 He has been called the 'King of Fairytales', and his words, "Tēvzemei un Brīvībai" ("For Fatherland and Freedom"), are inscribed on the Monument of Freedom in Riga.Skalbe was born in Vecpiebalga parish, in the heart of Vidzeme, symbolically the same year that one of the other greats of Latvian literature, the poet Auseklis (Miķelis Krogzemis), died in exile.His father Jānis was a blacksmith; his mother, Ede, was, like his father, a Piebalga native.