Скачать или смотреть “Prince Lindworm” - Origins

In which I ramble about the source material for my upcoming novel, Lindworm.

“Prince Lindworm,” “King Lindworm,” and “King Lindorm” are used interchangeably in this video.*

Transcript: “Hi! I’m Jenny, and I’m here to talk to you today about my upcoming novel Lindworm, and specifically about the folktale that inspired it—“Prince Lindworm.”
 
So when I was in college, I spent a long time tracking down the origins of this story. Because I first read it in this book—which I think is probably where most people who’ve heard this story heard it, because I usually see it listed as a Norwegian fairy tale. Now, “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” is a Norwegian fairy tale, and so are all the other stories in this book—Norwegian fairy tales collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. But I’m a little obsessed with fairy tales, and this book isn’t mine—I borrowed it from a relative. So of course I had to get my own copy of Asbjørnsen and Moe’s stories, as well. And “Prince Lindworm”—my favorite story—wasn’t in this book. Or in this book, or this one—which, fun fact, is actually in Norwegian. I got it in Norway. “Prince Lindworm” wasn’t in any collection of Norwegian fairy tales I could find. And I checked out about a dozen from the library.
 
“Prince Lindworm” isn’t a Norwegian fairy tale—this book’s Preface explains that it contains stories previously published in another book, and two other stories. One of which is “Prince Lindworm.” But the way it’s worded is confusing; it makes it sound like all of the stories are from Asbjørnsen and Moe, but these two just weren’t included in a previous collection.
 
Anyway. I read all these other Asbjørnsen and Moe books, and it was becoming increasingly clear that “Prince Lindworm” had nothing to do with Asbjørnsen and Moe. So, because I’m sort of an obsessive person, I had to find out where it came from.
 
I went through the entire library catalog searching for anything to do with lindworms, and it was a pretty small collection of books, even with the interlibrary loan system. I did get this book—Andrew Lang’s “Pink Fairy Book”—which has a version of “King Lindworm” that he says is from Sweden. Which—it’s nice of Lang to cite a source, but I couldn’t find any evidence, anywhere, that this story had any more to do with Sweden than it did with Norway. This book does include it, but that’s because it’s the same as this book—illustrations, Preface, and all, just with a different cover.
 
So I kept looking, and eventually I found this:
 
It’s a PDF copy of a book which, as far as I can tell, was printed in 1854. Svend Grundtvig’s “Gamle Dansk Minder i Folkemunde”—sorry if I’m butchering that. I know a little Danish, but only really to read, not to speak. And honestly, I mostly taught myself the Danish I know in order to read this book. Or part of it—the part this video is about. Kong Lindorm.
 
So this is certainly a more reliable source than this or this—it predates “The Pink Fairy” by over 40 years, and it’s in the language of the country it claims to be from. “Gamle Dansk Minder i Folkemunde” was put together by Svend Grundvig, who was a historian and anthropologist. He collected and documented Danish folk songs and ballads. Including, apparently, “Kong Lindorm,” although if there’s any music associated I haven’t found that.
 
I’m fairly confident that this is a reliable, primary source for this story, not just because of Grundtvig, but because he tells us exactly where he got the story from—not something vague like Lang’s “Sweden”—an actual person. Her name was Maren Mathisdatter, she was 67 years old, and she told the story to Grundtvig’s adjunct, A. Levinsen, in 1854. It is, in fact, the most accurately cited folk tale I’ve ever seen.
 
There’s a whole lot of “they roamed the countryside collecting stories” in folklore, and there’s often not much in the way of evidence for that. But here we know the specific random person who told this story to the folklorist who wrote it down.
 
So. That’s the story of how I tracked down the origins of this story. Let’s all thank Maren Mathisdatter for sharing this weird, wonderful fairy tale with the world.”