Fantastiske Norske* Resurser

(*En av dem er Svensk. Denne er også en av de aller beste resursene (Prosjekt Runeberg).)

Norge er FANTASTISK FLINK til å digitalisere og publisere ulike biter av historien. Dessverre er de ikke særlig flinke til å reklamere med dette, så her har jeg samlet det jeg finner av interessante kilder for norsk historie og kultur.

Kjenner du til noen flere må du svært gjerne tipse meg om dem, så de kan legges til lista!

Tekster

Prosjekt Runeberg, skandinaviske historiske tekster (Edda og Eventyr)

Martin Bekkelunds digitalisering av Norske Folkeeventyr

Norsk Folkeminnesamling (digitaliserte Eventyr, Sortebøker og Sagn)

Museer og samlinger

BIBSYS

Bibsys Galleri

Bibsys Ask

Oh John Ringo No! (Om å ignorere fakta)

Denne bloggposten er dedikert til Stig, på grunn av de mange samtalene vi har hatt om fakta og det å ignorere det helt.

Jeg sitter for øyeblikket og graver meg gjennom en 74 sider lang post på Absolute Write forumet om anmeldelser og forfatteres reaksjoner på anmeldelser. Det er slike ting som bare skjer i sommerferien, når man har litt for mye tid å leke med. Min favoritt (fra side 23, siden det er så langt jeg har kommet) er John Ringo, som er en produktiv scifi forfatter som har skrevet en serie som er absolutt skitt.

Han innrømmer det selv i anmeldelsen ett fan skrev om den første boka i serien; "my working title was 'The Wanker Piece.' (Marketing forced me to drop the title.)"

Men det jeg la spesielt merke til var denne setningen:

"I decided early in the book that I was simply going to ignore reality whenever possible."

  Words to live by. Ihvertfall for noen av oss :P

Både anmeldelsen og forfatterens kommentar anbefales for alle som lar seg more av testosteron-piplende romaner og reaksjonene på slike.

Bechdels regel

Har du hørt om Bechdels regel?


Enhvær film (bok) skal ha minst to kvinnlige karakterer. Disse skal på ett eller annet tidspunkt snakke sammen. Temaet de snakker om skal ikke være en mann.

Enkel regel, ikke sant? Men når jeg begynner å tenke etter, bryter nesten alle filmer jeg har lest reglen. Dette skremmer meg ikke, jeg vet hvordan Hollywood er. Det som skremmer meg? Mange av bøkene jeg leser bryter også Bechdels regel.

Patricia Briggs' bøker om Mercy Thompson. Spellcrackers.com bøkene av McLeoud. Kitty bøkene av Vaughn. Første Weetzie Bat boka (og den siste, Baby Be Bop, men den kan være unnskyldt da hovedpersonen er en mann).

Og det jeg nevner her er kun bøker med kvinnlige hovedpersoner. Jeg kan forstå at det ikke blir store sjansene til dialog mellom kvinner i Butcher serien, men i en serie hvor hovedpersonen er kvinne, hvorfor er alle de andre karakterene enten menn eller karrikaturer?


Hvis noen har tips om bøker med kvinnlig hovedperson som ikke har romanse som hovedplott, rop ut! De trenger ikke en gang overholde reglen, selv om det ville vært en fordel.

Og av ren interesse: sjekk gjennom bokhylla di. Post alle bøkene som overholder Bechdels regel i kommentatorfeltet.

Fra å finne fakta til å kjøpe kart...

Jeg har lært noe nytt i dag!


Under andre verdenskrig hadde England en spesialorganisasjon som het SOE (aka. The Baker Street Boys). Disse planla bl.a. tungtvannsaksjonen på Rjukan, og de hadde Christopher Lee som en av sine agenter (mer her).

SOE inspirerte Ian Flemming til å skrive James Bond, og Christopher Lee spilte Bond-skurk i en av filmene. Ian Flemming på sin side var også med i etterretningstjenesten og kom på et plott for å stjele en enigma kodebok. Han fikk ikke lov å gjennomføre det, noe som gjorde Alan Turning ganske irritert da det betød han måtte knekke koden uten hjelp (noe han gjorde... har jeg nevnt at han er en av mine absolutte helter?).

Alan Turning regnes for å være datamaskinens far på samme måte som Ada Lovelace regnes som datamaskinenes mor. Dette betyr at en PC har en adelskvinne og et homofilt geni som foreldre, noe som forklarer internett.

Vel, det jeg egentlig skulle frem til var dette:

1) S.O.E. er den perfekte organisasjonen til å ansette vampyrer. Tross alt ansatte de Christopher Lee, noe som bør si sitt. Dette kan jeg nå bruke til en novelle jeg har skrevet (World War Vampire). Jeg vet ikke om jeg er mest lykkelig eller skremt over å finne en organisasjon som ikke bare ville ansatt vampyrer, men eneste spørsmålet de ville stilt ville vært "snakker du fransk?"

