Askelladen who stole the Troll’s Silver ducks

Informant: Askeladden is a folk hero who is the main character of a few different stories in Norwegian culture. This is the most famous story according to my Informant’s time growing up in Norway. The tale goes that there is a Troll with many riches and askeladden is ordered by his king to steal The troll’s silver ducks amongst various other riches. He also tricks the troll’s daughter to give him her knife which he uses to cut of her head. He feeds it to the troll who thinks he is eating askeladden and tricks him.

Context: My informant had the least to say about this story. He said he mostly just knew that askeladden is a hero in many stories this being one of them. He had a hard time remembering all of this story because he said it had been so long since he tried to remember them. I believe there is a chance that since he was growing up there was not a lof of significance at least with this story to himself and that is why he remembers the other stories better.

Analysis: It is hard to give a full analysis of this text using only information from my informant because of the amount of content relating to this story. Again this story is similar to tales we learn as kids in America with the hero tricking the main enemy and defeating him in order to gain riches or because of orders from the king etc… I guess that Askeladden is a hero type that does no wrong and that all Norwegian kids should strive to be more like him.