The Genre of Trolls - Doria

knivåoddin, som ståo iut iur stjidun i hande sóvin. Som an kom på gålin, o sku gá tidan,
so kom sóvin dansand bak et an o slåo an i bejnin, o tär lemna an ligg. To an kom
ti Kimobriuk, så tåo an tedan folk me se o jig tibák ti skåojin fy ti ta nembran rejdu på
han di ‘rådstúgun’ Dem så injin stugu mejr, men kopar sóvin lå på ti stelle tär an lemna
to an slåo an i bejnin. Sóvin tåo dem ti Kimo … briuki. Från tan tídin so va handi sama
kárin, som treffa på hun di ‘rådstugun’ halvpjasu … o he sku an a váli óv he knivåoddin
hans tåo i koparsóvin, o han tärfyri kom ti slå an i bejnin. (Han fälast sidan o hengd
kattuna o kallast vanligen tärfyri ti ‘Kattjohan’.) (R II 175)
The Great Hill situated in the forest between the villages of Karfsor and Kimo is notorious
for hill trolls, “rå”, who are said to have shown themselves there time after time
and scared people who have come to pass by the same. Thus it is told of a man, who
some 50 years ago happened upon a splendid cottage in the vicinity of the aforementioned
hill, when he was to walk through the forest from Karfsor to Kimo the following:
“Once when a man from Karfsor 50 years ago was to take a shortcut from Karfsor to
Kimo through the forest and came to the Great Hill, he saw a ‘rå cottage’, which was
painted red with white window frames and ledges. Everything looked as if it were a
large manor. The man went inside, and everything was tidy and there were only silver
and copper. No one did he see except a maid, standing by the hearth cooking and stirring
in the pot. She spoke not a word to him, but stood shaking her fist at him to make
him understand to leave. By the door stood a copper tub with a ladle in it. There he
drank before he left. When he departed and turned around, the point of his knife, protruding
from the sheath, touched that tub. As he came out onto the yard and was going
away, the tub came dancing after him and hit him on the legs, and there it was left
lying. When he came to the Kimo works, he took people thence with him and went
back to the forest to find out more closely about that ‘rå cottage’. They saw no cottage
any more, but the copper tub lay on the spot where it was left when it hit him on the
legs. They took the tub to the Kimo … works. From that time onward the same man
who had encountered that ‘rå cottage’ was half addle-brained … and that he was supposed
to have become because the point of his knife touched the copper tub, and it
therefore came to hit him on the legs. (He then roamed around and killed cats and was
therefore most often called ‘Cat-John’.)[”]
This text portrays the fateful encounter, or the breakdown of the relation
between this world and the otherworld. On some level, the meeting of the
worlds is nearly always conscious, either on the part of man or on the part
of the troll. Although a crossing of the boundary between the two spheres
might be made unawares by a human, intentionality is generally present in
the wish of the troll to open up its world to man. Here intentionality is
entirely lacking on both sides, rendering it an occasion of deep crisis; the
banishment of the danger cannot even be performed with curses, it requires
silence. Rather than heaping abuse on the man, the troll girl must restrict
herself to shaking her fist at him; anything else might compromise the integrity
of her realm.
Breaking the Contact 133