(S.O.E. hadde ekstremt mange kvinner ansatt for sin tid, noe som både skyldtes at nazistene ikke mistenkte kvinner. Eneste kravet som ble stilt var at de skulle snakke fransk.)

2) Under krigen ble fluktkart trykket på silke, som lett kunne gjemmes unna og tåle det meste. Dette førte til at jeg lette frem noen som selger slike kart og nå har to på vei hjem til meg (Helsinki - Trondheim og Stocholm - Oslo).

Så herved er det fastsatt: fakta fører til shopping!

Tall om bøker

Det er mellom 1300 og 1700 tegn på en vanlig bokside[1] og med 12 punkts monospatieret skrift og dobbelt linjeavstand er det ca. 25 linjer [2]

En Young Adult roman bør ligge på mellom 50 000 og 100 000 ord. (1-2 NaNoWriMo'er)

Den første Harry Potter-boka var på ca 77 000 ord. Den fjerde var på 191 000. Den første Twilight-boka var på 130 000 ord. [3]

Jennifer Laughran har en bloggpost [her] som gir en oversikt over hvordan tallene bør være for barnebøker (fra bildebøker til Young Adult).

Fakta faen!

Overskriften er et slangord fra tenårene mine, og betyr noe i nærheten av "det jeg sier til deg er rett". Jeg må kanskje innrømme at jeg bruker grove ord mer enn jeg burde, men akkurat her var det den beste tittelen på en post som handler om fakta.

Det er få ting som irriterer meg mer enn åpenbare feil ved en fortelling. Det røsker meg ut av selve historien, og er i noen tilfeller nok til at jeg legger en ellers god bok fra meg. (Spesielt i de tilfellene hvor bokas tema er noe jeg selv har mye erfaring med, som musikk.) På grunn av dette har jeg selv måttet lete frem de mest obskure fakta, og på veien har jeg ofte snublet over forfatterforum av ulike slag som har en egen seksjon til nettopp dette.

With no further ado, the list:
- NaNoWriMos Reference Desk (mest aktiv i November)
- ScriptFrenzys Reference Desk (mest aktiv i April)
- Little Details (på livejournal, aktiv, husk spoilers for grafiske beskrivelser av sex/vold)
- Absolute Writes Story Research (forum spesifikt for forfattere, man svarer kun på spørsmål hvis man har erfaring, dannelse viktig (ikke bann, takk for svar))

WWII was weird

During WWII "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" a.k.a. the S.O.E. gathered in Baker Street to plan sabotage and espionage missions in occupied countries, amongst them France and Norway. Christopher Lee was one of their field agents, and there is a youtube clip where he talks about killing a man in service of the S.O.E.

Several James Bond characters were inspired by the S.O.E., including M, Moneypenny and Vespa Lynd (and probably Q). Ian Fleming was not himself a part of the SOE, but he joined the Naval Intelligence where he planned more-or-less insane operations. Amongst those not carried out were plans to steal the enigma codes (less insane) and to use Aleister Crowley to trick Rudolf Hess into contacting anti-Churhill Englishmen (more insane).

The S.O.E. was, amongst other things, responsible for Operation Gunnerside where Norwegian commandos snuck into a heavily guarded military plant and blew up the entire Nazi supply of heavy water, needed to make nuclear bombs (link). Some of the commandos fled to England and Sweden, but a few stayed behind. They would later be responsible for blowing up the boat carrying the remaining heavy water to Germany, killing eighteen (link).

After the war the S.O.E. was quickly disbanded, probably because their leader was less than willing to cooperate with including it into the Foreign Office ("To have SOE run by the Foreign Office would be like inviting an abbess to supervise a brothel").

===

Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer and the man responsible for cracking the enigma code during WWII, killed himself with a poisoned apple.

===

Herman Göring's brother Albert repeatedly went against the Nazi party by amongst other thing forging his brother's signature, sabotaging the factory he was given by his brother and sent trucks to concentration camps requesting labourers for his factories. These would then "break down" somewhere so the labourers could escape. (link)

===

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Pig_Club

Norwegian Huldrefolk - The Different Ways to Troll Norwegians

Norwegians have many different kinds of "trollfolk" (troll people), all of them facinating and somewhat odd.

Footnotes, [?], are always in Norwegian, but included for those who can use them. The links always lead to English sources.

