The Genre of Trolls - Doria

true to its word. The troll will save its new master many times before the
story is over (SLS 31, 146).
When twelve princesses have been abducted by a troll king, the king’s
son helps the hero to rescue them. The troll prince is keen on succeeding
to its father’s throne, and the hero and his eleven brothers want to marry
the princesses, so man and troll enter an agreement to achieve their respective
goals. Each time the hero is in trouble, the troll prince sends him aid,
and in return the hero lops off the troll king’s twelve heads, to the elation
of its oppressed subjects (SLS 202 Sagor II, 1: 324–325).
Another text describes the encounter between a boy and an old troll
woman:
116
“va ni i tjörkan i går o, mor?” fråga an. “nej, int va ja”, sa gomman, men hor frågar do
så do”, tykt on. “ja va jag”, svara pojkin, “o de lystes, at en prinséssa ha blivi bortföri för
ett år sen, o den som sko få reda på on o för on ti kongn, so sko an få stor bilöning”.
“no kan do fo reda po on”, tykt gomman, “bara do jer ot mej den besta bessn, som do
har”. “no vet ni var hon finns do?” fråga pojkin. “jo no vet ja”, svara gomman. “no int
pass ja på do, fast ja jer dem allihopa, för int far ja him sen mer”, tykt an. so sa gomman:
“se do hör ska do få et svörd, o de får do holla, int vil ja ha e mer, o gå ner i tjellarn,
o dör sitär gobbn o har prinséssan, o hol svörde innanför jakkan o jör nogo örand
til an, o best do talar me an so kap nakkan å an”. “vil ni ha live uta man er?” fråga pojkin.
“de kan vara de sama”, svara gomman, “ja har ingin nytto å an heldär. (SLS 202
Sagor II, 28: 603–604)
“Were you too in church yesterday, ma’am?” he asked. “No, I wasn’t”, the old woman
said, [“]but why do you ask that?” “I was”, the boy answered, “and it was stated that a
princess had been abducted a year ago, and the one who could find her and bring her to
the king would get a big reward”. “Well, you could find her”, the old woman thought,
“if you just give me the best sheep you have”. “Well, do you know where she is?” the
boy asked. “Yes, I do know”, the old woman answered. “Well, in that case I don’t care
if I give them all, ’cause I won’t go home any more”, he thought. The old woman said:
“Look, you’ll get a sword, and you can keep it, I don’t want it any more, and go down
into the cellar, and there the old man is sitting and he has the princess, and keep the
sword under your jacket and make the pretext of an errand, and while you’re talking to
him, lop his head off.” “Do you want to kill your husband?” the boy asked. “It doesn’t
matter”, the old woman answered, “I’ve no use for him anyway[”].
In this tale narrated by Berndt Strömberg, and recorded by V. E. V.
Wessman in 1911, the old troll couple does not have the best of relations,
and no wonder, with the male troll keeping another woman in the cellar.
The common denominator of these narratives is that the assisting troll is
hierarchically subordinate to the aggressive troll: they represent servant and
Description of the Troll Tradition