Talk:Troll

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[edit] Are Scandinavian trolls evil?

In Scandinavian troll folklore the forest creatures are morally ambiguous, and don't constantly represent evil. Rather, they live according to different rules than men, and if you respect their rules, you can often maintain a peaceful relationship. (In fact, this is assumed to be the normal state of the world, that man through effort manages to sustain a tentative peace with nature.) They are however frequently depicted as morally weak, and susceptible to greed, envy, and laziness.

To illustrate, there is the tale of the troll mother whose neighbors move deeper into the woods when the human village nearby expands, but she lingers behind, because she is curious about the humans. In fact, she longs for their clean and ordered lives by warm kitchen fires, and she eventually decides that this is the right life for her son. For this purpose she makes herself up as a human and kidnaps the human princess to be his wife. Order is eventually restored when the princess is rescued by the prince. The story ends with the princess one night seeing the troll mother's ugly face peaking through her window into the warmly lit cottage, and she can't help feeling sorry for her.
[Source to be added presently.]

There is also a popular Swedish lullaby about a troll mother and her children, proving that trolls can be a comforting thought as well:

[edit] Troll Mother -- A Swedish Lullaby

When troll mother's tucked in her twelve little trolls
And tied them all to her tail
Softly she sings for her twelve little trolls
The prettiest words she knows:
Oh, ay-ay-ay-ay-buff
Oh, ay-ay-ay-ay-buff
Oh, ay-ay-ay-ay-buff-buff
Oh, ay-ay-ay-ay-buff

"Trollmor" by Margit Holmberg

(My translation. In the Swedish text there are eleven troll children, but that doesn't work well rhythmically.)

--Kronocide 00:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that trolls do not appear as impersonal evildoers like grey aliens or terrorists in modern folklore. Rather, I'd say they are a personification of the capricious wild nature, as well as an idea about a people living according to opposite norms than human (or at least Scandinavian) society—just like you mentioned. A very queer lot, those trolls.
One should take care to hold folklore apart from literary adaptions. The latter is commonly what has formed our modern perception. As an example, romanticism depicts älvor (elves) as joyous girls dancing in mist, while in genuine folklore their main role is to send disease onto people.--Salleman 11:06, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I came to think of the old Swedish Folk Song "Ett gammalt bergtroll" ("An old mountain-troll") by Gustaf Fröding in which a Troll sees a very pretty human woman, thinks that she's so sweet he wants to eat her up, but soon realizes how stupid she is, and that there won't be any more pretty woman to watch if he would. 85.226.122.237 17:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

"In J. R. R. Tolkien's world, trolls are very large (around 9 feet tall and 350lbs) humanoids of poor intellect."

- I can't believe I'm writing this :-), but a 9-foot humanoid would be expected to weigh a lot more than 350 lbs (square-cube law) even if not made of "stone". Polar bears weigh something like 1,000 lbs +, if I remember correctly.

Perhaps they were made of breeze blocks ;-) quercus robur
Well, I guess that imaginary worlds need not always comply with real-world phenomena (though I have difficult realizng why a figure of 500lbs or 800lbs couldn't have been given instead for greater consistency). However I do not recall anywhere in The Hobbit or LotR that would anyhow describe the Trolls' weights (or indeed any other physical property of these creatures), where does this figure come from, anyway? --Uriyan

It comes from me guessing.  :) change it. --TomCerul

Nevermind, what I had written. I checked the facts. Sorry.

This is as irrelevant as it can be but, where in LotR is it mentioned that orcs are corrupted elves? I remember Saruman saying it in the movie, but I do not have recollection of having read that in the book.--AN

Yes it is definatlely in the book. Don't ask me where, but I clearly remember reading it somewhere in LOTR quercus robur
Two towers chapter IV "TREEBEARD", about two pages from the end of the chapter.
"Will you really break the doors of Isengard?" asked Merry.
"Ho, hm, well, we could, you know! You do not know, perhaps, how strong we are. Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves. We are stronger than Trolls. We are made of the bones of the earth. We can split stone like the roots of trees, only quicker, far quicker, if our minds are roused! If we are not hewn down, or destroyed by fire or blast of sorcery, we could split Isengard into splinters and crack its walls to rubble."
not that it *really* matters for the article :-) // OlofE 16:09, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
It isn't in LOTR, but it is clearly stated in The Silmarillion. Since that is the pre-LOTR history of Middle-earth, it applies to LOTR also. However, since J. R. R. Tolkien didn't release Silmarillion while he was living, one could argue that he meant to take this out before it was released. Jketola

In the silmarillion page 50 it states that Orcs were believed to be bred from the demented and warped Elves caught by Morgoth in the first age.


