Hans Seland

His fame as a wandering storyteller eventually led him to the States in 1904, where he visited several of the Norwegian immigrant communities which had grown up after the great migration from Norway.

[3] He writes in his autobiography Aar og Dagar how stunned he was to see how faithfully the Norwegian immigrants had preserved their dialects and the formal church language, and at the same time successfully accommodated to the American way of living.

His travels inspired him to write several complimentary articles of the United States and the preservation of Norwegian history, literature, and culture in general among the emigrants living there.

This and the quality of his writings, led him to the friendship with several other combatants of the new language, including such well-known authors as Ivar Aasen, Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Arne Garborg, Jonas Lie, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson .

As Norway sought independence from the Kingdom of Sweden, Seland in 1904 gave out his book Prinsesse Gullsko og systerne hennar.