We have seen that the name, Peer Gynt, was suggested to Ibsen by a folk-tale in Asbjörnsen and Moe’s invaluable collection. It is one of a group of tales entitled _Reindeer-Hunting in the Rondë Hills_;[5] and in the same group occurs the adventure of Gudbrand Glesnë on the Gendin-Edge, which Peer Gynt works up so unblushingly in Act I. Sc. 1. The text of both these tales will be found in the Appendix, and the reader will recognise how very slight are the hints which set the poet’s imagination to work. The encounter with the Sæter-Girls (Act II. Sc. 3) and the struggle with the Boyg (Act II. Sc. 7) are foreshadowed in Asbjörnsen, and the concluding remark of Anders Ulsvolden evidently suggested to Ibsen the idea of incarnating Fantasy in Peer Gynt, as in Brand he had given us incarnate Will. But the Peer Gynt of the drama has really nothing in common with the Peer Gynt of the story, and the rest of the characters are not even remotely suggested. Many scattered traits and allusions, however, are borrowed from other legends in the same storehouse of grotesque and marvellous imaginings. Thus the story of the devil in a nutshell (Act I. Sc. 3) figures in Asbjörnsen under the title of _The Boy and the Devil_.[6] The appearance of the Green-Clad One with her Ugly Brat, who offers Peer Gynt a goblet of beer (Act III. Sc. 3), is obviously suggested by an incident in _Berthe Tuppenhaug’s Stories_.[7] Old Berthe, too, supplies the idea of correcting Peer Gynt’s eyesight according to the standard of the hill-trolls (Act II. Sc. 6), as well as the germ of the fantastic thread-ball episode in the last Act (Sc. 6). The castle, “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” (Act III. Sc. 4), gives its title to one of Asbjörnsen’s stories,[8] which may be read in English in Mr. Andrew Lang’s _Blue Fairy Book_; and “Soria Moria Castle” is the title of another legend.[9] Herr Passarge (in his _Henrik Ibsen_, Leipzig, 1883) goes so far as to trace the idea of Peer Gynt’s shrinking from the casting-ladle, even though hell be the alternative (Act V. Sc. 7, &c.), to Asbjörnsen’s story of _The Smith whom they Dared not let into Hell_;[10] but the circumstances are so different, and Ibsen’s idea is such an inseparable part of the ethical scheme of the drama, that we can scarcely take it to have been suggested by this (or any other) individual story.[11] At the same time there is no doubt that _The Folk-Lore of Peer Gynt_ might form the subject of a much more extended study than our space or our knowledge admits of.[12] The whole atmosphere of the first three acts and of the fifth is that of the Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales. It must be remembered, too, that in the early ’sixties Ibsen was commissioned by the Norwegian Government to visit Romsdal and Söndmöre for the purpose of collecting folk-songs and legends. To these journeys, no doubt, we are mainly indebted for the local colour of _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_.