Tag Archives: morning

“My Kind”

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I was alone the first moment I opened my eyes. There was a dense forest outside my cave that I made my humble abode. The only living things around that I could talk to were the crows. They were wise and kind, I enjoyed their company.

One day I went down to the river bank, the water was still in the early morning and it was the first time I saw myself. I am not soft like the clouds or smooth like a flower petal. In fact, I am quite hard, bumpy and rigid. I would not be surprised if the mountain was my father.

I grew fast, soon I was as tall as the trees that once surrounded my cave. I say once because sometimes small, funny looking creatures would come and cut down some trees. It used to be that they took only five or six, but now they come in packs and create bald spots in the forest. The birds tell me not to get too close to them, they do not like my kind. That was not a problem because their sharp tools scared me, I only watched from afar. ‘Troll’ is what the creatures have named my kind, a wise crow once told me.

I no longer fit in my cave and I also do not become hungry as often. I eat once every three or four days. I catch large animals and I am glad I cannot talk to them. It would be very hard for me to eat them if they were pleading to be let go. The forest is disappearing and I am worried that the creatures will find me. I ask the crows where I could go and they tell me that they used to see some of my kind a few days walk from my cave. They warn me to stay close to the mountain side, not to wander into any fields and to walk quietly. I will eat tonight and leave tomorrow.

—Samantha Yip

“Paspir Forest”

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In the Paspir Forest, there once lived a community of trolls. They were peaceful beings and lived happily in nature and the forest thrived. But then the humans arrived, and they did not like the trolls. They hunted them, mounting their heads atop their fireplaces. Finally, the humans chased the trolls deep into the forest and they continued to hunt them for sport. The trolls feared the humans, but not young Snorky. Instead, Snorky would often wonder why the two communities could not live amongst each other in harmony. He longed for the day when this dream would become a reality.

One day, while Snorky was out looking for some fresh termites to add to the morning oatmeal, he stumbled upon something most alarming. It was a little boy. A human boy! And he was trapped in one of the human’s troll snares. The poor, pathetic looking creature was so tiny! Hardly four feet tall, with skinny arms, tiny ears and nose, and not a single hair on his flat belly! He did not look at all like Snorky, who already at fourteen stood eight feet tall, with his long, lanky arms and thick forearms, large ears and bulbous nose, and proud, extended belly, covered in a thick, luscious coat of grey hair. Snorky was already very handsome in his young age. But this boy was simply revolting to even look at. Nevertheless, Snorky dropped his handful of termites and walked up to the boy.

“Please help me!” cried the teary-eyed little imp, “Please don’t eat me! I’m just a little boy!”
Confused by this, but feeling sorry for the poor creature, Snorky untied him. The little boy thanked him greatly.

“I won’t forget this, Mr. Troll! You are much kinder than what I have been told!” And with that, he ran back towards the human village.

Snorky too returned to his own village, contemplating what the boy had said to him, but no sooner had he returned when a horde of humans came rushing into the village. The trolls were stunned, never before had the humans ever come directly to their village. This was surely the end for them.

Atop the tallest horse was a tall, brutish-looking man and sitting behind him was the little boy Snorky had saved.

“That’s him, Daddy!” the little boy exclaimed, pointing at Snorky.

“You there!” called the man to Snorky, “Speak your name, creature.”

“My name is Snorky,” he answered without the faintest quiver in his voice.

“I am the leader of the human village,” the man announced importantly, “and this boy is my son. He says you saved his life and I intend to repay you. You may ask for one wish and I will see to it that you will be repaid. So what will it be, creature? Gold? New born infants?”

“I am afraid I have no use for either of those things, sir,” Snorky answered, “but there is something that I wish to ask of you.”

“Name it, creature.”

“I wish that the humans would not hunt the trolls anymore,” Snorky said bravely. “We do not deserve to be hunted like animals. I believe that it is possible for us all to live together in peace and harmony.”

The man thought about this for a while before answering. “You have surprised me twice today, troll. First you save my boy, and then you ask for peace. This is not what we have come to expect from trolls.”

“What was it that you expected?” Snorky asked. “We have never harmed humans. We are a peaceful folk.”

“I see,” said the man. “Perhaps our ideas of trolls are not all correct. I will grant you your wish of ceasing the hunts, but I cannot guarantee you peace. Our people have come to fear trolls. Our ancestors depicted you as monsters that must be regularly hunted to deter you from coming too close to our village. If this is not true, then you must show us, but it will take time.” And with that, the man kicked his horse and the horde rode off.

