TROLLS

How does it come that the Norwegians are so "hooked" on trolls?
That is not easy to tell.  One reason, you may find in the Norwegian landscape.  Walking in the nature at twilight , -  sunrise / sunset, - or a foggy day like on the photo below these lines,  may cause strange optical illusions. An ordinary tree or a peak may suddenly look almost human.  When you turn around to check once more, it is gone!!.  Wow!  What was that? 

In this way it might have started.  The myth of the trolls.
Once upon a time the trolls and the gnomes, the pixies and the gremlins or whatever you like to call them, were blamed for many things that happened. If a cow or a sheep was gone, and the beers, wolfs and the fox hadn't done it, it was the "underground people" that had done it. 

Same thing if people were missing.  "They are bewitched!   The Wood Nymph has taken him!".  In prehistoric times, they may have gone out and made sacrifices to the gods to please them, and get help to free the  bewitched. 
Later on, when Christ had become the ruler in peoples minds, in some places they used the church bells.  They believed that the sound of holy bells would break the witchcraft, so the bewitched were set free, and the trolls and gnomes were frozen to the ground, or to trees, stones, rock, or whatever they were close up to when they heard the bells.

Another bad thing for trolls, was to see or get hit by the sunlight.  If they did not make it home during the night,  they were transformed into soil. and stone and trees as soon as the sun came out.  The pine tree above could be "one that did not make it".  This may be the reason that you "find" trolls almost all over in the landscape.  Even in the waterfalls or in streams, you could find one called "Nixie".  That creature was brilliant playing the fiddle, And fiddle players in older times, often went to the stream to pick some clues to get  better skills.

So, do you have to go to Norway to see the trolls?
NO, I would bet that you have some of them right out in your own back yard!  Just go out there and have a look.  Look without staring your eyes out.  Shoot some photos as well.   Suddenly you will find something! A kind of shape, a face inside a bush or a tree.  Maybe a random collection of grass, moss and stones will create something cool for you!  You have seen the items thousands of times, and seen nothing.  But now,  There! - -  There it is!!  I have a troll or a gnome in my own garden!!  Or is it the Wood Nymph?

All the images on this page, except the big "pine troll", and the "Nixie-in-the-stream", were found in a photo taken of a cliff, not far from here.  Hanging high up in the hillside above route 613.  The only thing I have done with them, is to edit them in a photo editing program.  That means, cut and paste and save them as individual images. And to do some minor adjustments of light and contrast.  More about the cliff you will find under the link        "Arts from Nature ",

At Hjelledalen, right before starting to drive the mountain pass Strynefjellet, if you are heading east, you can turn right and drive a steep and narrow toll road up the Sunndalen walleye.  This walleye is spectacular, and will give you a real wild experience. Deep canyons with a frothing river, spectacular waterfalls, and not to mention,  weird shapes along the road. Like the one I found here. 

Right after some rock blasting to extend the road and make it safer to drive and walk around a cliff, this "guy" - or whatever one should call it -  came out in the open.  To me it looks like he is about to have a nice meal with some of the stones we blasted out of the solid rock.

And "he" is not alone,  We found many more along the cliff that we blasted.  At the Home end of the cliff 300 - 400 m down the walleye, this "guard" is monitoring all traffic up the walleye.