Troll

“ So the Troll caught hold of him at once, and took him off into the cave in the face of the rock.
"Now, daughter dear," said the Troll, "I've caught the fellow who stole the silver ducks and my bed-quilt with gold and silver patches; put him into the fattening coop, and when he's fat we'll kill him, and make a feast for our friends." ”

“ And at last they do succeed—the fairy walls are breached, the fairy palace stormed—and the Trolls are crouching at their feet, and now all will be theirs, gold, jewels, dresses, arms, all that the Troll possesses—except his cunning.
For as each struggles into the charmed ground, the spell of the place falls on him. He drinks the wine, and it maddens him. ”

“ The Princess then settled with the soldier to do the same as her sisters had done. As soon as the troll was well asleep she would call the hens, and he must then make haste and come in and put an end to the troll.
All of a sudden they heard such a thundering, rambling noise, as if the walls and roof were tumbling in.
“Ugh! Ugh! I smell Christian blood and bone in my house,” said the troll, sniffing with all his nine noses.
“Yes, you never saw the like! Just now a raven flew past here and dropped a human bone down the chimney. ”

“ But in a trice out came the Troll.
"'WHO IS IT THAT STEALS MY LINDEN AND MY BIRD?' he roared, and was so angry that sparks of fire flashed from him.
"'Thieves think every man a thief,' said the king's son; 'but none are hanged but those who don't steal right.'
"But the Troll said it was all one, and was just going to smite him; but the lad said he must spare his life. ”

“ Again and again they break in: but the Trolls drive them out, rebuild their walls, keep off those outside by those whom they hold enslaved within; till the boys grow to be youths, and the youths men: and still the Troll-garden is not conquered, and still it shall be. And the Trolls have grown old and weak, and their walls are crumbling away. ”

“ Black jugglery and deception are practiced upon the poor dairy-maid in “The Troll Wedding” (Asbjörnsen, Huldreeventyr, I, p. 50. From Hadeland, told by a Signekjarring, a kind of wise woman or herb doctress) . Characteristic is the belief that troll magic and witchery may be nullified if a gun be fired over the place where it is supposed to be taking place. Then all reverts to its original form. Curious, also, is the belief that trolls like to turn into skeins of yarn when disturbed, and then roll swiftly away. ”

“ Thus armed, he takes service as a scullion in the palace; and on successive Thursday evenings he fights a five-, a ten-, and a fifteen-headed troll, to whom the princess has been promised, and slays them all. Lillekort and the trolls defy one another in a style leaving nothing to be desired. “Fire!” screamed the fifteen-headed troll. “Fire likewise!” shouted Lillekort. “Canst thou fight?” cried the troll. “If I cannot, I can learn,” retorted the undaunted hero. “I’ll learn thee!” cried the troll, and struck out with his iron bar so that the earth flew fifteen ells high in the air. ”

“ Some of the Trolls are very stupid, and there are many stories as to how they have been outwitted. One of them is very droll. A farmer ploughed a hill-side field. Out came a Troll and said, "What do you mean by ploughing up the roof of my house?" Then the farmer, being frightened, begged his pardon, but said it was a pity such a fine piece of land should lie idle. The Troll agreed to this, and then they struck a bargain that the farmer should till the land and that each of them should share the crops. ”

“ Then fast as the troll hammered underground, Helva prayed beside her lover, and the prayers of the maiden prevailed over the spell of the troll, for suddenly Esbern caught the sound of a troll-wife singing to her infant, bidding it be comforted, for that, on the morrow, Father Fine would return bringing a mortal’s eyes and heart. ”

“ When the old Troll heard that, he came in and begged and prayed so prettily that he might not be smitten to death.
"Well, you may live," said the lad, "but you shall undergo the same punishment you gave me;" and so he burned out the Troll's eyes, and turned him adrift on the sea in a little boat, but he had no lions to follow him.
Now the lad was all alone, and he went about longing and longing for the Princess; at last he could bear it no longer; he must set out to seek her, his heart was so bent on having her. So he loaded four ships and set sail for Arabia. ”

