Art by the amazing John Bauer
Most of you might have heard of these mythical creatures called Trolls. Some of you might even know that they come from the North, but very few of you will know that their country of origin is in fact Norway!
Most people think of trolls as evil, mischievous, dumb-witted, greedy and dangerous. And some trolls really are, but very far from all of them. You see, there are many species of trolls. The ones you have heard about are probably the mountain trolls, or “Bergtrollene” as we call them in Norway. The Mountain trolls are huge trolls living far away in the tall deserted mountain ranges, and very rarely do they come down from the mountains to interfere in the lives of humans.
The mountain trolls can be aggressive and they are very temperamental, if you ever encounter one you should do like Bilbo Baggins did in The Hobbit, you should play for time, because the mountain trolls burst in sunlight.
Art by the magical John Bauer
But there are some trolls, the forest trolls, or “Skogstrollene” as we say in Norway, who are not particularly dangerous. They do keep to themselves and do not like visits from humans, but they will not attack you if you should meet one of them. They are not exactly shy, they are just not so fond of humans, because in their opinion humans just bring ruin and decay with their machines, hotels and shopping malls. And you can’t blame they really, we have destroyed most of their habitat. In Norway though, the human population is still very small and the forests are vast and deep so there are still big clans of forest trolls dwelling in the deep evergreen forests.
The Forest trolls live peaceful lives. They like to live together in big family dwellings, and most of their time is spent fishing, playing, building things and looking at the stars.
Art by the wonderful Rolf Lidberg
There is a also a third type of troll called the marsh trolls or “Tussetrollene” in Norwegian. These trolls are tiny, not longer than your middle finger. They live on marshland in what we call in Norwegian as “Tusser”. Nobody knows much about these trolls, but we know that they are still there, and that they can live close to humans as there has been several sightings of these trolls. I have myself seen one once when I was seven years old. These trolls are very shy and even quite jumpy! They like cones and pine needles and little streams. That is what we know about the marsh trolls.
Art by the amazing John Bauer
In Norway we love our trolls very much! We make troll figurines to keep in our houses, we write books about trolls, we decorate our cities with statues of them, and we even have an amusement park dedicated to trolls!
You can see that there are trolls everywhere in Norway!
Even in the city!
If you ever should come to Norway, make sure you look for the trolls! It is very likely that you will meet them!
Images from Hunderfossen.no
These are photos from the Fairy Tale Amusement Park called Hunderfossen.
To know more about the park please visit: http://www.hunderfossen.no
Tales from the Fairies 