In which there are trolls on the table in today's seasonal story

If you want to tell this story aloud (and I really recommend that you do), go wild with the voices of the trolls, it's more fun that way.

The Cat on the Dovrefjell (Norway)

There was once a man of Denmark, who caught a mighty white bear.  “This bear would make a fine gift for the King of Finnmark,” said he.  And so he started on his journey.

Come Christmas Eve, the man and the bear arrived at the Dovrefjell.  They needed shelter for the night, and stopped at the home of Halvor Halvorsson to ask for houseroom.

“Oh, on any other night you would be welcome,” said Halvor Halvorsson.  “But alas and alack, our home is plagued by trolls.  Every year on Christmas Eve, when the feast tables are filled and the candles lit, the trolls come down from the mountains and we are forced to flit.”

“My bear and I would like to stay here when you flit away,” said the hunter, and he was given leave to stay.

The tables were laid, the candles lit, and the family of the house did flit into the safety of the forest.  But the hunter hid under the bed, while the great bear slept behind the great warm stove.

And then the trolls did come!

Some were tall, and some were small.  Some had long noses, some had short noses, some had three tails and some had no tails at all. 

They came down from the mountains and into that house, and they ate the feast, and they drank the ale, and they danced upon the tables.

Then it was that a very small troll saw the shiny black nose of the great bear sticking out from behind the stove.

With a great grin, the small troll stuck a sausage on a stick under the nose of the great bear, saying in a scritchy voice, “Here Kitty Kitty, would you like a sausage?”

At this interruption of her nap, the great bear rose up from behind the stove, and growled and snapped the trolls out of the house and back to the mountains.

The next year at Christmas Eve, Halvor Halvorsson was out in the forest, cutting wood to cook the feast. 

He heard a small and scritchy voice saying, “Halvor!  Halvor!  Do you have your large white kitty still?”

And Halvor Halvorsson answered, “Oh, why yes.  And she’s had eight kits now, as large and as fierce as herself!”

“Then we shall no longer share a feast with you, Halvor!  We are gone and will come no more!”

And that is the last that Halvor Halvorsson ever saw of the trolls on the Dovrefjell.


Illustration from Tomie DePaola's 1979 book The Cat on the Doverfell.  
I love his trolls.






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