the implications of Norse elements in fairy tales.

Flipping through Andrew Lang's The Crimson Fairy Book (1903 CE), I read a pretty brilliant NorsePlay remix in the story of The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnföder.

This story is full of loans & borrowings from across the lore, the large ones being the hero named Sigurd (from The Saga of the Volsungs), the horse Gullfaxi (from the race in Skáldskaparmál) which one is forbidden to ride (this rule from Hrafnkels saga applied to his horse Freyfaxi), and a weather effecting magic item that summons hail (from The Story of Thorstein Mansion-Might). There are a couple other lesser parallels to be divined, but the above are the most certain & definitely present.

[story illustration by Henry Justice Ford.]

Even without being well-versed enough in the Norse Lore to identify any of the above, the story in itself stands alone as a fun tale.

Sourcewise, Lang adapts the story from an 1884 CE German translation by Viennese politician & Scandinavian language expert Josef Poestion, who got the story from Steingrímur Thorsteinsson (b. 1831 CE) in Icelandic.

While this folktale version is likely only derivative from the aforementioned Sagas, if it isn't, then the super-important question becomes where did Steingrímur record it from?

And given the above game-of-telephone story-element handoffs, this bit of wildly re-woven NorsePlay begs the question of pre- & post-Eddaic/Saga retellings of the lore and their relative differing paths. While questioning the creditability of the Eddas is ultimately just an academic exercise until some other source material shows up to illustrate otherwise, if we examine the folklore & retellings perhaps we can find a lead like this one to those other sources, which would prove priceless if found.

[read it for yourself here, and should you know where Steingrímur got his version of this story do let me know, or hire me to find out.]

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology, field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.