Norwegian Trolls

History of the Trolls

Far to the North, where the winter storms from the Arctic Oacean lash the unsheltered coasts, lies a long and narrow country. In our time the country is covered with snow and ice only during the winter, but long, long ago a heavy, thousand year old glacier towered over the country. As the climate slowly changed and the glacier receded northwards, people who lived south of the glacier followed it. They took the country for their own and called it Norway. The people were called Norwegians. They saw that the country was very beautiful and thought that they were the first inhabitants, but it was not long before they discovered that the country was already occupied by a lot of stange creatures who lived in the mountains, of which there were many, lived the Trolls. The chief of them all was Dovregubben. Some of the trolls were extremely large, while others could be really small, and they were all very old. They were only seen at night, or at dusk, because such creatures of course did not tolerate the light of day. If they did not get into the mountains before the sun shone, they cracked or turned to stone. The trolls were like people, but had only four fingers on each hand and four toes on each foot. Otherwise they all had long noses (troll wives often used their noses to stir the cooking pot when they made soup or porridge), they were shaggy and rough haired, and every one of them had a tail which resembled a cow's rump. Even though they were frightening, they were often good-natured and gullible, and somethimes smart farm boys could fool them. Among their many supernatural abilities was that they could re-shape themselves. Sometimes the troll girls became unbelievably beautiful young women. They were called wood nymphs, and they lured many a hunter and unsuspecting farmers son with them into the mountains. Therefore it was better to try and see them from behind, because they could not hide a cows rump. Sometimes, too, the trolls spellbound and took beautiful alpine farm girls and dairymaids into the mountains, and not many of them got out again.

Then, as now, some people say they can glimpse the trolls when walking in the forest and fields, so it is prudent to be extra careful when one walks in nature, especially when it starts to get dark. You never know what is out there or what you may meet. Remember the trolls can see you!