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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

“An Unlikely Friendship”

At fifteen years old, Svein knew he was the outcast of his village. Unlike the rest of his blonde, beautiful, pale-skinned Norwegian community, Svein had dark brown skin, big brown eyes and curly brown hair. His mere appearance cut him off from the rest of his peers.  As a result, Svein spent all of his time alone, wandering the vast Norwegian countryside.

One day, Svein was hunting down a slow, fat squirrel with his homemade spear, when suddenly there was a large “CRACK!” Before he knew it, he was hanging upside-down in a large hand-made net, swinging from a thick tree branch. He had unfortunately dropped his spear in the chaos, and was utterly without any tools to free himself. Svien didn’t even attempt to scream; he knew he was too far into the forest for anyone to hear him. But who had made this trap? Was it an enemy from another tribe, or one of his own?

Another “crack” echoed from below. Svein froze. Something resembling a large boulder rolled out underneath him. Svein stayed very still, watching. Suddenly, the boulder-shape unfolded into a large, lumpy, hairy troll. Now Svein couldn’t help but scream out of sheer terror. A pair of huge neon green eyes peered up at him, almost curiously. Then the troll spoke.

“Friend?” Svein didn’t move. The troll repeated himself, louder this time. “Friend? Friend? Friend?” Svein had to think quickly.

“Yes! Friend! Friend! Down!” Svein wasn’t sure how much Norwegian the troll spoke. A moment passed as they just stared at each other in wonder. Finally, the troll picked up Svein’s spear from the ground and slashed the net rope with one graceful swoop. Svein crashed to the ground, narrowly missing landing on top of the troll itself. Gathering himself, Svein stood next to the troll. Even at his 6’5” height, the troll towered over Svein by at least a foot.

“Come,” stated the troll. Svein decided he had no choice but to follow. After they quietly trekked through the forest for some time, the troll stopped suddenly. He pointed at a small squirrel squatting on a rock a few feet ahead of them. The troll aimed Svein’s spear at the squirrel, and pinned the squirrel against the tree behind it. “Dinner!” the troll exclaimed. He rolled over to the squirrel, unpinned it from the tree, ripped off an arm, and handed it to Svein. Svein hesitated, turning up his nose; he preferred cooked squirrel to raw squirrel with the fur still on. He took it anyway, however. The troll seemed to like this; he nodded excitedly and then shoved the rest of the squirrel into his own mouth.

They continued to hunt well into the evening. When it occurred to Svein that his mother might be worried about him, he told the troll he had to go. The troll’s eyes got wide and filled with tears. “Don’t worry, I will come back and hunt with you tomorrow! What’s your name?”
“It’s Gorg..”

To be continued…

—M. Cowley

“Troll Jerky”

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