The Genre of Trolls - Doria

the midnight sun. Her husband didn’t want to let her go, but when she didn’t relent, he
said she could go, but he’d accompany her, but she didn’t want that. At last he had to let
her go alone. When she was going, she broke her wedding ring that had her and his name
in it in two pieces, and gave the piece with her name in it to her husband, and took that
piece herself which bore the husband’s name. Then she went, but never returned. When
she didn’t come back, her husband went looking for her. He sought for her around the
world, as he thought, but didn’t find her. Finally, when he had searched everywhere and
didn’t find [her], he went to the forest to search, if he’d find her there. When he was
searching in the forest, he came to a large castle, where a dragon stood guard by the gate.
As the man saw it, he thought to himself: “be whatever you want, I’ll surely shoot”. He
shot and the dragon fell down to the ground. When the dragon fell, the man went to the
gate and started knocking on it. When he knocked, a damsel came to open it. When he
passed through, she asked him what his business was. He stated his business: that he was
looking for his wife who was from the kingdom of the midnight sun. As he’d said that,
the damsel said she was the head of all birds, and if they didn’t know, she’d surely say
where the kingdom of the midnight sun was. At once she blew in a pipe, and then all
kinds of birds came there. She asked them if they don’t know where the kingdom of the
midnight sun is. They didn’t know that, but one bird was still missing, a big eagle, and
they believed it’d know it. Finally it came too. It had been in the kingdom of the midnight
sun, and that’s why it had taken so long for it to arrive. When the eagle came, the
damsel asked it, if it didn’t know where the kingdom of the midnight sun was. “Yes,” the
eagle answered and told them that it had just been there. She said it should take the man
who was looking for his wife there. “I’ll do that,” the eagle answered, and took him on its
back and brought him to the place he wanted to go to. When they came to the kingdom
of the midnight sun there was a large castle there. The eagle, it knocked on the gate to let
the man in. They opened the gate, and when the man came in, there was a whole lot of
damsels there, the same geese that used to come and trample the outlying field. His wife
was among them. When she caught sight of him, she fell on his neck and took him in her
embrace. Then they held a feast, and it was bigger than any other. When the king, whose
daughters those damsels were, died, the man reigned in the kingdom of the midnight sun
up until now.
Appendix C: Select Troll Narratives
In this appendix I have included some shorter narratives, translated in full.
1) En karl vart bergtagen och vart gift med trollen, och hade flera barn. Han var gift förut
och längtade bort. En gång slapp han till kyrkan och var där osynlig, men så kröp han under
kappan på prästen och vart då synlig och trollen hade ingen makt med an mera. (SLS
280: 136)
1) A man was abducted and married to the troll, and had several children. He was previously
married and longed to get away. Once he was allowed to [go to] church and was invisible
there, but then he crept under the parson’s gown and became visible, and the trolls
had no power with him any more.
314
Select Troll Narratives