Theodor Kittelsen's illustrations bring to life everything that makes Norwegian folk tales so special: the king as a big farmer who smokes a pipe and sometimes feeds his chickens himself, the thoughtful good-for-nothing Aschenper who eventually wins princess and half the kingdom, and of course the trolls, clumsy and stupid, personifications of the raw forces of nature. All this spiced with a not always tender humour ...   Asbjørnsen and Moe's collection of fairy tales is almost as famous as Grimm's children's and house fairy tales. Not so the illustrator who most influenced the idea of this fairytale world: Theodor Kittelsen. In this issue he will once again enchant us with his pictures, make us laugh and sometimes send a shiver down our spines. About the illustrator: Theodor Kittelsen, (1857 - 1914), studied at the academy of arts in Munich and worked as an illustrator, caricaturist and genre painter.  With his name and that of his friend Erik Werenskiold the Norwegians connect their fairy tale world. The well-known fairy tale collection of Asbjørnsen and Moe was published 1883 - 1887 in three volumes with pictures of these two artists. It was above all Kittelsen's sense for the fantastic, grotesque and exaggerated that led to this, it is said, that one first knew what a Norwegian troll actually looked like. For almost three decades he illustrated fairy tales and his own texts. It was only shortly before his death that he received the recognition he deserved.