DNF: "Sigurd and His Brave Comapnions by Siogird Undset

DNF: Sigurd and His Brave Companions: a tale of medieval Norway by Sigrid Unset, 1943, no LC number, this was from Knopf.

I was looking through a U of MN Press catalog and saw a notice about a reprint. I have read some fun Scandinavian tales before so I checked the catalog and this came from Whitwater PL. 

Sigurd grows up deep in the forest with just his mother and father. He sees no one else until he is about 20 years old and spots a strange creature in the woods. The creature runs away and Sigurd goes home and tells his mother about the thing. The mom says, "That's a woman, it's time for you to leave home and live life in the wider world."

Sigurd has been trained as a knight and is very mannerly, courteous and friendly. He gets into a joust with another knights. Sigurd wins. The other knight says someting about a sister who ran into the woods to escape bad guys. Sigurd and the other knight go to find her and bring her home.

I quit reading. The writing was thick an dragged on.The older pages are crinkly and smell bad.

Comments:
1. The book is most interesting for the short sections of Background of the Story and Biographical Note which firmly put the book in it's 1943 pub year. Background explains how the Norwegian royal houses were established and carried on and gives direct comparison to the Japanese. The Biographical Note speaks of Sigrid Unset's Nobel Prize (news to me!), her life in Lillehammer, and invasion by the Germans.  Of how Undset now lives in the States and has been writing children's books showing the happy, pre-war Norway and how she yearns to return to a German free home.