The Genre of Trolls - Doria

innocence and an all-pervasive trust in the righteous judgement of God,
whereas it is transformed into something positive in the folklore text: the
divine sphere, via the mediation of the parson, brings the girl back to her
own world and allows her to recognize her proper place in it. Illumination
refutes the delusion of otherworldly riches, only hinted at through the emphasis
on her tattered dress in the end of the narrative; the girl was still
wearing the same old ragged clothes even while her garments seemed costly.
In the intertextual clash between the permanence of an elevated social
status in the folktale and the inevitability of the loss of Paradise in Genesis,
the latter emerges as the victor. The sense of shame permeating the narrative
confirms it.
A text collected by Jakob Edvard Wefvar from Erik Kock living in the
neighbouring parish of Oravais furnishes an intriguing counterpoint to the
three preceding texts.
9) He va’ ejngang in flikku i Sordavala, som va’ fy’skretsjeli’ höfälu. Sidan so hend’ e se’
in sondá, to ’un sku’ gá ti’ tsjyrtsjun, he ’un skoda’ se’ i spejlin, to ’un ha’ klédd se’, o to
vart ’un vár, he ’un há’ in orm ókring halsin me’ huvu’ på ejn axil o stjertin på tan annan
fy’ pälband. To ’un så’ ’an, so vart ’un fy’skrekt, o dem frejsta’ me in tang ta’ ’an om huvu’,
fy’ ti’ få bort ’an, men to ormin så’ he, so snärt ’an se’ so hårt flikkun om halsin, so
’un blåna’, o dem nödgast let ’an va’ i fred. Alla tíder va’ ’an tär. To e va’ kalt, so huldis
’an undi’ klénin némbrast kroppin, men to e va’ vakert veder o varmt so to lå’ ovanpå.
Han va’ tär, fast ’un jig ti’ tsjyrtsjun o ti’ nattvádin. To ’an vila hav’ matin, so snärt ’an
se’ hårdari o’kring halsin hennas, so ’un motta’ jev ’an mjölk o naun tsjöttsmulu. Va’ e
tukan mat, som ’an tykt’ om, so snärt’ ’an se’ hårdari o’kring halsin o to motta’ ’un let
’an smak’ föst iur stjejdin. So va’ i mang år, fast flikkun vart emsend gudsfruktu, ti sliut
fy’svann ’an som ’an kom hennar åovitandes, so ’un int’ vist’ vart’ ’an tåo vejin. (R II 36)
9) Once upon a time there was a girl in Sordavala [Finnish Sortavala in eastern Finland]
who was terribly haughty. Then it happened one Sunday, when she was going to church,
that she looked into the mirror when she had dressed, and then she perceived that she
had a snake around her neck, with its head on one shoulder and its tail on the other, as
a pearl necklace. She was horrified, and they tried to take it by the head with a pair of
tongs to remove it, but when the snake saw it, it twisted so tightly around the girl’s neck
that she turned blue, and thus they had to let it be. It was always there. When it was
cold, it stayed under the dress close to the body, but when the weather was nice and
warm, [it] lay on top. It was there even though she went to church and to Communion.
When it wanted food, it twisted around her neck so that she had to give it milk and
some morsel of meat. If there was such food as it liked, it twisted tighter around her
neck, and then she had to let it have a taste first from the spoon. So it was for many
years, although the girl became humble and pious. Eventually it disappeared just as it
had arrived, unbeknownst to her.
Blindness and Illumination 151