The Legend of the Phantom Troll

By Grandpa Carl

 

It all started with Zeka.  I don’t know why or how my Great, great, great, great, great Grandfather Bernt met this Troll or even when, all I do know is that somewhere back in history, almost 300 years ago, my ancestor encountered a thin and very young troll he called Zeka.  I remember reading in his journals about his frequent trips into the Trollheimen Mountains where he would hunt and trap for fur and the occasional odds and ends people needed from their animal friends.  One thing I remember my ancestor wrote is that he believed waste was against the Gods and that any time he had excess carrion he would drag it to paths he knew were frequented by trolls so that they would have an easy meal or two.  For this reason, he believed, he had very little, if any, trouble with them.  In fact, he wrote, that at first he rarely saw them except at a distance, and that was okay with him except he wanted to learn more about them and he was hoping that the food offerings would entice them to come closer to him and his camp, this did not happen for quite sometime.  Still, Grandfather Bernt dutifully wrote down each time he saw a troll.  He also carefully included a brief description of each, where he had spotted it and whether or not he had seen it before. 

In fact, he wrote quite a lot for a man who was mostly self-educated.  I believe that he became a ‘trollologist’ out of necessity because he spent so much time out in the mountains alone and even though the trolls avoided human contact he could not avoid the occasional run in with these “solitary beasts who cared little but for themselves”, as he wrote.  I do not think we would have this record if it had not been for his great grandson who went over the documents, making notes and asking his grandfather what was meant by Bernt’s often scribbled and ‘grammatically’ challenged writing.  What information was preserved this way has been kept and treasured by my family and shared with only a few until now. 

Bernt wrote that trolls were clannish and that often when trolls from different clans met they would argue loud and long about territory and which family was the best.  Most of it was just bluster but occasionally they fought especially if they encountered a group of orcs or goblins but they rarely fought each other.  Once, however, two groups of 4 or 5 trolls went after each other with clubs and claw.  Grandfather wrote that he heard this great clamor over a mile away and rushed toward it.   He added  “..they hit on each other like mad animals until two were dead and others battered and broken.”  It was the first time he had seen a dead troll and it disturbed him greatly.  By morning, when he returned for a better, safer, look, one was gone and the other had turned to stone. 

Grandfather also noted that not all trolls turned to stone immediately when touched by the sun, especially if they were wearing thick clothes or only in it a short time like dashing from shadow to shadow and sometimes it depended on their disposition.  He wrote that ‘the meanest and the orneriest’ of trolls were in the greatest danger of being turned to stone.  “The harder the heart the greater the danger.” and added “The softer the soul the safer the troll.”  Of course he said there were always exceptions and he believed that some very nice and gentle trolls were turned to stone so that is the reason why trolls avoid direct sunlight as much as possible to this day.  In a much later entry, when he had settled down, he wrote that he believed the good or gentle trolls were turned to stone because they ‘had a heavy heart’ for one reason or another.  I do not know if this is true and I have never seen anything to prove it but if you read legends and myths the facts speak for themselves.  I guess that means ‘light-hearted trolls’ could go anywhere.  My own grandfather confirmed this by adding that a happy and carefree troll behaved as they wanted, where and when they wanted.  They are all taught (he added) to avoid the sun because no one knew just how bad or sad one had to be to be turned to stone.  Bernt also wrote that as trolls got old and lazy their hearts grew heavy and they turned to stone by shear boredom.  ‘Stone bored’ he called it.

So my ancestor knew quite a bit about trolls when he met Zeka.  The first entry I read that mentioned Zeka was how he looked. 

“This troll I saw this evening stood just about tall enough to look me square in the breast (about 150 to 160 cm by my guess).  His skin was rough and tan or pale brown in tone and his clothes were moss green and crudely sewn looking like sleeveless long johns over a potbelly with a tail sticking out where the trap would be.  The entire head, except for the face, was fur covered with hairs extending like hundreds of fine porcupine quills going out in an explosion of directions.   His nose was long and pinkish toward the tip and his feet and hands were as big as mine.  He had a furry tail just shorter than my arm and it seemed to swing about under some kind of control.  I thought I saw it wrap around a small branch full of berries and pluck it off the bush, which surprised me greatly.  (I had never imagined Trolls having prehensile tails so this was news to me) He was standing near the edge of a rather deep ravine where I had a string of traps for hare pelts.  When he saw me he slipped over the edge and by the time I got to the there he was nowhere to be seen.  

