The Genre of Trolls - Doria

human heroes; the troll is the typical image of evil in Norwegian narratives.
Since the Christianization of Norway it has been related to the Devil. The
troll is a symbol of not only the power of evil, but also of the forces of
nature. The distinction between the troll and the jutul rests on the latter’s
mythical association: the jutul is linked to the past, connoting a temporal
reference, and its importance in legends springs from this fact. The tusse
makes rare appearances in folk narratives. Originally a creature of cosmogonic
significance, the Old Norse thurs, the race to which Ymer belonged,
turned into an evil and naive personage, often depicted as a short man with
a white beard. The rise has preserved its link to giant dimensions. In contradistinction
to Hartmann, Amilien argues that the rise has progressively
distinguished itself from other supranormal beings, but unfortunately she
does not expand on the subject. In later Norwegian tradition the gyger may
be the wife of the troll, playing the part of a secondary opponent, or she
may be the principal opponent, great and terrible. Employed synonymously
with gyger, the hulder in one sense of the word is a man-eating, horrible
giantess. The term may also designate a creature haunting the hills
and woods, or the family of the subterranean people, the huldrefolk, which
are viewed more positively, although the latter can function as both helpers
and opponents (Amilien 1996: 35–42). Since Amilien restricts herself to
folktales, the relation between trolls and huldra and huldrefolk remains
indistinct, and it is difficult to compare her opinion on the subject with
Hartmann’s.
If we juxtapose these accounts of the idiosyncrasies and mores of the
trolls to what can be gathered from my own material, the following observations
can be made. Very little can be said of the size of the troll (cf. chapter
3.2.1): only rarely is it described as “terribly large” (SLS 31, 141: 111) or
something to that effect (SLS 65: 45). Most of the time its physique is not
mentioned at all. Thus, one cannot claim with certainty that trolls are huge
and ugly. They might be humanlike as in Central Sweden, the traditional
area to which Swedish-speaking Finland also belongs, in which case there
might be no need to specify their appearance. The trolls usually live in hills
in the woods; in that respect the definitions agree with my material. They
can be social as well as solitary beings, one of the few traits demarcating
them from the rå, which is generally solitary. The forest is the home of
both the troll and the rå, and both are equally notorious for abducting
humans or their cattle. However, the rå is not commonly associated with
Delimitations and Definitions 9