August 11, 2025 • 35 mins
The heart has long been associated with heavy emotions, from joy to the deepest sorrow. Why is that? How long have humans even known there was this organ inside all of us?
In this program we explore the history of what we believe about the heart and the many Nordic and English expressions that refer to the heart. Then we turn to Nordic folklore to learn what folk belief says about the necessity of having the organ called the heart, even if you are a troll. What might you sacrifice or gain by magically living without a heart (i.e. without a conscience)?
We find out in the stories, "The troll who didn't carry his heart with him", and "The man without a heart."
Why is this question about "having a heart" so important today?
Visit our home page for this episode to to learn more and to leave a comment: https://nordicontap.com/nordic-folktales-of-the-heart/
If you like what you hear, please follow us in your favorite podcast service or app!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Naar er det tid til Nordisk paa Trykk!
Welcome to our podcast, featuring interviews,music, folktales, and lots of hygge.
All with a Nordic flavor.I'm your host Eric Stavney.
There are many things we say aboutthe heart.
Metaphorically, Nordics do thisas do many other cultures.
(00:24):
Hun har hjerte av gull.She has a heart of gold.
She's compassionate.
Han har noe paa hjerte.He has something on his heart.
Or on his mind that he wants to share.
Menneske kommer med hjertetpaa rette sted.
People come with their heartsin the right place.
(00:47):
They mean well.
Det var en stikk i hjertet, its,
it was heart wrenching, emotionallyheavy to be passionate about.
Det hjertet er fullt av.The heart is full of something;
to be passionate about something.
Sydmeni kuuluu sinulle.
My heart belongs to you,
in Finnish.
(01:08):
To have a heavy heart in Englishis to have emotional pain.
So it is in, in most Nordic languages,a state of sadness to have a heavy heart.
But to have a light heart meansto be free from worry, right?
To be optimistic, to not be ladenwith, uh, feelings that you've done wrong,
for example --you're free of that.
(01:29):
In Nordic culture, western culture,the heart is seen as the place of compassion.
And emotion.That idea goes way back in Hindu Scriptures, the world's third largest
and one of the oldest religions.Today, Hinduism known back to at least 2,500
(01:51):
BCE.That goes way back from the Indi Valley civilization.
We learned that the heart traditionallyis known as, was known as the place where
emotional burdens are carried, like sadnessand sorrow.
The ancient Egyptians, for example,believed when they died, each Egyptian soul
(02:12):
was judged in the Hall of Maat.Their heart or conscience, if you will,
was weighed against the feather of Maat,an ostrich feather on scales,
which represented balance in justice.
The Greeks were talking 400 to 200 BCE.
Aristotle specifically developed thecardio centric hypothesis, this which said
(02:33):
that the heart.Not the brain.
The heart was the center of emotionalthought.
The seat of consciousness, the seat ofjoy, love, sadness, the center of one's soul.
So we seem to ascribe these emotionalfeelings to a specific organ, and really
(02:54):
no wonder we put our hands over ourheart to demonstrate honesty and virtue.
While you're doing that, you can sensehow anxious or keyed up or relaxed you
are by counting the heartbeatsper minute, right?
It's sometimes it's bumping in our chestracing, or when you're feeling grief
or joy, you have a.Tension maybe in your chest,
(03:15):
which we ascribe to the heart becauseit seems to [00:04:00] psychosomatically
report on our emotional and physical state.So since when I thought,
did humans even come to know thatthat organ existed at all?
Well, I've suspected we've known forthousands of years that there is this organ
in the middle of the chest region.Humans would know from slaughtering animals
(03:36):
as far back as perhaps mastodons.We know that Hippocrates and Aristotle,
these are Greeks dissected humans.
So they could know what it looked like.They were curious about that.
Uh, during the Italian Renaissance,Leonardo da Vinci, as well as Michelangelo,
both of them dissected human bodies tocome to understand what it looked like.
(03:59):
And so this brought me to wonder whatfolk tales can tell us about the heart
and what it means to have one andwhat it means to not have one.
