ABSTRACT
The Norwegian word eventyr serves as both singular and plural, and the nearest English equivalents of its various meanings are adventures, legends, tales. In the context of Asbjornsen, tales is the closest, and it occurs there in compound form as Folke-Eventyr and Huldre-Eventyr. Eventyr was given its first performance by Sir Henry Wood and the Queen’s Hall Orchestra at Queen’s Hall, London, on 11 January 1919. Frederick Delius’s fascination with tales of magic and mystery continued to bear fruit in his next opera, The Magic Fountain. Asbjornsen’s folk-tales are mostly complete in themselves, like the tales of Grimm and Andersen of which they are the Norwegian counterparts. The remaining three are the editions of Folke- og Huldre-Eventyr published by Gyldendalske Boghandel in 1896, 1909–1910 and 1911. The songs manifested an early liking for folk-tales and fairy-tales, quite possibly stimulated by reading the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, with which most children of his time were familiar.