Why "Olog-Hai"? Aren't they "Uruk-Hai"? -- SGBailey 23:16 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

Uruk-Hai are the orcs

How do we know that Tolkien's trolls enjoy eating hobbits when they have caught only one, misidentified it as a "burrahobbit," and let it escape uneaten? And what's special about olog-hai speech--they don't talk like cockneys? --Alex Clark

This article should be moved to Troll (mythology), and the disambiguation moved here. This would follow the policy in Wikipedia:disambiguation, since this mythological usage doesn't seem to be the "primary topic" these days: look at how many articles link to Internet troll). Goatherd 16:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Primary topic where? In Internet discourse yes. However, most people in the
Western world would think of the being Troll and wouldn't probably know the
meaning Internet Troll. Wiglaf
Yes, but Wikipedia is presumably used mostly by people familiar with Internet discourse? But it's no big deal. Goatherd 15:52, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Wiglaf. It should definitely remain here. Ausir 21:09, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Absolutes

I have made some changes here. First and foremost, I have changed the "always" in the sentence "They are however always regarded as having poor intellect (especially the males, whereas the females, trollkonor, may be quite cunning), big noses, long arms, and as being hairy and not very beautiful" to an "often", because trolls are simply not that firmly defined so as to motivate an "always". I have read several tales depicting handsome and relatively intelligent trolls. (I also added the words "great strength" here).

To continue on the same theme, I changed the "generally" in "In Scandinavian fairy tales trolls generally turn to stone if exposed to sunlight" to a "sometimes". I, as a swede, has never read a tale where a troll has turned to stone, but a great many stories with trolls being out and about in broad daylight.

--Dnalor 01:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Troll: comment

Web troll:

Could someone define troll as used on the web? Is it someone trolling for valid e-mail addresses, or someone trying to get attention, or exactly what?

See Internet troll. If not defined there, ask *them* ;] --kooo 15:12, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] John Bauer image

I have to say I don't much like Image:The changeling, John Bauer, 1913.jpg - it's very murky and it's not at all clear what it shows (where's the changeling?). Is it really necessary to include this image? -- ChrisO 17:43, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

LOL, first you add a picture of an ugly Norwegian stone troll, which you have the gall to put on the top, but you botch it so David Gerard has to invene, and then you complain about a famous painting by one of Sweden's most beloved artists. Go see an optician for crying out loud.Wiglaf
The issue isn't whether or not he's "one of Sweden's most beloved artists". The issue is whether the picture is clear, striking and informative. The first image (of the princess) certainly qualifies but I don't think the second qualifies on any of those grounds. I suppose we'll have to agree to differ... -- ChrisO 21:53, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
It's a good painting, but I shrunk it to 250px and that may have been too small. I've set it to 300px. Possibly we could just take the bottom half as detail and make it 350px wide - David Gerard 22:15, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's a good painting. ChrisO might consider clicking on Wikipedia images. This leads to enlarged versions which are much easier to discern.Wiglaf

[edit] More on images

We have too many images for our own good. In particular, many of them don't fit into the sections they are right next to. The "Changeling" image is already used in the Changeling article, which is a good and exhaustive article, so I don't see any problems in dropping that one, especially since we already have a John Bauer image, well placed in the "literature" section. Instead we should have an image of an actual game troll, something like this or this one which must be considered promotional material and can be used if we note what game it is from (namely World of Warcraft). I don't know about the "Trolls in Trollhättan" and the "Norwegian_troll.jpg". Maybe we can move the Troll doll section away from the Fremont Bridge Troll and add an image of an actual troll doll, something like this, but free from copyright. Salleman 04:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trolls in music

Tell me, David Gerard, why not "Trolls in music" huh ? Imo it's as relevant as "Trolls in games". It just gives one more image of what trolls are. Ukuk 16:43, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably could do with a one-liner pointing to the main article on troll metal - David Gerard 16:43, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
See my compromise. Jaktens tid is a heck of an album, btw! Sam [Spade] 17:21, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
That's fine :-) - David Gerard 23:47, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thx guys (: Ukuk 06:28, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 206.241.4.6

