Asbjørnsen and Moe

▪ Norwegian authors

      collectors of Norwegian folklore. Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (b. Jan. 15, 1812, Christiania [now Oslo, Nor.]—d. Jan. 5, 1885, Kristiania, Nor.) and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (b. April 22, 1813, Hole [now in Norway]—d. March 27, 1882, Kristiansand, Nor.) published Norske folkeeventyr (Norwegian Folktales (Norske folkeeventyr)), which is a landmark in Norwegian literature and influenced the Norwegian language.

      Closely united in their lives and work, the two men are rarely named separately. They met as youths in 1826 and became “blood brothers.” Asbjørnsen, the son of a glazier, became a private tutor in eastern Norway at age 20. There he began to collect folktales. Moe, the son of a rich and highly educated farmer, graduated with a degree in theology from the Royal Frederick University (now the University of Oslo), Christiania (now Oslo), in 1839. He too became a tutor and spent holidays collecting folklore in southern Norway. Meanwhile, Asbjørnsen became a naturalist, and, while making investigations along the fjords, he added to his collection of tales. The two men decided to pool their materials and publish them jointly.

      At the time, the Norwegian literary style was too influenced by Danish norms to be suitable for national folklore, while the various dialects used by Norway's oral storytellers were too local. Asbjørnsen and Moe solved the problem of style by adopting the Brothers Grimm (Grimm, Brothers)'s principle of using simple language in place of the various dialects, yet maintaining the national uniqueness of the folktales to an even higher degree than their German precursors had done. Some of the first tales appeared as early as 1837 in Nor and others were published as Norske folkeeventyr in 1841. Enlarged and illustrated collections appeared in 1842, 1843, and 1844. In 1852 all the tales were published with critical notes and a scholarly introduction by Moe.

      Accepted in Europe as a major contribution to comparative mythology, Norske folkeeventyr was widely translated. The first English translation in 1859 was followed by many more into the 21st century. In Norway it provided a stylistic model that substantially influenced the development of Bokmål, one of the two linguistic standards of modern Norwegian.

      In 1856 Asbjørnsen, a botanist and zoologist by profession, became a forest master and studied methods of timber preservation. He published a collection of fairy tales, Norske huldreeventyr og folkesagn (1845–48; Norwegian Fairy Tales and Folk Legends), and a translation of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1860).

      Moe's Digte (1850; “Poems”) placed him among the Norwegian Romantic poets, and I brønden og i tjærnet (1851; “In the Well and the Pond”), his collection of children's stories, is a Norwegian classic. In 1853 after experiencing a religious crisis, he was ordained, and in 1875 he became bishop of Kristiansand.

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