“ A troll had come to live on his farm.
Ordinarily a troll who selects a quiet place like a farm for his home is a peacefully inclined little man. [120] He wants nothing but a bowl of porridge set out for him on the cellar steps once in a while, and a chance to creep in the house and curl up in a chimney corner of a cold evening, winking and blinking at the fire with his one eye. When a troll gets into mischief about a place, it is a sure sign that something has been done to displease him. ”

“ And Lurulu who had sat angry all this while to hear that weighty troll speak ill of Earth, where he would have them come, to astonish them with its quaintness, spoke now in defence of Heaven.
"Heaven is a good place," he blurted hotly, though any tales he had heard of it were few.
"All the blessed are there," the grizzled troll replied, "and it is full of angels. What chance would a troll have there? The angels would catch him, for they say on Earth that the angels all have wings; they would catch a troll and smack him forever and ever."
And all the brown trolls in the forest wept. ”

“ On the third night a Troll came who had nine heads and nine rods, and he struck the lad and flogged him so long, that at last he swooned away; so the Troll took him up and flung him against the wall, and this made the flask of ointment fall down, and it splashed all over him, and he became as strong as ever again.
Then, without loss of time, he grasped the sword and struck the Troll dead, and in the morning when he went out of the castle the Princesses were standing there entirely out of the earth. So he took the youngest for his Queen, and lived with her very happily for a long time. ”

“ Sometimes they are one-eyed, and sometimes they have other characteristics that differentiate them from human beings. In fact, anything with supernatural qualities is apt to be called a troll. As a rule, it is impossible for human beings to cope with trolls except by outwitting them, which often is done. ”

“ For we are brothers of the Princess whom thou art to have when thou canst tell the King what we eat and drink, but there is a mighty Troll who has cast a spell over us. When thou hast cut off our heads, thou must take the greatest care to lay each head at the tail of the body to which it belonged before, and then the spell which the Troll has cast upon us will lose all its power.'
Cinderlad promised to do this, and then they went on farther. ”

“ Someone was approaching from the direction of the Market Place, keeping well under the broken walls of the houses fringing the narrow trottoir. Where an avalanche of tiles and brickwork had fallen, he must perforce skirt the obstacle, and thus for an instant be reflected in the glass. Meanwhile the sound of nearing footsteps—sometimes muffled in thick dust, or clicking over cobblestones, or tripping and stumbling among bricks and rubble—grew more distinct. The red-moustached giant could not walk so lightly. It must be the Troll—could be no one but the Troll! ”

“ At that the Middle-sized Billy Goat Gruff was in a great fright. “Oh, dear Mr Troll, good Mr Troll, please don’t eat me up! I have a brother that’s a great deal bigger than I am. Just wait till he comes along, for he’d make a much better meal for you than I would.” ”

“ The trolls, when they found themselves unable to catch him, cried after him in their exasperation: "The red cock shall crow over thy dwelling!" And behold! his house stood in a blaze. Similarly, a Swedish tradition relates that one of the serving-men of the lady of Liungby, in Scania, one night of Christmas in the year 1490, rode out to inquire the cause of the noise at the Magle stone. He found the trolls dancing and making merry. A fair troll-woman stepped forth and offered him a drinking-horn and a pipe, praying he would drink the troll-king's health and blow in the pipe. ”

“ The Troll must go with her on the way. Yes, the Troll would go with her, and he led out his Billygoat (for he had one that matched the princess's) , and he smeared it and greased it between the horns. And when the Troll got up, the companion crept on behind, and so off they set through the air to the king's grange. But all the way the companion thrashed the Troll and his Billygoat, and gave them cut and thrust and thrust and cut with his sword, till they got weaker and weaker, and at last were well on the way to sink down into the sea over which they passed. ”

“ Go on into a dark little room and lie down, and then the troll will come and beat you; but after that you must take the bottle that hangs on the wall, and anoint yourself where he has beaten you, and you will be whole again. And take the sword that hangs beside the bottle, and kill the troll with it.” He did as the princess had told him, passed between the lions as though he did not see them, and right into the little room, where he lay down. The first night a troll with three heads and three whips came, and beat the youth badly ”

