@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe
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SimonRoyHughes

@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe

A translator and editor of #NorwegianFolktales. A teacher. A Brit (nominally, after so many years) living in northern Norway. A human being.

Friend of #JohnMastodon

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juergen_hubert, (edited ) to random
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

I have nothing against modern #paganism as such.

But those people who are really into Odin creep me out. #Odinism

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@juergen_hubert A while back, I took a brief online course on Old Norse saga literature, arranged by the university of Iceland. The topic was fascinating, of course, and very relevant to what I do.

The course had a Facebook group, in which we were supposed to be able to ask questions and discuss the material, etc. but I discovered after a while that this group was teeming with white supremacists of the Odinist sort. They were openly talking about the superiority of European culture, and how Christianity spoiled everything.

I complained to the university. AND THEY DID NOTHING. So I have to assume that the University of Iceland is now a Nazi university, which is a disgrace.

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

6. June: Have you queried agents for traditional publishing? How did it go?

Yes. Never heard back from the biggest. Polite rejections from the smaller agencies.

I think I must have hit the rejection trifecta:

  1. Foreign language literature
  2. Aren't folktales for children?
  3. If literature this old hasn't already been published in English, it must be crap.
SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Dearest reader: I have blogged yet again.

This time I have written a brief account of how Moltke Moe added two of his own folktales to the Asbjørnsen & Moe collection.

https://norwegianfolktales.net/articles/today-you-learned-1-not-all-asbjornsen-moe-is-asbjornsen-moe

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

4. June: How do you handle highly intimate scenes?

As a translator I am lucky that the buck stops with the author/ editor of the originals. So I have no problem with a rich old fool marrying a horse, nor with a bride's mother shouting her sex advice through the door to the bridal couple (who are in fact trying on tight shoes).

juergen_hubert, to random
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Thought of the day:

Based on my readings of old German folk tales, in the current age and the "Satanic Panics" of the 1980s are just another incarnation of the Panics of previous centuries.

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@juergen_hubert And four hundred years later, we still have no idea how to effectively counter them.

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

26. May: Would you consider writing a guide to your work, e.g. for aspiring writers?

I can write a guide right here.

If you want to work like me, you'll need the following:

  1. A comfy chair
  2. Lots of books
  3. Paper and pencils
  4. iPad
  5. Monomania
  6. Language skills
  7. Computer skills
  8. The promotional acumen of a dried-out grape hiding at the back of the refrigerator

Mix all the ingredients, stir together, and boil for 20 years.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

The unannotated edition is ready to go. Forthcoming 1. September, together with the annotated edition.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

My response to any article on "fairy tales":

Please define your terms, and differentiate what you are calling fairy tales from myths, legends, folktales, and even wonder tales. If you can't (and we know you can't – no one has been able to), do at least acknowledge the fuzzy, overlapping, organic scope of the concepts.

There is no such thing as a fairy tale. There are, however, many fairy tales. – paraphrasing Jack Zipes (I think) from memory.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Folktale ending:

“And if you want to know any more, then you can ask grandfather – I expect he knows a lot more than I do!”

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

gutenberg_org, (edited ) to books
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

Danish-born Norwegian writer Sigrid Undset was born in 1882.

Born in Denmark and raised in Norway, Undset had her first books of historical fiction published in 1907. She fled Norway for the United States in 1940 because of her opposition to Nazi Germany and the German invasion and occupation of Norway, but returned after World War II ended in 1945.

Books by Sigrid Undset at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/35742

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@gutenberg_org Let's see how much of a Danish author she was...

Sigrid Undset’s father was Norwegian. Her mother was Danish. She was born in Denmark. She lived in Norway from age 2. She worked in an office for ten years in Norway. She wrote in Norwegian (riksmål, a precursor to modern bokmål). She won the Nobel prize in literature in 1928, representing Norway. Her eldest son died in April 1940, fighting for Norway against the invading Nazis. A vocal critic of Hitler and Nazism (especially their antisemitism), she fled Norway as the Nazis approached. She recorded radio addresses, which were sent from London to Norway. When she arrived in the US (travelling the long way around), she wrote and spoke in support of a free Norway. She returned to Norway after the war. She agitated for a sterner punishment of Norwegian collaborators (including the equally famous Nazi, Knut Hamsun). She forever after hated her collaborating daughter-in-law for betraying Norway. Statues have been erected in her honour, in Norway. Her image appeared on the NOK500 bank note until recently. Nearly every town and city in the country has a street named after her.

