The Genre of Trolls - Doria

catch it, a hare comes out of it, and it runs so fast that no-one manages to run at its
pace, and if anyone manages to catch it, a pearl of gold comes out of it, and in it is my
death”.—When the boy got to hear that, he went out and made himself into a swan
and flew for three days. Then he came to the miller and got work there. The miller
said: “I have an old uncle, and to him you shall give a fattened pig for food every day”.
— But he did not give, rather he released the pig and let the dragon starve. When he
came the third day and did not bring food then either, the dragon said: “Come here,
and I will eat you”. —The boy made himself nine times stronger than the lion, and they
got together and fought for two days. When he managed to kill the dragon, a dove
came out of it, and he managed to catch it only with great effort. But when he killed it,
a hare came out of it, as the old troll woman said, and only when he had managed to
kill it did he get the pearl of gold in which her death was. Then the old woman instantly
fell ill when the boy got the pearl, and after that she could no longer kill the princess.
Then the boy left the miller and came back to the rock, and he said to the old woman:
“Here is your death”. —She said: “Give it to me”. —But he did not give, but threw it
on the floor so that the old woman died. Then they went away, the boy and the princess,
and they married each other, and if they have not died, they probably still live happily
together.
In the beginning of the passage quoted, the princess has locked herself into
a cage in order to protect herself from the unfinalizable troll. Once more
the insufficiently finalized temporal image of the troll results in immense
fear, as its actions are, if not unpredictable, at least fickle and menacing. At
this point, the spatial whole of the troll appears quite unproblematic: it is
hardly mentioned, and the characters behave as if it were self-evident. In
this case, the defective temporal finalization of the troll becomes closely
linked to its temporal boundaries, especially its death. Finding and effecting
this death is not an easy task, however, and the tenacity with which
the troll defends and defers it is almost admirable. It is as if the physical
unfinalizability of the troll has been transposed to the embodiment of its
death, which assumes many guises, and the very notion of a death concealed
within layers of living creatures indicates a certain insubstantiality;
the only “essence” the troll possesses is its unfinalizability, everything else is
changeable.
Notwithstanding, the actual death of the troll serves to create a finalized
image of it, and to move it from the category of another self to that of an
other. For once, its temporal boundaries become tangible and possible to
define, and viewed stripped of its future, the future and the present are assimilated
into its past. In this text, the other is literally dead for the self,
and the play of indeterminacy is halted, or so it would appear. I say appear,
Halting Unfinalizability? 271