Troll Gods
A Breed Apart

“Is there a Troll God?” I asked my Troll Mother Minta.

She was visiting me in my little Stockholm apartment at the time, making noises of dislike and frustration at my little two-burner gas stove that would not light. I noticed her attempts and said: “You have to push that dial in before you twist it to the right…, to the right,” I repeated when I saw her twist counter-clockwise.

“I heard you the first time,” she said, not turning around.

I heard the swoosh of the gas igniting and flaming. “Are you planning to cook?” I wondered.

“Where do you keep the coffee?” she said.

“Pantry to your right,” I said. “One shelf from the top.”

“Ah,” she said, found it and filled the coffee kettle with water, then added a few generous helpings of the coarsely ground beans to make river coffee, as we used to call it. Coffee was a rare delicacy for trolls, and they rarely, if ever, had any in their mountain—for who would sell it to them? Besides they didn’t deal in money. So how come some of them, Minta a very striking case in point, had managed to become addicted (yes, that is the word) to coffee one could be excused for wondering.

Standing by the stove waiting for the water in the kettle to boil, she seemed to take up so much room that my little apartment seemed smaller.

“So do you?” I said.

“Do I what?”

“Do you, you trolls?”

“Do we what?”

“Have a Troll God?”

“We have several,” she said, now leaning in to smell the coffee as it came to a boil. She then turned the burner off and now turned to me while waiting for the coffee to settle—you let it steep for a few minutes while also allowing the grains to sink to and settle on the bottom of the kettle; this way you don’t have to use a strainer, every serious coffee drinker knows this.

“So, do you have a creation story, like our Bible?”

“No, not like your Bible,” she said. “We don’t use books, you know that.”

“I know that,” I confirmed. “So, like what then?”

“Like nothing,” she said, still to occupied with the coffee to actually give my question what I’d consider its due attention.

So, I waited.

Finally, she had poured herself a cup, pouring the coffee very gently so as to not disturb the grains, and then poured me a cup as well. She placed them both on my little table and sat down on my sofa, which she dwarfed.

I remained sitting on my bed, leaning against the wall.

“Don’t your children wonder?” I said.

“All children wonder,” she said. Blowing on the coffee’s surface to cool it a bit—troll mouths are very sensitive to heat, I had already discovered that.

And now, her first sip. And now her first, long sigh: “Aaaahhh, that’s wonderful.”

“How was the troll universe created?” I asked.

She put the cup back on the table and leaned back, finally paying me some attention. “The same way your universe was, I gather. We live in the same one, you know.”

“So, God created heaven and earth?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So who did?”

“You’ve all got it wrong,” she informed me.

“We, humans?”

“Yes, you humans,” she confirmed.

“Oh? Please set me straight, then,” I said.

Another sip and another sigh. “This is very good coffee,” she offered.

I nodded, waiting for an answer.

And a third sip and ditto sigh. Then she told me the troll story of the beginning of everything.

:

Before the dawn of time and before the world was created there was only a big dark vast emptiness called Ginnungagap. From this emptiness rose two realms. One called Niflheim and one called Muspelheim.

Niflheim formed in the north and so became such a dark and cold place that there was nothing but ice, frost, and fog.

The realm of Muspelheim formed to the south of Ginnungagap and so became the land of fire so hot that it consisted only of fire, lava, and smoke. This, by the way, is where the fire giant Surtr still lives along with other fire demons and fire giants.

Along with Niflheim and Muspelheim was formed a deep, cold spring called Hvergelmir from where all eleven cold rivers spring. Even though each of the eleven cold rivers that rise from this spring has its own cold name, as a pack of rivers—as so much ice water—together they wear the name Élivágar which means “ice waves”.

The water from the eleven rivers called Élivágar flowed down the eleven mountains surrounding Ginnungagap and out on the plains where they froze to frost and ice, which, as the icy waves kept rushing down the mountains, gradually formed a very thick and dense layer, which grew and grew and grew in all directions.

From Muspelheim in the south flew lava and sparks into the great void Ginnungagap and from Niflheim in the north rushed ice and cold and in the middle of Ginnungagap, as the ice and lava streams from Niflheim and Muspelheim met, the fire melted the ice and after some time parts of the ice started to take the shape of a humanoid creature. This creature was a jötunn, another name for giant, and this jötunn was Ymir the first giant in the world.

When Ymir fell asleep, in the heat surrounding him he started to sweat and the sweat under his arms grew two more giants, one male, and one female, and one of his legs paired with the other to create a third, a son called Thrudgelmir, which means “Strength Yeller” These were the first in the family of frost giants also called jötnar. They were breastfed by the cow giant Audhumbla, who like Ymir was created from the melting ice in Ginnungagap.

The giant cow Audhumbla fed herself on a block of salty ice and while she was licking on the ice huge block something strange happened: on the first day, some troll hairs emerged from the block. The second day Audhumbla licked the salty ice block a troll head appeared.

