The Genre of Trolls - Doria

eauty. Fourthly and fifthly, it is associated with two specific ways of dying,
either at the sight of the rising sun, or in an explosion because of
anger—it literally bursts into pieces (Amilien 1996: 255).
Amilien also considers whether there is anything typically Norwegian in
the folktales, and she concludes that the attributes of supranormal creatures
in the texts are not exclusively Norwegian; rather the national character lies
in the combination of wondrous attributes and the rigorous functions imposed
by the narrative. The omnipresence of the supernatural and its close
liaison with the everyday is the true mark of Norwegianness, according to
Amilien (Amilien 1996: 258).
The principal fascination of Amilien’s work is her manner of blending
the research problems posed in contemporary folkloristics with the old
question of survivals of ancient cultural conceptions in 19th- and early
20th-century folklore. In contrast to the representatives of the survivalist
approach, however, she does not view the historical evolution of this relic
as a degeneration of ancient forms, but as an adaptation to an existing historical
context producing a culturally viable tradition. Each stage of evolution
is given its due, and the Old Norse conceptions are not valorized
simply because they are the oldest. Similarly, she does not stoop to reductionism,
confining the world of the troll to a feeble reflection of the ancient
kingdom of the dead, for instance, but emphasizing their connotative and
associative resemblances.
The implications of her analysis are interesting to deliberate. Why did
these ancient concepts survive, i.e., what function did they fill in later periods?
Were they considered functional in wonder tales only, or did they persist
in other contexts as well? How did they fit into the overall culture of
each era? These questions might be difficult to answer, but they certainly
deserve to be posed.
Knut Aukrust has studied the relationship between trolls, churches and
St. Olaf in an article with that title, “Troll, kirker og St. Olav” (1997).
St. Olaf occupied a special place in Norwegian folklore, something occasionally
frowned upon by the ecclesiastical authorities. The saint also represented
law and order for the peasantry which referred to him in disputes
with the authorities (Aukrust 1997: 235–237).
The Christianization of the country effected by St. Olaf was not accomplished
without opposition, and in the folk tradition the human, pagan
adversaries have been replaced by equally pagan, but supernatural creatures,
Trolls in the History of Research 19