Trolls - The European Bigfoot

Legends of Neanderthal-style "wildmen" are common in cultures around the world. The New World Dictionary tells us that sasquatch, the North American version (and the original name for bigfoot) comes from British Columbia's Saiish Indians' word saskehavas, meaning just that--"wild men." To the average American/ a troll is likely to be regarded as less of a sasquatch like wildman than a dwarf-like fairy-tale creature. Yet into the 1800s, trolls were widely believed by Germanic countryfolk to actually exist, and far from their present-day troll-doll image in America, "the troll is both monster and giant giant," recorded German folklorist Jacob Grimm in his 1835 Teutonic Mythology. They were, more or less, the European cousin of North America's bigfoot or sasquatch--the "wildmen" of the local evergreen woods. But where did they--or beliefs in them-come from?

Troll Habitat and Troll Habits

Trolls were reputed to live in wooded regions of the Germanic countries--Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and, especially, Norway. As with North America's bigfoot, this was often northern, overcast, evergreen habitat. Many place-names in these regions attest to their long-standing belief as the haunt of trolls: In Sweden a waterfall called Trollhota was believed to have been troll-haunted, while along a

Norwegian inlet called Trollsfjord there exist boulders which were once believed to have been the remains of nocturnal trolls turned to stone when caught out in the morning's sunlight. Irish folklorist Thomas Keightley remarked in 1850 that in Sweden a noble family called Troll was once believed to have taken their name from the feat of having slain a troll. In North America, by contrast, there are few place names associated with bigfoot, such as Ape Canyon/ near Mount St. Helens (and even that was

wiped out by the 1980 volcanic eruption). But place-naming white

people in North America have only recently been introduced to bigfoot legends, whereas troll-lore in Europe extends back

for over a millennium.

In the 1820s, Danish folklorist Just Mathias Thiele collected several volumes of folk-beliefs when trolls were still widely believed by countryfolk to actually exist. In describing trolls he remarked that "of personal beauty they have not much to boast, and they have immoderate,,humps on their backs and long, crooked noses." Trolls were generally nocturnal and reputed to live in caves, and like bigfoot they were associated with a repulsive odor. "They lived wild, savage lives, delighting in dirt and evil smells," remarked modern mythologist Roger Lancelyn Green in his Myths of the Norsemen. They were commonly said to eat humans/ while the posionous property of the globe flower was blamed--for one reason or another--on trolls with the folk-name troll-flower. (Even today its scientific name remains Trollius.)

In earlier times trolls were said to sometimes have multiple heads. "The sagas tell of three-headed, six-headed, and nine headed trolls," remarked Grimm, pointing to the nine-headed species called negenkopp, from which we seem to have taken the childhood insult-term "nincompoop," much as "oaf" comes from the Olf Norse for "elf" (alfr). But in 1867, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen poked fun at the multi-headed troll-folk in his play Peer Gynt by having the King of Trolls lament "Three-headed trolls are going clean out of fashion; one hardly sees even a twoheader now, and those heads but so-so ones."

Troll Origins

Folklorists have proposed few theories to explain why people believed in trolls and other such creatures. But some of the theories they have come up with are as intriguing

as the beliefs themselves: In 1890, Scottish folklorist David

Mac Ritchie proposed that such folklore stemmed from ancestral

memories of Stone Age humans, such as Neanderthal man "lurking

in caves or fens," and living at the fringe of human society.

But this view is flawed in the genetic sense, since such personal memories occurring within one's own lifetime cannot be passed on to one's descendants.(Instinctive "memories,"

such as fears of snakes or of violent winds, require the elimination of non-believers from ancestral lineage, not mere personal experience of one's forebearers.) However, some modern believers in the troll-like bigfoot have taken this theory a step further by proposing that bigfoot, the abominable snowman, and other such troll-like phantoms may

be surviving Neanderthals, rather than Mac Ritchie's proposed A hallucinated ancestral memories.

A more plausable explanation for troll legends may be found in the Naturalistic theory of elf-lore origins. Although less dramatic than seeing Neanderthal man behind such folklore,

the Naturalistic view is more poetic--albeit inadvertently so . It attributes folkloric beliefs to misinterpretation of suggestive natural phenomena.

