{"id":7957,"date":"2016-04-26T15:19:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T21:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7957"},"modified":"2016-04-26T16:07:21","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T22:07:21","slug":"trolls-through-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7957","title":{"rendered":"Trolls through Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"troll.jpg\"

Storybook troll by the Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen, c. 1900.<\/p><\/div>\n

Translating the Chanson de Roland<\/em> <\/a>\u2014 the epic poem about Charlemagne’s campaign against the Muslims in Spain in 778 \u2014 for a Norse audience,((In Norse,\u00a0Karlamagn\u00fas saga.<\/em>)) the Norse poet describes one Muslim emir thus: “The man was full of magic and sorcery and fraud and would be called a troll if he were to come up here to the northern part of the world” (33).<\/p>\n

And you thought trolls lived under bridges<\/a>? And how did we get from that to ugly-cute plastic dolls<\/a> and Moomintroll<\/a>?<\/p>\n

“Troll” is an elusive category, but John Lindow does his best to sort it out historically and thematically in Trolls: An Unnatural History<\/a><\/em>\"\" (160 pp.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"This short but well-researched book tells how troll<\/em> in the old sagas overlapped with giant<\/em>, witch, land-wight (landvaettir)<\/em> and people<\/em> \u2014 not just fierce warrirors but shape-shifters, Saami shamans, and even Greenland Inuit, whose lifeways seemed so unusual to the Norse settlers there (43).<\/p>\n

One 14th-century saga describes trolls encountered in Helluland,<\/em> usually taken to mean Baffin Island<\/a> in the Canadian Arctic (35). Were these indigenous trolls?<\/p>\n

To “give someone to the trolls” meant to kill them.<\/p>\n

The word’s origin is uncertain. It might have come from verbs meaning “to enchant” or “to tread” or “rush away,” with Lindow himself leaning towards an origin connected with magic.((In the Norwegian translation of Lord of the Rings<\/em>, Gandalf is a trollmannen<\/em> (51).)) It was “an all-purpose word for supernatural beings” (51).<\/p>\n

A troll transformation occurred in the 19th century with the rising interest in folklore-collecting. Still huge, trolls were depicted affectionately by a variety of Scandinavian artists.<\/p>\n

Trolls (by that name) entered in the English-speaking world only in the 1850s, notably in George Webbe Dasent’s Popular Tales from the Norse<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, published in 1859, which familiarized Anglosphere children with the Three Billy Goats Gruff <\/a>(100).<\/p>\n

The movie Trollhunter<\/em><\/a> (which is a lot of fun) invokes and tweaks all the old images \u2014 giants, bridges, goats, hostility to Christianity. In Lindow’s opinion, it is the best modern troll-flick. “Trolls have some way to go before they catch up with zombies, but they are certainly a presence in film and media” (122).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Translating the Chanson de Roland \u2014 the epic poem about Charlemagne’s campaign against the Muslims in Spain in 778 \u2014 for a Norse audience,((In Norse,\u00a0Karlamagn\u00fas saga.)) the Norse poet describes one Muslim emir thus: “The man was full of magic and sorcery and fraud and would be called a troll if he were to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[57,134,175,280],"class_list":["post-7957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-norse","tag-norway","tag-trolls"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-24l","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8334,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8334","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":0},"title":"Jared Diamond Was Wrong\u2014The Greenland Norse Adapted","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A new article in the journal Science refutes Jared Diamond's claim that the 400-year-old Norse colony in Greenland failed because its habitants failed to adapt to the land. Diamond's thesis in his book\u00a0Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed was that the Norse made bad ecological decisions. As one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greenland\"","block_context":{"text":"Greenland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greenland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencemag.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/inline__699w__no_aspect\/public\/viking_goods.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4766,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4766","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":1},"title":"The Norse on Baffin Island","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist discusses evidence of a Norse presence on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and whether the people who were there were seasonal trappers or trying to establish a year-round settlement.\u00a0 Remains of Old World rats are indicative. So what we have here is High Medieval Christian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7884,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7884","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":2},"title":"New Norse Site in Newfoundland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The discovery of Norse ruins at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, in 1960 proved once and for all that the sagas were right: settlers from Iceland and\/or Greenland came to North America. Now a new discovery on the other side of the island suggests even more of a Norse presence. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5295,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5295","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":3},"title":"Archaeologists Find Secret to Norse Sunstone?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This might be one of those \"But we already knew that!\" deals, but French archaeologists think that they have an actual example in hand of a \"sunstone,\" said to be used by the Norse to navigate in cloudy weather. This one, however, comes from a Tudor-era shipwreck. Same principle though.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11332,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11332","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":4},"title":"From Viking Re-enactor to Practitioner","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"At the BBC, a short video with a man who started doing re-enactments and ended up adopting Norse religion. Fighting with the Wuffa Viking and Saxon Re-enactment Society, he did not expect that his hobby of more than three years would help him find his own belief through Norse mythology.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8471,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8471","url_meta":{"origin":7957,"position":5},"title":"Old Norse Sounds Better in Wyoming","author":"Chas S. 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