Norwegian Woods (OT)

“The night Ronia was born, thunder was rolling over the mountains, yes, it was a thunder night where all the small “tusses” living in Mattisskogen fearfully crawled into caves and holes. Only the scary, wild “vettes” liked thunder best of all the weathers”.

In May 1985 Swedish author Astrid Lindgren visited Iceland. She was invited to the film festival of Iceland. The opening film was based on Lindgren’s book about Ronja Røverdatter (Ronia, the Robber's Daughter). Her publisher on Iceland was “Mål og mening” (Goal/language and meaning), originally a literary society established by radical authors like Halldor Laxness in the 1930s to publish books at low prices and to spread the word about socialism through the periodical “Raudir pennar” (Red pens). Fifty years later “Mål og mening” was an ordinary publisher and 28 years old Halldor Gudmundsson had been employed as publisher. He had just finished his literary studies. He didn’t know much about publishing, but thought he knew everything about literature.

Year 1985 was during the cold war and because of the background of “Mål og mening” the conservative government of Iceland did not invite Astrid Lindgren’s publisher to her official celebration with the exception of being invited by Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Finnbogadottir would some years later become the president of Iceland.

Astrid herself wanted to meet her publisher and among the celebration activities there were a couple of hours where she could meet Halldor Gudmundsson. Not much happened at first, there was coffee and pastry, but Lindgren made a strong impression on young Halldor. “From the first time I experienced her as quite as captivating as her stories: Wise, sharp and ironic also in her amiability, with an aura that made the self-centered young publisher feel like a shy pupil meeting an old master.

For some reason Halldor thought it was a good idea to show her some of the Swedish books they had published. Swedish social realism was quite the thing at the time and Halldor kept on more and more unsure until Astrid finally found a book among the others and lightened up. The book was Victoria by Knut Hamsun. She looked for a long time at Halldor and finally she said “How good to find that you also publish literature.” The publishing line of “Mål og mening” has hardly ever after suffered such a blow.

The view of Hamsun’s book put something in motion inside Astrid and she started to talk about the books she had read during her youth, the books that contributed to form her as the formidable story teller she became. Astrid took book after book from the bookshelves and talked about them: many of Hamsun’s early works, but also “Hærverk” by Tom Kristensen and “Den forsvundne fuldmæktig” by Hans Scherfig.

Astrid often wrote about love between children and parents and friends, but maybe only one love story in traditional form, the book “Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Anna from Hult”. The book opens with these lines: “Now I will tell you a love story, not one I have read or invented, but one that I have heard. It has room for more love than anything I have read in books and to me it is touching and beautiful. The story is about two humans who happened to become my parents”.

The themes of her books: love, adventure and death, are classical, everlasting themes.

The memories that a man turns back to are always coloured by a certain bias and this is surely also so in this case, but Halldor thought he recognized both a smile and warmth in the eyes of Astrid Lindgren when she said goodbye in front of the bookstore with the words: “Remember Halldor, the ways of love are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood”

Kittelsen was born in the coastal town of Kragerø in Telemark county, Norway. His father died when he was young, leaving a wife and eight children in difficult circumstances. Theodor was only 11 years old when he was apprenticed to a watchmaker. When at the age of 17 his talent was discovered by Diderich Maria Aall, he became a pupil at Wilhelm von Hanno’s drawing school in Christiania (now Oslo). Because of generous financial support by Aall he later studied in Munich. However, in 1879 Diderich Aall could no longer manage to support him, so Kittelsen had to earn his money as a draftsman for German newspapers and magazines.

In 1882 Kittelsen was granted a state scholarship to study in Paris. In 1887 he returned to Norway for good. When back in Norway, he found nature to be a great inspiration. He spent the next two years in Lofoten where he lived with his sister and brother-in-law at Skomvær Lighthouse. Kittelsen also started to write texts to his drawings there.

Theodor Kittelsen and his family settled in a home and artist studio which he called Lauvlia near Prestfoss during 1899. Kittelsen spent his best artistic years here. During this period, Kittelsen was hired to illustrate Norwegian Folktales (Norwegian: Norske Folkeeventyr) by the Norwegian folklore collector Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. In 1908 he was made Knight of The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.

Theodor Kittelsen was pursued by financial worries throughout his life. In 1910 he had to sell his home in Sigdal and move with his family to Huseby outside Kristiania, and finally to Jeløya outside Moss in 1912, where he died in 1914. Towards the end of his life, Kittelsen was broken down by illness, adversity and disappointments. He still worked until the very end.

The spirit of Kittelsen in his eternal shifting is related to the strongest forces in the Norwegian people. His imagination can swing to Wergeland's flight of the eagle and make mountain goat leaps with Wessel's whimsicality. Werenskiold has in a small critical sketch found the core of Kittelsen’s thought by emphasizing the basic ideas of his unreflected philosophy of life: The contradiction between the petty and limitations of mankind, and the unfathomable grandeur of nature: Life is ignorance and coincidences. The mysterious majesty of death is upon us all.