Sigrid Undset was Norwegian.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

An early nisse legend from Norway, with a surprise at the end.

https://norwegianfolktales.net/folklore/the-bure-nisse

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Arbitrarily chosen, but 2024-09-01 is the big day.

The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe – for the first time ever in English.

Not only that, but this project has developed into the most comprehensive edition of Asbjørnsen & Moe in any language.

Not to be missed.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

I understand this. I can draw Donald Duck's head, but can't for the life of me figure out how to do his body.

On the other hand, if I were king, I wouldn't pay for an unfinished painting.

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

(I has ISBNs.)

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@raymccarthy Norwegian ISBNs are gratis, but obligate publishers to deposit three copies of the publication at the national library. It's a small price to pay for immortality.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

The three volumes of The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, the non-annotated edition, are all-but ready. All the folktales. All the legends. All the illustrations.

Vol. 1: 443 pages
Vol. 2: 463 pages
Vol. 3: 569 pages

This edition will be published at roughly the same time as The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, the annotated edition, which is only waiting for the final editing of my prefaces. All the folktales. All the legends. All the original prefaces and introductions. All the notes, both original and newly researched.

Vol. 1: (currently) 809 pages
Vol. 2: (currently) 609 pages
Vol. 3: (currently) 659 pages

Tomorrow I may feel tiny and unworthy, tempted to keep everything to myself. But tonight, I feel something like a giant.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

This huge translation and writing project I am fitting together in its final form is too big to fit in my brain all at once. I must therefore trust the decisions that numerous iterations of me from the past made. I have to resist the urge to revisit every detail, just because I may have had a bad night's sleep. In this way, I expect be able to publish a work bigger and more comprehensive than any I ever imagined producing, while still retaining some semblance of my sanity. That's the hope.

@norwegianfolktales @writers @writingcommunity @translators

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Did you know that the first choice of title for Asbjørnsen & Moe was an imitation of the Grimms’: “Norwegian Folk- and Children’s Tales”? Did you know their publisher wanted them to publish by subscription (crowd funding)? Did you know the publisher withdrew support when too few subscriptions were sold?

A translation here: https://norwegianfolktales.net/articles/subscription-invitation-1840

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Gentlefolk of every stripe, this is it. You don’t get a second opportunity. So, live it well.

eivind, to histodons
@eivind@fribygda.no avatar

OTD, 7 May 1945, the Norwegian paper Aftenposten published literary Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun's Hitler obituray. @histodons

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@eivind This is one reason Hamsun should always be styled as "the Nazi, Knut Hamsun." He deserves to be hated as Sigrid Undset hated him.

@histodons

SimonRoyHughes,
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

@eivind @histodons But the cowards don't dare raise their voices when I start ranting.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Revisiting my notes on The Three Bears, and I have a question about "Scrapefoot," which was discovered by Joseph Jacobs in 1894, and may predate Robert Southey’s version.

It tells of three bears in a castle, which are visited by Scrapefoot, a cunning fox. Scrapefoot takes their milk, chairs, beds...

Could it have been a tale in the Reynard cycle?

https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft20.htm

@folklore

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

- 3. May: Does your work include pictures, maps or other custom graphics?

Yes. More than 350 illustrations by various Norwegian artists, such as August Schneider, Erik Werenskiold, Theodor Kittelsen, P. N. Arbo, Hans Gude, Otto Sinding, Vincent St. Lerche, Adolph Tidemand, and Johan Eckersberg.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore

SimonRoyHughes, to folklore
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Norwegian Folktales: Forgotten Variants.

Bloggity blog.

(Sometimes I feel as if all I do is announce plans without publishing anything. That will change, once Asbjørnsen & Moe is released.)

@norwegianfolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

https://norwegianfolktales.net/articles/for-my-next-trick-forgotten-variants

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