The Genre of Trolls - Doria

The home and the forest are the principal scenes of children’s encounters
with the supranormal. Beginning with the latter, no explanation for the
sojourn in the wilds is given in two cases (Hembygden 1910: 145; SLS 280:
295), while the child accompanies its mother on a leaf-collecting expedition
in another (R II 325). These children have unconsciously crossed the boundary
to the otherworld, and they are abducted by the troll. Abduction is
likewise a motive when the troll intrudes upon the human sphere (R II 338;
SLS 280: 375). A female troll comes to take the child with her to the supranormal
realm, but as the godmother of the little girl she has promised to
provide for her when her parents are poverty-stricken, and her action is
thus legitimate (SLS 22, 21). The situation is more complicated in another
text, narrated by the shoemaker Anders Westerlund, and collected by an
anonymous student sometime before 1882:
He va eingang in konung som fånga eit bärgtrull o to bygd an eit (?) hus i trägåln sin o
tid lá an trölli. Konunjin sá to åt all, att an som sku släpp ut hede trulli vem he o sku
vara så sku an döden dö. O nån tíd baket fór konungen bort på ein reisu. Men so hadd
konunjin o drottninjin hans en pojk o hande leikt ein da i trägåln o kasta bolln sín åt
hede (?) tatje tär trölli va, för he va så brant o passlit ti ta lyru. To titta trulli út jinon
gallre o byrja tala me konunjinas pojtjin o bá att án sku släpp út an. Men pojtjin svara
att an omöjlit int trössa göra he, fö pappa ha sakt att han som släpper ut trölli ska döden
dö. Men trölli huld på me pojtjin å lova att om an sku släpp an so sku an stå an allti bi.
(SLS 1, 3:14–15)
Once upon a time there was a king who captured a hill troll, and then he built a house
in his garden, and in this [house] he placed the troll. The king told everyone that anyone
who released the troll, whoever he might be, would die. But the king and his queen
had a boy, and one day he was playing in the garden and threw his ball toward the roof
under which the troll was, because it was so steep and suitable for catching [the ball].
Then the troll peered out through the bars and started talking with the king’s boy and
begging him to release him. But the boy answered that he could not possibly dare do
it, for dad has said that he who releases the troll will die. But the troll tried to persuade
the boy and promised that it would always assist him if he released it.
The site of encounter is the royal garden, where the troll is imprisoned in a
cottage. As the little prince decides to play a ball game precisely on this
spot, the troll seizes the opportunity to persuade him to let it free. The
prince is reluctant at first, since he is well aware that the penalty for allowing
the king’s hunting trophy to escape is death, but eventually he gives in,
as the troll pledges to reward his kindness, which it indeed does later on in
the narrative. The real traverser of boundaries is the king who has brought
The Conditions of Encounter 93