The Norwegian Fairy Book

The forests of Norway are not like other forests. They breathe. They remember. In this collection of thirty-seven tales, translator Klara Stroebe gathers the old stories that Norwegians told around hearth fires long before the world was wired: tales of trolls who dance on mountain peaks, of clever peasant boys who outwit giants, of water-sprites and forest-spirits who bargain with human lives. The opening story, Per Gynt, follows a marksman into the high places where the trolls hold court, and the humor is as dark and sharp as the fjords are deep. These are not gentle tales. The magic here has teeth. There are rewards for the kind and punishments for the proud, but the path between good fortune and disaster often comes down to a clever tongue and a brave heart. Stroebe's translations preserve the rolling rhythm of the original language, the earthy directness that makes these stories feel ancient and immediate at once. For readers who have worn thin the pages of Grimm and Andersen, here is a forest of entirely new shadows, and they are magnificent.