TROLLS

by Ingri & Edgar Parin D'Aulaire ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1972

Luminous, magical pictures of fearsome wild trolls and their sunless world transport readers deep into the mountains and forests of Norway and into the consciousness of old believers. There before us are frenzied, gluttonous trolls at their trampling revels, or gnome workers mining their resplendant gold and forging it at scattered bursts of fire, or the monstrous half-submerged heads of water trolls with their floating, tangled hair. But all is not rumble and ugliness: there are the lovely huddermaidens, Kin to the trolls, who lack souls and resemble humans from the front (but ""when a young man heard, an enticing song and saw a beautiful gift leading a herd of small black cows on the lonely highlands, he had better make sure one of the cowtails did not belong to her""), and then there is the charming scene of twelve captive princesses, mounted on golden pedestals, scratching a sleeping monster's twelve ugly heads. Stories and anecdotes -- of the brave lad who rescued the 12 princesses, or the young fellow who stole the three trolls' single eye for some of their gold -- are worked into the text, but mainly this is a robust and resonant natural history of the species: his need to hide from the sun, his habit of taking human babies and substituting squalling changelings, his eyes filled with splinters that made him see everything askew. And the authors never question the truth of it all, only mention in dosing that ""none have been seen walking around for over a hundred years"" -- which must be the book's only misstatement, for the D'Aulaires have surely seen trolls.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION