When I was about six years old, my grandparents gave me a book called 'Snorri the Seal'. It was the story of of a vain little seal pup who ignores the advice of his elders and betters about keeping out of trouble in the form of Growler the polar bear and Grab the killer whale - and, instead, spends most of his time admiring his reflection in the ice. Of course, little Snorri does get into trouble. He listens to the flattery of Grab and Growler and is nearly eaten. The story was funny and exciting and the pictures were glorious. I adored it. I read it so many times that the front cover came off, and my mother had to mend it (she found a photo of a fjord to stick on the front). I still have the book, and I still love it.
What I never suspected and have only recently found out (I don't think for a moment that my parents or grandparents knew it either), is that 'Snorre Sel' by Frithjof Saelen, published in 1941 in occupied Norway, is a satirical fable, a piece of anti-Nazi propaganda. It sold 12,500 copies before the German administration cottoned on.
In a fascinating book, 'Folklore Against the Nazis: Humor in Occupied Norway 1940-1945' (University of Wisconsin Press), the author Kathleen Stokker explains how this apparently innocuous children's story decodes as a criticism of Norwegian complacency in the face of the dual threat from Germany and Russia. Snorri's enemy Brummelab (transated as Growler in my English version) is Russia. I can see it so clearly now: he looks just like Stalin.
Nazi Germany is represented by Glefs (Grab) the Killer Whale, accompanied by his henchmen the wicked seagulls Sving and Svang (See and Saw) - whose initials are those of the Nazi SS.
They spy on Snorri and reveal his hiding places to both bear and whale. As Stokker explains, 'Sporting the red and yellow colours of the Nazi party and having a "false gleam" in their eyes, the gulls incessantly screech, Skui, skui, an allusion to the inescapable Nazi heil og sael salute. Promising Glefs "if you want steak, we can get it for you", the treacherous pair reflect not only Quisling's aid in luring Norway into Germany's grasp, but also the abundance enjoyed by the occupiers and their Norwegian collaborators as others endured crippling shortages...'
Snorri receives many warnings from Uncle Bart (Uncle Whiskers in my version) the kindly walrus, who represents England. But the little seal doesn't understand why he should be in any danger: "'... I'm not going to do them any harm,' said Snorri, innocently. And Uncle Whiskers laughed so much he had to hold his sides. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Why, if they so much as set eyes on you, they'll be so hungry they'll have a tummy-ache.'"
In only the second illustration in the book, we see Snorri having fun sliding on the ice floes. Of course I never noticed, but that ice floe is shaped like the map of Norway.
Even the Norwegian Resistance itself makes a sly appearance in the shape of the three little shrimps who, unbeknownst to Glefs the Killer Whale, live inside his teeth and cause his toothache.
To quote Kathleen Stokker again: 'Cornered on an icefloe by Glefs, Snorri again remembers Uncle Bart's warnings and feels "almost angry" that his uncle isn't there to save him, reflecting the impatience many Norwegians shared in their view of Britain's inept assistance... Saelen, like Snorri, holds out hope that Britain would eventually come to Norway's rescue, however. Uncle Bart, he asserts, is stronger than anyone else in the Arctic Ocean; it just takes him a long time to get sufficiently riled.'
Snorri swims for his life to escape Glefs/Grab, diving through a tunnel in an iceberg in the nick of time. At the other end he finds Uncle Bart, who has '"been sharpening his tusks on the back of an old hermit-crab" - according to Stokker, 'an allusion to Roosevelt's 1941 Lend Lease Act that supplied Britain with sorely-needed weapons'. Ready now to fight, the two of them make a plan. Snorri swims back through the tunnel and pulls faces at Glefs.
The infuriated Killer Whale lunges at Snorri. He becomes hopelessly stuck in the narrow tunnel as Snorri darts out of reach. Meanwhile, Uncle Bart swims around the iceberg and gives Glefs a good thrashing from the rear. Glefs "couldn't do a thing. He was stuck in the ice, and there he will stay till the iceberg melts."
'At a time when England had achieved few military successes and Hitler's armies had yet to lose a single field battle, the story dared to suggest England's victory and Germany's defeat,' says Stokker. 'It moreover endorsed acts of passive resistance... Finally it suggested that like the iceberg's tunnel the long, dark and uncertain passage of Norway's occupation ... would eventually end in sunlight. It is thus little short of amazing that the book, provocatively subtitled "a fable in colour for children and adults" initially not only escaped censorship but actually received high praise in the Nazi-controlled press', which hailed Saelen as the 'Norwegian Walt Disney '.
By the time the authorities caught on, the entire print-run of 12,500 copies had been sold. Saelen was not interrogated until January 1943, when with deadpan aplomb he denied any political intention and asked if they planned to ban the Brothers Grimm? Nonplussed, the Nazis released him, and he went on with his resistance work. By 1944 he was the leader of the main Norwegian resistance movement, Milorg. Eventually he had to flee via the 'Shetland Bus' to England, where he presented a copy of his book to King Haakon VII, in exile with the Norwegian government in London.
I'm sure the main reason why Saelen got away with it is that his book works brilliantly on both levels. The subversive political allegory is embedded in a truly excellent children's story full of comedy and drama, with beautiful illustrations. No wonder the Nazi officials were confused. The sincerity of it must have puzzled them: there is real love in the story of vain but brave little Snorri. The pictures celebrate the beauty of the Northlands. These looming snow-covered pinnacles with their sinister almost-but-not-quite faces enchanted me, as a child:
And so did the many underwater scenes, and the crackling little spirits of the Northern Lights, and the bubble boys 'who look after the fish for Father Neptune'. But now that I've learned, thanks to Kathleen Stokker's book, the real story behind the tale of Snorri the Seal, I understand at last Saelen's final words - words which as a child gave me a wonderful, mysterious yearning for something I couldn't quite grasp...
"That was the story of a little seal who believed that everything was beautiful and nice up there in the Arctic Sea. But it wasn't, even if it all ended happily. And it was from this old seashell that the whole story came.
"Perhaps you yourself may find a seashell like that one day. And perhaps it will whisper another story to you. Who knows? So much comes bubbling and whispering up from the bottom of the sea. So much of everything - both good and evil."
Picture credits:
All artwork by Frithjof Saelen.
Scanned by Katherine Langrish from book in her possession.