Grandfather reported that he saw Zeka again about a half days journey North along the South Shore of what is now known as Lake Gjevilvatnet where he appeared to be fishing.  Thereafter seeing Zeka became a fairly regular occurrence.  It seems that the troll was studying the human as much as the human was studying the troll.  In fact it seems to me that Zeka went out of his way to show up wherever my ancestor was set for that day. 

There were, of course, other trolls, one, a female, who stood just shorter than Zeka with the same type of hair but no visible tail.  Her skirt was short and seemed to be made of rough burlap type fabric that had the mossy green brown look of damp lichen.  She tended to be shy even around him but when she felt she was unobserved she seemed to be a bit of a show off dancing or spinning in the cool mountain air like a child. Bernt wrote that one time he saw them holding hands as they walked down a path near where he had set up camp.  Grandfather Bernt called her ‘Lily’ and noted that watching her gave him a different view on trolls and their habits because she was definitely female and the two were definitely a couple.  Grandfather said he saw the two together at least 3 times during that outing.  He also reported that he saw one other pair briefly that appeared to be holding hands as well but he was not certain.

Grandfather created a cache of furs and other items near the bottom of a ravine that lead down to a well-used trail leading ‘toward civilization’ as he wrote.  He figured he returned to the cache about two times a month whenever his big pack got to full to move easily.  Here also he kept a kind of handcart that he would use to take his ‘trappings’ down the mountains.               Grandfather, at the time, seemed to have no real use for ‘civilization’.   He described himself as a short, bear of a man with a full beard and close-cropped hair.  It was said that his eyes were piercing blue and that he had a scar that creased his brow line. In his journals he reported that the scar came from his encounter with a bear but his granddaughter reported that he actually got it from a hare that was not quite dead when he tried to retrieve it from one of his snares.  The animal had lashed out with one of its rear legs slicing a deep gash just above the left eye and over the nose.  The scar from the bear was a lot smaller and on the right leg.  His son became known as Old Bear’s Son or Berntson, a name that has stuck with the family to this day.

On one of those trips to his cache Grandfather wrote that on the second morning when he came out of his tent he found next to where he had left some meat for the trolls a figure or doll beside a pile of nut-laden pine cones.  The doll was 19 cm tall made of woven sticks and grass and dressed in scraps of fabric.  It was rough and appeared troll-like in proportion with long arms and thick legs.  It even had a tail.  The face had a long nose and wide set dark eyes and it appeared to be smiling.  It’s hair looked like what grandfather called a nest made by a drunken bird.   Grandfather reported that he picked up the doll with a booming laugh and then sat down making a great show of eating some of the savory nuts.  He followed up with a great drought of clear water from a nearby stream.  Satisfied he sat down and began to clean pelts and get them ready to add to the cache.  As he worked, he noticed an old but usable skinning knife that he didn’t want to throw away but did not use because during his last trip to ‘civilization’ he’d traded for three new blades.  The old one had sat unused stuck in a log.  Chuckling he picked up the old knife and looked it over.  It still held a good edge and after a little work it was as sharp as it could be. Still chuckling he took two hares and walked over to a shady overhang that sat near the edge of his camp near where the doll had been found.  Here, he knew, the sun hit only for a few minutes during the mid-afternoon hours so he figured that it would be a good place to leave his ‘thank you’ gift.  Casually he placed the two carcasses down and lay the knife next to it.  He then put the doll beside the knife and returned to the stream to continue his skinning and cleaning work. 

The next entry in his journal was very detailed.  “I got workin’ but put myself where I could watch the knife with a quick look now and then.  I have seen trolls steal from the smallest patches of shadow to the next even in daylight so I hoped that by placing the knife where I did I could entice a troll to come closer so I could get a better look, maybe even talk to it, get it to stay.  What I saw, I did not expect.   It was very quiet and quick.  If I had not been watching I would have missed it.  In the deepest part of the shadows the ground stirred and begin to rise.  As I tried hard not to blink, a mound of earth the size of a small cartwheel lifted in the air supported by two arms followed by a head that I recognized as that of Zeka.   The Troll easily set the ‘lid’ aside and jumped out a hole and in two steps he picked up the hares and the knife replacing it with what appeared to be a piece of fur.  “Hey!”  I called out.  “Don’t go!  Stay!”

