The Genre of Trolls - Doria

A woman being harassed by an amorous troll commences a disengagement
by shrewdly persuading it to reveal the best method of ridding her of
it, and then she brings about a dissociation by following the advice she is
given (SLS 215, 250). Whether she or the troll was the original traverser of
boundaries, the tale does not tell.
Accidental disjunctions are also in evidence, like the one innocuously performed
by a woman chancing upon the children of the troll on the roadside.
As she speaks to them, the link between the human and the supernatural
realm is severed, and the children withdraw to their own world,
since they disappear before her eyes. The woman begins the separation, but
it is completed by the trolls (SLS 56: 153).
A rather unusual pattern of association and dissociation is found in the
story of a changeling. A woman, who has been raising her own child as
well as the offspring of the troll for many years, effectuates a disconnection
by ritually banishing the changeling, but when she learns of the wretched
conditions suffered by the child in its own sphere, she takes it back through
a new ritual. She thereby establishes a contact with the otherworld prevailing
until the death of the changeling (R II 76). In most texts concerning
changelings, a strict separation of human and supranormal is enforced
(Skjelbred 1998: 69–70), but here solicitude and affection triumph, and the
woman is not punished for her action. She demonstrates her moral integrity,
a trait probably appreciated in her community (see Wolf-Knuts 1991),
but her conduct might not be construed as ideal in the sense that all other
women with changelings ought to imitate her.
Only one record mentions a child as an agent of disengagement. As the
trolls endeavour to abduct a young child, one of the older girls manages to
accomplish a temporary rupture by inflicting injury on an old troll. This is
done at the instigation of the children’s father, who also furnishes the girl
with the weapon, an axe. Still, the disconnection is defective, for the trolls
return soon afterwards. Not before they find it fitting is the interaction
ended (R II 338).
All animals are not capable of effecting separations, but the talking animals
of wonder tales have many talents, including this one. They tend to
favour violent dissociations, an inclination dependent on the textual context;
charged with the protection of their human wards, they must defend
them from the aggressions of the troll. The bull accompanying the heroine
through the forest of the troll is forced to kill it to protect the girl (Nyland
Breaking the Contact 125