The trolls were still stunned, but Snorky could not have been happier. He had a feeling that today would be forever remembered as the start of something new and amazing. He had the utmost confidence that he was well on his way to making his dream come true.

—E.D. Mayo

“Tommi the Troll”

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He didn’t want to go to school. But as usual, he couldn’t tell his mother why. It would hurt her too much. He dreaded the walk into town, the winding pathway that brought him closer and closer to the site of his daily humiliation. The children there could be so unkind. He wondered if all parents forgot memories of their own childhood. Perhaps that was why they sent their offspring off to school, oblivious to their fate. Like cows for the slaughter. But not everyone was like him, and maybe not every parent remembered the cruelties that came hand in hand with primary school. Not everyone was stared at on the walk to school, or instantly disliked. Not everyone was teased and laughed at for how they looked. Not everyone was twice as tall as his or her classmates, and not everyone had lots more hair than a human eight year-old should have. No one was as ugly as Tommi. His mother told him time and time again, that he wasn’t ugly, he was just a little bit different and that was what made him special. But the children at school said otherwise. He was her special boy, and she had waited for him for a long, long time. She told him, that sometimes people were slow to see good qualities in others, especially those who were a little bit different from them.

“Have a good day my lovely boy.” His mother said giving him a hug. “Do you have your packed lunch?” Tommi nodded, and instinctively patted his little rucksack. Every morning, his mom made him a quail egg sandwich with berry leaves. It was Tommi’s favorite. And everyday Tommi sat alone at lunchtime. He tried to keep out of sight, sitting on a rock under a tall oak tree in the corner of the playground. But his height and broad shoulders made it very difficult to hide. His classmates would stand a short distance away and taunt him. One boy with blond curly hair was their leader and he would hurl remarks that brought howls of laughter from the crowd. To Tommi, they sounded like a pack of loud and hungry wolves. Later that same day, while Tommi sat alone in the shade as usual, the blond boy yelled out, “How’s your baby sandwich, you filthy troll! Did you roast the baby or barbeque it this time!?” The boy’s words and the children’s vicious grins would cut Tommi like knifes. Tommi didn’t eat human babies. He didn’t know why people thought that. He wanted to be human more than anything else in the world. His mother was a kind human lady, with no children of her own, who had found Tommi as a baby, alone and abandoned in the woodlands behind her house. She had raised him as her son and named him after her late husband, who had been well liked and highly respected in town. Not that it mattered to the children in their treatment of Tommi, or their parents who stared at him as he walked to school.

Just then the bell rang, and the crowd of children dispersed as the boys and girls ran back towards the school building. As usual, Tommi waited until the rest of the children were a little bit ahead, before he got up from his rock. The boy with the blond curly hair was running ahead of the pack. He was sprinting, trying to make it to the heavy wooden doors first. Tommi could see what was about to happen. Tommi watched the blond boy gleefully look over his shoulder, to take pleasure in his lead ahead of everybody else. Tommi saw the little bunch of weeds in the grass that the blond boy was running straight towards without watching where he was going, and because of his great speed, their was no time to warn the boy or for him to change direction. The blond boy tripped on the weeds and went sailing through the air, landing with a loud thud. His leg was splayed out at a funny angle and the boy started to wail. Hot tears flooded down his angelic face that was twisted into a look of sheer agony. All the other children stopped, unsure of what to do. No one moved forward to try and help him. At that moment, Tommi bolted across the grassy playground, three times faster than the little blond boy. None of the children had ever seen him run, because he moved slowly to avoid bringing attention to himself. In truth, he was much quicker than any human child, and was at the injured boy’s side in a matter of seconds. The blond boy looked up at Tommi who knelt over the injured child. The boy’s look of agony was replaced with a look of sheer terror and he covered his face with his arms in a pitiful effort to shield himself from the troll child that towered over him. Tommi rested his hands on the boy’s injured leg, and in seconds it shifted back into a more natural position. The blond boy looked up at Tommi in disbelief, who using the rumored magic of the trolls had healed his tormentor’s leg.

From that day forward, Tommi never dreaded walking to school. His walk down the winding path was met with smiles from the townspeople, whose children included him in every schoolyard gathering. And despite his naturally quick speed, Tommi often let the other children win the games they played together.

