top of Troll Fell sank into its place again...

[Troll Fell, HarperCollins, 2004]


Picture credit: 'Troll Fell': unpublished illustration by David Wyatt. Copyright David Wyatt 2004