The Genre of Trolls - Doria

The theme of vanity recurs here, but with a twist (no pun intended). The
girl, humbled by the humiliation of having a snake curled around her neck
wherever she goes, becomes a modest and unpretentious person, implicitly
acknowledging her transgression in the end, like Little Maja did overtly
(texts 4–5). Both narratives agree on the ruinous influence of self-conceit,
but the girl from Sordavala seems to repent her sins more wholeheartedly
than Little Maja does. The former truly turns into a reformed creature; in
a sense she recovers what Adam and Eve lost. This interpretation is based
on the image of the snake: it comes to her and attaches itself quite literally
to her when she has fallen prey to narcissism. Whether it has somehow led
her into temptation, like the snake in the Garden of Eden, is not stated,
though it might be tacitly assumed:
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10) Och ormen war listigare än all djur på jordene, som HERren Gud gjort hade, och
sade til qwinnona: Ja, skulle Gud hafwa sagt, I skolen icke äta af allahanda trä i lustgårdenom?
Då sade qwinnan til ormen: Wi äte af de träs frukt, som är i lustgårdenom;
Men af frukten af det trät, som är midt i lustgårdenom, hafwer Gud sagt: Äter icke deraf,
och kommer icke heller derwid, at I icke dön. Då sade ormen til qwinnona: Ingalunda
skolen I döden dö. Förty Gud wet, at på hwad dag I äten deraf, skola edor ögon öpnas,
och warden såsom Gud, wetandes hwad godt och ondt är. Och qwinnan såg til, at trät
war godt att äta af, och ljufligit uppå se, och at det et lustigt trä war, efter det gaf förstånd;
Och tog utaf fruktene, och åt, och gaf desslikes sinom man deraf, och han åt. (1 Mos.
3: 1–6)
10) NOW the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD
God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
(Genesis 3: 1–6)
The serpent is the most subtle of the animals God had created, and in the
Intertextuality as Ideological Critique