From Norway, we learn about a giantin Risen som ikke hadde hjerte med seg.
Or more often it's sometimes justTrollet some ikke hadde hjerte med seg.
So risen (more properly just ris)is a giant.
(04:21):
The giant who didn't have his heartwith him.
In Asbjørnson and Moe stories,or story that they put in one of
their folk tales,The troll who didnot carry his heart with him was what
they went with.
And I'm just going to paraphrase itrather than read it directly.
In the interest of time it goes like this.
(04:44):
There was a king who had seven sons.It was time for them to get married,
so he sent all but one off to findbrides and they were supposed to bring
another for the one who stayed home,and this youngest son,
the Ash Lad1.Off.
They went in their royal clothes onfancy horses until they found a king
(05:06):
who had six daughters, six princesses.The brothers proposed and the princesses
accepted, and they had completelyforgotten, unfortunately, that they had
promised to also get Askeladden,a bride.
On their way home.They passed by a mountainside
where there was a fearsome troll, uh,who lived inside the mountain.
(05:26):
And when he saw them, he came out andturned them all to stone, all the princesses
and all the princes.
After waiting a long time for hissons to return, the king was very sad,
but thankful that at least he stillhad Askeladden.
But Askeladden in the ash lad pledgedto go find his lost brothers,
(05:47):
and after begging his father I wantto go, I want to go.
At last he set off on this oldworn out horse.
When he had ridden for a while, hecame to a Raven flapping its wings
begging for food, and he said if theboy gave him food, he would help the
Ash lad.
Later, when he most needed help andden gave him some bread, he traveled
(06:08):
farther and came to a salmon fishstranded on the shore of a stream.
The salmon asked for help in exchangefor doing a good deed for him later,
and he agreed and put the salmon backinto the stream.
Then he came to a wolf that was lyingon the side of the road who was so hungry
that he wanted to eat Askeladdenshorse.
Well, they bargained a little bitand the Askeladden finally allowed the
(06:31):
beast to well wolf down the horse.
And since now he had no horse to ride,the wolf put him on his back for he was
no longer weary after eating the horse.
And the wolf knew where to go to rescuehis brothers to the troll whose heart
wasn't inside his body to free thebrothers, they had to find his heart.
Askeladden rode fast over land inmountain and arrived at the troll's cave.
(06:56):
The wolf told him to go in, ask forhelp and follow instructions.
Well, there were the six brothersturned to stone and six princesses
besides outside the cave.Inside was a princess.
The troll had captured and she promisedto help Ude when the troll came home
and the ash lad hid under the bed.
(07:18):
The troll sniffed and said he smelledthe blood of another human.
But the princess calmed him sayinga magpie bird had dropped a leg bone
down the chimney, and that must havebeen what he smelled.
The princess asked the troll wherehe kept his heart.
He said, well, it's in the cupboard.
So when he left the next day, she andthe ash lad looked through the cupboard
(07:41):
and realized they'd been fooled.
So the princess threw flowers aroundthe cupboard on the floor, and when
the troll came home.
With Askeladden, again, hidingunder the bed.
He asked about the smell and shetold him again about another bird
who dropped a bone down the chimneyto explain why
there was the smell.The troll also wanted to know
what was up with the flowers underthe cupboard,
(08:02):
and the princess said, knowing yourheart was in the cupboard.
I decorated it with flowers becauseI love you so much.
Well, the troll laughed and said, really,his heart was under the doorstep.
So the next day, they lifted the doorstone, the princess and den, but they
realized they'd been fooled again.
No heart.
So the princess dropped flowers on thattoo. When the troll came home, he asked
(08:26):
about the smell.
She said, yet another magpie had droppeda bone down the chimney.
And, uh, believe it or not, he keepsbuying this explanation, not being a very
smart troll.Few of them are, and she convinced
him that dropped flowers on the doorstep,that she had done it because she loved
(08:48):
him and wanted to put flowers aroundhis heart.
After a little while, the troll couldno longer resist the temptation.
He said, far, far away there's an island.In a lake.
