Modern trolls lurk about social media, harassing and antagonizing, disguising their identity
and hiding in the dark edges of the internet… the namesake of this bad behavior makes more
sense when you learn all about the early tales and evolution of this creature.
A Nordic creature based in Scandinavian legend, many trolls appear in the Icelandic sagas.
And originally, the troll was less a certain type of monster and more a term used to refer
to a variety of monsters.
It was more about what a creature did that made it a troll—not its appearance.
A lot like our modern day trolls.
[Monstrum intro.]
Before the 19th century, ‘troll’ was a massively broad term.
Part of the reason it’s so hard to define a troll is that we still aren’t even sure
how the word developed or its original meaning.
The word ‘troll’ in Old Norse-Icelandic could have indicated huge creatures, giants,
and Titans but most likely just meant some kind of ‘magical being.”
In Old Norse, it even has two forms and both have a myriad of meanings—but all indicate
malevolence.
While in modern-day stories, trolls are typically portrayed as lacking intelligence, but ancient
trolls were actually quite clever.
The earliest stories of trolls date back to 1220–1230 CE.
In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda we find—Bragi the Old, a fictional counterpart
of a human poet of the same name who lived in Norway during the late ninth century and
who had a chance encounter with a female troll.
Bragi came across the troll while driving some kind of sled or wagon through
the forest at night.
Instead of greeting the man with threats of violence—she introduces herself in a poetic
voice as “moon of the dwelling-Rungnir, giant’s wealth-sucker, storm-sun’s bale,
seeress’s friendly companion, guardian of corpse-fjord, swallower of heaven wheel.”
The poet responds with his own introduction and the encounter ends.
By letting the troll speak first and mirroring her speech, the poet shows deference to the
troll, indicating he recognizes the land as hers.
From her introduction we learn a few things: she’s wealthy, practices magic, and can
bring about death and destruction.
These traits would form the backbone of troll mythos.
This is just one troll tale of many.
It should be stressed that ancient trolls weren’t a clearly defined being . In their
earliest appearances in folklore and legends, a troll was an evil paranormal being that
occupied the space outside of civilization and posed a threat to the living things within
it.
Trolls often lurked at the boundaries of the community—as beings who inhabited areas
away from the farms and communal spaces of humans.
Their presence marked danger and often death.
They were anti-social creatures that could be any kind of monster from witches to vampires,
possessed animals to ghosts.
They could be large giants or diminutive elves, were often skilled at magic, hoarded gold
and other treasures, and were incredibly strong.
Perhaps because of the early Braggi example—and the general belief that women were more skilled
at magic, female trolls are considered particularly evil.
Another saga [Arrow-Oddr’s Saga] describes the female troll Ogmundr as”the greatest
troll and monster ever born in the northern regions of the world.”
This troll has a human head, fangs, a tail, and talons.
She appears to be a more than proficient fighter, wielding dual blades and taking out sixty
men with surprising speed.
She is defeated only with a magic shirt and dwarf-made arrow.
Troll appearances in early 13th-century literature add to the mutability of the creature.
Sometimes they were said to be smaller than most children.
In other accounts, they could shapeshift into animals and trees as well as nonliving objects.
Trolls don’t have to be humanoid.
In the late-13th century poem, “The Sybil’s Prophecy” (Völuspá), which was likely
recorded even earlier, a wolf is described as “the chewer of the moon in the guise
of a troll.”
Trolls can appear individually, or in groups.
Like when in another Old Norse saga [Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar] two men of a king’s retinue
stumble upon a mountain cave with a group of trolls around a fire.
The trolls are discussing their fears that the king will attack their homes and drive
them away--threatening the families and cultures they are trying to protect.
But still, the narrator of the story calls them “demons.”
Again, this seems to be the general basis for calling something a troll—the threat
of violence.
As one 13th century poet writes “not much is worse than trolls.”
Since the publication of the sagas in the Middle Ages, trolls have lingered in the popular
imagination, most notably in the Scandinavian countries.
Medieval Norwegian law even recognized the existence of trolls.
Between the 12th and 14th centuries, laws made it illegal to “[sit] outside to awaken
trolls in order to perform heathenism” or to call someone a troll or a witch.
often, Medieval trolls are threatening.
In part because trolls marked the outside boundary of the rural community—beings who
lived away from the farm and communal spaces humans inhabited aka so-called “wild”
creatures.
In addition to their tendencies to steal objects and land another bit of famous troll lore
is their penchant for stealing people.
Trolls usually kidnap female victims, likely because Nordic beliefs of the time were that
at certain periods in a woman’s life, during childbirth or right after it, they were considered
“outside” of the Church and therefore more vulnerable.
