The Role of Folklore in Shaping National and Linguistic Identity: The Case of Norway

Abstract

This paper describes how a collection of Norwegian folktales crucially helped shape national and linguistic identity in 19th Century Norway. After four centuries of ‘union’ where Denmark and Sweden were the dominant partners, The Norwegian Folktales, collected, transcribed and re-written by Per Christian Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe from 1841 onwards, had a pivotal role in the shaping of a cultural and linguistic identity in what was the emerging nation-state of Norway. Handed down orally from generation to generation across the country, the folktales embodied important symbolical, cultural and linguistic characteristics from the rural environment that were adopted and re-created to inspire a new, independent Norwegian cultural identity. At the peak of the Romantic Nationalist movement, deeply inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the tales came to symbolize core features considered to be specific to Norway.