Norsk Hstfest in North Dakota

My ancestry is a quarter Norwegian so this little news item caught my attention and held it long enough for me to share with you. (Also sort of fitting since today's other post about Sarah Beth Durst's Ice is based on a Norwegian fairy tale.)

From the article, Troll ‘beauty’ contest, parade, by Whitney Pandel-Eaton:

A troll 'beauty' contest, is there a more perfect oxymoron?

That was the name of the game Saturday evening at Norsk Hstfest, where a dozen local elementary and middle-school students donned grotesque masks, scary wigs and trashy threads as each vyed for such titles as "Longest nose", "Best horn", "Biggest wart", "Best eyebrows" and several other characteristics atypical of a traditional beauty contest.

I can imagine this was a blast of fun for all participants, especially in the grade school age group where this fits the humor perfectly.

Spanning elementary to high school, nearly 50 students participated in one of four camps where they learned about Scandinavian song and dance as well as the heritage and folklore of Norway and Sweden.

During the weekend-long camp, the Viking patrols, which consisted of fourth- through sixth-graders, made pouches, shields, chainmail and other crafts while the Troll camp, those in grades five through seven, created their troll costumes that they used in the Troll Beauty Contest and learned about troll folklore.

Then the entire event ended with the dramatization of a Scandinavian fairy tale, left unnamed in the article.

Norwegian fairy tales are available on SurLaLune, of course, with East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon by Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen and Popular Tales of the Norse by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jørgen Moe. (Both are really Asbjornsen and Moe collections since they were the "Grimms" of Norway.)


But some of the best illustrations of trolls are by John Bauer who illustrated Swedish Folk Tales. As lovely as trolls can be...