Then, on the third day, the rest of the body came out. The troll who had grown out of the salty rock was Buri, the first of the Gods. Buri was big and handsome. He would later have a son called Borr who married Bestla and together they would have three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve.

Odin and his two brothers were bothered by the fact that the giants outnumbered the trolls for the giants were constantly conceiving new giants, whether by sweating, or spitting, or pissing. The only solution they could see was to kill Ymir. Decision made, the three brothers waited until Ymir was asleep before they assaulted him.

A horrifying battle began, but by using all their skill and strength they managed to kill Ymir, his blood spouting out with a furious force in every direction and most of the giants drowned in this huge flood of blood.

In fact, only two giants survived, Bergelmir and his wife Nanna. This couple fled and found a safe place in the land of mist, and so saved their lives.

All future giants are descended from this couple.

The world was created from the remains of the giant Ymir.

The three troll brothers dragged Ymir’s lifeless body towards the center of Ginnungagap and this is the place where they created the world from the remains of Ymir.

His blood became the oceans, rivers, and lakes. His flesh became the land. His bones became the mountains. His teeth were made into rocks. His hair became the grass and trees.

The eyelashes became Midgard, the place where humans live.

They threw Ymir’s brain up in the air and it became the clouds, and his skull became the sky, and so, Ymir’s skull would be the lid that covered the new world.

The three brothers then grabbed some of the sparks shooting out from Muspelheim, the land of fire. They threw these sparks up toward the inside of the skull where they came to gleam at night and this is what we call the stars.

On the plains of Idavoll, they built Asgard, which would be the home of the Troll Gods. The brothers then expelled all of Bergelmir’s and Nanna’s offspring to a faraway place called Jotunheim where they were allowed to live.

While Odin and his brothers were busy creating a new world from Ymir’s body parts, worms kept crawling out of the rotting remains. These worms grew into the dwarves. Because the three brothers Odin, Vili, and Ve were afraid that the sky might fall down, they told four of the dwarves to hold up the sky. They were sent out in each direction of the world to do so.

The names of the four dwarves are North “Nordi” West “Vestri”, South “Sundri”, and East “Austri”. The remaining dwarves made their homes in rocks and caves under the ground in a place called Svartalheim, which means “home of the dwarves”.

They dwarves became experts in craftsmanship, and they have created some of the most powerful and magical weapons in the world, like Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer, but also beautiful jewelry.

In Midgard lived a human by the name Mundilfari, “the one who moves according to particular times”. He had two children who were so shiny and beautiful that he decided to call his son Mani, “Moon”, and his daughter Sol, “Sun”.

The Troll Gods were so furious by what they saw as Mundilfari’s arrogance that they took both of his children and put them up in the sky. Sol would ride in a chariot that is pulled over the sky by two horses Árvakr, “Early awake”, and Alsviðr, “Very quick”. Under the chariot, there is a shield called Svalin, that protects the earth below from the sun’s flames.

Mani, the moon, is only pulled by one horse called Aldsvider. Mani stole two children from Midgard, to help him drive his chariot, their names are Bil and Yuki. They are pursued by two wolves, Sköll, “Treachery”, and Hati, “Hate”. Each day, Hati would take a small bite out of the Moon, but the Moon would get away and heal itself again. These two wolves will one day catch the sun and the moon, which will happen at Ragnarök.

However, there was also a giant by the name Nörvi which had a daughter called Nótt, “Night”. Nótt, in turn, had a son Dagr, “Day”. Both Nótt and Dagr are also riding in chariots pulled by horses.

Nótt is pulled by her horse Hrimfaxi, “rime mane”, and behind her comes Dagr, pulled by his horse Skinfaxi, “shining mane”. These horses are also chased by two wolves, brothers of Sköll and Hati.

As for the humans, one day Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve walked on the beach. There they found two logs, one was from an ash tree and the other was from an Elm tree.

Odin gave the logs spirit and life, Ve gave them movement, mind and intelligence and Vili gave them shape, speech, feelings, and the five senses, and the first two humans had been created.

The man was given the name Ask, and the woman was given the name Embla.

The Troll Gods decided the humans should live in a place called Midgard.

:

By now Minta had finished her coffee and rose to get a refill from the kettle.

She came back with a brimming cup of now rather cool coffee and sat down. Took another sip.

“That’s how it happened,” she said.

As for me, recognizing swathes of this story from Norse Mythology, didn’t quite know what to say, or rather, how to say it diplomatically.

“Shades of the old Vikings,” is the best I came up with.

Bracing myself for Minta taking offense after all that beautiful telling, I was both surprised and relieved that she just smiled and said, “Yes, they eventually escaped Midgard and stole this story from the trolls, early on. We should have kept a much better eye on them.”

“Ah,” I said. Then couldn’t think of anything to add, so I added nothing.

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