Rasmus på luffen by Astrid Lindgren as a tale of adoption and a tale of creation

Astrid Lindgren’s novel Rasmus på luffen (Rasmus and the Vagabond), published in Sweden in 1956, deals with the boy Rasmus who escapes from an orphanage where he has spent his life, meets the tramp Oskar wandering in the Swedish countryside during the summer, and finally finds a home. I argue that it is a tale of adoption as well as of creation, as the action lasts seven days. The aspects are intertwined: one can count the days and nights, because the tale records when Rasmus falls asleep and wakes up, which is connected with the protagonist’s fundamental fear of being abandoned, and the joyful awareness that he has not. Without pushing the analogy with the Genesis too far, it is true that a new life and a new world are emerging for Rasmus, and for his father Oskar. Lindgren’s warm and heroic representation of the luffare, the tramp in traditional rural Sweden, draws on personal memories and literary models, though adapted to the needs of children’s literature.