“The troll hesitated a moment as it turned and looked at me.  It then, in a flash jumped down the hole with the hares and knife and pulled the ‘lid’ in over it.  I ran to the place and after a little feeling in the dirt found what I thought was a root and lifted.  The ‘lid’ was as heavy as a fawn sized stone and it appeared to be a basket-weave mat with dirt and rocks piled on.  It even had plants and moss growing on it so it blended perfectly with the dirt around it.  Under the ‘lid’ was a deep hole, a cave entrance that disappeared into the darkness.  I could see no sign of a troll but as I listened I thought I heard a soft scrapping sound deep in the earth.  “Thank you!”            I shouted down the hole then carefully replaced the ‘lid’ and smoothed the dirt around it so it was again well hidden.  I then went over and picked up the piece of fur.  It was a hat, a fur hat that was a bit big but fit over my head and ears.  I put it on and went into my tent and wrote this down.”

Grandfather did not see any trolls the rest of that stay at his cache site.  In fact he wrote that he did not see one until he was over two days journey from it going deeper into Trollheimen.  The air was beginning to change and he knew that this would be his last trip in this season so he planned to only check his closest lines, the rest he had hidden way hoping he had not forgotten any along the way.  As he traveled he was beginning to worry that by discovering the troll’s secret and talking to one of them he was now someone to shun but this was laid to rest when the troll he called Lily waved as she crossed a stream ahead of him.   Grandfather said he took off his hat and waved back before she disappeared into the crags.   

Grandfather just about called out but wrote that he decided not to because he felt that it would not help.   He continued to walk following the steam bed toward his traps, which he found empty and unsprung.  Carefully he gathered them and started up one of the branches to where his had his last string set.  When he arrived at the first trap he found a large lynx.  The cat animal had been unable to free itself from the trap and had died trying to get free.  Grandfather wrote that he hated killing things that he could not use and particularly the big cats because of their grace and beauty.  Still, he recorded that he removed the front claws, fangs and the pelt so that not everything would go to waste.  He did not know if trolls ate cat meat but he carried the carcass to the shadows leaving the rear claws intact.  Since he had given the ‘troll doll’ away he looked around and found a few items and carefully braided another figure that looked more human that trollish. For clothes he used an old rag he had used for cleaning his knives and bits of the sack he held the teeth in.   Grandfather said that when he was finished, the doll had what looked like raccoon eyes with a mask across the eye area.  He said this gave him a laugh so he went back to the pelt and cut away the damaged leg piece and cut it into a triangular cape looking thing and tied it around the doll’s neck.     He put the doll on the remains, picked up his muzzle loader and walked on ‘laughing’ as he wrote later that day adding “..I could not let the little man get cold.”

The rest of his traps yielded a better selection of creatures and by nightfall Grandfather had all his traps and skins ready to go down the canyon.  Again he selected some of the better cuts of meat and left the rest for the trolls, this time without a figure. 

That night he built a nice fire and roasted several of the pieces of meat.  From time to time he heard noises and soft scraping sounds but he paid them no real mind.   Finally as the meat neared completion he looked up into the darkness and spoke.

“If anyone is out there you might as well come in to camp.  I made too much to eat myself and I am willing to share.”

He sat down and removed the smallest roasting stick from the flames and began to eat.

“I told you to come in and join me.”  He coaxed.  “I cannot eat all this food.”

A rustle in the nearby brush made him go quiet.  He waited watching the fire and the two sets of eyes that glistened in the dark.

“I won’t hurt you.  Come.”   He began to eat again.

He heard a footstep and then another as two dark figures moved into the light.  Zeka and Lily approached cautiously.  She was holding his hand but staying behind him much like a child would when approaching a stranger. 

Grandfather picked up one of the three remaining roasting sticks and offered it to Zeka. 

“Good.”  He said softly taking a bite of his own.

Zeka came forward sniffing then reached out and took the meat and took a big bite of the hot food.  “Gooood”, he said then handed it to Lily who took it gingerly and took a bite.  It was then Grandfather noticed that she was clutching the caped doll he had made in her other hand. 

Grandfather pulled out another stick and gave it to Zeka then again took a bite of his own before making a motion for them to sit.  Bernt wrote that his heart was beating fast and that to his knowledge this was the closest anyone had ever come to having a troll guest for dinner.   He said that they sat for several minutes eating before the troll spoke.

“You good.  Help trolls.  Not shoot us or hunt us.”