Recalling that the peasants of yesteryear had no reason to believe that trolls and other supernatural creatures didn't exist, they Could easily have misinterpreted the suggestively camouflaged movements of woodland creatures in the haunting

twilight of dusk and dawn which were known to be favored by trolls and other supernatural creatures--a time not only of obscuring half-light, but of vulnerable human imagination anyway. It seems more likely, then, that peasants would have misperceived. the surrealistic and unnerving sight of real creatures, such as bears, into trolls, than to have mis-hallucinated supposed ancestral memories of Neanderthals into such creatures.

Where Trolls Meet Bears

Bears may indeed have been the specific foundation for troll legends. To appreciate this, we must appreciate both the habits of bears and the habits of peasants of yesteryear.

Unlike people today who know a bear when they see one thanks to TV, movies, and picture-books, the countryfolk of yesteryear had only word-of-mouth descriptions to go by. Bears lived in the Woods, they were told. Bears walked on all four legs, were big and bulky, and perhaps waddled a bit. Leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.Trolls also lived in the woods, they were told. Trolls walked on two legs, like people, had big noses, humped backs, and ate people. Avoid them. Period. Now a bear has superior senses of hearing and, especially,

smell to a human, but is quite nearsighted (i.e., they don't see thing far away very well). As such, if a human (especially

an unbathed peasant) was walking through the woods near a foraging bear, the bear would most likely catch a wiff and/or

a tell-tale sound of the human before the human saw the bear

(who would be only about three feet in height while foraging

on all fours amidst the trees and bushes). Then, as he detected the human presence nearby, the bear would resort to the common

information-gathering habit of bears everywhere--he would

stand up on his hind legs to his full six feet and 400 pounds to have a better look/sniff/listen around. And that would often be the startling first-impression the sharper eyed peasant would have had of a bear in the woods--a seemingly giant, long-nosed, humpbacked, two-legged creature standing upright amidst the trees. Always aware that he was in troll territory anyway, the peasant would have no trouble matching this creature with the description he had always heard of these supernatural, maneating giants and making tracks

in the opposite direction-- s-chnell! And his re-telling of the encounter would probably be unintentionally embellished by his excitement, much as modern fishermen, with arms wildly outstretched, honestly tell of how they perceived the Big one That Got Away.

Adding to their convincing play-acting expertise, bears even seemed to speak with a "troll accent." Bears are largely mute, for apart from a growl, their main vocalization is a soft murmmering sound. This is very close to the folkloric description related by Thiele as coming from trolls, for he wrote that "some had foolishly spoken to them, wishing them good evening, but never got any answer than the trolls hurried past them saying mi! mi! mi!" Significantly, regions with wildman legends, such as the Germanic countries, are usually home to bears as well.

Monsters, by definition, trigger fear among humans. While this is true of some non-humanoid monsters such as dragons, there seems a distinctive panicky terror associated with humanoid trolls, ogres, giants, and others who were on the one hand human while on the other hand embodied with monstrously non-human traits. This psychological panic evolved as a means of blocking the inbreeding of alien characteristics or traits from deformed humans, and it exists among all animals with respect to their own species. Trolls seemed partly human, yet at the same time freakishly alien-a threat to the gene-pool which was offset by instinctive panic. Indeed, the very word panic comes from the Greek wood-nymphs' fear of Pan, the humanoid spirit of woods and meadows, who had a man's body except for his goat-feet and goatlike face, and who elicited such panic in the mymphswith his amorous pursuit. The trolls' imagined foul smell would have been the result of the pariah-like ostracism associated with such an outcast.

This view that natural creatures were mistaken for woodland spirits raises folk-beliefs to the status of

metaphorical, poetic imagery relating to nature, while also giving such folklore more than a touch of descriptive,nationalistic identity in the bargin. In so doing it raises folklore above the level of simplesuperstition, giving its adherents credit for a poetic, and even patriotic

sensibility they may never have known they possessed. of course, this Pan theory doesn't disprove the existence of any such abominable wildmen, for it might be viewed by believers as makinc~ such creatures all the more rivetina.

Mark Sunlin