Trolls. Are they real? In 1244, armed men riding across a windswept ridge in Iceland met something in the road that stopped and let them stare, and the account gives us three words in Old Norse: tröll eitt mikit. A great troll. Then it moves on, like a monster in the road was barely worth the ink. In this episode, we follow that single word through 800 years of Nordic folklore, from troll women riding wolves with live snakes for reins, to the hidden families living under Scandinavian farmland, to a modern Icelandic road crew that dug a buried stone back out of the ground. And what we find is that almost everything we picture when we hear the word troll is wrong.
Filed under
Sources and credits
- Folklore and medieval material
- - Armann Jakobsson, "The Troll Inside You: Paranormal Activity in the Medieval North"
- - Camilla Asplund Ingemark, "The Genre of Trolls: The Case of a Finland-Swedish Folk Belief Tradition"
- - Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore (Isof): troll overview, underjordiska, summer-pasture folklore
- - Store norske leksikon: Troll; Jotnar
- - Sturlunga saga (1244 encounter, "troll eitt mikit," Asbjorn Gudmundarson, Hrutafjardarhals)
- - Grettis saga (Sandhaugar troll-woman); Helgakvida Hjorvardssonar / Hrimgerdarmal (Hedinn, Hrimgerdr, Helgi, Atli, Hati); Codex Regius GKS 2365 4to, 1270s
- - Archived legends: Knuts Anna Jonsdotter (rec. 1926, b. 1839); Carl Nyvall (rec. 1930, b. 1847), Ransater
- - National Museum of Norway (Kittelsen, Werenskiold, Asbjornsen and Moe); John Bauer (Sweden)
- - University of the Highlands and Islands (Orkney and Shetland trows)
- Modern material
- - Galgahraun / Ofeigskirkja road dispute, Supreme Court of Iceland, Terry Gunnell and Ragnhildur Jonsdottir quotes: NPR, "Highway In Iceland May Be Sidetracked By Elves," Dec 24 2013
- - 2015 compromise, rock moved in two pieces (50 and 20 tonnes), Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson 2009 ceremony, Vigdis Finnbogadottir greetings: Iceland Monitor, "Elves make compromise with Road Administration," Mar 18 2015
- - Siglufjordur elf lady stone buried 2015, dug out and washed Aug 2016: Atlas Obscura, "Angry Elves Force Iceland Road Workers To Dig Up A Sacred Rock," Aug 31 2016
- - Belief surveys 1974 (Erlendur Haraldsson), 2006-07 (Haraldsson and Gunnell), 2023 (Gunnell with the Social Science Research Institute): University of Iceland, "Exploring Icelanders' Experiences of the Supernatural"
- - Unst 1914: Peter Narvaez (ed.), "The Good People: New Fairylore Essays," 1997
- - Tor Ness, Hoy: The Scots Magazine, August 1964
- - Lara Bjarnadottir: The Elfschool (Alfaskolinn), Reykjavik, "Contemporary Tales," account collected by Magnus Skarphedinsson, 2003
- Audio Credit:
- Cow Bell.wav by 190204 -- -- License: Attribution 4.0