On that island there is a church.In that church there is a well in
that, well, there is a duck.Inside the duck,
(09:09):
there is an egg.And in that egg ear, find my heart.
The next day when the troll left,the Ash Lad got on the wolf and they
ran far and over hill and Daleand reached the island.
Ash lad sat on the wolf while theyswam across, and they ran up to the
church, but it was locked.Fortunately, there was a door key,
but that was hanging on a nail far,far above the steeple.
(09:33):
Which is kind of weird, but that'show the story goes,
not knowing what to do.The wolf suggested
Askeladden call his friend the Raven,and soon he flew up.
He got the key in his beak and theygot into the church.
There was the well inside the churchduck was swimming around inside and
Ashland could just barely reach downand catch the duck, who promptly laid
an egg.That's the egg, right, which sank
(09:55):
out of sight deep into the well.Mm-hmm.
It was that egg.
The wolf reminded Ash Lad about thesalmon, and soon the fish by some miraculous
means swam up from an underground riverinto the well and pushed the egg to the
surface with his nose or flipper orsomething.
The story doesn't say.
The wolf said to crack the egg, pullout the troll's heart.
(10:17):
And he was told then to squeeze it,he did so and far away.
In the distance came the shriek fromthe troll who had felt the squeeze
ash lad shouted to the troll to turnhis brothers and brides back
to [00:12:00] human state from beingstoned, and he did so.
And he threatened to do, squeeze hisheart again if he didn't.
Well, the troll did this, but theash lad squeezed really hard on the heart
(10:39):
and the heart burst, and that wasthe end of the troll.
So they all returned triumphantly tothe castle.
The brothers with their bridesand Ash lad with the princess
he had rescued.And for his role in rescuing his
brothers and brides, the Askeladdenand his wife got to sit next to the
king and they celebrated long and hard.
(11:01):
And unless I'm mistaken, they arestill celebrating even to this day.
So there was a troll who still neededhis heart to be alive, but it could be
hidden elsewhere.And if you squeeze it, the troll felt
the pain.
But what happens metaphorically, ifyou could get rid of your heart to have
(11:21):
none at all and somehow are able tokeep living.
In the following folktale from Denmark,we see the advantages of not having one
and the penalty that is paid forsetting your heart aside.
It has elements in common with anumber of Nordic stories of adventurous
young adults.Just as in the last folk tale
(11:43):
I told, the adventurer meets threeanimals, sometimes old women,
and because he is kind to them, theypromised to do him a
Naar er det tid til Nordisk paa Trykk!
Welcome to our podcast, featuring interviews,music, folktales, and lots of hygge.
All with a Nordic flavor.I'm your host Eric Stavney.
There are many things we say aboutthe heart.
Metaphorically, Nordics do thisas do many other cultures.
(00:24):
Hun har hjerte av gull.She has a heart of gold.
She's compassionate.
Han har noe paa hjerte.He has something on his heart.
Or on his mind that he wants to share.
Menneske kommer med hjertetpaa rette sted.
People come with their heartsin the right place.
(00:47):
They mean well.
Det var en stikk i hjertet, its,
it was heart wrenching, emotionallyheavy to be passionate about.
Det hjertet er fullt av.The heart is full of something;
to be passionate about something.
Sydmeni kuuluu sinulle.
My heart belongs to you,
in Finnish.
(01:08):
To have a heavy heart in Englishis to have emotional pain.
So it is in, in most Nordic languages,a state of sadness to have a heavy heart.
But to have a light heart meansto be free from worry, right?
To be optimistic, to not be ladenwith, uh, feelings that you've done wrong,
for example --you're free of that.
(01:29):
In Nordic culture, western culture,the heart is seen as the place of compassion.
And emotion.That idea goes way back in Hindu Scriptures, the world's third largest
and one of the oldest religions.Today, Hinduism known back to at least 2,500
(01:51):
BCE.That goes way back from the Indi Valley civilization.
We learned that the heart traditionallyis known as, was known as the place where
emotional burdens are carried, like sadnessand sorrow.
