On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 18:11:32 -0000, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


Mind you it might take a while for you to forgive being likened to a
hairy dwarfish creature from up Scandinavia way sent forth from the
Hall of The Mountain King.

Huh?

Trolls live under bridges ... and eat goats.


It seems Trolls are different things to different people !

I couldn't resist a quick search and came up with this. I especially
like the paragraphs on 'Practical Advice'

Internet trolls are right at the bottom.

Laugh a minute

Hussein

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A827417

Trolls


The word 'troll' is the root for many words in the realm of magic and
the supernatural in the Scandinavian languages. To practice magic is
trolla in Swedish, troldmann is Danish for magician and trolsk is a
Norwegian adjective describing something magical and eerie.

'Troll' also carries certain connotations of behaviour and appearance.
If you call someone a troll you indicate they are less than pretty,
uncouth and inconsiderate (1). A misbehaving child can be called a
trollunge or, literally, 'troll-baby' or '-child'. Shakespeare'sThe
Taming of the Shrew is called 'Trolls can be Tamed' in Norwegian
(Troll kan temmes) and Danish (Trold kan tæmmes).

It's unsurprising then to discover that 'troll' has been used as a
generic word for malicious supernatural creatures and as the word for
specific mythical creatures of various descriptions all over
Scandinavia. This makes it difficult to say exactly what a troll
really is so this entry will explain by example, using the
descriptions of trolls in Norwegian Folk Tales by Peter Christen
Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (2).

Trolls in Folklore

Ancestry

Trolls are likely descended from the 'Jotun' (3) of Norse Mythology.
The Jotun were the enemies of the gods and were for the most part kept
out of the human world by the vigilance of the gods. They lived in
remote hills, forests and mountains and awaited the end of the world
when they would do battle with the gods.

The trolls kept the mountains as their home, but they were no longer
waiting to do battle with the gods. Instead they were fighting a
losing battle against Christianity. Many large boulders in the
vicinity of churches have stories about trolls attempting to wreck the
building, often to still the church bells which would bother them even
in their mountain homes. The boulders are then either something thrown
by the troll, or the troll itself surprised by sunrise and turned to
stone.

Appearance

In some of the tales supernatural beings, human in appearance, are
called trolls, evidence of the generic use of the word. Real trolls,
however, are big and ugly and sometimes don't have the regular number
of body parts for a humanoid shape.

The tale of The Boys who Met the Trolls in the Heddal Forest describes
three trolls as tall as the trees, sharing one single eye. They take
it in turns to use this eye, until one of the boys in the story steals
it and holds it hostage for a large amount of gold and silver from the
Trolls' hoard.

The most famous troll of all, the one in The Three Billy Goats Gruff,
lives under a bridge that crosses a waterfall. It has eyes the size of
tin plates and a nose as long as a rake. Although human proportions do
not apply, it has to be fairly large to accommodate such features.

A particular type of Norwegian fairy tale has a progression of trolls
the hero has to overcome. The first troll has three heads, the second
six and the last has nine heads. Even more heads are possible, as a
large cave in one mountain, tall as a church spire, but very shallow,
is described as a portal into the supernatural realm big enough for
the largest of the trolls, one that has 15 heads.

Habitat and Behaviour

Trolls live inside hills and mountains and rarely close to humans. The
inside of the hill can be but a simple dwelling, but it can also be a
whole domain with houses and farmlands. Humans and trolls often come
into conflict because trolls are territorial and claim an area around
the entrance to their homes; because they like to steal valuables,
like princesses; and because they often posses great riches, not only
in gold and silver, but also in magic objects. Often the conflict
involves all of the above.

Trolls are seldom intelligent and often downright stupid. Although
they can smell the Christian blood of an uninvited visitor, a clever
princess can always fool them by telling a tale of a bird recently
dropping a human thighbone or something similar down the chimney.
Trolls eat the same things as humans, only in larger quantities. They
have no scruples about eating human flesh, but can be fooled with a
stick or similar to think you're not fat enough yet to be tasty.

Practical Advice

An encounter with a troll is an opportunity for acquiring riches,
potentially a princess and a kingdom, but also for losing your life
quickly and brutally (4.) Only try it if:

You are an only child, or the youngest of three brothers, or the
youngest of the company of three you are travelling in.

You have shown kindness and compassion to unfortunates you have met on
your journey, and kept any innocent looking trinkets they might have
given you.

You are in possession of magical objects.

You are a right clever lad.

If the above list does not apply to you and you find yourself near a
troll, you might want to run for safety.

Modern Fiction

From Scandinavian folklore, to early fantasists like Tolkien, the idea
of the troll has spread throughout the worlds of Fantasy and Fantasy
Role Playing. A few examples a

Tolkien

Tolkien's trolls are fairly true to the description above. They are
big, ugly and can't bear sunlight. They are even more stupid than the
fairy tale troll though. They are described as unintelligent and
inherently evil, skulking through night and caverns. The three trolls
in The Hobbit are exceptions to the rule, speaking the language of men
and being less stupid.

Pratchett

The trolls of Terry Pratchett's Discworld are also big, stupid and
ugly. The explanation for their aversion to sunlight, however, is
unusual. They are silicon-based life forms, moving rocks, and their
brains can't handle heat. The warmer it gets, the slower the brain
functions, until you can't tell trolls from rocks.

Role Playing Games

Some Role Playing Games have trolls as a player race. In the Earthdawn
game they are stronger and bigger than men, and less interested in
intellectual pursuits. They live in clans and are great fighters.
These are more like big, ugly, stupid people than fairy tale trolls.
Other games (eg, AD&D) have trolls as monsters, in which case they are
more likely to be the big, ugly, stupid man-eaters of the fairy tales.

Internet Trolls

Originally unrelated to the fairy tale troll, the 'Internet Troll',
first appeared on Usenet. The term originally referred to the practice
of writing posts that deliberately antagonized 'newbies' and hot-heads
and made them post an angry reply. The term also applies to such posts
themselves - it comes from the phrase 'trolling for newbies' after the
more mundane method of fishing for Osteichthyes.

Though amusing for those in the know, trolling can easily get out of
hand, and those who had no interest in anything else became known as
trolls, partly because they only trolled and partly because their
behaviour was uncouth and inconsiderate. 1 Although this description
applies to Internet trolls, they got their name from their 'trolling'
ie, fishing for 'flames'.

2 Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe collected a large number of
Norwegian Folk tales in the late 19th Century.

3 Using the English term 'giant' for the Jotun foes of the Norse gods
is misleading. The Jotun could be big and dumb, but also small and
clever.

4 Before deciding to go for it, consider this: happily ever after may
be a cliché and relationships started under strain are often unstable.
And ruling a country, with no relevant experience, can't be all that
easy.