These Danish folk-tales were originally collected by Svendt Grundtvig, a Danish professor and philologist (1824-1883). He found that throughout all the country districts, men and women were telling stories and reciting ballads that they had learned from their grandmothers, who, in their turn, had heard them from crooners of old songs, and tellers of old tales. Professor Grundtvig realized that these echoes of an earlier time were precious; that, if they were not perpetuated in written form, they would be lost. It was a labor of love on his part to collect these tales; a labor that lasted over...