This document provides information about traditional Norwegian games, including instructions for playing them. It describes a puppet game retelling the folktale "Three Billy Goats Gruff" where children use handmade puppets. It also outlines the board game "Ludo" where players race tokens around the board according to dice rolls. Finally, it shares the Norwegian folktale "The Cat on the Dovrefjell" and suggests using role play to act out the story.

1. BOOK OF
TRADITIONAL GAMES
Norway

2. Puppet Game –Three Billy Goats Gruff
■ History of the Game
■ Puppet plays did not become a pedagogical tool in Norwegian schools until the late 60s. Due to
popular children’sTV programs including puppets in the 70s and 80s, teachers and parents started
using puppets more and more in storytelling and dramatic play.The Three BillyGoats Gruff is a
popular Norwegian folktale that young children are familiar with.
■ Goals of the Game
■ – To use puppets to bring this folktale to life.
■ -To spark children’s imagination
■ -To use creativity in making puppets and props

3. Materials for the Game/ Preparations Needed.
■ The folktale Three Billy Goats Gruff
■ A big cardboard box to make a puppet theater
■ A crooked wooden log to be used as a bridge.
■ A blue scarf to be used as a river
■ Lollipop sticks (crafts sticks) to make handheld puppets
■ Cardboard for puppets
■ A Norwegian story http://www.worldstories.org.uk/stories/story/79-three-billy-goats-gruf
Rules of the Game
1. Five children can participate in this game: storyteller, troll, Little BillyGoat Gruff, Medium Billy
Goat, Big BillyGoat Gruff.
2. Make a puppet theater using a big cardboard box.
3. Make handheld puppets using lollipop sticks and cardboard.
4. Arrange the props (scarf and wooden log) to imitate a river and a bridge.
5. Read the folktale.
6. The children decide on characters to play.
7. The children tell the folktale using the puppets.

4. Board Game – Ludo
■ History of the Game
Ludo is a simplified version of the Indian game Pachisi. It was invented in the
nineteenth century it has been a popular children´s board game since.
■ Goals of the Game
Ludo is a type of board game that can be played by 2 or 4 players. In this game, the
players have to race their 4 tokens from the starting to the finishing point according to the
roll of the dice.The first player to get all tokens home is the winner.

5. Materials for the Game/ Preparations Needed.
Square ludo board with the pattern on it in the shape of a crioss.
4 sets of 4 different coloured counters (eg 4 red, 4 blue, 4 green,
4 yellow)
Die

6. Rules of the Game
■ 1.Two, three or four can play.
■ 2. Each player starts the game with four pieces in his "yard", the area in the corner of the board.
■ 3. Players decide at random who takes the first turn.
■ 4.A player starts his turn by throwing the die.
■ 5.A throw of six may be used to enter a piece from the player's yard to his start square.Alternatively, it may
be used to advance by six spaces one of his pieces already on the track.
■ 6.Any other throw is used to advance one of the player's pieces already on the track by the appropriate
number of spaces. If the player has no pieces on the track, then the turn is lost and the die passed clockwise
around the board to the next player.
■ 7. A throw of six allows the player another throw, after the corresponding move is made. A second throw of
six similarly allows a third throw. If the third throw is six, however, the throw is lost and the player's turn
ends.
■ 8.The course of a piece from the player's start square is clockwise around the board, till it arrives back at the
end of the arm of the cross from which it started. It then proceeds up the central row of spaces on that arm,
till it arrives at the middle by an exact throw.At the middle the piece's journey is over.
■ 9.A player cannot land one of his pieces on top of another; only one piece may inhabit a square at once. A
piece can, however, pass by another friendly piece.
■ 10. If a piece ends its move on a square occupied by an opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is taken, and
returned to that opponent's yard to begin its journey again.
■ 11.A player wins the game when all four of his pieces have reach the centre of the board. Other players may
play on to see who gains the second and third places.

