Asbjörnsen, PETER CHRISTIAN, one of the most popular among Norwegian authors, was born 15th January 1812 at Christiania. He studied at the university in his native city, then found in the leisure of a four years' residence as a tutor in the country the opportunity to learn thoroughly the life of the common people. In long journeys on foot he collected a rich store of popular poetry and folklore. On his return to the capital he devoted himself to the study of medicine and the natural sciences, and from 1846 to 1853 he explored and dredged, at government expense, various parts of the Norwegian coast, without neglecting the while any opportunity of prosecuting his favourite study. In the years 1849-50 he accompanied a Norwegian ship of war to the Mediterranean, and from 1856 to 1858 he studied forestry at Tharandt in Saxony. Appointed inspector of forests for the Trondhjem district in 1860, he was sent by government in 1864 to investigate the manufacture of peat in Holland, Germany, and Denmark. On his return he was appointed to take measures for its better manufacture among the peasantry, and he resigned this office only in 1876. He died at Christiania, 6th January 1885. Asbjörnsen lived a busy and useful life, and wrote many scientific and practical books on such subjects as natural history, forestry, peat-manufacture, marine fauna, and sensible cookery; but it is not by these, but by his inimitable collections of folk-tales, that his name will be remembered. He first opened the eyes of his countrymen to the rich treasures of poetry and quaint folklore that were to be found among simple and honest country-people; and it is hardly too much to say that to his collections is directly due the growth of the national element in Norwegian literature which has since become predominant in the literature, art, and music of the country. He was fortunate in finding for his first collection a coadjutor with almost as fine poetic sympathy as himself, Jørgen Moe, afterwards Bishop of Christiansand, and one of the most considerable poets of his time. The two friends published in 1842 the first series of Norske Folkeeventyr ('Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales'), in the vernacular of the country. Asbjörnsen alone published in 1845 the first series of his Norske Huldreeventyr og Folkesagn, consisting of stories about the Huldre, or fairy of the Norwegian woods, with bright descriptions of the natural scenery and of the characteristic life of the peasantry. Three years later (1848) appeared a second collection; and in 1871 he published also a second volume of the Folkeeventyr. These books are now classics in their native literature, and have a place on the shelves of folklorists in all countries. They have been translated into most European languages; into English by Sir George W. Dasent in Popular Tales from the Norse (1859), and Tales from the
Fjeld (1874); and by H. L. Braekstad in Round the Yule Log (1881).