Grandfather tried to report the conversation but it was not easy.  They talked about hunting and he said that the trolls had a good understanding of ‘the old language’ but struggled with some of the newer words.  Zeka seemed to like the name Grandfather gave him and said that if all trolls used human names maybe they would be better.  Lily loved her name and said it over and over again.  Her giggle was like a rasping bear but Grandfather knew she was happy and she made Zeka smile every time he looked at her.  He wrote that he had never considered trolls as ever having any kind of relationship until he had seen Zeka and Lily holding hands.  When he saw it up close he said they acted like very young ones ‘courting’.   He said they talked about the forest and the animals and Zeka said that he was a guardian who watched nature and made sure that it was kept balanced.  He told Grandfather that he had pulled up one group of traps because there were a lot of young animals in the area that were not yet wise in the ways of nature.  He said that he had heard the cat but was too slow to get there so he left the animal to see what Grandfather would do.  He said that Grandfather did ‘good to nature’.   

When Lily spoke it was about flowers and trees and how she did not like those who cut them down.  When Grandfather asked her if she knew why they were cut down she said she knew but she did not like it.

Grandfather did not ask about the tunnels because he forgot and he cussed himself in his journal for not doing so.  He did ask about the doll and learned that when a troll does something nice for another troll he leaves a symbol of some sort, usually a doll or a ring.  The one who got the doll was then reminded to do something for someone else and pass the doll along.  Zeka said that an old troll had come across some of the meat and taken half but left the rest for another leaving a doll behind.  When another troll came along and smelled the strong scent of human he was surprised to see the doll.  This, Zeka reported, was the troll that left the nuts and another doll.  Zeka said that Bernt was the first human to get a doll and when he left it for another the word spread through the trolls in the area. (Grandfather believed there were about fifty trolls in the area.  When asked, Zeka, however, drew lines on the ground when he thought of another troll and there were 82 lines when he finished.)   Grandfather also drew a little ‘map’ on the ground to show his travels.  Zeka took the stick and drew a large circle around that and pointed to himself smiling. 

Grandfather did not know why the trolls left but one moment he was tending the fire talking to them and the next moment they were gone in a whisper of leaves and rustling brush.

In their place was another doll.  This one too wore a cape and looked like it had a mask.  Grandfather called it the phantom troll.  He was just turning to put it away when Zeka reappeared. 

“Thanks for food.” he said with a slightly stiff bow and he was gone again. 

The next morning the first real gusts of cold air came down the mountain as Grandfather gathered his goods and started down to his cache where he would assemble the sum of his efforts and load them on his handcart.   As he secured the load he made an estimate of his potential income and felt that he could, with one more season, have enough for the small farm he wanted 

this time next year.  He wrote that this made him very happy.   Humming softly he picked up the handle of his cart and started walking. 

The land that is known today as Norway, for those who don’t know is a craggy, rugged land full of streams, forests and marshes.  It is a place where trails are often narrow and winding with sharp drops and steep inclines as one wanders through snow capped mountains even in the warmest of months.   It is the nature of this land to be difficult and even the best equipped needed to be alert within her inner borders.  Grandfather knew these elements well and choose his paths wisely as he hunted the game and explored the wonders of his land.  He enjoyed the worlds of contrasts and though he spent most of his time in the mountains and valleys leading to the great fjords he had traveled North when he was younger and eastward toward Sweden though at that time borders were far less important and men like my ancestor went where they wanted.   Grandfather Bernt wrote that he got his wonder lust and instincts from his ancestor Eric the Red from whom he claimed legitimate direct decent.   His maps lead me to believe that he did travel all over and may have gotten up into Finland as well on one season when the weather was particularly mild and he was able to stay out almost until mid September after starting in early April. 

To cope with all this travel he had his pack (which he took everywhere) and his cart, which he had designed for the narrowest of paths he might encounter. The box of the cart was made of pine, narrow (not wider than a small horse) and just shorter than ‘a tall man’ (somewhere around a meter and a half).  It was sealed with pitch and the box was only a half-meter deep.   The wheels were made of harder wood and were solid and heavily reinforced.   He had a few sturdy boards to do repairs along with the tools to do it but after 3 years the originals were still as good as new.  The harness rods were about 2 meters long with a cross piece for pushing and pulling on the end.    Another cross piece was secured just over a half meter in which allowed him to hold the handcart securely as it went up steep hills and down deep drops and crags.  He had designed the cart so that this long pole harness could be used as a lever to get the cart out of some of the tougher parts of the countryside.   He also had attached six pulleys; three to each side, to use as one would use the rigging on a ship to pull the cart up and through the roughest terrain. In all his journals there was not one mention of his ever being stuck as he went up and down the mountains.  He wrote he could carry three full-grown caribous on his cart at a time and still move freely.  He did not mention how much it weighed but Grandfather was a strong man and built low to the ground so weight would have been as carefully considered as everything else.