7. Indoor Game
Rules of the Game

8. Outdoor Game - Skiing
History of the Game
■ The use of skis in Norway dates back thousands of years.The word ski comes from the
Old Norse word "skíð" which means stick of wood.
■ As big parts of Norway was, and still is, snow covered for most of the year, skis were
used for anything from transportation to war fare.They were a convenient way of
travelling from one location to another.
Goals of the Game
■ People have individual goals for skiing. They can range form being able to stay on 2
feet to how fast and well they can ski down different slopes and terrain.

9. Materials/Preparations for Role Play
■ Skis
■ Ski poles
■ Ski shoes
■ Warm clothes
■ Rules of Skiing
It is important when skiing to know the rules of the slopes for the safety of yourself and the people
around you.
To have Fun!

10. Role Play Game
History of the Game
Role play games started as far back as the 16th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, elements of role
play were brought into board games. In the 1960’s historical re-enactment gave rise to ‘creative history’
games or role play.Today because of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and other such popular books and
films; monsters, trolls and other fantasy figures have further stimulated the desire for role play. Role
play makes it possible for children to step into the past or future and travel to new destinations. ‘The
Cat on the Dovrefjell’ is a popular Norwegian folktale perfect for children to take on the roles of trolls,
the bear, the king or Halvor.
Goals of the Game
* Allow students to step into a characters’ shoes; feeling, thinking and acting as they do.
* Gain a deeper understanding of who a character is.
*Work together with a partner or group to role-play characters.
* Develop thinking skills to predict roles characters play in other fairy tales/folktales and fiction.
*Work together to understand lessons/morals characters learn from folktales.

11. Materials/Preparations for Role Play
* Folktale:The Cat on the Dovrefjell
* Setting (role play can take place anywhere as long as there is space and imagination
* Props (props are not necessary but if children choose they can use their imaginations to
gather props, i.e., porridge, sausage, fork, table)
Rules of Role Play
* Read the folktale (in this caseThe Cat on the Dovrefjell)
* Discuss the folktale as a group
* Establish roles: narrator, trolls, King, Halvor
* Narrator reads folktale as children act out the parts
* Discuss roles and how they might change to make the folktale even more exciting or
magical
* Switch roles so that everyone can take on a different role

12. The Cat on the Dovrefjell - FairyTaleVersion
Once on a time there was a man up in Finnmark who had caught a great white bear and was going to
take it to the king of Denmark. It so happened that he came to the Dovre-Mountain just about Christmas
Eve. He went to a cottage where a man named Halvor lived, and asked him for lodging for his white bear
and himself.
"Heavens help me!" said the man, "but we can't give anyone lodging just now, for every Christmas Eve
the house is so full of trolls that we are forced to move out for the season, without any house to dwell in
ourselves.

13. "Oh, you may well let me use your house anyhow" said the man. "My bear can sleep under the stove here,
and I can sleep in the side-room.”
He kept on begging until at last he was allowed to stay.The people of the house moved out, but made
everything ready for the trolls before they left.The tables were laid, and there was cream porridge and
fish boiled in lye and sausages and everything else that was good, just as for any other grand feast.”
When everything was ready, the trolls came. Some were great, and some were small; some had long
tails, and some had no tails at all. Some, too, had long, long noses.They ate and drank and tasted
everything.
Then one of the little trolls saw the white bear who lay under the stove. He took a piece of sausage, stuck
it on a fork and poked it up against the bear's nose, screaming out: "Pussy, will you have some sausage?"
Then the white bear rose up and growled, and hunted the whole pack of them out, both great and small.

14. Next year Halvor was out in the wood, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, cutting wood
for the holidays, for he thought the trolls would come again.As he was chopping,work, he
heard a voice shouting from the woods, "Halvor! Halvor!”
"Yes?" said Halvor.
"Have you got your cat with you still?”
"Yes," said Halvor, "she's lying at home under the stove, and she has got seven kittens,
bigger and fiercer than she is herself.”
"Oh, then, we'll never come to your place again," shouted the troll in the woods, and since
that time the trolls have never eaten theirYule porridge with Halvor on the Dovrefell.