—Julie O’Connell

“Troll Traveler”

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Let me introduce you to Giilk, a tiny but stout creature who lives deep in the fjords that stretch across the coast of Kempi. You may have seen his home in popular travel photos of this unique destination. Every morning Giilk has the privilege to awake to the awe-inspiring view from his little nook that is carved high up the cliffs of the fijord. The sharp peaks are dusted with snow today and Giilk thinks to himself, maybe I should take a vacation this winter instead of turning to stone like everyone else of his kind.

Giilk decided to visit Pico a place known for being everything opposite of Kempi. When Giilk arrived it was everything he wanted, nothing like Kempi. The water was a crisp translucent blue unlike the mercy grey blue that is in the fijords. Pico was also much warmer than Kempi because it had a big potato in the sky that kept the air warm and turned Giilks skin a touch scaly texture.

Giilk also found a community not so different from his friends and family in Kempi except they were the ten times the size of Giilks kind and they liked to make fun of his big floppy ears. Nonetheless, they didn’t mind Giilks tiny stature and so he fit in well. Giilk enjoyed riding the smooth wet rock slides in the forest, catching rainbow birds, and swimming in the water that glowed. Giilk lived in a small hut that floated on top of the water and he always went to his neighbors hut in the morning for a nice chat and some fresh milk water.

But one morning after being in Pico what felt like a lifetime he found everyone in Pico had turned to stone. He was confused because his kind only did that for the winter and it looked as though Pico never had winter. Giilk wrote a long farewell note and left it at his neighbors house incase he woke up and then began the long journey back to Kempi.

He arrived home to find that everything was the same as before and everyone made it through the winter as a stone statue. Giilk was greeted ever so warmly but he will never felt whole again because part of him is sill attached to Pico.

—Laura Krause

Untitled

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When I woke up this morning, something felt odd. There was some sort of stench in the air. Something was off about the day and I intended to find out what. I went and told my parents immediately but they were sleeping and told me they did not want to be bothered for the next several hours so I went on my way to figure out what the stench was.

I left my burrow and went around back to the shortcut that led to the mountains. It was very foggy and I could not see much. So, I climbed up the trees to get a better view. And there it was. The largest beet I ever did see. But, what was it doing plucked on its side? I had to figure out why. So I jumped through the trees to get a better view of it and it looked like these miniature bunnies were chomping away at it! The nerve of them! I could feel the anger boiling within me so I began to run over to the beetroot yelling at the bunnies. “Get away from the beet! Go away, SKIT, YOU PIECES OF SCUM!” They all started dispersing and hopping away and I felt bad. I could tell they were all confused and scared because I was yelling but I was too late to stop myself from yelling at them.

All I wanted was for them to take the beet somewhere else because I didn’t want the smell around my home. It was a very potent smell. I would have even helped carry the beet for them since I’m bigger and they would need help. But, I just scared them off. I felt so awful I slid down the tree and wept for hours.

—Sarah Jung

“Arni and the Golden Whale”

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“Father, what is it that you were saying to that man?” said Arni to his father.

Asmar replied: “Ahhh my son, it is no mere ‘child’s-play.’ For, a place of darkness, gloom and foul odour there is at the end of the Suðureyrl fjord, on the outskirts of our lands. It is said, in the winter, that the shores of Suðureyrl are rank with the scent of death and that no man who wanders the shores in the frigid darkness will be spared of the malevolence that is home to those lands. Agdi, the Troll, looms in the fogs of the sandy shores. Heed your father’s wise warning! Try your luck at the herring, through the ice, and our family will survive this miserable winter by Odin’s grace.”

Arni proclaimed, “Father, surely he will keep my soul safe as I fish those treacherous waters and land my anchor upon those shores. I share my father’s blood, and his father’s before him. We are descended of the noblest lineage and fear non-other than Thor himself. I hold a golden knife that the first borns of our lineage have carried since the start of time! There are many fisherman in these waters, and our stock has been looted by the thieves to the east. I must travel to Suðureyrl to make landfall and catch the great Golden Whale named Sigríður. If we hope to survive this winter I must catch Sigríður and trick her into revealing where all the fish in our oceans have gone.” “Good-bye father. Wish the gods to favour me on my travels.” Said Arni.

