All the World's Reward: Folktales Told by Five Scandinavian Storytellers

Part III: Jakob Glader: Tales from Dal, Sweden (1884)

I I I JAKOB GLADER Tales from Dal, Sweden (1884) INTRODUCTION Meeting the Storyteller Bengt af Klintberg Translated by Henning K. Sehmsdorf THERE HAVE BEEN two high points in folktale collection in Sweden, both of which occurred in the nineteenth century. The first came in the 1830S and 1840S, when the young Gunnar Olof HyltenCavallius , assisted by his father, who was a minister in SmeBand, and by his friend George Stephens, collected the texts that became the basis for Svenska folksagor oeh iifventyr (Swedish Folktales and Fairy Tales, 1844-49). The folktales of the Grimm brothers had inspired HyltenCavallius to create a Swedish counterpart, a national edition of ancient and beautiful Swedish folktales. The spirit of nationalistic Romanticism is clearly revealed in these tales; Hylten-Cavallius used his field notes to compose texts that he cast in poetic and deliberatedly archaic language. Among Hylten-Cavallius's informants were two of the most remarkable storytellers ever documented in Sweden. The cotter known as Mickel i Langhult (Michael Wallander) used oral tradition rather freely. His shrewd humor flowered in wish fulfillment social utopias. On the other hand, Sven Sederstrom, a housepainter, left us with some of the most poetic folktales in the Swedish canon. However, because the source material is incomplete, neither of the two would be an appropriate choice to represent Swedish folktale repertoires. Both storytellers wrote down their repertoires, but of the original manuscripts only those not used by Hylten-Cavallius survive; he destroyed the originals to the folktales he did edit and publish. Thus we can only guess what the original folktales that presumably represent the finest of Mickel i Langhult's and Sven Sederstrom's narrative art were like. The second high point of folktale collection in Sweden occurred during the 1870S and 1880s, when the dialect movement gained new supporters at the universities. Several of the scholars who traveled to the country and collected folktales because of the dialect in which they were told came themselves from the rural milieu. Foremost among 203 204 JAKOB GLADER them was August Bondeson, who later be.came a well-known author of folklife stories and of the novel Skolliiraren John Chronschoughs memoarer (School Teacher John Chronschough's Memoirs), a minor classic in Swedish literature. August Bondeson's father was a master shoemaker in Vessige in the province of Halland, and like many craftsmen during his day, he commanded a large repertoire of tales and legends. When Bondeson became a student at the University of Uppsala in 1877, he brought firsthand knowledge of rural culture to the city. He studied the humanities and, later, medicine. In the fall of 1879 August Bondeson entertained the crowds at a festival arranged by dialect associations at Uppsala with stories, songs, and fiddle tunes from Halland. The following year Artur Hazelius, founder of the Nordic Museum and the open-air museum at Skansen, arranged an evening program where Bondeson again appeared before a large and enthusiastic audience. His type of entertainment became popular throughout Sweden during the following decades; the performers were referred to as "rural comedians." In a book about August Bondeson, Albert Sandklef describes Bondeson's development in publishing folk narratives. Bondeson's first collection, Halliindska sagor (Folktales from Halland, 1880), contains mostly his father's stories retold by the editor in Halland dialect, which he had mastered to perfection. Nevertheless, there is no question of an authentic folk narrative style. Rather, Bondeson modeled himself on one of the leaders of the dialect movement, N. G. Djurklou, who retold tales collected from oral tradition in a humorous style using dialect expressions . Like Djurklou, Bondeson embellished the action with lively, humorous phrases. Bondeson received praise from the Norwegian Peter Christen Asbjornsen, who in Sweden was considered the unrivaled master of retelling folktales. But Asbjornsen also offered some cautious criticism: occasionally Bondeson's tales were "somewhat long-winded and not in the compact, terse style that would suit their pithy content best" (Sandklef1956, 56). Bondeson took note of the criticism. His next collection, Svenska folksagor (Swedish Folktales, 1882), demonstrates that he had learned from Asbjornsen and Moe. Following the Norwegian example, the dialect used in his previous collection was replaced by dialect-colored standard Swedish, and the story is told directly, without lengthy detours . Svenska folksagor, too, was well received by critics. However, the Danish folklorist K. Nyrop noted in a review that some of the tales must have been compiled from more...