Haugtussa is an epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 circle of poems, written by the Norwegian author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 Arne Garborg

Arne Garborg

Arne Garborg, born Aadne Eivindsson Garborg was a Norwegian writer.Garborg championed the use of Landsmål , as a literary language; he translated the Odyssey into it...

. The poems are reckoned a classical example of Norwegian Neo-romanticism

Neo-romanticism

The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...

 or Symbolism. The themes of the poems are closely related to Garborg's rural background, and a number of supernatural beings, like the draug, the hulderpeople and other creatures, are involved. A Haugtusse is originally a female subterrestrial (a Hulder), but in this story it is an eponym of the main character, a psychic

Psychic

A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...

 young girl, usually called Veslemøy. In 1900 Garborg published a sequel, I Helheim ("In Hel").

Plot

Veslemøy (or Gislaug), is the youngest of three sisters, living alone with her elderly mother in the area of Jæren

Jæren

Jæren is a traditional district in the county of Rogaland. The others are Dalane, Ryfylke and Haugalandet.Jæren is the largest flat lowland area in Norway, stretching from the municipality of Randaberg in the north to Hå in the south. The coast is flat compared to the rest of the Norwegian coast,...

. Her oldest sister is dead, and her other sister went to town, possibly falling into prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

. The family is poor, and is sometimes harassed by the local land-owner.

Veslemøy is known to have great insight in local tradition and folklore, and the other youths often gather around her to hear her tell stories, or to conduct riddle-games. Veslemøy also shows skills in the art of making stories herself. One night, her dead sister visits her, telling her that she is appointed to "see" more than others, to be psychic, and to predict. This is a great burden to her, but she takes it on, rather willing to "see" than to be indifferent. From now on, visions haunt her, and the secondary world powers are after her. She is nearly abducted into the mountain. From now on, she is also called Haugtussa (Fairy maid). She has also the ability to see what animal each person around her has behind him or her, not all of them good. The owner of the greater farm is followed by a dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

 (symbolizing greed).

Veslemøy experiences the pangs of any young girl, she falls in love, and almost gets betrothed to the boy on the neighbouring farm. In the end, he gets married to a richer girl, and this nearly breaks her. Veslemøy has to fight even harder with her demons, and is once again taken into the mountains. Here, she meets the remaining Norse troll

Troll

A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...

s, lamenting their fate and how light has taken the land from them. She is offered the hand of the Haugkall (mountain king). She resists, and is found witless and brought home sick. At the end of the book, her sister consoles her once again, telling her to be of good faith, and to prepare for a descent into Hel, guarded by a völva

Völva

A vǫlva or völva is a shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology....

, who will teach her "through fear, the work which will become your honour".

Sequel

The following book, I Helheim ("In Hel"), tells of Veslemøy's descent through the realms of the dead. Garborg tells a story similar to the divina commedia, using the text to criticize on morals and the church at the time. The poetic structure in this book is simpler, with one metre almost all the way. Veslemøy also learns about the blessed realms, and eventually wakes up wiser and more consoled than ever before. The epilogue tells how she later lives alone, ending as the "wise woman" in the community.

Music

The poems of the main Haugtussa song cycle are catchy, and inspired to music from early on. Some of the poems are sung to folk tunes, and Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

 worked with 20 of the poems from 1895. Eight of these were selected for publication as a song cycle (Opus 67)

Haugtussa (Grieg)

Haugtussa Opus 67, or The Mountain Maid, is a song cycle for soprano and piano composed by Edvard Grieg in 1895 and published in 1898. It is the only song cycle in his entire repertoire. The text was written by the Norwegian writer Arne Garborg, an excerpt from his book of poetry Haugtussa...

 in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in 1898, and simultaneously a German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 version was published in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. Later, newer composers have made their own cycles on the text. The poems remain some of the best-known Nynorsk

Nynorsk

Nynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...

poems in Norway.

List of poems

The poems as listed from the 1909 edition of Garborg's Skriftir i Samling (Collected Works), divided into subsections.

• "Til deg, du Hei og bleike Myr"

Heime

• "Veslemøy ved rokken"
• "Kvelding"
• "I Omnskråi"
• "Sporven"
• "Det syng"
• "Fyrivarsl"
• "Sundagsro"

Veslemøy synsk

• "Gamlemor ventar"
• "Veslemøy"
• "Syne"
• "Haugtussa"

Jol

• "Ungdom"
• "Lage"

I Gjætlebakken

• "Vindtrolli
• "D'er kje greidt"
• "Fuglar"
• "Under Jonsok"

I Slaatten

• "I Slaatten"
• "Veslemøy undrast"

Dømd

• "Dømd"

Dei vil ta henne

• "Maaneskinsmøyane"
• "Heilagbrót"
• "Kravsmannen"
• "I Skodda"
• "Veslemøy sjuk"
• "Snøstorm"
• "Draken"
• "Hjelpi"

Det vaarar

• "Mot Soleglad"
• "Vaardag"

Sumar i Fjelle

• "Paa Fjellveg"
• "Den snilde Guten"
• "Paa Gjætleberg-Nut"
• "Dokka"
• "Veslemøy lengtar"
• "Blaabær-Lid"
• "Møte"
• "Killingdans"
• "Elsk"
• "Skog-glad"
• "Eit Spursmaal"
• "Ku-Lokk"
• "Vond Dag"
• "Ved Gjætle-Bekken"

Paa Skare-Kula

• "Det vaknar"
• "Dei hyller sin Herre"
• "Prøve"
• "Svarte-Katekisma"
• "Stjernefall"
• "Ein Søkjar"
• "Høg Gjest"
• "Troll-Dans"
• "Bergtroll"
• "Gnavlehól"
• "Gumlemaal"

Den store Strid

• "Haust"
• "Raadlaus"
• "Den som fekk gløyme"
• "Kor hev det seg?"
• "Vinter-Storm"
• "I Kyrkja"
• "Ein Bêle"
• "Uro"
• "Bøn"
• "Paa Vildring"
• "Ho vaknar"
• "Ei svær Stund"
• "I Blaahaug"

Fri

• "Fri"