The Three Billy Goats Gruff
3 min read ages 4 and up
Norwegian tales
3 tales
Tatterhood
9 min read ages 5 and up
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
15 min read ages 7 and up
Trolls, a White Bear and a girl on a goat
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe collected Norwegian folk tales and began publishing them as Norske Folkeeventyr in Christiania, now Oslo, in 1841. English readers came to know many of them through George Webbe Dasent’s translation, Popular Tales from the Norse.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff is the one to start with for small children. Three goats cross a bridge with a troll living under it, the boards go trip, trap, and the biggest goat butts the troll into the stream. The lines repeat so often that children soon join in.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon suits older children who can follow a long journey. A girl loses the prince who is a White Bear by day, then rides on the backs of the winds, the North Wind last, to the troll castle where he is promised to the Long-nose, whose nose is three yards long.
In Tatterhood, a girl who comes into the world riding a goat with a wooden spoon in her hand sails off to win back her sister’s head from the witches, then gets a gloomy prince talking on the way to the wedding. Each page names the old public-domain translation the tale was retold from.