Fourteen traditional Danish tales of wizardry, witchery, dark forests, remote kingdoms, princesses, and wicked stepmothers.
These folk-tales, and many more, were originally collected by Svendt Grundtvig, a Danish professor and philologist. He found that throughout all the country districts, men and women were telling stories and reciting ballads that they had learned from their grandmothers, who, in their turn, had heard them from crooners of old songs, and tellers of old tales. Professor Grundtvig realized that these echoes of an earlier time were precious; that, if they were not perpetuated in written form, they would be lost. It was a labour of love on his part to collect these tales; a labor that lasted over twenty years, and that enlisted the aid of many of his countrymen. Grundtvig says that he has kept the simplicity and artlessness of the oral tradition; and that, in the case of varying versions from different parts of the country, he has taken the purer and more complete form, but h as always preserved the epic unity.