Updates, Quotes, and Trolls

Fast Updates:

Wishing you all a safe and happy November!

We had a blast at the events in October and are looking forward to the upcoming shows!

Event update: Added Inaugural Horror Fiesta to events page.

I was honored to receive a wonderful review of my debut novel “Rise” from whenangelsfly.net! If you would like to read the post or some of the other insightful reviews, please visit the site: whenangelsfly.net(Rise)

The Blood Inheritance Novels Series Two-Book Set: Rise and Lost was a featured on Best Book Monkey during its limited time sale! Be sure to check out bestbookmonkey.com for great e-book deals!

From November 2nd through 6th the kindle edition of The Blood Inheritance Novels Series Two-Book Set: Rise and Lost is FREE! This limited time sale is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. There’s more! From November 3rd through 10th, The Blood Inheritance Novels Series Two-Book Set: Endow and Resist (Kindle edition) will be available at a discounted rate! Prices for this countdown deal are available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk,

Also:

readersfavorite.com will have three of my available books listed as prizes in the monthly book giveaway. If you are interested in winning some amazing books by great authors you can check out the monthly giveaway here: book giveaway /Rise or/and here: book-giveaway/combo and here: book-giveaway/The Warning Signs

Upcoming Event Reminders:

2023

We are scheduled to participate in the 8th Annual Indie Author Book Expo on November 4^th at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

On November 18th and 19th we plan to participate at the Madison Quad Con! This event is set to take place at the East Towne Mall.

We plan to participate at the Davenport Quad Con! This event is set to take place on December 9^th and 10^th at the Northpark Mall.

Concealed Realms is scheduled to participate in the Quad Con which will be held at the Des Moines Merle Hay Mall on December 16th and 17th!

2024

On February 3rd and 4th we plan to participate at the Champaign, IL Quad Con! This event is set to take place at the Market Place Shopping Center.

We are scheduled to participate at the Hall of Heroes Comic Con on March 2nd and 3rd. This event takes place at the Northern Indiana Event Center, located in Elkhart, IN *(Due to a scheduling conflict, I will no longer be able to participate at this event.)*

Concealed Realms is scheduled to return to Saluki Con! This Eclipse Con will be held on April 6th and 7th.

Concealed Realms plans to participate at the inaugural horror fiesta in Peoria IL on September 14th. This event is set to take place at the exposition gardens opera house

Folklore Quotes and Sayings :

“Pay heed to the tales of old wives.

It may well be that they alone keep in memory

what it was once needful for the wise to know.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien

“Never overlook folklore

if you want to really know about the place it came from.”
-Kate Milford

“There is scarce a cave, an isolated rock,

a lone pine tree or a pile of stones without supporting folklore.”
– John Hillaby, Journey through Europe

“Some stories soak into the threads of the universe,

beyond time, becoming echoes of memory lingering in the darkness,

like dead stars, whispering light.”
– Tracey-anne McCartney

“Why do mythological heroes of past civilizations have a thousand faces?

Is it because each one of us takes a heroic journey of self-discovery?”
– Kilroy J. Oldster

“Storytelling is the art of weaving ordinary words into extraordinary worlds.”
– Jack Dublin

“I love folklore and all festering superstitions.”
-E.M. Forster

“myths reflect centuries of oral tradition in non-literate as well as literate peoples

– when it comes to the supernatural, there’s no beating folklore.”
– Kailin Gow,

“If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do,

we might grow to be long-lived like them.

But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-half of their fascination.

Love with them never grows weary,

nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet.”
– W. B. Yeats

“If you read fairy tales carefully,

you’ll notice they are mostly about people who aren’t heroes.

They don’t have special powers, or gifts.

Often they are despised as stupid,

They are bullied, beaten up, robbed, starved.

But they find they are stronger than their misfortunes.”
– Amanda Craig

Definition of Troll:

Dictionary.com

Noun

“(in Scandinavian folklore) any of a race of supernatural beings, sometimes conceived as giants and sometimes as dwarfs, inhabiting caves or subterranean dwellings.” – www.dictionary.com

CambridgeDictionary.org

Noun

“an imaginary, either very large or very small creature in traditional Scandinavian stories, that has magical powers and lives in mountains or caves:” – dictionary.cambridge.org

Trolls in folklore and legend:

In centuries past the world was thought to be full of mysterious monsters and other mystical or supernatural creatures. Legends pertaining to them were passed down through generations by word of mouth, in art, and later in writing.