206.241.4.6 made some trollish edits to Iraqi resistance and Lake Titicaca. Strangely enough all his/her edits to the troll article seem to be genuine. Except, I can't find the quote "The peculiar in life was what made me wild and mad...dwarf power and untamed wildness...audacious and bizarre fantasy" anywhere on the Internet. Maybe this quote should be removed until a credible cite is given. - pir 09:26, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have not made any "trollish edits". 206.241.4.6 is one of many open proxies that I and others use, and the trollish entries in question were made by persons other than myself. I am the person who made the entries to the Trolls in Music section. To answer your question, the Grieg quote is from the liner notes for Naxos 6.110060, GRIEG: Piano Concerto, Symphonic Dances written by Norwegian conuctor Bjarte Engeset and translated by Susan Askvik. Mr. Engeset doesn't list a citation for this quote, and I haven't been able to find one outside the liner notes. Would it be possible to contact either Naxos, Mr. Engeset, or a scholar of Norwegian studies? Sadly, I suspect that much of Mr. Grieg's personal notes remain in his native tongue.- Thomas Veil
Turns out the quote and the liner notes are online and linked to the main site above ("About this Recording") on the right side of the page. The quote is at the end of the ninth paragraph. "The peculiar in life was what made me wild and mad...dwarf power and untamed wildness...audacious and bizarre fantasy." And yes, that's on the internet.-Thomas Veil
OK, just a weird co-incidence then. Google didn't find the quote, but it exists. - pir 08:26, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tooth-trolls

It says that Swedish children believe in tooth trolls. This reference should be put under Literature as it comes from Norwegian author Torbjørn Egner's story "Karius og Baktus". I'm a newbie to wikipedia so I don't want to edit the article (and my English isn't that good). This story is well known in the whole of Scandinavia and probably in several other countries too. Amazon reference: <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0961539410/qid=1095081310/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-7873458-4131309?v=glance&s=books>

You're free to change it into "Scandinavian children" if you wish to, and to add Torbjörn Egner under the litterature part as well. I don't think removing this text from "Scandinavian folklore" is alright, because the tooth trolls are very much part of it today.--Wiglaf 20:09, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I am channging this because we need to clarify that swedish/scandinavian children do not believe in "tooth trolls". This is a pedagogic device to explain why we need to brush our teeth, a way of making bacteria understandabla for children too young to grasp the concept of micro-organisms in scientific terms. The book was converted into a puppet movie that used to be shown for all schoolchildren during their first years in school, but nobody belived that they saw a depiction of actual reality.--itpastorn 10:24, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from article

"Hypotheses about trolls / There is a theory that the trolls are a distant memory of modern man's encounter with Neanderthals. Some also claim that the Neanderthals may well have lived into historical times, and may be remembered as trolls, while others believe that they just refer to neighboring tribes." This strikes me as a theory of utter wackiness, it's not referenced or explained any further, and it's weaselspeak. Not that Wikipedia could not cover wacky theories (indeed it does to a rather unpleasant extent), but our encyclopedic standards apply here just as anywhere else. Kosebamse 21:43, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Added back in with names of alleged proponents. --Viriditas | Talk 22:08, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This Neandertal/Troll hypothesis may seem far-fetched at first. But, given that fossil evidence indicates anatomically modern humans (H) and Neandertals (N) co-existed in Europe there could be something to it. A few points: We know N were apparently cold-adapted and it seems from the fossil records that H arrived in the north relatively late. So, if relict populations of N existed later than we have assumed they would tend to survive in Europe's northernmost latitudes. Since DNA testing conducted in 1996 established pretty conclusively that we don't carry N genes within us, the H/N contact would have been one of competition and not intermixing, and given their unusual appearance the N population may have seemed some sort of mysterious "other" to H rather than merely a neighboring tribe. Such populations tend to have magical or malevolent characteristics (or both) assigned to them as we have seen in Troll fables which are uniquely Scandinavian. It would seem there could be a grain of truth at the heart of such fables, similar to the Indonesian fables regarding the recently discovered Homo floresiensis. We know H replaced N in Europe, but we don't know quite how or when or how long it all took. Given that we only have the remains of about 350 N spanning thousands of years it seems the notion they became extinct about 30,000 years ago presumes we have found the very last one. This is very unlikely. It's also possible Troll stories are much older than we ever imagined. At the very least there are some interesting similarities here, and once one removes the magical and fantastic elements from Troll fables the remaining parts sound an awful lot like N. I'm not sure this theory can be convincingly proven or disproven with current evidence, but it probably should not be completely dismissed.Skepticsteve 20:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In games

The article is becoming "two-cented" in the "In games"-section. Currently it is has listed something in the sense of: "You can choose a troll as your character in <insert the game which some editor likes here>." I suggest that we remove all the two-centage, as was decided in The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. It should be fair for all to remove all such edits, and not leave an example or so. The section is likely to fill out of proportions if we let it grow. —kooo 11:52, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think we have yet to see that. This page isn't edited excessively often. The "games" section has essentially been the same since March. --Salleman 28 June 2005 08:33 (UTC)
I am also of the opinion, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". If it does "fill out of proportions" THEN it will be time to decide what to do with extra stuff (which is likely not to be cut, just be reformatted). If a troll makes an appearance it should have a reference here (why not?). -Moocats 16:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trolls in folklore VS. Trolls in fairytales