But men weren’t necessarily safe.
In a 14th century saga a young man is kidnapped by a hideous female troll.
She is as small as a child but incredibly stout, with a long face, crooked nose, black
hair—and a black skull.
The man must kiss her, despite her dripping nose.
When he wakes up in her bed, he is surprised to see his beautiful fiancé lying next to
him—her “troll woman skin” at the foot of the bed.
The woman’s stepmother had turned her into a troll with a curse—but her fiancé’s
kiss broke the spell.
And yes—the story seemed familiar to me too.
It seems like Shrek has some grounding in ancient Nordic tradition.
These early troll tales laid the foundation, but the 16th century saw the biggest change
in troll folklore.
The mid-16th century marks the religious Reformation of Scandinavia—when Lutheranism became the
dominant religion.
During this period of religious focus, trolls were associated less with the supernatural
and more with the Devil although that connection would fade with time (and a waning belief
in witches).
In an attempt to quell the legends of trolls and other supernatural creatures, a collection
of Christian hymns was published in Iceland, hoping to replace the pagen notions with formalized
religion.
The text’s [Sálmabók] introduction states that the “unprofitable songs of trolls and
of the [pagan] peoples of old” are in the service of the Devil and are of a “Heathen”
tradition.
This post-Reformation period is also when we see more stories about trolls who wish
to convert to Christianity.
In Scandinavian, and Irish tradition as well, fairy and elf lore includes stories of the
fae going to mass and participating in Christian rituals.
Trolls could become Christians.
Even a malevolent beast can be reformed.
One Icelandic folktale “Goldbrow and Skeggi in Hvammur” tells of a greedy and evil troll
named Gullbrá.
Having set her sights on a particular parcel of land, she uses witchcraft to appear as
a young and beautiful woman and tricks a man into selling the land of his bedridden boss,
Auður [Atha], a well-known female settler and political leader —who also just so happens
to be one of the few Christians in the overwhelmingly pagan country.
The troll builds a pagan temple on the land Auður intended to preserve as sacred space.
But Gullbrá’s success is short-lived.
Driven off the land, Gullbra’s attempts to flee with her gold, blindfolding herself
to avoid looking at the crosses that would forbid her from leaving.
But when her treasure tumbles the greedy monster hastily rips off her blindfold, and in doing
so is exposed to the crosses.
Her eyes are horrifically burned.
She escapes but dies from the wounds.
But death is no burden for our good lady-troll.
She rises as a ghost, killing animals and a couple humans, behavior behavior a famous
Nordic pagan Skeggi aattempts to stop—his first battle against the troll is unsuccessful
and a few days later, he tries again, this time He defeats the troll and takes her gold
but is gravely injured.
.. On his deathbed, Skeggi asks that part of the treasure is used to build a church
because the pagan gods did not help him in his time of need, but the Christian god did,
by turning the troll to stone.
Despite their pagan association and malevolent reputation, trolls came to be known for building
churches.
In a 1654 account (Jens Lauritzon Wolf’s Encomion regni Daniae) of the construction
of Lund Cathedral by St. Lawrence, a troll offers his services—on the condition that
he would be paid with the sun and the moon, or the eyes of the saint, unless St. Lawrence
could guess his name.
Surprisingly, the deal was struck.
The lucky saint overhears the troll’s wife say the builder’s name—Finn.
Upon hearing his name uttered, the troll grasps one of the church’s foundational stone pillars
and tries to topple the building.
The saint averts the collapse by transforming the troll, his wife, and their child to stone--just
like God had done to Gullbra.
If you go to Lund Cathedral in Sweden today, you can see a giant figure carved into the
stone—although scholars now identify the carving as the Biblical Samson.
Given that St. Lawrence was martyred in Rome centuries before Christianity reached Sweden,
and you know, the whole troll thing, this story was likely fabricated to give local
context to the unusual carving.
Legends of similarly greedy troll church builders exist in Denmark and Norway as well.
If you ask me, I believe that the troll as builder legend was a way to keep ancient Nordic
influences alive post-Christianity when stories were introduced to try and reshape pagen and
ancient traditions.
If I’ve learned anything from my research for ‘Monstrum’ it’s that cultures will
try to keep nods and winks to their ancient monsters—despite all the odds.
Other support for this theory is found in an ancient Nordic myth about the building
of a wall or palace around Asgard, the home of the gods.
The man who takes on the task asks for a payment of the sun and the moon--and the goddess Freya.
Luckily for her, the man is tricked by the God of Mischief, Loki, into not completing
the task by the assigned time.
