The Genre of Trolls - Doria

discourse no longer functions as a productive perspective; it is turned as a
weapon against itself to bring about its own imminent destruction. But this
devastation must not be too crude and petty if the stylization is to retain its
status as an image of a language and a world view. Instead, Bakhtin emphasizes,
“[i]n order to be authentic and productive, parody must be exactly
a parodic stylization, that is, it must re-create the parodied language as
an authentic whole, giving it its due as a language possessing its own internal
logic and one capable of revealing its own world inextricably bound up
with the parodied language (Bakhtin 1986a: 363–364; emphasis in original).
A lucid example of parodic stylization is to be found at the end of “Three
Princes”. Here all the hyperbole of wonder tale wealth converges in a few
sentences, and a distinct parodic intonation can be heard. Let us review the
text again (italics indicate features crucial for my argument):
1) Han så i e, o to va undi golve rigti grann båoningsrium, o fína mamselder som sat tär o
söma, o he di mösse, he va vädinnun. Om morunin to e kom opp so va e in fín o vaker
mamsell, so int vakran kan va. Hun va to prinsis briud. To dem sku fa, so dråo un fram
vagnin sín, o tåo ejinsas hestar o ejinsa pígur, o so bar e óv. Når an kom ti konungsgålin,
so há han tan fínast o vakrast briud óv all trí brödrin, fast hun va e trull, o so grann
tjörrejdskap, so int konunjin ha vakran tjördåon. (R II 27)
1) He looked into it, and beneath the floor there were really splendid chambers, and fine
damsels sitting there sewing, and that mouse was the mistress. In the morning when it
emerged it was a fine and beautiful damsel, so that there could be none more beautiful.
She was thus the bride of the prince. When they were to leave, she pulled out her carriage,
and took her own horses and her own maids, and they were off. When he came to
the royal estate, he had the finest and most beautiful bride of all three brothers, despite her
being a troll, and so splendid driving equipment that the king didn’t have more beautiful
driving tackle.
The whole passage is constructed in anticipation of the approaching denouement,
and Alén cleverly exploits the doubleness of his words. On the
level of the parodied discourse, the “truly splendid chambers” in which the
“fine damsels” are sitting are simply the standard setting of a tale of this
kind. The parodying discourse, however, points to another context in
which these self-same markers signal supranormality, in legends in particular;
the notions of “really splendid chambers” and “fine damsels” are habitually
applied to trolls and rå and their respective abodes. This observation
pertains to the “fine and beautiful damsel” herself as well: in the parodied
discourse, she is a human, stunningly beautiful maiden, in the parodying
Parody 235