Askeladden (the Ash Lad) is the main character in many Norwegian folktales. In some ways, he represents the small man who succeeds where all others fail, although the means employed are not always, strictly speaking, honourable. For instance, in the folktale where the Ash Lad has an eating contest with a troll, he suggests that the troll slit his belly open to accommodate more food. But then again, pragmatic though cruel "guile" in the place of "honor" in regard to trolls may be appropriate, since they are essentially negative, nonhuman, monstrous entities. Folklore is the ethnographic concept of the tales, legends, or superstitions current among a particular ethnic population, a part of the oral history of a particular culture. ... Trolls with an abducted princess (John Bauer, 1915) A troll is a fearsome member of a mythical anthropomorph race from Scandinavian folklore. ...

In many folk tales, the Ash Lad is portrayed as the youngest of three brothers. Early in a typical tale, the older brothers appear to have much greater chances of success in life. For example, one brother might be extremely well read in books and newspapers. Another brother might be extremely competent in another area. In contrast, the Ash Lad is looked down upon as a ne'er do well, perhaps even as a loner or eccentric oddball, who spends too much time sitting by the fireplace lost in thought as he is poking the ashes.

As the typical story unfolds, the oldest brothers try first to heroically overcome some major crisis or problem. As an example, one tale involves rescuing a princess held captive in a land east of the moon and west of the sun. The two older brothers, who are tied to conventional thinking, typically fall flat on their faces. In contrast, it is the Ash Lad who comes up with creative solutions to outwit trolls, dodge charging unicorns, or get a magic Viking ship to fly him to the land east of the moon and west of the sun, and ultimately save the princess.

In modern parlance, the Ash Lad is a rugged individualist, free-thinker, and nonconformist who is capable of deep abstract, analytical thinking "outside the box," or who can create a scientific "paradigm shift." He is part of that extremely small part of the population capable of acting as a true visionary or innovative "early adopter." He might also be viewed as a "tinkerer" with a "Faustian search for knowledge." In contrast, the older brothers are more the politically correct, conformist, conventional,corporate soldier types.

Nordic culture has traditionally valued rugged individualism and heretical, dissident thought in science, politics, economics, religion, and other fields. Nordic peoples include the Anglo-Saxons who created the Magna Carta, and later in early America comprised the majority of the population that created the Constitution and Bill of Rights. (The Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and George Washington were very "Anglo.") Nordic peoples also include the Ionians and Dorians who created science and a coherent theory of republican and democratic government in ancient Greece beginning in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. Therefore, some traditional American conservatives argue that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was originally intended not to protect child pornography, nor to encourage gangsta rap-style violence against whites, but rather to allow Ash Lad types to make their thoughtful yet heretical contributions to society.

A final question might be, why is the Ash Lad character so prominent in Norwegian fairy tales as opposed to Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Anglo-Saxon, or some other Nordic (or Gothic or Indo-European or Germanic -take your pick, they are all roughly synonymous as one goes back further in time) folklore? The likely answer is that these other societies probably have had their versions of the Ash Lad character, but the Norwegians and Icelanders have been further removed from many modernistic cultural changes and retain more folklorish relics of bygone eras. In addition, one might venture a sociobiological explanation for why this peculiar Ash Lad character is something of a folklorish national hero in Norway. In a mountainous country such as Norway, with its extremely long coast line and fjords, where a significant proportion of its scattered inhabitants have traditionally depended on fishing in the often cold, rainy, dark, violent, and otherwise hostile North Sea, the ability to think individualistically, abstractly, and analytically about utilizing seafaring technology has been a key to bare survival. Poking ashes by the fireplace while in deep thought can also come more naturally in lands north of the Arctic circle with almost no sun in the winter.

See also

• Norse mythology