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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

“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

“For the Love of Cookies”

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In the isolated green mountains of British Columbia, lived a single peculiar looking creature called the troll. This creature had the uncanny ability to morph into whatever shape it pleases. Most often, he took the form of a boulder, with crevices for eyes and a bed of green moss for his hair. This troll is a playful creature, who fancied humorous trickery and jests from time to time.

One day, the troll was approached, in his boulder form, by a rock climber seeking a new route to explore. The troll had not encountered a human being before this, much less one clad in climbing gear. He eyed the climber, alarmed at the white cap on his head and the length of rope thrown around his shoulder. While the climber scanned his surroundings for a suitable route, the troll morphed into squirrel, to better examine this curious being. The troll proceeded to follow the climber the entire day, and was eventually noticed and fed some chocolate chip cookies. Having tasted cookies for the first time, the troll became smitten with these heavenly snacks.

It was because of these cookies that the troll followed the climber home in the form of a squirrel, riding on the roof of the climber’s shiny moving rock with the wind in his fur. The car entered the city and the troll was awed by the reflective rocks that stood higher than his favorite oak tree, the number of shiny moving rocks in organized lines, and most of all, the noise emitted from these human beings. The humans, on the other hand, were dumbstruck at the sight of a large grey squirrel clinging on to the roof of a Jeep. The climber eventually arrived at his house in the suburbs, where the troll shakily climbed down and collapsed in exhaustion.

For the next few days, the troll took the form of a branch on the maple tree of the climber’s home, staring through the windows. The troll by now has recognized the daily routines of breakfast, work, lunch, work, dinner, and shower. The troll was always excited when the climber ate. The troll would press his eye, in this case, a maple leaf, against the glass window for a glimpse of the daily menu. It was a month later that the troll was finally overcome by his lust for cookies, and decided to morph into a golden retriever.

The golden retriever puppy was happily received by the climber. The troll was thus taken into the climber’s home, and made a pet. Of this the troll didn’t mind, so long as he was receiving cookies for being a “good boy”. Yet, as a year passed, the troll found his craving for cookies to be unfulfilled, and decided to take his passion to the next step. The troll decided to take human form in the daytime, morphing into a park boulder at night. He began with a jobs at different bakeries, where he was repeatedly fired for eating too many cookies during break. Finally, the troll accumulated enough money to begin his own cookie shop, which he named “Uncle Troll’s biscuits”. It is there that the troll lived for the next 100 years, perfecting his chocolate chip cookie recipe and living in utter trollish bliss for the rest of his life.

—Angel Huang

“The Misjudged Tromsø Troll and the Helpful Norwegian Boy”

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Axel, a small boy who lived in Tromsø, Northern Norway, had just had his 16th birthday. He was well built for a young man of his age, and his crystal blue eyes glistened even in the darkest of winter nights. His mother and father owned a small bit of land tucked away at the foot of a large mountain facing the vast, mysterious Norwegian Sea. Axel would climb the mountain during much of his childhood, and look out across the empty waters in search of sea-battered Vikings on their exciting and eventful journeys. He dreamed of joining them one day.

But he knew his duty lay at his family’s home. He had to stay and help with the fields and cattle – his mother and father wouldn’t be able to do it alone. He could only day-dream of the far away places those ships could take him to. He could only dream of the lush, green forests, and freshwater springs that may be found on the other side of the mountain. His golden locks blew in the wind as he sat atop a small ledge protruding from the mountain. He looked across the sea and said thought to himself aloud, “One day, I will leave Tromsø and go on some great adventure.”

The rock beneath him began to tremble. Axel jumped up in surprise. He braced himself for the possibility of a bear or monstrous creature lurking behind him. No such creature appeared. He began to drop his hands at his sides, when the trembling started up again – this time much more significantly than before. The slab of rock that Axel was sitting on began to lift itself. Axel nimbly hopped into a near-by tree, frightened that a bear might be coming out from under the ledge.

The rock kept lifting itself up until it was standing vertically. A face, dotted with small boulders and shrubs, extended from the other side of the rock slab – the truly and utterly ugly face of a mountain troll. It had a large, drooping nose, and sad, half-closed eyes that seemed to have never seen the sunlight. Its mouth gnawed on a few falling sticks from the shaken trees above. Axel, still perched in the nearby tree, observed with awe-struck eyes. A gasp escaped from his small lips. The troll turned slowly to where the sound had come from. He brought a large tree-trunk arm up to his rock-slab forehead and scratched with his root-like fingers. He spoke with a deep, rumbling voice that shook the trees and gravel around him.

“Yes, I too would like to travel. To leave this desolate mountain in Tromsø and be one with the southern sea winds.” He looked Axel straight in the eyes and continued to gnaw on the branches and leaves protruding from his mouth, lazily and sleepily he slowed the circular motion of his jaw. Axel, still frozen with fright and surprise, only managed a muttered reply.

“Your-you’re… You’re a troll! You’re a Tromsø Troll! The beast – the beast that wanders the Tromsø hills in search for children and livestock!” His eyes widened and he gripped a nearby branch in case he needed a weapon.

“Alas, dear boy, I am not said creature. Your people seem to tell tales of enchantment and exaggeration. I am the Tromsø Troll, but I do not wander nor do I eat children and livestock. That would be rude and unhealthy. No, no. You are mistaken.” The Troll gave an exasperated sigh and turned to face the now-calm Norwegian Sea.

“If you are not the monstrous troll I’ve heard a great deal about, then who are you?” Axel crept down from his perch and approached the Troll, climbed up his rock-slab back and sat near a small shrub on the Troll’s left shoulder.

“I am the Troll of the Tromsø Hills, forever confined to this region because of my duty to the Bodojonk Trolls. It is my task to guard and protect these mountains from harm and danger. I must sit here and keep a watchful eye on the seas, take notice of any suspicious rustle in the leaves of my trees or the movement of the pebbles beneath my feet. I protect you and your family, your cattle and crops, from the Trondersky Trolls, of the Southern region. They hunt these lands. And they destroy anything and everything in their path on their search for food.” The Tromsø Troll spat out his chewed debris and sat back against the weight of the mountain behind him. Axel had to grab onto the Troll’s large tree ears so that he didn’t fall to his death.

“So you are misjudged? My people have thought you to be dangerous and harmful. We send out our best men to hunt for signs of you, for signs of trolls that may come and destroy our seaside village. I must tell them that these are lies!”

“You can tell them what you want, dear boy, but it will not free me of this duty. I must wait here. I am sworn to this mountain. I cannot leave as you one day dream to do.” He let out another long sign, and they weight of his breathe bent all the trees in the valley below.

“Then I, too, shall wait with you, friendly Troll,” Axel said, with a nod of his head.

“Do you really mean it?” The Troll stood up so suddenly that Axel fell to the ground, nearly landing on the jagged rocks below. The Troll swooped his large root-like hands and caught the boy just in time. He scooped him up towards his large, ugly face and spoke softly as to not blow him over with his powerful wind-breathe.

“You would stay here and keep me company during my watch? I am very lonely up here.”

“I will come up once a day, after I’ve herded my cattle, and keep you company until sundown,” Axel promised, with his right hand over his heart.

And this marked the beginning of an unusual – but beautiful – friendship between a small Norwegian boy, and a friendly Tromsø Troll. Today, you can see the Troll’s silhouette in the Tromsø mountains – a slab of grey rock protruding from the face of the cliff and a small human-like rock figure sitting on his left shoulder. Together, they watch the mysterious waters of the Norwegian Sea for unfriendly faces who may threaten their sweet, small town of Tromsø.

—Zoe Arthur