Each year when he would come up to the cave where he hid his cache he would place what stores he brought up inside the rough 3 meter by 4 meter hollow along with his lean-to poles and a few old weapons.  These stores usually included more ropes, traps, gunpowder, balls, arrows and a new bowstring, beans, flour and other food to keep him healthy.  He also brought salt, lots of salt.  Once unloaded, he would cover his cart and head out alone to be with nature and the trolls. 

Over the months of May through September he would hunt and fish and trap in Trollheimen taking only what he needed and using all he could.   By season’s end he usually had 70 to 80 large hides and anywhere from 100 to 130 smaller ones along with claws, hooves, teeth and other by products from his victims.   These items he hoped would net him enough to resupply and survive the long winter months without having to work a ship out of Sunndalsøra that was then a young community on the fjord.  Most of all, Bernt hoped he would have enough to set aside to buy a small farm where he could have a wife and a family, a horse and a few chickens. If all went well this year, he reckoned, he would only have to work one more season in the wilderness. 

By his reckoning Bernt traveled almost 6 miles the first day over some rather steep and sometimes treacherous terrain finally reaching a wider smoother canyon that dropped several hundred feet in its 5 or so kilometer distance.  At dusk he decided to camp at the head of this canyon among the stately pines and thick brush of the area.  He carefully selected a spot somewhat sheltered from the Northern winds that were starting to blow and set up a simple lean too.  After building a small fire on which he planned to roast a couple of fish he had caught earlier in the day he was ‘frozen in his tracks’ by the sudden reverberation of a thundering roar that resounded from the canyon below.  The frightful sound was followed by a violent shattering of wood, as if a great tree had been splintered by a bolt of lightening.   Bernt grabbed his hat and muzzleloader and stealthily padded toward the sound just as the first rumbling roar was answered by a deeper, angrier growl.  Around him nature seemed to grow silent in fear and awe as the two voices traded challenges in the chilly night.  

Bernt wrote sometime later: “My footsteps seemed like thunder in the short gaps of quiet between roars that would drown out a waterfall.   I traveled almost half a kilometer down the valley staying close to the brush and trees avoiding the path.  I knew it was trolls roaring and as I got closer I knew there were other voices spitting angry words and noises I could barely understand.  Sometimes I would hear rocks clatter and wood snapping.  I tried to imagine what would make so many trolls so angry but I could not guess.  I started to run because I had to know and I did not want to miss anything.  The valley dropped down then rose upward several dozen meters than dropped off steeply.  When I got to the top of the short rise I looked down into a deep open area surrounded on one side by the steep rise of a cliff.  On the far side from where I was a large rock outcropping perhaps 18 or more meters high in the middle.  On one side, my left (he later wrote in) was the largest bull troll I had ever seen.  It was the size of a small house standing almost as tall as the outcropping.  Around him were four or five smaller trolls the smallest of which was maybe a half-meter taller than me.  The giant was using a tree trunk that he had snapped off as a club to smash the ground every time he roared.  The others were throwing words and growls and waving clubs and rocks like toys.   On my right was the lead troll that was a head or two shorter than the first but his group of 6 was overall larger than the others.  These mostly had stones but I thought I saw a brief glimpse of metal.  When I looked closer one was holding steel beam as big as I am tall.  He made it look easy as he hit the rocks nearby sending splinters all over his companions.  When I looked for any object or reason for the fight I could see nothing but the biggest kept pointing to the ground and I am sure that one of the words I did understand was ‘Mine’!”

Grandfather did not want to see violence so without thinking (he later told his daughter who passed the story down) he raised his weapon and fired into the air not wanting to waste a shot that would bounce off even the smallest of the possible targets.  Still “the unexpected crack’ had its effect and the trolls turned ponderously toward the noise.

As the huge head turned toward him Grandfather set his gun down and stepped fully into the open knowing that it was a very dangerous action.  He wrote that he knew that “it might be his last foolish act.” 

He continued saying; “I was just about to speak when there arose a great rustling of brush and rock on the opposite side high on a ledge near the top of the outcropping.  Everyone looked toward the sound and saw a figure dancing and banging branches full of drying leaves on the ground demanding why these invaders had disturbed his sleep.   To emphasize his point the branches were hurled at the two largest trolls.

