The Genre of Trolls - Doria

such as trolls, jötnar and other beings. The troll emerges as the most important
opponent of Christianization, and the slaying of the troll is another
way of expressing St. Olaf’s mission to give the people new norms and a
new religion. Yet the combat with the troll has cosmological overtones as
well, since it is associated with the building of churches. In this context the
trolls are not merely opponents, but also the actual builders of the church.
The church spoken of may be a local church, but it is often the magnificent
cathedral in Trondheim, Nidarosdomen, which was erected on the supposed
site of Olaf’s grave. The construction of such an edifice must have been
carried out by divine or supernatural means, and the idea of the churchbuilding
troll suits this line of popular reasoning perfectly (Aukrust 1997:
243–245).
The story, which is well-known in Scandinavian folklore (see Klintberg
2002: 135–136), runs as follows: A troll offers to complete a building project,
or volunteers to build a church from scratch in return for either the
sun and moon, or one of the saint’s vital body parts. St. Olaf is desperate
enough to enter the bargain, and must then find out the troll’s name in
order to evade a grisly fate. At the last moment he hears a lullaby sung by
the troll’s wife in which the troll’s name is mentioned, and St. Olaf can
save his hide. The narrative may be interpreted as a representation of the
disclosure and annihilation of, and the victory over trolls and supranormal
powers. Therefore, the erection of the church is a sign of conquest, geographically
and cosmologically. The church appears as a sacred site, and as
an intersection with other planes of existence. The struggle is crucial in the
construction and establishment of sacred space. The forces of chaos, the
enemies of God, are symbolized by the troll; St. Olaf’s vanquishment of
the troll echoes the triumph of God over primordial chaos in the Creation
(Aukrust 1997: 245–250).
The shrine is the centre of a cosmological landscape consisting of earth,
sky and the subterranean world. Sacred space furnishes the link between
these three levels: the cross and the steeple reach toward the sky, the foundation
wall extends into the netherworld, into the realm of the dead. One
might add that the churchyard becomes the new habitation of the dead,
making the realm of the dead a Christianized sphere. Hence the church
creates a bridge between what comes before life on earth and what comes
after (Aukrust 1997: 250).
Like most other recent contributions to the scholarly literature on trolls,
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Introduction