I'm going to edit the page (mostly the "Trolls in Scandinavian Folklore" section) to try and seperate the folklore (what people actually believed about trolls in their everyday life) from the more romantic fairytale (trolls as more legendary and beastly creatures). While one is based in the other, at least Swedish folklorists tend to see a point in keeping them apart, and in the case of trolls there's quite a difference. Currently the section mixes both somewhat strangely, but is downplaying the everyday folklore. I'll also add something about the difference, and the transition in the late 19th century towards the more fantastic fairytale trolls as portrayed by Bauer & Co, leading to the fairytale/fantasy trolls of today.

I will be referencing Ebbe Schön [1] (Link is in Swedish: He is a Swedish folklore researcher, associate professor at Stockholm University and caretaker of Sweden's largest folklore collection at Nordiska museet [2]), in particular the books "Folktro från Förr", "Troll och människa" and "Svensk Folktro A-Ö". I'll add a reference section to go with that.

I'll also add a picture to go with the folklore since right now all pics are of classic fairytale trolls... might need to rearrange the pictures now there since the side is becoming a bit cluttered. Amphis 14:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I am myself currently half-way trough a major edit of this page, but attempting to write elegant English slows down the work awfully, and then I lose interest. I was planning to mention what you just wrote. However, the brutish troll of fairy tales is more in line with the Norwegian concept of troll, in Sweden we tend to use jätte of such creatures (Jätten Finn, for instance). Anyway, please make your edits, and then I'll see whatever I can add. --Salleman 17:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
PS. I presume you mean the image from Svenska Folksägner found at p. 72 in Folktro från förr. I was planning to find me a scanner and upload that picture as well :D
Oops! I hope there's enough left to add that that it wasn't a waste for you, especially if you know more about Norwegian trolls -- I know as much as that when you move to the west of Scandinavia the two becomes similar or the same, in Bohuslän too, but I have no good non-tertiary sources about Norwegian folklore. Or possibly the page on giants could be improved and linked to the troll page, it's rather meager right now...
My own English is... useable, I hope :) Amphis 17:45, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
And that's how Salleman learned never to respond at the talk page without first looking at what has been done at the article page. :\ Good work! I'll be adding some things. My only small problem with your edits is that I was going to separate between two main traditions: large and human-sized trolls, which works bad with your looks/behaviour sectionalizing. But, I'll work something out. --Salleman 17:55, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Simply deleting your headers wasn't the most sophisticated solution imaginable, but at least I made my additions. --Salleman 23:24, 4 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Trolls and bridges

This is really never covered in the article except by inference. Perhaps it should be mentioned being a fairly common stereotype? --BHC 10:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the myth

The problem with this theory is that neither Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons existed in this part of Europe during the ice-age. Most of Scandinavia was covered by a large glacier and the area was not occupied until much later.

Logically, this isn't actually a problem with the theory at all. It seems to argue that the ancestors of the Scandinavian people didn't exist during the ice age, but obviously they were somewhere, weren't they? —Michael Z. 2006-08-14 16:28 Z

[edit] Japanese troll? Please.

The name Totoro does indeed come from a child's mispronounciation of the word troll, but that's about it. The title of that section is way too sensationalistic and makes it sound like the Japanese have trolls of their own. The mispronounced troll in question is, of course, a western troll, no more. I say move that info to the trivia section or remove it altogether. 213.172.234.74 16:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I would also love to know what exacty the western influences referenced to are. To my knowledge the only western thing in the whole deal is the said mispronounced troll. 213.172.234.74 16:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trolls based on sorrounding

Mountain trolls: large, low thought pattern, eats full victem

Woodland (vally): taller then men, superstius/ higher thought patteren, mostly animal diet(humans are for vodoo) Darkland 04:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing the "trollkonor" snippets

1) The grammar is incorrect (singular of konor is kona), 2) kona is just an older Swedish word for "woman", not related to trolls in particular, and 3) trollkona, while having the literal meaning of "troll woman", was usually used when talking about a (human) witch in the same way that the current Swedish trollkarl (lit. "troll man") means "wizard". Amphis 21:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scandinavia vs. Nordic

I propose that the word Scandinavia be changed to Nordic countries for disambiguation.

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