Nordic Stories – From Hans Christian Andersen to Astrid Lindgren
On the books we loved as children, magical worlds, and the stories we carry with us and pass on to our own children.
Some stories stay with us long after we've closed the book.
We may not remember every detail, or even exactly how the story began. But we remember what it felt like to be there. To step into a world that existed only on the pages of a book, yet somehow felt just as real as our own.
That's how I feel about several of the books I read as a child.
I especially remember Astrid Lindgren's The Brothers Lionheart. The story of Jonathan and Karl, of Nangijala, courage and love. And of finding the strength to do something even when you're afraid.
It was a story that left a lasting impression on me. Not simply because it was exciting, but because it held so many emotions at once. Grief and fear, hope and love. And the possibility that something might exist beyond the world we know.
Looking back today, I understand a little better why it stayed with me.
It didn't just give me a story to read. It gave me a whole world to imagine.
Stories That Become Part of Us
I think many of us carry stories from childhood somewhere in our memories.
Perhaps it's a book we asked to have read aloud again and again. A story we secretly read under the covers with a flashlight. Or a fairy tale told by a grandparent.
Some stories stay with us because they made us laugh. Others because they frightened us or made us sad. And some because they gave words to feelings we didn't yet fully understand.
One of the wonderful things about stories is that we can return to them at different stages of life and discover something new.
As a child, I experienced The Brothers Lionheart as a grand adventure. As an adult, I also see a story about the love between two brothers and the different ways they face their fears.
The story hasn't changed.
But I'm no longer the same reader.
Hans Christian Andersen and the Many Layers of Fairy Tales
It's impossible to talk about Nordic storytelling without mentioning Hans Christian Andersen.
His fairy tales have been told and retold for generations. And although many are familiar, they often hold far more than we notice at first.
In The Ugly Duckling, we meet a creature who doesn't fit in and must find his place in the world.
The Little Mermaid explores longing, love and the choices we make.
And in The Snow Queen, we travel through a magical landscape where friendship, love and perseverance help carry the story forward.
These aren't necessarily simple stories. They can be sad, unsettling and full of contradictions.
But perhaps that's part of what makes them worth returning to.
They don't always tell us that the world is easy to understand, or that everything will turn out as we hope.
Instead, they give us a way to encounter powerful emotions through storytelling.
And they remind us that fairy tales aren't only about magic. They're also about what it means to be human.
Astrid Lindgren and the Great Worlds of Childhood
While Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales often have an air of mystery and symbolism, there's something different about Astrid Lindgren's stories that I've always loved.
She creates worlds where children are allowed to be brave, vulnerable, imaginative and independent.
Pippi Longstocking lives by her own rules, challenging adults' ideas about how children should behave.
Emil of Lönneberga is always getting into mischief, but he's also kind-hearted and full of good intentions.
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter grows up surrounded by the dangers and wonders of the forest, finding her own way between family expectations, friendship and freedom.
And in The Brothers Lionheart, we encounter a story that takes children seriously, even when it comes to life's most difficult questions.
What I admire about Lindgren's books is that children aren't simply observers in an adult world.
They are the main characters in their own.
They make choices, ask questions, make mistakes and discover who they are.
And perhaps that's one of the reasons her stories continue to mean so much to children and adults alike.
Why These Old Stories Still Matter
It's tempting to think of old fairy tales and children's books primarily as part of our cultural heritage.
But I believe they still have something to offer us today.
When we share a story with a child, we share more than the words on the page.
We share the experience of feeling excited, surprised, happy or moved. We can talk about why a character behaves in a certain way, or what we might have done in their place.
Research into children's literature and the role of storytelling in children's development suggests that stories can offer opportunities to explore other people's thoughts, feelings and perspectives.
Literary scholar Maria Nikolajeva, for example, has explored how reading and literary narratives can engage our imagination and our understanding of others. Research by Raymond A. Mar and his colleagues has also examined associations between children's exposure to narrative media and their understanding of other people's mental states.
Of course, this doesn't mean that every bedtime story needs to become a conversation about life's big questions.
Sometimes a story should simply be allowed to be a story.
But I love the thought that stories can create a shared space between children and adults.
A space where we can wonder together, without anyone necessarily needing to know the right answer.
When Stories Travel Across Generations and Borders
My husband is American, so our children are growing up with more than one cultural storytelling tradition.
It's made me more aware of the stories I grew up with.
Tales I once took for granted have suddenly become something I want to share and pass on.
I want Sienna and Matteo to discover Nordic fairy tales. To meet the trolls, elves, woodland creatures and larger-than-life figures of our mythology.
To experience Astrid Lindgren's worlds and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.
Not because they need to know a particular list of books or stories.
But because I want to give them access to something that helped shape my own imagination.
At the same time, I think there's something beautiful about the fact that they're also growing up with stories from another part of the world.
Because stories don't have to compete with one another.
They can meet, blend and become something new.
Just as they do when Sienna invents a character unlike anyone I've ever encountered in a book.
From Old Fairy Tales to New Stories
When I began creating Little Northlings, it wasn't only the Nordic landscape that inspired me.
It was also the stories that have brought those landscapes to life for generations.
Woodland animals, hidden creatures, great mythological figures, and the idea that something magical might exist just beyond what we can see.
I love imagining how old stories can find new life in the stories children create for themselves.
A wolf on the wall doesn't have to be Fenrir from Norse mythology, even if that's where the inspiration began.
To a child, it might become a gentle protector, a lonely wanderer or a wolf searching for its family.
A raven might be one of Odin's messengers. But it could just as easily be a bird that knows all the forest's secrets.
And a little fairy can take on a life entirely of her own, independent of all the stories that came before her.
Perhaps that's how storytelling traditions continue to live on.
Not only by retelling stories exactly as they've always been told.
But by allowing them to inspire new ones.
The Stories We Pass On
I don't know which books Sienna and Matteo will remember most when they're grown.
Perhaps some of them will be the ones I loved as a child.
Perhaps they'll be entirely different stories.
And perhaps they'll remember the little tales we made up together on our way to kindergarten just as vividly as the books on our shelves.
I rather hope they will.
Because when I think about what stories have meant to me, it isn't only about the individual books.
It's about the feeling of stepping into another world.
Of discovering that a story can hold something you don't yet have the words to express.
And of knowing that there are always more worlds waiting to be explored.
Perhaps that's what I want most of all to pass on to my children.
Not just the stories I grew up with.
But the joy of discovering, telling and imagining new ones.
References and Further Reading
Andersen, H. C. (1843). Den grimme ælling [The Ugly Duckling]. In Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Første Samling (collection dated 1844).
Andersen, H. C. (1844). Snedronningen [The Snow Queen]. In Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling (collection dated 1845).
Lindgren, Astrid (1973). Bröderna Lejonhjärta [The Brothers Lionheart]. Rabén & Sjögren.
Lindgren, Astrid (1981). Ronja rövardotter [Ronia, the Robber's Daughter]. Rabén & Sjögren.
Nikolajeva, Maria (2014). Reading for Learning: Cognitive Approaches to Children's Literature. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Mar, Raymond A., Tackett, Jennifer L. & Moore, Chris (2010). Exposure to Media and Theory-of-Mind Development in Preschoolers. Cognitive Development, 25(1), 69–78.