Trollfolk (troll-people) and huldrefolk (huldre-people)

The story I always heard was that the "troll-people" or "huldre-people" were the children of Adam and Eve. One time Eve was washing her children before a visit from God, but she didn't have time to clean them all. Instead of showing God dirty children, she hid them away. God noticed, and told her that those hidden should remain hidden. Because of this, huldrefolk are also called "the hidden people" or "those living under ground" (de underjordiske).

Sometimes the huldrefolk are a wild bunch that kidnaps maidens, sneak into weddings or make mischief in other ways. They can be harmful or just annoying, but when they are harmful their methods are equal to that of åsgårdsreia (Norway's version of the Wild Hunt), where they can snatch people away from their homes or chase them into their deaths.

There are many different kinds of huldrefolk and they vary all over Norway and Scandinavia. The stories written here are those I've heard in Telemark, or read about. When I know of any differences, I will note them, but I'm always open to add more information to this. Just let me know about any variations in the comments!

Troll

First of all, we have the common Troll. He's always male, always huge and pretty stupid. In the fairy tales, Askeladden can usually trick them into giving away their eyes or cutting up their stomachs, killing themselves. A troll can smell the blood of Christians, which he hates as people, but love to eat.

A common troll turns to stone in sunlight, and several Norwegian mountains are said to once have been trolls. Large boulders are usually said to be thrown there by trolls who fought each other. 

They have extremely long noses, tend to kidnap women who either has to be saved by their beau or save themselves (one sends herself back in a barrel that's supposed to contain fish for her poor starving family, placing fish on top of herself and telling the troll that she can see him wherever he is, so when he tries to peak into the barrel, she tells him off and he thinks she's still at their home, keeping an eye on him.

Dovregubben in Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen and his daughter are good examples at later trolls. If you want to read more about trolls, please check out this blog post.

As for other huldrefolk, let's start with the Hulder herself.

Huldra

Huldra is a gorgeous woman, a semi-benevolent succubus who can lure a man into the Blue Mountain (where the troll-people live) or just make love to him and have his children, which will later come back to torment him. Where I'm from she's known by being a beautiful woman with a cow's tail, but other places she also got a hollow back (all Swedish huldre has hollow backs, as far as I know), and some are also grotesquely ugly.

A hulder can be bound by a man throwing iron over her head. Usually he throws his dagger, as everyone wore daggers at that time, but anything goes. In some stories, shooting over the hulder's head works the same way, but this is not something I've heard in Telemark. An iron bound hulder will have to obey the man who bound her, and marry him. Most hulders are gorgeous creatures, while some look more trollish. Either way, an iron bound hulder has to marry the man who bound her, and he has no choice but to marry her either.

After being married by a priest, the hulder usually loses her tail. If he treats her well, he will be rich and succeed in everything he puts his hands to. But if he treats her bad she will maim him (often in the leg or thigh, giving him a permanent limp) and flee, taking all her riches with her. There are tales of a hulder straitening a red hot horseshoe and telling her abusive husband that she could have done the same to him, had she not loved him [1].

The hulder owns a flock of cows, that are the fattest and most beautiful cows you have ever seen. 

You can recognize a hulder by her tail, which is that of a cow. If you meet a hulder and notice her tail, she will hate you for it. There are stories of men scratched in the face, or having their eyes clawed out, for seeing the tail and commenting on it. But there are also tales of a man who discreetly told her her tail was showing so she could hide it. He was thanked with a gift from the hulder, which was that he could aways see the huldrefolk.

Bytting

The most gruesome of all huldrefolk has to be the bytting, or "the swapped one". If you didn't protect your newborn, unbaptised child by carving crosses over the door and putting an iron scissor in his crib, he could be taken by the huldrefolk, to be replaced by a gruesome and ugly thing. Both boys and girls were taken in this way, and the only way to get your own child back was to either abuse the bytting until the huldrefolk swapped them back or to trick the bytting to speak. Baptising a bytting would do nothing to it, unlike other huldrefolk who would be transformed or harmed by holy water.

A bytting is ugly, he or she keeps screaming for more food, and never learn to walk. It doesn't take much imagination to see that this most likely was an explanation for how some children were born handicapped. Drowining or harming a bytting was common remedies, although some fairytales speak against this. In one a mother refuses to mistreat or leave her bytting child, even when her husband leaves her for it. After they seperate, she finds her own child in the forest, and he tells her that because she never abused the bytting, the huldrefolk never abused him, and because she was willing to leave her most precious husband to keep the bytting, that choice broke the spell the huldrefolk had over her son.

Another way to get rid of them was by trickery. Byttinger could speak while newborn children could not. I remember a fairytale where a mother pulled up a small spruce and used it to stir her porridge. The bytting watched her do this for a while, then he said "I've lived long and seen much, but never have I seen someone stir the porridge with a spruce." Once he'd said that, he was reviled and forced to give the woman her child back.

