Bewitched princesses and princes, sea-trolls (with mouths as wide as boat-house doors), giants, revenants, hulders, goblins, merfolk, eagles, goats, a wooden doll, seabirds, halibuts, robbers, sailors, the draug, the devil, St. Peter, and “Our Lord”. Regine Normann’s tales are packed full of the most extraordinary characters from the Norwegian fairy-tale gallery. The plots are action-packed, and the setting, when not the heart of the earth, is almost always the magical coast of northern Norway. There are twenty folk- and fairy tales, all with a northern perspective, and all forged in the classroom, where Regine Normann’s storytelling sessions were the stuff of legend. “Very few in this century have been able to compose true fairy tales. Actually, I can only think of three: Rudyard Kipling, Selma Lagerlöf, and Regine Normann” — André Bjerke, 1940.