Two weeks have passed since I last witnessed the resonance of my father’s words, since I last saw my sweet sister. The journey has been treacherous, my guts are tormented by hunger and the cold has slipped deep into my bones. At last I see the edge of Suðureyrl fjord, with a deserted coast, inhospitable and jagged. I see into the distance, there looms a fog. As I approach, I am overcome with the sense that I am not alone, nor that I am welcome in these waters. The fog grows thicker as I approach the final stretch before the shore. It is such that I can hardly see my own hands gripping the paddles. It is only now, that I recall my father’s heeding words, but I cannot turn back.

At last, my hull drags upon a gravel shore amongst a canyon of towering walls. I see just enough to make out the grey hued outlines of trees, unusually large and tall. I am unaccustomed to seeing any trees in Iceland. It is nearly dusk, so I make a small fire and shelter below a large boulder. I close my eyes and let my dreams take me.

As I wake the next morning, the fog has receded up the steep slopes, the arctic sun has poked through and thawed the beach creating a mist rising from the sands. It is time for me to start my search for Sigríður. I begin by following the shoreline along the sides of the inlet. Scoping across the calm water looking for her golden shimmer below the ripples.
I remembered, long ago, that a sailor once told me that whales are mystical creatures and they only appear when they want to be seen. I waited, and searched, and waited and searched, yet nothing appeared and dusk was upon me once again. I returned to my shelter, but when I returned, I saw footsteps coming out from the ocean. They were ten times the size of my own, and they left a trail of residual putrid slime. It occurred to me, as I stood still in my tracks, that I couldn’t even take another breath. My worst intuitions were correct.

After regaining control of myself, I quietly returned to my shelter, made a small smoldering fire, and rested my legs. I coursed over, in my head, what this troll is that walks these shores, and what I will do if I encounter its foulness before me. After many hours my eyes pulled shut.

In the morning the fog was dense, the air cold, and the sky occluded. I had forgotten what transpired the night before until it shocked me awake. I peered around and saw nothing due to the dense fog. I walked to the seashore to wash my face, and as I bent over I saw a golden shimmer, just across the bay near some rock outcroppings. I frantically ran to where I saw the shimmers. As I got closer, I was able to make out the shape, it was indeed what I was looking for, the great Sigríður. I approached, and asked, “great Sigríður, I have come far to seek your wisdom! Why is it that there are no fishes in our waters?… where can I find them to feed my family?”

Sigríður replied in a rhythmic voice: “Arni, I’ve watched you come, and watched you search the cove from point to shore, but these deep waters hold more than you and me. Your lust for knowledge intrigues me so, listen to my words and listen well. One night more you will walk these shores, for when fog reaches the forest edge, you’ll receive that which you came to find.” As soon as Sigríður’s last words trickled from her mouth, she was gone as if she was never there.

I have heard stories of whales telling sailors of mischievous trickery, leading them on treks across Iceland only to meet their death. I was upset that I failed, but I had a sliver of hope that Sigríður spoke truth, hidden beneath her twisted words. I returned to my shelter to wait, and waited I did until the sun showed its last ray and slipped below the horizon. No sooner, did the fog come cascading down the slopes amidst the giant trees and ferns that, unusually, all the forest had become absolutely silent. It felt as though there were forces at work in these forests that had no business among men. I grew tense, and held my golden knife, gripping the handle with a cool sweat.

A foul odour was coming from the water’s edge. By now, the fog had just passed the forest and made its way across the beach to the water on the shores. I stood in wonder before a vulgar looking beast, covered in hair and kelp, slowly walking out of the water. It was massive, nearly the size of a whale. It could be no other than a Sea Troll, the one my father warned me of! I was ready to fight, I knew there was no running away, and nowhere to hide. I now knew what Sigríður was eluding to. If I was to find food for my family, I must confront this troll and find what I came for. I jumped from my shelter and yelled at it. “I am Arni, I am seeking you, troll. Who are you?”

The troll, lumbered forward and yawned. Then, with his foul smelling breath, he said in a low pitched tone, “I am Agdi, Troll of the Western Seas, and you are in my forest!… I eat men who intrude into my forest and sail in my waters!… tell me, why should I not tear your limbs and skewer you like I’ve done to those before you?”

“I have come far to find where the fish have gone. I challenge you to a riddle? And if you get the answer wrong then you must obey one command of me, great Agdi, you are the smartest troll, are you not?” said Arni.

“Of course I’m the smartest troll, how dare you think I could not answer a trivial riddle thought of by a mere man!” said Agdi.