According to Bernt’s later notes the ‘new troll’ was smaller than all the others but it was loud.  Soon all the other trolls had forgotten Bernt and had turned their curiosity on the new arrival.  Bernt noted that his eyes were strained as he tried to get a clear view of this mysterious intruder.

“No fight.  Make peace!  Go home.  Not hurt.” bellowed the smaller troll.  “Not good.  Go home.  Food for all!”

The woods likely vibrated and echoed as the night grew deeper and the moon rose adding a pallid backdrop to the scene.  The small troll climbed up on the highest rock and with the moon behind it he shouted.   “Make peace or I make the rocks shake!”

It was then that Grandfather noticed the cape or draped skin the creature wore he blinked and tried to focus.   When he looked closer, the cape flapped briefly in the canyon breeze as the troll lifted its long arms and pointed at the rocks behind the largest of the trolls.   Bernt strained in the dark and to his surprise he could just barely make out the shadows of a mask that covered the eye area open with only two irregular holes.

“The Phantom Troll” mumbled Bernt stepping further out in the open to watch.

A sudden crack made him jump backward for cover.  Down the cliff at which the phantom was pointing several rocks clattered noisily to the valley floor.  The smaller trolls on both sides also jumped looking to their larger relations for protection.

“ I make rocks fall on you.”

 He pointed again and a large rock crashed down barely missing one of the trolls.  They all froze in startled fear.

The phantom bent over looking from one giant troll top to the other.  “You know good, you know bad.  No kill no fight trolls.  You mad.  Make peace.  Share.  Change gifts.”

The phantom produced two figures from a small pouch he wore and jumped down boldly between the would-be combatants.  With bravado that Bernt could only guess at the smaller troll thrust a doll at one then at the other.  The huge trolls, whose thumb could easily crush the disrupter gingerly accepted the puppets as if accepting something dead. 

In the hand me down oral tales my grandfather told reported that Bernt guessed that the dolls somehow resembled the caped and masked figure that stood between the two behemoths.  He remembered his own doll, one he had kept, that was packed securely in the cart.  Grandfather said he had no way of knowing the significance of the figures beyond what he had been told but he surmised that the tradition was understood by all.  He wrote that he wondered how a phantom troll became such and how the legend started but at the time he wondered if is suspicion about who the phantom was correct. 

“Now change!” demanded the phantom.

Tentatively at first then with a resolved glance at the phantom the smaller of the two extended his hand, his palm up while extending the other with the doll pinched delicately between his thumb and finger.

The bigger troll was slower but when the phantom again pointed at the rocks causing a few to trickle down the monster reached out and dropped his doll into the other’s hand while at the same time accepting the other doll.

“Now go!  Gifts exchanged.  You bring peace to mountains.”   On powerful legs the phantom leaped back onto the ledge.

“I SAY GO!”  The voice boomed into the woods and then he vanished into the ground.

Behind them a few more rocks rolled down the hill in a soft snapping clatter.  The two big trolls rose to their full height and gazed at the empty ledge then opened their palms where the tiny speck of a doll sat.  Wordlessly two smaller trolls came forward and gently reached in and picked up the doll. 

“Take care for” they both said to the smaller younger trolls.

The smaller one continued.  “Phantom speak and we share.  No more fight.  All food is for all.”

Bernt felt a small tug on his sleeve pulling him back harder than he expected.  Obediently he stepped back into the shadows.

“Not see human.”  Lily seemed to giggle.  “Come.  They go home now.  You go away.  Smell you and you gone.  Come.”

Bernt followed Lily several hundred yards up the valley until she was sure they were safe.  She then twirled around briefly and began to hum.

Bernt tried to tell her that he was confused but for several minutes she ignored him as she danced in the moonlight.  Finally she stopped and took Bernt by the hand leading her back toward his cart.

“Many years ago, wise Father Troll not want children to fight.  He say one need help stop fights so he make doll and teach trolls to give little helps and leave doll to say ‘now you do same.’  Dolls go many times around.  Leave food at neighbors door, leave doll.  Give new rock club, leave doll.  Fix dam.  You understand?”

Bernt wrote.  “I understood then that the dolls were tokens of service and that by the continued exchange of a doll the trolls kept harmony among themselves in that area.  I did not know if they were anywhere else but I thought that troll dolls were more common than I could guess.  I think the masked phantom trolls were somehow different and that they were used for special kinds of service within clans and families or close associates.  When one got a phantom troll I think it means that it is within a smaller group.  The fact that I got one may first have been an accident but when I passed it on, the way the trolls looked at me might have changed.”