“ The first thing that the troll set him to was to feed all the wild animals from the forest. These the troll had tied up, and there were both wolves and bears, deer and hares, which the troll had gathered in the stalls and folds in his stable down beneath the ground, and that stable was a mile long. The boy, however, accomplished all this work on that day, and the troll praised him and said that it was very well done.
Next morning the troll said to him, ‘To-day the animals are not to be fed; they don’t get the like of that every day. ”

“ He holds all this country—" the old man made a sweeping gesture with his arm—"all the way to Jersey."
"Why was he looking for me? What makes me important?"
"You came from the Forbidden Place. Everyone heard the cries of the Lesser Troll that stands guard over the treasure there. If the Baron can learn your secrets of power—"
"Troll, hell! That's nothing but a Bolo on automatic!"
"By any name every man dreads the monster. A man who walks in its shadow has much mana. But the others—the ones that run in a pack like dogs—would tear you to pieces for a demon if they could lay hands on you." ”

“ The troll-man puts a human figure on a young tree, mutters certain dire spells by the devil’s aid, and then drives a sharp instrument into the eye of the figure, thus blinding its representative. Or he will shoot with an arrow or bullet at one of the members of the figure, thus entailing wounds and sores on the corresponding limbs of the living person. ”

“ Then they went to the raven, and he took them both on his back, and carried them off the hill troll's house.
"And when the old troll saw his baby, he was so glad he was beside himself, and told Boots he might come indoors and take whatever he chose, because he had freed his child. Then they offered him both gold and silver, and all that was rare and costly; but the lad said he would rather have a horse than anything else. Yes, he should have a horse, the troll said, and off they went to the stable. It was full of the grandest horses, whose coats shone like the sun and moon ”

“ He had scarce hewn three strokes at the fir, before the Troll came to him too, and said:
“If you hew in this wood of mine, I’ll kill you.”
The lad dared not so much as look at him, but threw down the axe, took to his heels, and came scampering home just like his brother. So when he got home, his father was angry again, and said no Troll had ever scared him when he was young.
The third day Boots wanted to set off.
“You, indeed!” said the two elder brothers; “you’ll do it bravely, no doubt! you, who have scarce ever set your foot out of the door.” ”

“ Said the Mountain, ‘I think you had best run away.’
The Troll said, ‘You suffer, old boss, from the blues.’
The Mountain retorted, ‘I may if I choose.’
‘Ah, that,’ cried the Troll, ‘is effect of the liver.’
‘Take care,’ quoth the Hill, ‘or I’ll give you the shiver.’
‘By my cap and its feather,’ the Spirit replies,
‘You’ll be getting too portly without exercise.’
‘You pert little fly,’ said the Rock in a rage,
‘I will teach you to chaff at a hill of my age.’
So he jump’d up to punish the impudent Fay,
Who wisely retorted by running away ”

“ From the Troll cap he received such power that he could take a sack of rye under each arm and a barrel of fish upon his back, and fly as lightly through the air as with no burden whatever.
“It was wrong of me and hard on the merchants,” said Johan, “but it was the fault of the Trolls. If there were no Trolls in the world the merchants would become rich, but now they must pay tribute, and so are kept on the verge of bankruptcy.” And Johan was done. ”

“ It is quite impossible to characterize trolls in detail with unqualified words or phrases. They are usually malignant, though there are instances of their doing men a good turn. They are always very powerful, and are usually very large. It is told of one troll that, had she not made a misstep, she would have succeeded in wading from Norway to Iceland ”

“ Now I must fight for my very life, for the troll with six heads is twice as strong as the first [141] one; but see that you take care of the leaf and keep it carefully!”
At once the troll came rushing up. “Who has touched my forest?” cried he. “The forest is as much mine as yours!” cried the bull. “Oho, we’ll see if it is!” cried the troll. “That suits me!” said the bull, and rushed on the troll, gored him, and thrust his horns right through him. But the troll was just as strong, and it took three whole days before the bull got the better of him. ”