“What hides during the day, only comes out at night, makes no sound and is always watching?” Asked Arni.

“Argghhhh!! This is not a riddle, it is trickery!… Oh wait! I know! It is the owl!” proclaimed Agdi.

“Wrong answer, silly troll! It is the moon! Now you must obey my wish” said Arni.

“I hate the trickery of men!! But troll honour requires me to fulfill your wish” said Agdi.

“I wish for you to find fish for my family to help us survive this frigid winter” asked Arni.

Agdi said “But I am only a sea troll, only the golden whale Sigríður knows where the fish are, and only she can help you. By night’s end I will transform, and Sigríður will take over my earthly body as I turn to pure gold. Arni, you must offer Sigríður something she can’t resist, the only thing she values is gold. You must offer her gold in exchange for her help. This is the only way you’re family will eat this winter!… I have fulfilled my bargain, and mark my words, by the next nightfall I will have you on my skewer, and I will delight in human flesh!”

It was almost dawn and Agdi waded back into the ocean as the fog receded back up the mountain slopes. I knew that somehow I must find Sigríður and tempt her with my golden knife, in exchange for fish.

Later that afternoon, I waited where I last saw Sigríður for hours. Then at last I saw her golden splendor appear out of the blue ocean. Sigríður asked, “Why have you returned man, you have not found what you seek? You have not found Agdi?”

I replied “I have come to seek you great Sigríður, I have come with a gift in exchange for fish to last my family the winter”.

Sigríður replied “A gift you offer, what gift could a man have that a whale could ever want?”.

I replied “I bear the golden blade which has sent many men to Valhalla. Surely this you could not refuse!”

Sigríður replied, “You interest me man, I will give you what you seek, for gold I cannot refuse. Meet me at your village and I will bring you what you wish.”

I travelled for two weeks back to my home. As I went, Sigríður followed beside me filling her mouth with fish, until no more could fit. As we arrived, at my home I had grown worried about what I would do when Agdi reappeared at dusk. There was only one solution. I gripped the blade in my hand, and as soon as Sigríður spit out the fish on the shore, I carved a deep wound in her belly. As soon as she bled out, she turned into Agdi and once the sun struck Agdi’s flesh he turned immediately to a rigid rock. All could see what a beast he was. But, when I look upon the beach where his rock corpse lays, I see the hero of a troll who saved my family.

—Ants Hoiles

“Lonely Troll”

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A long, long time ago there were was a cave in the side of a hill. This hill sat on the coast of Norway, in an area that was never frequented by visitors. Inside the cave lived a troll. The troll was not certain of how long he had lived, only that it had been a very, very long time. And in that time, no one had gone by his cave. There were sea birds that flew above, but they never made their nests close by him.

It might have had something to do with the way he smelled, although the troll was not very aware of his own stench. He had a large head and large hands, which looked even larger next to his small body. His feet were long and thin, and his skin could be described as grey and sickly looking. The troll spent most of his days outside of his cave on the beach, collecting pieces of driftwood and carving them into little figurines. There were horses and sheep and cows and pigs, and they filled the inside of his cave.

Although the troll had lived in his cave for a long time, he had once lived with other trolls inland. He had only been a young troll then, but he had loved his troll family and playing with his brothers and sisters. One day, his mother brought him a human infant for him to cook. The troll found himself staring into the infant’s eyes, and realized he did not want to kill the babe. This was not done in troll families. His father had insisted that he kill it, but he refused. Looking at him sadly, his mother announced that he would have to be banished. That was how he found himself to be living in the cave.

He survived by himself easily enough, for trolls can eat rocks and dirt. In fact, there was plenty of food for him. But he found himself so bored all the time! One night, the troll lay on his moss bed staring at his ceiling.

“I wish someone or something would come visit me!” he cried out, although all that answered him was silence. He sighed and went to sleep, not looking forward to another day.

In the morning, he woke up to the sound of something crying. He thought that he must be dreaming, but he ran outside anyways. On the beach in front of him was a bundle. He picked up the bundle, and realized that inside was a human infant! It looked tiny in his large, large hands. To the troll, it looked identical to the one he had been asked to kill, the one that had forced him to this cave. A small piece of paper was tucked into the side of its bundle, and it read: “please take care of me.”

The troll decided then that this baby would be his, and he would never let another troll try to eat it.

—Anonymous

“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