We all have a somewhat good idea of what trolls are—no, not the internet type. I’m referring to the dim-witted, cave-dwelling, treasure-hoarding trolls. Those ones. That’s what most of us think of, barring the occasional outlier of small, rotund, kind creatures. I’m looking at you, Frozen. Never mind that whole troll doll fad—I don’t even know what to make of that.
It seems like we can’t decide what they are—whether they’re brutish and cruel, or small and quaint. If it makes you feel better, neither could Scandinavia. John Lindow, a professor of Scandinavian Medieval Studies and Folklore at the University of California, Berkley, suggests that “troll” can be a sort of catch-all term for magical creatures*, much like fairies in Celtic mythology. This certainly explains why some folktales feature “trolls” that really aren’t troll-like at all. Some Scandinavian mythological creatures that have fallen under the “troll” term include jötnar (giants), dwarves, völva (shamanesses), ghosts, berserker warriors, and—wait for it—trolls (like real, actual, bona fide trolls). Well, then.
I’d argue that “trolls-proper” are different from “trolls-other”. Völva and berserker warriors are decidedly human but operate in supernatural powers. Ghosts fall in more closely with the Scandinavian mythologies around draugr (or Viking zombies, if you will) than with trolls. The distinction for Jötnar and dwarves is that they seem to have better relations with humans and gods than trolls do. Several jötnar actually marry into the Norse pantheon. In some versions, the god Loki was sometimes a Jötunn who became a god.**
In researching Scandinavian stories that feature trolls, I noticed that as time progressed, they deviated from being part of this catch-all term and became more and more like trolls as we know them today. Myths from the Viking Age are a little more ambiguous compared to folktales that come later.
From these later tales, the noticeable trends were as follows: trolls tend to live away from humans and hoard treasure. Typically, they are solitary, but sometimes they live in small family groups. There are exceptions to this—we see in Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, an adaptation of a folktale of a similar name, that there is a Troll King, complete with a troll court.
For whatever reason, trolls seem to be attracted to human women. But when they haven’t kidnapped a beautiful princess to forcibly try to marry her, they’re trying to eat the humans that they’ve caught. However, these trolls also demonstrate that they aren’t particularly clever, as they can be outwitted easily. Protagonists in these tales have tricked trolls into doing everything from setting their own captives free, to slicing their own stomachs open, and in one tale, unwittingly cannibalizing each other. A lot of tales also end when the troll has been kept outside long enough for the sun to rise where said troll will either explode or turn to stone from exposure to sunlight. In Scandinavia, if a large geographic feature has the word “troll” as part of its name, it means it was once believed to have been a troll before being exposed to the sun.
It would seem a lot of these later tales are the ones that have influenced our perceptions of trolls. Trolls are depicted in many fantasy fiction novels or fantasy games, but the more mystical and magical perceptions of “trolls-other” can still be seen in the movies and toys that feature them as cute little burrow-dwelling creatures.
And well, there are also the internet kind. But that’s a whole other beast.
*Not to be confused with vættir, a Norse mythological concept which also refers to all magical creatures. The distinction being, as far as I can tell, that vættir refers to spirits, whereas trolls are physical creatures. But the gods are considered vættir, and even though they can have physical form, they don’t count as trolls. And trying keep this straight makes me want to smash my face into my keyboard.
**Side note: Sorry, Marvel, but Loki and Thor are not brothers. If anything, Loki is technically Thor’s uncle through a blood oath he made with Odin. As much as I love you, do your research.
