North German Folklore

North German Folklore.

Talking about the main structure. These 52 stanzas are divided into two groups: 1 – 5 is talking narrator, and 6- 52 is talking teller from the position of “I”. Every stanza is made of 5 lines, four of them is telling something new, but the 5th is always repeating the same, just from time to time is changed by the theme.

Composition by M. Moe is divided into 8 “blocks”: ( Stykket, 2014)

It all starts with that Olav Astensan fell asleep on Christmas Eve. He fell asleep so deep that Olav slept for all 12 days of Christmas and finally woke up on the 13th day, when was the Epiphany ( on the 6th January). At the beginning of the ballad the narrator was telling about Olav, on the 7th stanza Olav started telling his own story what happened, what he dreamed about. During the dream he saw everything – the sky and the hell. We can see that Olav in his dream is in another world. It is like a vision, when he is a pilgrim and goes in the way where in every corner is death. But finally he reached Gjallar Bridge who is leading to the Kingdom if the Dead. On the other side of the brigde is purgatory, hell, blissful souls of Paradise. Olav could also see a battle between Christ, St. Michael and angels and Devil with his army. On the end of the dream Olav witnesses the Day of Judgement (Stykket, 2014). When he wakes up, Olav goes and tells all his dream in a church door.

We all know that all the world are more and more modern.