• ‘‘Bjergtagen,’’ or, in English, ‘‘Bewitched,’’ by Meir Goldschmidt, a nineteenth-century Danish storyteller, makes use of the ancient folk-motif of the mortal woman seduced by a supernatural lover, a troll. Dinesen’s story ‘‘The Ring’’ makes oblique reference to the motif and perhaps also to Goldschmidt’s story, which is available in a number of translations in anthologies of Danish literature.

• ‘‘On Mottoes of My Life,’’ by Dinesen, in Daguerreotypes and Other Essays (1979), a book of essays, is a concise summation of her world view.

• ‘‘The Dreamers,’’ by Dinesen, in Seven Gothic Tales (1934), is a much longer narrative exploring the theme of ‘‘tragic wisdom’’ of the generative relation of loss and betrayal to consciousness.

• A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken (1977), tells of the deep love the author shared with his wife, Jean Palmer Davis (nicknamed ‘‘Davy’’), of how the ‘‘Shining Barrier’’ of their love was breached one day when Davy was threatened by a stranger in an urban park, and of how, in the Christian faith embraced by both, love is stronger than death.