Browsing Alfies Antiques with my childhood friend Charlotte a while back I discovered how different the children's world is in different countries. We came across a section of vintage children's books and toys and Charlotte got really excited and nostalgic about all these things I'd never seen before. It surprised me because we grew up together, but her English mum had presented her and her brothers for all these characters and stories, that I never heard of. I thought I knew about British children's stories just because I also grew up with Winnie the Pooh and the Wind in the Willows, but it became apparent that there is much more to it.
So I thought I'd write a little about the fantasy world created for children where I come from - I don't want to make myself an authority on children's stories but if you have any stories you want to share from your childhood, I'd love to hear them.
To start with the building blocks of a child's world I will tell you about the toys we had. Everyone had Lego. The beauty of this concept is that they open up for many different ways of playing. To give an example my brother would always build what was portrayed on the picture, which came with the blocks. I on the other hand didn't see the point in that and wanted to build randoms shapes that looked different everytime I played. No wonder I never became a scientist. The great thing was that the toy allowed for both types of play.
Of course we also had dolls, muppets and little cars to play with - I even had a big red flashy car for my Barbies, which I believe my mother's colleague's little daughter now sleeps with every night. It's nice to know it is still giving someone joy.
The Smurfs were a bit of an obsession for me. I had comic books with stories about them and them I had lots of little smurf figures and mushroom houses for them. I loved these little Belgian creatures. It was a little surreal when I recently saw these little figures in a glass montre in Amsterdam in a shoop where you had the option of taking your mushrooms there or to go....I guess the Smurfs grew up since last time I saw them.
My favourite children stories are Swedish and were written by Astrid Lindgren. She created characters that I admired and could relate to. The coolest ones were Pippi Longstocking, Emil and Ronja the Robber's daughter. Especially the latter was a great inspiration - it is a bit like a Romeo and Juliette story, except with a happier ending and with characters that are wild creatures of the forest.
Fairytales also played a great role in the house I was a child in. First of all, fairytale is "eventyr" in Danish and they didn't have much to do with fairies most of the time. Most of them were written by H.C. Andersen and they were often about travellers. The most famous are The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid and Thumbelina.
I also heard a lot of Folklore - to get an idea about these type of stories, I can reccommend the Norwegian film TrollHunter. In addition to stories about the trolls in Norway, there were also stories about elves - similar to the ones in Lord of the Rings but more see-through and airy...perhaps these stories were simply an attempt to make fog interesting...
Another child of Folklore is the "Nisse" - a pixie like creature that would play tricks on you if you didn't treat them well and gave them food/presents. They have become more of a Christmas thing these days, but according to old superstition they lived on the loft of the farms and could cause a bad harvest or sour milk if they were not content.
And lastly, here is an American's take on the current Danish children's TV in Denmark. Just to give you a more contemporary picture of what it is like to be a child in Denmark.