One such being that has shown up in lore throughout history are trolls. Stories featuring these untamed dwellers of the natural world have existed for thousands of years and many of us have grown up hearing tales featuring these, human-like creatures.

Whether it’s a cautionary tale, a tale of transformation, or perhaps a story to explain natural and/or social phenomena, we listen enthralled as we marvel at these mythic creatures’ ability to explore the wonders that often seem hidden to us in nature. As such, in this post we will touch base on troll-folk in mythology.

The origins of Trolls

How far into humanity’s past do stories of Trolls reach? The first written accounts were found in the works, Prose Edda from the 13^th century. This Old Norse text was compiled in Iceland and is considered to be the most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology.

Within the texts, “troll” is believed to signify a portion of the race of giants known as Jötunn or jötnar, whom were refused access to Asgard by the Norse gods, although not all scholars agree on this interpretation.

The word itself has a strange and winding historical path and can be traced back to Proto-Germanic words meaning giant, monster, or fiend, causing some to theorize that troll was a blanket term for mischievous creatures. If you would like to delve deeper into its origins, check out etymonline.com.

Gradually throughout Norse culture, trolls became defined as particular types of beings with two main traditions in regards to the use of the term “troll” which dominated lore and legend. In general, both versions lived in inaccessible and untouched nature, for example in caves in the mountains, or in the forests or the sea.

Some traditions describe trolls as human size or smaller, mysterious creatures that live in dark dwellings and are mischievous, chaotic beings. In tales, they sometimes use invisibility to sneak into human homes and stir up trouble.

While others, seemingly direct descendants from the Norse giants, were huge, homely creatures with features like tusks and occasionally a single eye centered below their forehead. They were sometimes even rumored to be man-eaters. Many folktales claim these large creatures will turn to stone upon contact with sunlight, in fact the origins of multiple landmarks in Nordic countries are bound in such folklore and when investigating these area’s mountains and cliffs it is not hard to see why.

Troll Lore

A forest encounter

One version of an old tale originating from Scandinavia goes something like this… There was an old woman who lived with her three sons in a small wooden house on the edge of a dark forest. One year as winter was approaching the woman asked her eldest son to go into the woods and chop down a tree to use for firewood to stave off the cold.

“Do I have to?” the boy wined. “When it gets cold we could all go to bed. Then we wouldn’t need to build a fire.”

“Don’t be so lazy!” the old woman said. “We can’t stay in bed all winter. You’re the strongest of my sons, so go and fetch some wood.”

The boy didn’t like hard work, so when he finally set off for the forest, he took along the smallest axe he could find and searched for the rottenest tree.

“This shouldn’t be too hard,” and he lifted up the axe to start chopping. He had just tapped the tree once when he felt a thump on his shoulder. He turned around and behind him he saw the ugliest, troll you could imagine. The creature had one red eye in the center of his forehead and his nose was knobby and twisted like the root of a tree.

“Hey you!” shouted the troll. “If you chop down a single tree in my forest I’ll break you into pieces.”

The boy threw down his axe and ran home as fast as his legs could carry him to tell his family about the giant.

“Fancy being afraid of a stupid old troll!” sneered the middle son. “I wouldn’t be afraid.”

The next morning the middle son picked up a bigger axe and set off to fetch some wood. As soon as he got to the forest he found a large tree that looked like it would make enough wood to last the whole winter and started to chop allowing the sound of his axe to echo through the forest.

Before he’d got halfway through the tree the troll appeared, startling him as he spoke, “Hey you! What do you think you’re doing? You lift that axe once more and I’ll break you into pieces.”

“Don’t think I’m s-scared of an old t-t-troll like you. You c-can’t f-frighten me. I’m going to chop down this t-tree.”

“We’ll see about that!” And he lifted a long arm up into the tree and pulled off a long branch. He snapped it across his knee and started breaking it into tiny twigs, to prove his point.

The middle brother saw how strong the troll was and ran home as fast as he could. He was shaking with fear when he arrived and his elder brother greeted him. “Well, where’s all the wood then?”

“I met the nasty troll. He chased me out of the forest. He was much too strong to argue with. Why, he was fifty feet…”

Just then the old woman’s youngest son butted in. “I wouldn’t be scared of him. I’m sure I wouldn’t. I’ll go and fetch the wood.”

“What, you? You’re much too young to chop down a tree. With that troll you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Oh, please let me go.”

Despite her fears, the old woman said her youngest son should be allowed to try his luck. So the next day the third son picked up the biggest axe in the house. It was so heavy he could hardly carry it. He went to the kitchen cupboard and took out a firm white ball of cheese. When the brothers saw him putting the cheese into his bag they laughed.

“What do you want that for? Are you going to have a picnic with your friend the troll?” But the young boy did not answer, and he went off to the forest, dragging the huge axe behind him.

When he reached the forest, he went to the biggest tree he could find. It was about twenty feet thick and so high he could not see the top. He struggled to lift the axe, but he had to let it drop and when it did the sound brought the troll.

“Not another one!”, he grumbled. “And this one no more than a boy! If you chop that tree I’ll break you into pieces.”

The boy looked straight at the troll. “You just try it and I’ll crush you like I’ll crush this stone.” As he spoke the boy took the big white cheese and squeezed it between his hands. The cheese squirted everywhere – and the biggest blob hit the troll in his red eye.

“All right! All right!” shouted the startled troll. “That’s enough. Don’t crush me like that stone. You can chop down any trees you want – no, I’ll chop them for you if you like. I’ll, eve cut them into logs and take them back to your house.”

From that day on the troll made sure that the old woman and her family had all the firewood they needed.

A transformative tale

One tale of transformation used to explain a rocky outcropping, comes from Icelandic legend. In it two trolls Skessudrangur and Laddrangur found their perfect home near a village surrounded by towering cliffs that offered shelter from the sun while providing easy access to the sea.

For the pair, the sea was nearly as important as the shadows. At nightfall they preyed upon ships traveling along the coast, scanning the horizon, looking for any signs of ships. When they spotted one, they would race into the water, swim to the ship and then tug it to shore. After they had looted the ship of all of its treasures, they would gorge themselves on its supplies.

As time went on and their fortunes grew, Skessudrangur and Laddrangur became more and more confident in their abilities. Soon, they decided to start going after the largest ships, confident they could drag even them to shore and add to their treasure piles faster.

One night, the biggest ship they had ever seen started to sail into view. It was so large, it needed three masts to harness enough wind. The trolls couldn’t believe their luck.

Once they got to the ship, though, they began to struggle. While they could get most ships to shore in an hour or so, this ship barely budged, but the pair were not willing to give up.

After several hours of tremendous effort, with the shoreline starting to feel like it was within reach, the sun began to come into view. In their excitement over the treasure, they had lost track of time. As the sky lit up, the trolls became frozen in place, turned into rocky reminders about the dangers of greed.

Interested in reading more troll lore? Try these links:

BillyGoatsGruff, TheYuleLads, KalikantzariChristmasTrolls

Respected, but avoided

Trolls weren’t just fairy tales used to scare children. During the Middle Ages belief in trolls was still serious enough that there were a number of laws against consorting with them in Norwegian law books.

In the Early Modern period, belief in the literal existence of trolls, began to wane and they became seen more as the mythical creatures of folktales by most.

According to newworldencyclopedia.org, illustrated tales featuring trolls became exceedingly popular in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. This literature is believed to have come to form the foundation for the ideas most people have of trolls today.

Science

Some Scientist today theorize that the strong belief in trolls may have stemmed from encounters with ancient hominids or their remains, in much the same way as legends of dragons have been theorized to have spawned from ancient cultures discovering dinosaur bones.

What is a Troll?

It’s true that even today trolls in fiction can be quite varied when it comes to origin, personalities, and their appearances, although these human-like beings most often still fall into one of two categories.

Trolls that lives in dark places such as underground, in caves or deep in caverns tend to be depicted as unpleasant to look at. They are sometimes described as being as tall as or smaller than humans and often have petite unsymmetrical or disproportional facial features, bulging abdomens and/or limbs that seem too short.

On the other hand mountain trolls, are usually described as large, savage, and often doltish creatures that resembles a giant human. Weather they have one head or two, in general these creatures have inflated facial details, such as protruding brows, oversized noses and jutting jaws.

Final thoughts

Final thoughts

In the past introducing human traits and an element of storytelling helped to bring the mystifying, sometimes unpredictable into the more familiar territory of the known. The folklore surrounding trolls, which once served as explanations, cautionary tales, and a link to nature, remain integral to culture and even though the belief in trolls as real creatures has waned over the centuries, their presence continues to be felt and to inspire us today. I had a lot of fun delving into this topic and I hope that you enjoyed this brief dive into troll history.