Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark: 5 : Thynell, Ulla by Ulla Thynell

Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark: 5 : Thynell, Ulla Reviews

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  april

  use caution while reading these talesthere are two problems: the language is stiff, stilted, as if roughly translated, with occasional confusions among the "extra" vowels in the scandinavian and nordic languages(the ones written with diacritic marks, or together)and worse, all the good, beautiful people, especially the women, are blonde and red cheekedand all the evil, creepy beings are dark, black haired, old, ugly and meanit is a special niche of weirdness and worship all mixed upit reads as deliberate hostility to the indigenous inhabitants of the north, the samerthe illustrations, however, are romantic and lushthough the reindeer look like fallow deer; they are not as lithe, small and limber as real reindeer, and their antlers are wrong, but, apart from the blondes, the pictures are charmingthis collection is an expensive trip into a mine field of aversion, fear and loathingexercise extreme caution and consideration, especially if reading aloud to children
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  Brida

  It sounds daft, but I was expecting these Nordic folk tales to feature much snow and ice than they did! Perhaps this shows my naivety and the fact that I made far too many assumptions. The fault is purely mine.As a fan of fairy tales/folk tales and myths, I enjoy reading such tales from other cultures. This particular edition is very beautiful; the cover art definitely drew me in. The tales are fairly simple folk tales, as you would expect. Each tale begins with a colour illustration, depicting some element of it, and this artwork is absolutely beautiful. I would have much preferred to have some illustrations for each tale, as I feel that they would have brought them to life even .
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  lenkula

  What a lovely book, amazing graphic, printed on a heavy paper, wonderful gift for any folktales lover. Super fast delivery to Slovakia, 4 busines days. Thank you!
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  doll

  Surprised at the overall good ratings of this book. Firstly, 1 star for llustrations and cover both are gorgeous.The stories themselves leave a lot to be desired. There are stumbles in the grammar where the translation from its native language was not done smoothly.The biggest issue with this book is that it is rooted in archaic, misogynistic ideals. I bought the book for personal reading with a interest in nordic myths/legends which it does the job but I would *strongly* advise against reading this to children particularly girls. The female characters in the book are robbed of any autonomy, no personality, are merely placeholders and their appearance is written as the only thing of any value; cue multiple "fair, rosy cheeks, golden hair, sweet"One of the first tales based a female's suitability to be a wife on how well she cooks bread and knits and only this. Hugh sigh. Of course in old tales this is nothing new however if you are buying this to read to your child proceed with extreme caution or do not buy at all I would suggest proof reading before a portion of the stories are not child friendly and dehumanise female characters.
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  isabelle

  Great short stories of the European North/Scandinavia. Translation is a bit Rocky on a couple of the stories but in general a really entertaining book to read. It’s kids friendly I’d say, too. Great present for 10 11 year olds as well.