Trolls trolls trolls

^Whatta hunk!
Trolls are one of the most widely known mythical creature of Norway! You can often find little figurines of trolls in Norwegian homes (even my fairy-tale lacking home has one!)

This one is known as a lykketroll or råkketroll/rokketroll. A good luck troll, they’re similar to the well known Danish toy trolls, Good Luck Trolls made by Thomas Dam, who came up with the idea to make friendly trolls unlike the typical mean spirited ones of Scandinavian lore. The first Good Luck Trolls were made in a tiny village in northern Denmark, but spread quickly, I even had one in the 90’s. These trolls are usually nothing more than a small figurine meant to bring good luck or to be a child’s toy.
One of the most widely recognized things relating to trolls is “Hall of the Mountain King”, or “I Dovregubbens Hall” in Norwegian. I can almost guarantee you have heard the song before:
In the Hall of the Mountain King (I Dovregubbens Hall)
Hopefully the link works.
The English title is not a literal translation, “gubben” is an old Norwegian word for “man” or “husband”. In the play of Peer Gynt (which is another Norwegian novelty that I will go in depth on in another post) Dovregubben is a troll king that Peer invents in a fantasy.
“For the Hall of the Mountain King I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism and ‘to-thyself-be-enough-ness’ that I can’t bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt.”- Edvard Grieg writing on the scene. (Peer Gynt is Henerik Ibsen’s play)
Dovre is also a troll mountain, which isn’t very uncommon in Norway. Dovre is a mountain in the center of Norway.
It is easy to drive and find areas named for trolls, in June 2015 I took a cross-country trip from Oslo to Ålesund and on the way stopped at Trollstigen, well, drove up the eleven hairpin turns to get the gorgeous view at the top!

Translated “trollstigen” comes to mean “trolls path”. There is also Trolltunga, “Troll’s tongue” out on the western side of Norway, I have yet to go there but will hopefully make that trip!
Trolls have been a constant theme in Norwegian media, recently the king (King Harald) made a joke about his wife (the queen) being a troll. Trolls have been featured in movies and stories, with Espen Askeladden’s encounters of trolls being passed down for generations. One of the stories goes like this:
There was an old man who had three sons, Per, Pål, Espen Askeladden, and they lived on a farm. The old man sent his oldest son into the forest to chop down trees for wood. Per walked into the forest with his head held high, but there was a troll in the forest who scared him out. The old man sent his second son, Pål, to gather wood from the forest but just like his brother he too was scared out of the woods by the troll. With his two biggest and strong sons too scared to go back in the old man’s youngest son, Espen, said he would go into the woods. Knowing he would get hungry Espen packed a knapsack and went bravely into the forest. He walked and walked until he found the spot that he could being chopping down trees, but before he started the troll saw him! The troll grabbed him and took him to his cave, with every intent to eat him. Espen, knowing he was going to be dinner decided to challenge the troll.
“Look here! We should have an eating contest! Whoever stops eating and is full first loses.” He said.
The troll, not wanting to miss the opportunity for his dinner to fatten itself up, agreed with enthusiasm. Espen turned so the troll couldn’t see, and put his knapsack onto his chest under his sweater. And the eating contest was on! Espen put the food into the knapsack, and when that was full he sat back and exclaimed, “Oh! I am so full! Give me a moment? I am not done yet!”
Th troll, being polite (which is unusual for trolls) sat back and watched. Espen took out his knife and plunged it into the knapsack and dragged it down, letting all the grøt he had put in there fall out. The troll was shocked.
“Are you sure that works? Does that not hurt?” he asked.
“It’s totally fine! I’m ready to continue now.” Espen assured him. The troll was starting to feel full himself and decided he too would do as Espen had done. He took his own knife and plunged it into his belly and dragged down, just as he had seen Espen do.
Once the troll was dead Espen went and took all the gold and silver the troll had collected from the people he had scared out of the forest (or eaten), and he returned home to his father and brothers.
The End.
(very child friendly, as you can see, told to me by Øyvind and then embellished slightly by me)
In more modern times there have been movies on the trolls, such as “Troll hunter”

In this found footage movie they encounter four different types of trolls, but they only identified three of them. Upon further reading though I was able to find the names of all the trolls, though these names are made up for the movie. More commonly you will just find trolls called trolls and then described. For example, “I saw a troll with three heads!”
The first troll seen in the movie has exactly that, three heads!

Here the troll hunter is turning the troll to stone. They called this one a “Tusseladd”. It grew two additional heads to appear more powerful. Now you may wonder why he is turning to stone. Trolls cannot come into contact with sunlight or they will turn to stone! Which is good news for the summer months in Norway because no trolls would go out, all the more reason to love the summer!
The next troll was called a “Raglefant”, he had fish teeth and was quite evil (as trolls usually are).

This one was hiding under a bridge and eating all who attempted to cross it. Much like the story of the “Three Billy Goats Gruff” (read the story here). Growing up I always heard stories about trolls living under bridges and demanding payment or they would eat you, which is a popular theme among the troll stories of Norway.
Another troll encountered was the Dovregubber, the mountain kings.
Which I mentioned a bit earlier. Here the movie brought up a common thing that is associated with trolls. They can smell Christian blood. When I went to Bergen there was a place called “Troll forest”

And here they had the line that every troll says when they smell that wonderful blood of a Christian:

“Tvi tvi, her lukter Kristenmannsblod” which translated sounds like “Tvi tvi I smell the blood of a Christian!” Very similar to the phrase I always knew giants to say, “Fi fie fo fum I smell the blood of an Englishman!” Which brings the question if the giant in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ was actually a troll. Hmmm. Why do trolls hate Christians though? Could it be that the writers who brought them to life resented the rise of Christianity? Or were trolls once feared/revered as monsters but due to the rise of Christianity they were starting to be forgotten? Who knows, but they sure can smell those Christians!

Speaking of pagan gods…They saved the biggest, baddest troll for last. They journeyed up to the north into Jotunheimen, where this Jotne was.  Jotunheimen was named after the Norse mythology world, Jötunheimr. Jötunheimr was the homeland of the Jötnar, or Jotun aka: Frost Giants. The place was one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, but the story of their world is to be saved for a post on Norse mythology. These are also considered trolls, and they often battled with the Norse gods such as Thor.  One of the interesting things about Jotunheimen is that you will often come across shipping containers, such as this one:

In the movie they had tires in these containers, as trolls love to eat them. This could also explain the phenomenon of tires being randomly found all over the country, just abandoned without explanation.
Trolls will most likely remain a central part of Norwegian Folklore for years to come, though the palpable belief in them may not be the way it was generations ago the love of trolls is very real.
To end my longest post I’ll add a picture I stumbled across some years ago:

I cannot find the original creator of it or the origin but it is one of my favored troll pictures!
(Also a big thanks to Nøkk for his help, from watching Trolljegeren for the twentieth time to helping with translations/revelations of more troll related materials/leads)