Tales from the Fjeld/Preface
PREFACE
THE Tales contained in this volume form a series of those "Popular Tales from the Norse," which have been received with much favour in this country, and of which three editions have been published. A part of them appeared some years ago in Once a Week, from which they have been reprinted by permission of the proprietors—the Norse originals, from which they were transited, having been communicated by the translator's friend, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen, to various Christmas books published in Christiania. In 1871, Mr. Asbjörnsen collected these scattered Tales and added some more to them, which he published under the title "Norske Folke-Eventyr fortalte of P. Chr. Asbjörnsen, Ny Samling." It is from this new series, as revised by the collector, that the present version has been made. In it the translator has trodden in the path laid down in the first series of "Tales from the Norse," and tried to turn his Norse original into mother English, which any one that runs may read.
This plan has met with favour abroad as well as at home, and it is grateful to him to find that in Norway, the cradle of these beautiful stories, his efforts have been warmly appreciated by Messrs. Asbjörnsen and Moe, who in their preface to the third edition, Christiania, 1866, speak in the following terms of his version:—"In France and England collections have appeared in which our Tales have not only been correctly and faultlessly translated, but even rendered with exemplary truth and care nay,—with thorough mastery. The English translation, by George Webbe Dasent, is the best and happiest rendering of our Tales that has appeared, and it has in England been more successful, and become far more widely known, than the originals here at home." Then, speaking of the Introduction, Messrs. Asbjörnsen and Moe go on to say, "We have here added the end of this Introduction to show how the translator has understood and grasped the relation in which these Tales stand to Norse nature and the life of the people, and how they have sprung out of both."
The title of this volume, "Tales from the Fjeld," arose out of the form in which they were published in Once a Week. The translator began by setting them in a frame formed by the imaginary adventures of English sportsmen on the Fjeld or Fells in Norway. After a while he grew weary of the setting and framework, and when about a third of the volume had been thus framed, he resolved to let the Tales speak for themselves, and stand alone, as in the first series of "Popular Tales from the Norse." This framework has been omitted in the present edition.
With regard to the bearing of these Tales on the question of the diffusion of race and tradition, much might be said, but he has already traversed the same ground in the Introduction to the "Tales from the Norse." It will be enough here to mention that several of the Tales now published are variations, though very interesting ones, from some of those in the first series. Others are rather the harvest of popular experience than mythical tales; and on the whole, the character of this volume is more jocose and less poetical than that of its predecessor. In a word, they are, many of them, what the Germans would call "Schwänke."
Of this kind are the Tales called "The Charcoal-Burner," "Our Parish Clerk," and "The Parson and the Clerk." In "Goody 'Gainst-the-Stream," and "Silly Men and Cunning Wives," the reader skilled in popular fiction will find two tales of Indian origin, both of which are widespread in the folklore of the West, and make their appearance in the Facetiæ of Poggio. The Beast Epic, in which Jacob Grimm so delighted, is largely represented, and the stories of that kind in this volume are among the best that have been collected. One of the most mythical, and at the same time one of the most domestic, stories of those now published is, perhaps, "The Father of the Family," which ought rather to have been called "The Seventh, the Father of the Family," as it is not till the wayfarer has inquired seven times from as many generations of old men that he finds the real father of the family. Mr. Ralston, the accomplished writer and editor of "Russian Popular Tales," has pointed out in an article on these Norse Tales, which appeared in Fraser's Magazine for December 1872, the probable antiquity of this story, which he classes with the Rigsmal of the Elder Edda. That it was known in England two centuries ago, is proved by the curious fact that it has got woven into the life of "Old Jenkins," whose mythical age, as well as that of "Old Parr," Mr. Thoms has recently demolished in his book on the "Longevity of Man." The story as quoted by Mr. Thoms, from Clarkson's "History and Antiquities of Richmond," in Yorkshire, is so curious, that it is worth while to give it at length. There had been some legal dispute in which the evidence of Old Jenkins, as confessedly "the oldest inhabitant," was required, and the agent of Mrs. Wastell, one of the parties, went to visit the old man. "Previous to Jenkins going to York," says Mr. Clarkson, "when the agent of Mrs. Wastell went to him to find out what account he could give of the matter in dispute, he saw an old man sitting at the door, to whom he told his business. The old man said 'He could remember nothing about it, but that he would find his father in the house, who perhaps could satisfy him.' When he went in, he saw another old man sitting over the fire, bowed down with years, to whom he repeated his former questions. With some difficulty he made him understand what he had said, and after a little while got the following answer, which surprised him very much: 'That he knew nothing about it, but that if he would go into the yard he would meet with his father, who perhaps could tell him.' The agent upon this thought that he had met with a race of Antediluvians. However into the yard he went, and, to his no small astonishment, found a venerable man with a long beard, and a broad leathern belt about him, chopping sticks. To this man he again told his business, and received such information as in the end recovered the royalty in dispute. The fact is," adds Mr. Thoms, "that the story of Jenkins' son and grandson is only a Yorkshire version of the story as old or older than Jenkins himself, namely, of the very old man who was seen crying because his father had beaten him for throwing stones at his grandfather." On which it may be remarked, that however old Old Jenkins may have been, this story has probably outlived as many generations as popular belief gave years to his life. Another old story is "Death and the Doctor," which centuries ago got entangled with the history of the family of Bethune in Scotland, who were supposed to possess an hereditary gift of leechcraft, derived in the same way. "Friends in Life and Death" is a Norse variation of Rip Van Winkle, which is nothing more nor less than a Dutch popular tale; while the lassie who won the prince by fulfilling his conditions of coming to him "not driving and not riding, not walking and not carried, not fasting and not full-fed, not naked and not clad, not by daylight and not by night," has its variations in many lands. It is no little proof of the wonderful skill of Hans Christian Andersen, and at the same time of his power to enter into the spirit of popular fiction, that he has worked the tale of "The Companion" into one of his most happy stories.
In this volume, as in the former one, the translator, while striving to be as truthful as possible, has in the case of some characters adopted the English equivalent rather than a literal rendering from the Norse. Thus "Askpot" is still "Boots," the youngest of the family, on whom falls all the dirty work, and not "Cinderbob" or the Scottish "Ashiepet." "Tyrihans" he has rendered almost literally "Taper Tom," the name meaning not slender or limber Tom, but Tom who sits in the ingle and makes tapers or matchwood of resinous fir to be used instead of candles. Some of the Tales, such as "The Charcoal-Burner," "Our Parish Clerk," and "The Sheep and the Pig who set up House," are filled with proverbs which it was often very difficult to render. On this and other points it must be left to others to say whether he has succeeded or not. But if his readers, young and old, will only remember that things which seem easiest are often the hardest to do, they will be as gentle readers as those he desired to find for his first volume; and so long as they are of that spirit, he is sure to be well pleased.
