George Webbe Dasent

“ It may, indeed, be dreaded lest the time for collecting such English traditions is not past and gone; whether the steam-engine and printing-press have not played their great work of enlightenment too well; and whether the popular tales, of which, no doubt, the land was once full, have not faded away before those great inventions, as the race of Giants waned before the might of Odin and the Æsir. ”

“ If so much of the bad has been spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and by the Church, let us hope that some of the good may still linger along with it, and that an English Grimm may yet arise who may carry out what Mr. Chambers has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the mouth of an Anglo-Saxon Gammer Grethel, some, at least, of those popular tales which England once had in common with all the Aryan race.
For these Norse Tales one may say that nothing can equal the tenderness and skill with which MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe have collected them. ”

“ The language and tone are perhaps rather lower than in some other collections, but it must be remembered that these are the tales of "hempen homespuns," of Norse yeomen, of Norske Bonder, who call a spade a spade, and who burn tallow, not wax; and yet in no collection of tales is the general tone so chaste, are the great principles of morality better worked out, and right and wrong kept so steadily in sight. The general view of human nature is good and kindly. ”

“ In point of fact, it is a matter of the utmost difficulty to gather such tales in any country, as those who have collected them most successfully will be the first to confess. It is hard to make old and feeble women, who generally are the depositaries of these national treasures, believe that the inquirer can have any real interest in the matter. They fear that the question is only put to turn them into ridicule; for the popular mind is a sensitive plant ”

“ There he sits idle whilst all work; there he lies with that deep irony of conscious power, which knows its time must one day come, and meantime can afford to wait. When that time comes, he girds himself to the feat, amidst the scoffs and scorn of his flesh and blood ”

“ When she is sent to fetch water from the well, she washes and brushes, and even kisses, the loathsome head; she believes what her enemies say, even to her own wrong and injury; she sacrifices all that she holds most dear, and at last even herself, because she is made to believe that it is her brother's wish. ”

“ In this way does the consciousness of a nation, and the mirror of its thought, reflect the image and personification of a great moral truth, that modesty, endurance, and ability will sooner or later reap their reward, however much they may be degraded, scoffed at, and despised by the proud, the worthless, and the overbearing. ”

“ We know of no other work of its kind that forms so good an introduction to the study of the wonderful poetry of the older Edda.'—Spectator.
'Dasent's Popular Tales from the Norse may claim to rank as a classic. One of the most capable, earnest, and scholarly disciples of the Grimms, Sir George contributed greatly to the knowledge of comparative mythology and folklore, and besides doing much to popularise a branch of knowledge at that time confined to the specialist, gave us a book of stories which has been a perpetual delight to manhood and to youth. ”

“ It is not that the idioms of the two languages are different, for they are more nearly allied, both in vocabulary and construction, than any other two tongues, but it is the face of nature herself, and the character of the race that looks up to her, that fail to the mind's eye. The West Coast of Scotland is something like that nature in a general way, except that it is infinitely smaller and less grand ”

“ We may add, however, that Somadeva's collection exhibits the Hindoo mind in the twelfth century in a condition, as regards popular tales, which that of Europe has not yet reached. How old these stories and fables must have been in the East,. we see both from the Pantcha-Tantra and the Hitopadesa, which are strictly didactic works, and only employ tales and fables to illustrate and inculcate a moral lesson. We in the West have got beyond fables and apologues, but we are only now collecting our popular tales. ”

“ There they remain, however, forming part of an under-current of tradition, of which the educated classes, through whose mind flows the bright upper-current of faith, are apt to forget the very existence: things out of sight, and therefore out of mind. ”

“ The Law, too, as represented by those awful personages, the Constable, the Attorney, and the Sheriff in "The Mastermaid," p. 71, is held up to ridicule, and treated with anything but tenderness. But there is one profession for which a good word is said, a single word, but enough to shew the feeling of the people. ”

“ She can understand and profit by what the little birds say; she knows how to choose the right casket. And at last, after many trials, all at once the scene changes, and she receives a glorious reward, while the wicked stepmother and her ugly daughter meet with a just fate. ”

“ We have now only to consider the men and women of these Tales, and then our task is done. It will be sooner done, because they may be left to speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own words and actions. The tales of all races have a character and manner of their own. ”

“ It cannot be said that the English are not a superstitious people. Here we have gone on for more than a hundred years proclaiming our opinion that the belief in witches, and wizards, and ghosts, and fetches, was extinct throughout the land. ”

“ We are happy to be able to state here that the eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Benfey of Gottingen, is now publishing a German translation of the Pantcha-Tantra, which will be accompanied by translations of numerous compositions of the same kind, drawn from unpublished Sanscrit works, and from the legends current amongst the Mongolian tribes. The work will be preceded by an introduction embracing the whole question of the origin and diffusion of fables and popular tales. ”

“ In all these the lassie is bright, and good, and helpful; she forgets herself in her eagerness to help others. When she goes down the well after the unequal match against her step-sister in spinning bristles against flax ”

“ In Norse he is called "Askefis," or "Espen Askefjis." By M. Moe he is called "Askepot," [4] a Danish word which the readers of Grimm's Tales will see at once is own brother to Aschenpüttel. The meaning of the word is "one who pokes about the ashes and blows up the fire"; one who does dirty work, in short ”