A molbo story is a tale about molboers, the inhabitants of Molboland. Geographically this is an area called Mols in Denmark, typically a kind of an ethnic joke. The folklore tales of the molboers called molbohistorier (molbo stories) have existed in Denmark at least since the 18th century. The first 13 molbostories were published in the book Beretning om de vidtbekiendte Molboers vise Gierninger og tapre Bedrifter (tales of the wellknown molboers wise and brave actions) in 1771 by the publisher Christian Elovius Magnor, who by permission of the Danish king Christian VII had started the printing press viborg bogtrykkeri in the Danish city of Viborg. This folklore was originally passed on by oral tradition, so its original authors and those who collected these stories for publishing is not known today. Many new molbostories have subsequently been made and published by other publishers. Norway was at the time part of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway and as such was culturally influenced by Denmark, which probably helped to spread the stories across the kingdom. In molbohistorier all inhabitants of Molboland are portrayed as really stupid, and as such the word molbo is sometimes used to denote a stupid person in Norwegian and Danish. Molbohistorier have been published in many children's books mostly in Norwegian and Danish, but also in German, Spanish, French and English.
Here is an example molbo story quoted from Molbohistorier gamle og nye, by Oskar Braaten, Aschehougs utvalgte for barn nr. 11, Oslo 1941: