Tag Archives: light

“Oscar the Emasculated Troll”

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A friendly, big and warm-hearted fuzzy creature lived amongst the woods. He had very bold features with one big watery eye, a big nose, and a big friendly smile. He was very large in size, with a stumpy block-like body and stumpy wide hairy feet. Sometimes you may find his pants on his short arms and his shirt on his feet. He was oftentimes clumsy to say the least. He was nothing from a typical troll, and his name was Oscar.

In a far away forest laid a town name Leonid, and northern to that was a little stream where the townsmen were forbidden to go. Beside that little stream was where Oscar called home. His home was a little cave Oscar had built himself. He made it by how his grandpa had taught him; it was a very sturdy home. Oscar even made a mat on his doorsteps that said “Welcome, Please Knock”, hoping one day he would have company. For lunch and dinner he would run to the little stream and try to catch fishes, and then he’d set up a fire and cook it.

In the little town of Leonid, lived a little girl named Anna. She was very curious, and often times too curious for her own good. One night, the children were gathered around the fireplace where Grandma Alemo spookingly spoke “when dawn drops, Oscar comes out to town while you are all sleeping, and looks for the children who isn’t sleeping and…” All the children were spooked and frightened, except for Anna. “and eats them!” This intrigued Anna. Anna put her little cape on, got in her little red shoes, grabbed the basket in disguise, and off she went.

Oscar heard a little girl’s voice one sunny afternoon. Oscar slowly got out of his wooden chair where he was initially sun bathing, and jumped up right away to grab his wooden stick and ran towards his home. Oscar laid flat on his back, very still and silent as he hid behind in the corner in the dark. As Oscar was running away, Anna from afar saw the trolls escape. Anna followed and found a little cave with a “Welcome, Please Knock” mat. Unfortunately, there was no door to the cave but being polite she knocked then walked in. As she entered, she walked into the troll head on without knowing because he was so big in size. Oscar having never had company was a little frightened, shocked, but felt a little warmth inside of him. Because of the big fall, Anna felt a little light headed and decided to take a nap. She found a big fuzzy surface and jumped on top. Little did she know, Anna took a nap right on the troll’s belly. Oscar knowingly, stayed very still to not disrupt the little girl.

As dawn started to fall, the townsmen were sent out to look for Anna. They walked past the talking trees and followed her small footsteps and tracked her tracks. As the townsmen were tracking the tracks it lead them to the Oscar’s home. When they approached it, they noticed it was the home of the folktale troll’s home they heard growing up. Frightened, one man led the others and entered the home. As they entered, they saw the a little girl sleeping on the troll. One townsman grabbed little Anna, and together ran all they way back to Leonid.

This was the only glimpse of warmth Oscar got in his lifetime. For the rest of time, Oscar lived a lonely life by himself next to the stream. He was never bothered nor made any trouble. That was the last time Oscar seen little Anna. Anna knew from then on, the tales of Oscar the One-Eyed Scary Troll, were false but she was forbidden to go back and was kept an watchful eye. Anna hoped one day she would be able to go back near the stream, to meet Oscar again.

—MT

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Once upon a time in a magical kingdom lived an ugly, lazy and bad tempered troll named Meekawl. Meekawl didn’t care much for anything and especially hated taking baths. His body odour could burn one’s nose off from miles away. It was why many of the animals in the forest had run away, lest they end up like the others who had strayed too close to him and dropped dead.

One day, when Meekawl was out hunting for his favourite food, speckled red cap mushrooms, Meekawl noticed something odd. Someone or something, had been digging up the little patches of fungi and devouring them whole. This made Meekawl very angry as eating his favourite mushrooms was one of the only joys he had in life. Mind made up, Meekawl set off to find the one who had dared to take what was his.

A distance away, a princess named Bianca, who was completely doused in a thick cloud of perfume and thus immune to Meekawl’s hideous troll stink, was on her way back to her castle after a day of horseback riding. Feeling uneasy at the complete silence and isolation of the area she had wandered through, she noticed a huge black shadow overtake the light of the sun. Turning slowly to look over her shoulder, she glimpsed a green hideous face, mouth full of what looked like red mushrooms. Before Bianca could open her mouth to scream, a large ugly fist slammed so hard into the face, propelling the monster far away and rendering it dead.

“TAKE THAT YOU DUMB MUSHROOM THIEF!” Roared the owner of the fist.

Gasping, Bianca being a well brought up princess quickly tried to express her gratitude.

“Oh! Thank you so much for saving me! Since you have done such a good deed, I will grant you entry inside my palace despite my no ugliness allowed rule. Aren’t you lucky?”

Turning to glare at her, Meekawl snarled, “NO THANKS. I DON’T LIKE PEOPLE.” Looking down his large bulbous nose at her he sneered before walking back to his forest. “YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT TAKING A BATH. YOU STINK.”

—Michelle Shieh

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It was a long, long time ago when trolls moved in great numbers across vast Norwegian plains that Nora was only a small child, and was warned about their dangers. The youngest in a family of boys, Nora was a curious child, and enjoyed exploring the forests around her village.

One particularly shadowy night, Nora’s curiosity led her into the forest just behind the soft lights of her village. She didn’t dare tell any of the elders, as there were recent whispers of evil mountain trolls moving closer to the human villages, and she was forbidden from exploring at that hour. She innocently clutched a simple doll, made of straw, and braved into the mysterious dark woods. Mesmerized by giant canopy trees and the faint murmur of woodland creatures, Nora became easily disoriented. She was suddenly aware of her surroundings and how unfamiliar they looked as the light began to grow dimmer. Panic struck, and she grasped on to a thorny branch, scraping her palm, then stepped onto a slippery stone. Thud. She fell, onto the moist forest floor. Her head hit a larger stone, and she could feel the wind being sucked out of her. She looked to the forest ceiling just as her eyelids closed, one last glimpse the dark night sky before everything was black.

Hours later, Nora’s eyelids were heavy and it seemed that everything around her was spinning. Struggling, her eyes half opened to see watch a blurry, dark, forest rushing past her. Confusion swept over as she noticed that a large, bark-skinned creature appeared to be carrying her. With thoughts of trolls flashing through her head, Nora again slipped into a blackened consciousness.

Startled again, Nora awoke to two creatures that seemed to be arguing over her. One was large, stout, with blackened bark-skin and menacing yellow eyes, carried a sharply angled stone. Arguing with the creature was another, shorter companion, with dim purple eyes and a soft brown colored bark coat. She turned to Nora, cradled her in her arms, and with gentle eyes, whispered a spell in strange tongue that caused Nora to, again, slip into her dreamy state of darkness.

This time, when Nora opened her eyes, things were clearer. She felt better, her senses coming back to her, forming the familiar sight of a house hole in the dark night. As she slowly came back to consciousness, Nora realized she had been lost, deep in the unknown forest. But how had she gotten here, safely, back home? Confused, Nora turned just in time to catch the glint of two purple eyes watching over her at the edge of the woods. Quickly, the creature that they belonged to turned and disappeared back into the dark.

Nora, now one of the elders of her village, to this day believes that it was a mountain troll that saved her life that day, through her faint memories. Once a month, she leaves out an offering to them – three ripe figs and a dandelion – a troll’s favorite meal, along with her little straw doll. And every so often, just for a second, there will be the glimpse of those familiar purple eyes.

—Chloe Jung

“Troll Jerky”

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You know, not so long ago, over there in the hills on the other side of the bay, there was a family of trolls that settled into an old mine shaft.

In the summertime, some of the local kids would go over to the mine and dare each other to go further and further along towards the trolls’ den, which surely must have lain at the very end of the tracks, in the darkest part of the cave. The bravest boys and girls would creep deep down into the shaft until the daylight behind them was only a whisper, and the air grew damp and began to stink a bit of pork.

“Troll farts!” observed one girl. “They smell like bacon ‘cause the trolls have been feeding on mister Jensen’s hogs. They smoke ‘em, make jerky out of ‘em. But they prefer human jerky when they can get it!”

When they wouldn’t dare go any deeper into the mine, the kids might pick up stones and see who could throw one hardest and farthest into the darkness, closest to the troll family’s lair. Of course, all of the kids made sure that they were well on their way home from the hills by the time sunset came around.

One sunny Saturday, a group of girls and boys had crept as far as they would creep along into the mine and were throwing stones in the direction of the troll den. One large boy hurled a stone as straight and as hard as any boy could, and to everyone’s surprise, a cry of sharp pain echoed down the shaft.

“Ow!” shrieked a voice. It wasn’t much deeper in tone than the voices of the young girls, but it was enough of a shock to freeze every kid on the spot.

They seemed to wait silently and motionlessly for some instruction from someone. To run? To scream? To stand and fight the nasty, ugly brutes?

But before a decision could be made, a stone whizzed back up the mine shaft, striking the large boy sharply on an ear. He wailed horrifically and the kids bolted back towards the daylight.

All the kids ran back except one little girl, who lingered a moment, then dared to creep just a little further into the darkness. She had a sugar cookie in her pocket, baked that morning by her mother, which she now offered out towards the darkness.

A dainty, brown, fuzzy hand, almost the exact same size as the girl’s, reached out for the cookie. It didn’t snatch, but gently took the cookie back into the darkness. The little girl heard a soft crunching and munching, and even a polite groan of satisfaction.

“Mmmmm…” cooed the little troll in the dark. And before the girl knew it, the small fuzzy hand reached back into the light, and offered her back a slice of the most deliciously scented pork jerky she had ever caught a whiff of. And, you know, it was magic jerky! For as soon as the last bite of the stick was finished, another would surely reappear in the eater’s hand.

“Thank you” said the girl towards the darkness, and she went back down the tracks, out of the mine and home to her family.

Well, the bloody-eared large boy who threw the stone told his large dad who got all up in arms and eventually he had the mine blown up and caved in with dynamite.

It really is too bad, you know. But at least I got my piece of jerky! And one is really all you need.

—Matt Clarke