Wikipedia's entry on byttings is pretty close to those stories I've heard myself. Because both trolls and huldre are so different from what I've heard, and include all of Scandinavia when the stories vary so much from one place to another, I've usually chosen to ignore those articles.

Nøkken

If you swim amongst the water lillies (in Norwegian called "nøkken's roses"), the Nøkk might grab your feet and pull you under water, where he drowns you.

If you travel to the forest alone, and you're approached by a beautiful white horse, don't ride it. It might be nøkken, trying to lure you onto his back so he can ride you into the closest water and drown you.

Notice a similarity? Nøkken is more of a nature spirit than anything else. He lives in ponds or lakes of still water (never too close to the streams or waterfalls, that belongs to Fossekallen), where his main objective in life is to drown people. He's a shapeshifter, but in human form he's either completely gorgeous or a horrible beast covered in grass and mud from the lake. In that way, he resembles Draugen, a seafaring nature spirit known for his reign over the sea. (I will probably make a post on Draugen sometime later, both because he's a facinating monster and because it will take way too long to describe him here).

Fossekallen

Fossekallen (the man of the stream) or Fossegrimen (the ugly man of the stream) is like Nøkken eiter completely gorgeous or completely horrendous. He lives in streams, usually beneath or inside a waterfall, and is in many ways more benevolent than Nøkken.

Where Nøkken wants nothing more than to be the cause of your drowning, Fossekallen might lure you into his stream to drown you, he might want to do more adult things to you. Where I come from, Fossekallen is usually gorgeous and completely naked, known for being a wonderful musician as well as a nature spirit in his own right. He lures musicians into bargains, where he demands blood or their first born as payment for teaching them to play so beautifully everyone has to dance and won't stop until the fiddler stops playing. In other stories, Fossekallen's music can stop the streams from flowing and the wind from blowing, just so the nature can hear his music.


The wikipedia article about the "Neck" blends Nøkk and Fossekall/Fossegrim, and doesn't seem to realize that Swedish and Norwegian tales aren't interchangeable, so take it with a shovelful of salt as it imo isn't a good resource.

Norwegian Trolls And Where To Find Them

Modified from a NaNo post. I spent too much time researching this for it to be deleted come October. :P

Visual characteristics

What you need to know about trolls boils down to this: they are not a homogeneous group. They don't look the same, they don't speak the same and they certainly aren't equally smart. Just look at this paragraph from The White Cat: "So, when everything was ready, down came the trolls. Some were great, and some were small; some had long tails, and some had no tails at all; some, too, had long, long noses; and they ate and drank, and tasted everything."

Most are huge. They never stop growing, so the older the troll, the bigger it is. Some are stupid, or maybe "slow" is a better way of putting it. They can be brilliant and cruel, but need more time to think than a human. This is why they can be tricked by humans.

Most have cow's tails just like the Hulder (who it's said is related to the trolls, although no one knows quite how). In one tale you have three troll brothers who share one eye, and the hero survives them by making them quarrel over the eye. In most tales they turn to stone once the sun touches them (just like those in The Hobbit).

Habitat and diet

Trolls live inside the mountains, and some mountains are old trolls who were touched by the sun's rays or just fell asleep one day and never woke up. Here they bring their victims, either to marry them (if they're female) or eat them (if they're male). Trolls are also known for stealing and eating cows and sheep, which is another reason for the hatred between trolls and humans.

In most of stories they are greedy, both for gold and property, which sometimes is what causes their downfall.

Resources

I have made another blog post about trollfolk, which I recommend. As for other sources, this is by no means a definitive list, but a good start:

• Troll hunter will give you an idea of how many Norwegians think of trolls. I've yet to meet anyone who believes trolls still live today, though.

•  Norwegian Folk Tales by Asbjørnsen and Moe. They gathered fairy tales in Norway just like the brothers Grimm did in Germany. You can find a translation of some of them here and here (I recommend "The Ashlad Who Ate A Match With The Troll" and "The Cat On The Dovrefjell"). Many of these stories are about trolls, so check them all out if you have the time (most of them are pretty short anyway).

• Theodor Kittelsen made several famous paintings of trolls, like this one here.

• John Bauer, a Swedish painter painted his trolls a bit differently from what I've grown up thinking trolls look like. Maybe Sweden's view of trolls is different, or maybe he just preferred to paint them like this. Anyways, his troll pictures can be found on google as well.

• In Norway there are stories about several mountains who used to be a troll. For example Torghatten in Nordland, Styggmann ("The Ugly Man") in Buskerud.

• Ibsen described trolls in Peer Gynt, where the Dovre-king and his daughter are important characters. 

• Tolkien's trolls in The Hobbit and  Rowling's trolls in the Harry Potter-series both have many similarities to Norwegian trolls.