The first story teller recorded in the Swedish lore is the maid Gifeon, in Odin’s retinue. The tale regarding her is something as follows: When Odin was traveling from Asia to Sweden he stopped for a while in Denmark and in order to propitiate the Swedish King in advance sent Gifeon in a canoe across the strait with instructions to visit King Gylfe’s court and tell the king the most wonderful stories she could compose about the Asas [the Asiatics]. This she did, and so pleased was King Gylfe with her stories that he offered her as a reward as much land, wherever she might choose in his domain, as she could plow in a day. Gifeon secretly obtained the assistance of two giants, who, changing themselves into oxen plowed up all the land where Melar Lake now is and carried the soil southward and dropped it into the sea, off the coast of Scania [the most Southern province of Sweden]. Thus was formed the island of Sjelland, the eastern coast of which fits exactly into the formation of the entrance to Lake Melar.
When Gifeon returned to Odin and told him of her success with King Gylfe, he was so delighted that he gave her his son Skjold for a husband. Together Gifeon and Skjold ruled over the newly-made island and became the forbears of a long line of illustrious Danish Kings, called Skjoldungs. Odin went on to Sweden, and because of Gifeon’s wonderful stories he was kindly received by King Gylfe and his people.
The last professional story teller of the old school I know anything about was old man Bror. What his real name was I do not know, for everybody called him “Bror,” the Swedish for brother, and received him as such. He never did anything but travel from place to place, telling the oldest yarns and the latest gossip, interspersing it with fragments of old songs and new tunes from his old violin. Well do I remember the old man and his old white horse, Dollfoot. As a child I loved them both and danced and skipped with glee at the sight of them. When I saw Bror and Dollfoot turn from the country road to the lane leading to our farm, I used to run shouting the news, “Bror is coming, Bror is coming!” to everybody on the estate, and never a face did I see that did not light up or put on a broader smile at my message.
Dear old man Bror! I can see him now sitting contentedly in his blue cariol only loves, the only cares and the only prides the old man had. The buckles of Dollfoot’s harness shone like the buttons of a new lieutenant’s uniform, and the old violin always nestled tenderly under Bror’s left arm.
So long as Bror was able to mount the saddle he rode his horse. After that he drove in the old cariol. For five and thirty years Bror and Dollfoot were boon companions, known to every man, woman and child in the province of the Dales. Then Dollfoot died and his octogenarian master survived but a year. All mourned the mysterious old man and missed his stories. With him passed away, about thirty years ago, the last of the old type of traveling story tellers in Sweden.
We children used to climb up into his lap as soon as he had sat down and clamor for a story. And the tales he told about the giants and fairies; angels and the white Christ; Odin and Thor; Knights and Vikings, stand out like stars in the chaos of stories I have read since. No matter how well-worded and poetic in setting a story may be, its reading from the printed page does not produce as striking an impress upon the young mind as does its oral rendering well done. The life and vigor of the teller’s interpretative inflections, intonations, modulations and movements; the light of the eye and the expressions of feature add a vividness, a reality that deeply impress the child’s mind. The details may be lost in time, but the general form will remain forever. This gives the story teller a very great influence in the character building of the young; for the impulse to courage or generosity or kindliness incited by a story lauding these qualities will never wholly die. On the other hand, evil stories contaminate young minds beyond all human power of effacement.
For the same reason that the phonograph and pianola can never take the place of the singer and musician, the real story teller can not be satisfactorily replaced by books. The personal element is large in the equation. It would be an interesting study to inquire into the influence which the professional story tellers of European and other countries exercised, by the coloring their own personalities gave to their stories, over the minds and conduct of the people who for so long a time depended upon them for such mental stimulus as they had.
Between the maid Gifeon and the old man Bror was a long line of skalds of all descriptions—gay and sad, humble and haughty; jovial and rollicking singers; courtly raconteurs and lively comedians. Some spread gaiety in the halls of kings and in the castles of barons. Others carried news to the monastery and parsonage, and the humbler were content to make the rounds of the odalmen’s firesides. All were welcomed with equal heartiness and sped with the same regrets. Perhaps no more picturesque persons have appeared among men, or held a more unique place in human esteem than the traveling story tellers of the Northland.