The day after Kittelsen’s death Henrik Sørensen published a memorial poem in the newspaper Dagbladet:

Night has reached Soria Moria castle -
the golden key is lost, -
the evening path to the castle will never more be found
Behind the hills – in the halls of gold – for ever
the princess is now bound
because – in her kingdom
far behind day and night
the dreamer is now riding the white sunpath
And far into the forest where the forest whistles deep
where a cold wind is spreading -
trees and trolls are waiting -
Waiting for their redeemer.

One can find «trolls» mentioned throughout the entirety of Henrik Ibsens authorship, from his earlierst poetry to his later dramatic work. How they appear in the texts varies, but they are most visible i Peer Gynt (1867). In this thesis I examine the relationship between their apperance; both physical and mental, and the various functions they have in the play. In addition to covering the most common readings of their satirical and psychological functions, I will also consider their function up against Ibsens own thoughts on the poetic treatment of folklore. In Ibsen's earliest poetry and in his nonfiction, he writes thoroughly on how authors ought to use folklore in their creative output. Based on this, I will explore the notion that the trolls are a result of Ibsens mythopoesis; his subjective creation of myths. To do this I will have to examine how Ibsens trolls differ from the various sources Ibsen has used. With the help of various commentaries and annotated versions of the play, I have investigated the intertextuality in relation to the trolls, and discussed the various suggestions of sources Ibsens might have used; in particular I have used the notes in Henrik Ibsens Skrifter (2007) version of the play. My thesis will therefor indirectly serve as a commentary on those.

In my analysis I demonstrate how most of the traits of Ibsens trolls are virtually unchanged from the folklore; mostly the specific traits Ibsen has chosen can be found in two of Peter Christen Asbjørnsens stories, «Høifjeldsbilleder» (1848) and «En Signekjærrings Fortællinger» (1845). Some traits are from other sources, including the satirical tradition of using «under-earthlings» to represent Norwegians. One of the main traits of the trolls is how their inner qualities, like personal flaws, manifest themselves on the troll's outer apperance. Ibsen's mythopoesis consists of developing the troll's character with clear presence and introspection, while still keeping the trolls in line with their folkloric background. By letting the troll society collapse, Ibsen comments on Norwegian society, the state of the modern man and the place of folklore in his own time.

When Theodor Kittelsen came home from Munich for the first time in the fall of 1880, the new illustrated edition of Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norwegian folk tales had just been published. Suddenly Erik Werenskiold was the big new name in Norwegian illustration art.

Already in 1881, Asbjørnsen had new plans to release a collection of illustrated children's adventures, and it was natural that he first approached Werenskiold.

But he had many other tempting offers and did not need to spend too much time on illustration work for economic reasons. Therefore, on Werenskiold's recommendation, Asbjørnsen accepted Kittelsen as illustrator. In a letter to Asbjørnsen, Werenskiold writes that Kittelsen "is quick to conceive and has a wild, peculiarly inventive imagination.... I have for many years been thinking that he is the man who casn do the parts of your fairy tales that none of us others have till now been able to do, the amazingly creative parts

This would be a happy choice. "Fairy tales for children" came out in the autumn of 1883 with a total of 12 Kittelsen drawings, several of which we know today. In "Fairy tales for Children" that came the following year, Kittelsen draws almost all the animal drawings. It is part of the story that Kittelsen first made some drawings of the Ashlad competing with the troll to eat the most – that were so "wildly grotesque, hideous and scary", that Asbjørnsen believed "children would be terrified". Kittelsen accepted the criticism.

Erik Werenskiold grew up in the fortress town of Kongsvinger, where his father, Captain Frederik Daniel Werenskiold, was commander. He started studying in 1872, but began shortly after taking drawing lessons with Julius Middelthun at the Royal Norwegian Drawing School in Christiania, on the advice of Adolph Tidemand. In the fall of 1875 he went to Munich and stayed there for four years. There he visited an international exhibition that opened his eyes to French outdoor paintings and naturalism. Werenskiold moved to Paris in 1881 to study on his own.

In 1883 Werenskiold moved to Norway. He made several depictions of Norwegian farmers in their natural landscape, as well as portraits of famous people such as Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Henrik Ibsen. Creating illustrations for fairy tales he had already started while he was in Munich. He illustrated Norwegian folk- and huldre fairy tales in 1879 and continued with Theodor Kittelsen with Fairy tales for Children in Three Volumes in the period 1882–1887. These drawings were collected in 1910 in a separate edition. With their peculiar fusion of reality and fantasy, they are claimed to hit the tone of the Norwegian fairy tales. Furthermore, Werenskiold has illustrated the best known edition of Snorre Sturlason's saga stories and Jonas Lies “The Family at Gilje” (1903).

Werenskiold was strongly influenced by naturalism in the 1880s and 1890s, but later disregarded this and was closely related to newer directions in Norwegian painting. He made decorations with motifs from the fairy tale "Liti Kjersti" on the walls of Fridtjof Nansen's villa Polhøgda at Lysaker, he designed drawings for lock fittings and much more.