The Goblin and the Grocer

An English translation of the tale with the title "The Goblin and the Grocer" was included in Andrew Lang's anthology, The Pink Fairy Book (1897).

[6] The same title was adopted by H. W. Dulcken (1869) in his translation,[7] and by J. H. Stickney in 1886, who reproduced the illustrations by Vilhelm Pedersen,[8][9] reissued in 1915 with artwork by Edna F.

Although the spekhøker denotes a purveyor of victuals or grocer, it also has a secondary connotation of someone who is a materialistic or prosaic person, a Philistine,[17] a point which is missed by some English translators.

His first publication paid out of his own pocket met with dismal failure, and copies were subjected to much the same fate as the poetry book in the tale: pages ripped out to be made into cheese wrappers.

When the tale's narrator opines that such ill treatment should not have come to pass to such a wonderful book of poetry, this was meant as barb against the critics who failed to appreciate his burgeoning work.