Norwegian Folktales

The work's popularity is partly attributable to Norway's newly won partial independence, and the wave of nationalism that swept the country in the 19th century; and the Norwegian written language they contributed to developing (i.e., what would become Bokmål).

[5] Asbjørnsen and Moe applied the principles espoused by the Grimms, for instance, using a simple linguistic style in place of dialects, while maintaining the original form of the stories.

[citation needed] Moreover, Asbjørnsen and Moe did not publish collected folktales in the raw, but created "retold" versions, seeking to reconstruct the lost Urform (original form) of the tales—although the alterations performed were not as drastic as the Grimms sometimes allowed license for themselves.

It first appeared a slim pamphlet (1841) offering a selection of a few tales, without a title page, the editor's names or table of contents.

[9] The first fully illustrated edition of the book was the 1879 edition of Asbjørnsen's Norske folke- og huldre-eventyr, which featured the artworks of several artists: Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831−1892), Hans Gude (1825−1903), Vincent Stoltenberg Lerche [no], Eilif Peterssen (1852−1928), August Schneider (1842−1873), Otto Sinding (1842−1909), Adolph Tidemand (1814−1876), and Erik Werenskiold (1855−1938).

Carl Norman's Norwegian Folktales (1960) is a selection that includes some of the tales from the Ny Samling omitted by Dasent.

Legend: Tales not from any of the proceeding series that are usually included alongside them in later collections: The Soria Moria castle, which appeared in Dasent's translations of the tales, inspired J. R. R. Tolkien to use the name Moria for a fabulous subterranean complex in his Middle-earth stories.