The Genre of Trolls - Doria

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spin the hat and ask: ‘Isn’t it all paid for[’], and they answer [‘]yes[’]”. When the
students heard this, they wanted to buy the hat even more from the old man. Finally
the old man sold his hat to them, when he got a good price for it. Now they parted.
Naturally, the students do not receive free drinks simply by spinning the
hat on their heads and asking: “Isn’t it all paid for?” The proprietors of the
inns they visit become angry with them for trying to escape the bill, and
finally they have to face the facts: they have been deceived by the old man.
They decide to revenge themselves upon him:
13) To di kåm’ tíd tér gubbin bódd, so va’ tsjern’jin emsand i stygun; Studentren fråga’
to, ’vann ’an va’ o sá’ se’ vil’ råk’ ’an. “Undi’ he de káre på golve’ o lér se’ flejra slags
tungumål,” svara’ tsjern’jin. Som studentren hört’ he, so tykt’ di: nah vi får ful to o lér’
oss språtsjen, o útlens tungumål, o fråga’ óv gubbin, om ’an int’ vil’ lér dem fremand’
tungumålen. “Jó” svara’ gubbin, “men ni får int’ flejr än ejn i gangun kåm’ híd undi’
káre’. Studentren va’ nögd ti’ gá ejn i gangun undi’ káre’. To tan föst kåm undi’ káre’,
sá’ gubbin: “rékk’ út tungun dín et ja’ får sí’ ti’ va’ språk ’un je’ pasli’!” Studentin jól som
’an, gubbin, vila o rekt’ ut tungun o to’ skár gubbin spetsin óv ’un. Som e va’ jórt, så
börja’ studentin ploter o tál’ so sotrut, at to ti ár hört’ he, so tenkt’ ti: “sí ’va’ he jég fórt,
nu talar ’an e fremand språk. To han kåm út, so jég ejn annin undi’ káre’ o me’ han ji’ e
på sama vís. Som tan tridi hört’ han bobel o ploter undi’ káre’, so tenkt’ ’an: “nu ha’
han lért se’ e fremand språk”, o som ’an kåm út, so kröjp han undi’ káre’. Óv han skar o
gubbin tungspetsin. Ti sliut dödd’ di allihóp. (R II 64)
13) When they came to the place where the old man lived, the old woman was alone in
the cottage; the students asked where he was and said that they wanted to meet him.
“Under the vat on the floor learning several kinds of languages,” the old woman answered.
When the students heard this, they thought: Well, we certainly have to learn
languages and foreign tongues, and asked the old man if he didn’t want to teach them
foreign languages. “Yes”, the old man answered, “but no more than one of you can come
here beneath the vat at a time[”]. The students were content to go under the vat one at
a time. When the first came underneath the vat, the old man said: “Stick out your
tongue so that I can see for what language it’s suitable!” The student did as he, the old
man, said and stuck out his tongue, and then the old man cut off the tip of it. As this
had been done, the student started chattering and talking so indistinctly that when the
others heard it, they thought: “Look how fast it came about, now he’s speaking a foreign
language.[”] When he came out, another went beneath the vat and the same thing
happened to him. When the third heard him babbling and chattering under the vat, he
thought: “Now he’s learned a foreign language”, and when he came out, he crawled
underneath the vat. The old man cut off the tip of the tongue for him too. Eventually
all of them died.
These students have to pay dearly for their initial prank; in comparison,
Dean Hartman receives very mild treatment. Given the morally dubious
Intertextuality as Social Critique