Peter Christian Asbjørnsen

Peter Christian Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer who together with Jørgen Moe compiled and edited an authoritative collection of Norwegian folk tales.

Asbjørnsen was born in Oslo but developed a connection with his roots in Gudbrandsdalen in general and to oral tradition in his rural culture in particular. He met Moe as a student, and the two of them traveled around in Norway to collect and document folk tales. The published their work starting in 1841 is a series of pamphlets.

Asbjørnsen and Moe are also celebrated for putting the folk tales in a written language comparably close to the vernacular, e.g., by using Norwegian rather than Danish terms for geographic features.

Asbjørnsen published some of his own collections, but resigned from this work in 1850 and dedicated the rest of his life to natural sciences and forestry.