Also called Troll, Tusse, Jotnar (in older poetry).
The tale
Norwegian trolls live inside mountains or under bridges, huge, ugly, often many-headed and not very bright. They hoard gold, steal princesses and hate the sound of church bells. In one of Asbjørnsen and Moe's tales, a boy fools a troll into thinking he can squeeze water from a stone by squeezing a piece of cheese instead. Many troll stories end at sunrise, when a troll who has stayed out too late bursts or turns to stone, leaving the odd-shaped rocks you can still see in the landscape.
When they are met
- Christmas and Yule nights, when they roam
- Midsummer Eve
- at night, before sunrise
Staying on their good side
- none; tradition advises outwitting or avoiding them
- keeping a cross, steel or church bells near
- quick wits rather than force
Honouring them, or keeping safe
- Read the Norwegian folk tales of Asbjørnsen and Moe, such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff or The Boy Who Had an Eating Match with a Troll.
- Look for troll-shaped rocks on a walk and tell a story about how they were caught by the sun.
- Put a little steel, such as a pair of scissors, by the door in the long dark nights, as the old custom went.
- Use a troll tale to talk with children about beating bullies with cleverness.
What their tales teach
- the lesson that wit beats brute force
- respect for wild mountains
- courage in the dark
- knowing the limits of greed
Symbols
- a great nose and tangled hair
- stone that was once a troll
- church bells, which they hate
- gold hoarded under a mountain
Chiefly from 19th-century Norwegian and Swedish collections; the painter Theodor Kittelsen shaped how we picture them today.