The ancient Egyptians, for example,believed when they died, each Egyptian soul
(02:12):
was judged in the Hall of Maat.Their heart or conscience, if you will,
was weighed against the feather of Maat,an ostrich feather on scales,
which represented balance in justice.
The Greeks were talking 400 to 200 BCE.
Aristotle specifically developed thecardio centric hypothesis, this which said
(02:33):
that the heart.Not the brain.
The heart was the center of emotionalthought.
The seat of consciousness, the seat ofjoy, love, sadness, the center of one's soul.
So we seem to ascribe these emotionalfeelings to a specific organ, and really
(02:54):
no wonder we put our hands over ourheart to demonstrate honesty and virtue.
While you're doing that, you can sensehow anxious or keyed up or relaxed you
are by counting the heartbeatsper minute, right?
It's sometimes it's bumping in our chestracing, or when you're feeling grief
or joy, you have a.Tension maybe in your chest,
(03:15):
which we ascribe to the heart becauseit seems to [00:04:00] psychosomatically
report on our emotional and physical state.So since when I thought,
did humans even come to know thatthat organ existed at all?
Well, I've suspected we've known forthousands of years that there is this organ
in the middle of the chest region.Humans would know from slaughtering animals
(03:36):
as far back as perhaps mastodons.We know that Hippocrates and Aristotle,
these are Greeks dissected humans.
So they could know what it looked like.They were curious about that.
Uh, during the Italian Renaissance,Leonardo da Vinci, as well as Michelangelo,
both of them dissected human bodies tocome to understand what it looked like.
(03:59):
And so this brought me to wonder whatfolk tales can tell us about the heart
and what it means to have one andwhat it means to not have one.
From Norway, we learn about a giantin Risen som ikke hadde hjerte med seg.
Or more often it's sometimes justTrollet some ikke hadde hjerte med seg.
So risen (more properly just ris)is a giant.
(04:21):
The giant who didn't have his heartwith him.
In Asbjørnson and Moe stories,or story that they put in one of
their folk tales,The troll who didnot carry his heart with him was what
they went with.
And I'm just going to paraphrase itrather than read it directly.
In the interest of time it goes like this.
(04:44):
There was a king who had seven sons.It was time for them to get married,
so he sent all but one off to findbrides and they were supposed to bring
another for the one who stayed home,and this youngest son,
the Ash Lad1.Off.
They went in their royal clothes onfancy horses until they found a king
(05:06):
who had six daughters, six princesses.The brothers proposed and the princesses
accepted, and they had completelyforgotten, unfortunately, that they had
promised to also get Askeladden,a bride.
On their way home.They passed by a mountainside
where there was a fearsome troll, uh,who lived inside the mountain.
(05:26):
And when he saw them, he came out andturned them all to stone, all the princesses
and all the princes.
After waiting a long time for hissons to return, the king was very sad,
but thankful that at least he stillhad Askeladden.
But Askeladden in the ash lad pledgedto go find his lost brothers,
(05:47):
and after begging his father I wantto go, I want to go.
At last he set off on this oldworn out horse.
When he had ridden for a while, hecame to a Raven flapping its wings
begging for food, and he said if theboy gave him food, he would help the
Ash lad.
Later, when he most needed help andden gave him some bread, he traveled
(06:08):
farther and came to a salmon fishstranded on the shore of a stream.
The salmon asked for help in exchangefor doing a good deed for him later,
and he agreed and put the salmon backinto the stream.
Then he came to a wolf that was lyingon the side of the road who was so hungry
that he wanted to eat Askeladdenshorse.
Well, they bargained a little bitand the Askeladden finally allowed the
(06:31):
beast to well wolf down the horse.
And since now he had no horse to ride,the wolf put him on his back for he was
no longer weary after eating the horse.
And the wolf knew where to go to rescuehis brothers to the troll whose heart
wasn't inside his body to free thebrothers, they had to find his heart.
Askeladden rode fast over land inmountain and arrived at the troll's cave.
(06:56):
The wolf told him to go in, ask forhelp and follow instructions.
Well, there were the six brothersturned to stone and six princesses
besides outside the cave.Inside was a princess.
