Mrs. Pepperpot's Tales

Author: Alf Prøysen

Translated by: Buthaina Al-Ibrahim

And who among us doesn't know Mrs. Pepperpot? That little old woman from the animated series produced by the Japanese company Pierrot in 1983. However, the series is an adaptation of a series written by the Norwegian author Alf Prøysen in 1956, and its English translation - among twenty-three other languages - was published three years later.

Mrs. Pepperpot has become a prominent character in Norwegian heritage, as well as in the languages into which it has been translated, and she has a bronze statue erected in Hamar, eastern Norway, made by the sculptor Fritz Røed in 1973.

Mrs. Pepperpot possesses a unique charm, despite the simplicity of her tales, as her ability to shrink "at the most critical moments" allows her to see what others cannot, meaning she becomes able to see the world from below, what adults experience every day and pay no attention to, so in her shrinking state, she empathizes with the small and weak, both children and animals.