All About NorwegianTrolls!

Common Characteristics of Trolls:

Dirty

Ugly

Nasty

Mean

Selfish

Smelly

Other Interesting Facts About Trolls:

Trolls serve as a good example to children of what not to be.

Come in all sizes and shapes - can be huge giants or small dwarfs

Often thought of as a giant or monster, often represented with a very long nose or even with two or more heads (often 3, 6 or 12 heads!) Some fairytales in Norway depict 3 trolls who share 1 eye!

Trolls have tails looking like a cow tail.

They can be brutal but are stupid and easy to fool.

Can be good or bad; male or female

Very often live far out in the wild nature, in mountains, forests or the ocean

Vicious trouble-makers

Cannot exist in the sunlight, therefore their activity is limited to the night or dark places where the sun cannot reach.

They can 'explode' if they are in bright sunshine!

Trolls hate people and see them as trespassers, so, everything in nature has a troll - the rocks, lakes, trees, hills caves, manmade structures.

The troll is said to guard all of these places and bring harm to those who enter. However, the next time something unpleasant happens to you - think about it....can you really blame a troll or where you just careless about what you were doing or where you were going?

Trolls can do good things even thought their intent may be bad.

Fossergrimen Troll - the troll of music. Fossergrimen will pull and twist the fingers of a sleeping child to try and hurt him. He pulls hard and the child tries to wake up, but he can't. If you wake from a night of very restless sleep to find that piano practice is now easy and that you play very well, Fossergrimen probably paid you a visit that night.

Tan-Verk-Trollet - the toothache troll - If you have forgotten to brush your teeth, Tan-Verk-Trollet will come and chisel a hole in your tooth and make his home there.

Har-Lugg-Trollet - this troll will tie knots in hair of children who don't like to wash their hair or keep it neat.

Bridge Troll - this troll takes control of a bridge just so he can live under it. Although he may never walk over it he doesn't want anyone else to use it.

Nokken - these trolls live in ponds, lakes and rivers. They steal bait from fisherman's hooks and pull children into deep water to drown them.

Draugen - this is the sea troll who through his teasing, causes many sailors to take chances and therefore meet their doom.

Huldra - a lady troll who has a long tail and is very ugly. She tricks handsome young men by putting on her magic cap, which makes her look like a beautiful woman. Although she appears beautiful on the outside, inside she is still a mean, nasty troll. If the man looks only at the pretty face and pays no attention to the girl's character he can be fooled into marrying her. If she marries in a Christian church it is said that her tail will drop off and she will remain beautiful. However, she will undoubtedly make her huspand miserable; which he deserves for marrying just a pretty face.

Tomte-Gubben - this troll never takes a bath, never combs his hair or beardk, and never brushes his teeth. His clothes come from a garbage dump so he is ugly and smells terrible. He wants to dance with the girls but sometimes he can't tell the difference between a girl and a scarecrow and he dances the scarecrow around until it falls to pieces. Imagine how a girl would feel if she gets tricked into dancing with him. Any girl so unfortunate is also the target of nasty comments from other people because she danced with the Tomte-Gubben.

There is a famous painting of a troll, painted by Theodore Kittelsen, entitled "The troll who is pondering on how old he is"