The troll had captured and she promisedto help Ude when the troll came home
and the ash lad hid under the bed.
(07:18):
The troll sniffed and said he smelledthe blood of another human.
But the princess calmed him sayinga magpie bird had dropped a leg bone
down the chimney, and that must havebeen what he smelled.
The princess asked the troll wherehe kept his heart.
He said, well, it's in the cupboard.
So when he left the next day, she andthe ash lad looked through the cupboard
(07:41):
and realized they'd been fooled.
So the princess threw flowers aroundthe cupboard on the floor, and when
the troll came home.
With Askeladden, again, hidingunder the bed.
He asked about the smell and shetold him again about another bird
who dropped a bone down the chimneyto explain why
there was the smell.The troll also wanted to know
what was up with the flowers underthe cupboard,
(08:02):
and the princess said, knowing yourheart was in the cupboard.
I decorated it with flowers becauseI love you so much.
Well, the troll laughed and said, really,his heart was under the doorstep.
So the next day, they lifted the doorstone, the princess and den, but they
realized they'd been fooled again.
No heart.
So the princess dropped flowers on thattoo. When the troll came home, he asked
(08:26):
about the smell.
She said, yet another magpie had droppeda bone down the chimney.
And, uh, believe it or not, he keepsbuying this explanation, not being a very
smart troll.Few of them are, and she convinced
him that dropped flowers on the doorstep,that she had done it because she loved
(08:48):
him and wanted to put flowers aroundhis heart.
After a little while, the troll couldno longer resist the temptation.
He said, far, far away there's an island.In a lake.
On that island there is a church.In that church there is a well in
that, well, there is a duck.Inside the duck,
(09:09):
there is an egg.And in that egg ear, find my heart.
The next day when the troll left,the Ash Lad got on the wolf and they
ran far and over hill and Daleand reached the island.
Ash lad sat on the wolf while theyswam across, and they ran up to the
church, but it was locked.Fortunately, there was a door key,
but that was hanging on a nail far,far above the steeple.
(09:33):
Which is kind of weird, but that'show the story goes,
not knowing what to do.The wolf suggested
Askeladden call his friend the Raven,and soon he flew up.
He got the key in his beak and theygot into the church.
There was the well inside the churchduck was swimming around inside and
Ashland could just barely reach downand catch the duck, who promptly laid
an egg.That's the egg, right, which sank
(09:55):
out of sight deep into the well.Mm-hmm.
It was that egg.
The wolf reminded Ash Lad about thesalmon, and soon the fish by some miraculous
means swam up from an underground riverinto the well and pushed the egg to the
surface with his nose or flipper orsomething.
The story doesn't say.
The wolf said to crack the egg, pullout the troll's heart.
(10:17):
And he was told then to squeeze it,he did so and far away.
In the distance came the shriek fromthe troll who had felt the squeeze
ash lad shouted to the troll to turnhis brothers and brides back
to [00:12:00] human state from beingstoned, and he did so.
And he threatened to do, squeeze hisheart again if he didn't.
Well, the troll did this, but theash lad squeezed really hard on the heart
(10:39):
and the heart burst, and that wasthe end of the troll.
So they all returned triumphantly tothe castle.
The brothers with their bridesand Ash lad with the princess
he had rescued.And for his role in rescuing his
brothers and brides, the Askeladdenand his wife got to sit next to the
king and they celebrated long and hard.
(11:01):
And unless I'm mistaken, they arestill celebrating even to this day.
So there was a troll who still neededhis heart to be alive, but it could be
hidden elsewhere.And if you squeeze it, the troll felt
the pain.
But what happens metaphorically, ifyou could get rid of your heart to have
(11:21):
none at all and somehow are able tokeep living.
In the following folktale from Denmark,we see the advantages of not having one
and the penalty that is paid forsetting your heart aside.
It has elements in common with anumber of Nordic stories of adventurous
young adults.Just as in the last folk tale
(11:43):
I told, the adventurer meets threeanimals, sometimes old women,
and because he is kind to them, theypromised to do him a
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