In his rage the man began smashing the stones around him—revealing himself to be a giant—a
foe of the Nordic gods.
The Thunder God Thor kills the giant with his hammer.
Like many ancient beliefs Troll legends began to fade as science progressed and formal education
became commonplace —that is until the folklore fascination of the 19th century.
The Famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen included a princess taking a troll lover in
his first-ever published fairy-tale in 1830 (“The Dead Man”), marking the troll’s
entrance into fantasy literature.
In 1852, the “T-R-O-L-L” spelling appears in English for the first time in Benjamin
Thorpe’s Scandinavian Popular Traditions and Superstitions.
And around that time, troll illustrations began to accompany folklore and fairy tales,
giving us some of the first and lasting ideas of a troll’s appearance.
The very first illustration, sketched by Johan Fredrik Eckersberg in 1850 [for Asbjørnsen’s
book] is a hairy, ugly, bearded, troll with a large nose— and honestly, that’s a foundational
image we still draw from.
That same book, by Norwegian folklorist Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, is the first publication
of the ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff” story, where a long-nosed troll tries to eat three
goats as they cross a bridge before being defeated by the third and largest billy goat—a
story that lives on today.
Another Norwegian illustrator, Theodor Kittelsen, produced some of the most influential (and
striking) images of trolls in the later part of the 19th century.
His trolls vary in size and appearance, but their bodies always blur and blend with their
surroundings—implying that the border of the supernatural and natural are nebulous,
and perhaps giving a little nod to their one-time shapeshifting capabilities.
The middle of the century also marked the first time trolls were taxonomized into their
own “monster” category.
The first written collection of Icelandic folktales was published by Jón Árnason and
Magnús Grímsson in 1852 (Icelandic Adventure Tales/Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýri].
Árnason, like many other folklorists of the century, was influenced by the scientific
classification system that was on the rise; they attempted to divide the supernatural
into ‘species’ and categories.
He essentially divided elves, trolls, ghosts, and other monsters into their own categories
when before there had been greater overlap, especially when it came to refer to a supernatural
or evil creature as a “troll.”
In 1867, famous playwright Henrik Ibsen featured trolls in Peer Gynt [Gint], and invented a
new aspect of troll lore——the troll king.
First performed in 1876 the play would become Norway’s most performed play of all time.
Even today there is a Peer [Gint] festival every year.
At the turn of the century, 19th century fairy tale trolls moved to novels— notably into
science fiction and fantasy.
In the 1950s, J.R.R.
Tolkien really delivered on the troll.
In The Hobbit and his Lord of the Rings series, one of the most successful literary series
of all time, Tolkien includes warrior trolls, stone-trolls, hill-trolls, cave-trolls, and
mountain-trolls.
And fun fact: in the Norwegian translation of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Wizard
is called ‘the troll-man’ (trollmannen).
Given that Tolkien was both an Old English and Old Norse scholar, I think he’d be pretty
chuffed about that.
The fantasy table-top game Dungeons & Dragons released in 1974 included the troll as one
of its first monsters—further solidifying the image of a green-skinned troll in the
fantasy genre.
We also can’t talk about modern trolls without talking about Troll Dolls.
Yes, those odd, child-like figurines with jewel belly buttons.
While the exact origins of the first troll doll are somewhat dubious, it is generally
believed Thomas Dam carved the first wooden troll doll in Denmark in the 1940s post World
War II.
The dolls became locally popular and eventually, Dam was commissioned to carve a Santa Claus
for a Swedish department store.
The display also included elf troll dolls.
Long story short, everyone loved the little things and in 1961 he mass-produced the crazy-haired,
plastic version we now know and love—or find inherently creepy if you were me as a
child.
The immensely popular 2016 animated movie inspired by the dolls introduced a whole new
generation of parents and children to the creatures—and made trolls popular again.
But today, trolls aren’t always so fun and colorful.
They appear in horror literature and film often as threatening monsters and as a manifestation
of foreignness.
1986’s Troll horror-comedy follows a fairy who was forcefully transformed into a troll
as he uses magic to try and eliminate all humans by turning them into mythical creatures.
The 2010’s Norwegian film Trollhunter, alludes to many of the old legends [billy goat bridge
scene] in a modernist retelling where trolls have been forced to hide in the woods by the
Norwegian government.
In 2018’s fantasy romance Border, trolls live among humans, ostracized for their looks,
behavior, and intersexuality.
From Nordic sagas to Medieval law to those ugly little dolls, and of course, hateful
online Internet users who lurk in comments—trolls have been around for more than a thousand
years.
While they haven’t always looked the same, the malleability of their original monstrosity
has allowed them
to endure.