The Troll Forest

- Twenty-three small trolls changing the world

It was a really pretty tulip, as it stood there proud and red and showed itself to the world. And indeed there was something to look at! Five beautiful, splendid petals, every one of them more perfect than the other. And they whispered over and over to each other,”Oh how beautiful we are!” Below in the ground, inside the bulb a little troll had his house. He sat there enjoying that the tulip was so happy about itself. ”The way it is strutting with pride and blushing with complacency there will soon have to come people to admire it.” – And that was the only thing he was waiting for. Mankind had treated the little troll badly for many years, as they do with everything they don’t understand!

 

100 years ago he lived in the forest with all his family, father and mother, grand parents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters.  He shed a tear, when he remembered the good old days. They used to have a wonderful life in the forest floor. Grandmother sewed the prettiest clothes from all the different kinds of cobwebs, and the whole family gathered together every morning to drink the nourishing dew. It was dew shining with golden sparkling light and filled with life and happiness. It was the best time of the day, and after having taken in the life giving dew, they were ready for a new day with all its activities.

 

The children’s job was to talk with the plants to really get to know them. The grown ups had a lot of different tasks – some would take care of the springs, some of the trees, some of the animals, some of the stones. The purpose of the trolls’ lives was to see to that the forest was in good condition. If someone became too powerful and a threat to other species, the trolls had to talk to them and tell them to strain themselves. The troll family was very good at their job, so it was a nice forest where everybody lived in balance.

 

Sometimes people would come to the forest. The farmers came to fell some trees. Once a year they would come with their big clogs and axes. They needed the wood for furniture, tools, clogs and firewood.

The grown up trolls were planning for several months each year up to the time where the farmers were to come. They had to choose the trees that should be felled, and they had to teach the trees how to behave to be chosen by the farmers. It was a very busy time in the forest. They had to talk to every animal and every plant, telling them not to bring babies to the forest in the area the trolls had chosen for the coming felling. And especially some of the plants had to be told where they should spread to become a covering growth, hiding the areas where the trolls wouldn’t accept the farmers to come. When the farmers returned to their homes with all their wood after the felling, the troll family invited the whole forest to a big party. They were singing, dancing, eating and drinking for eight days.

 

”Well,” the little troll sighed,”it was a wonderful time.” But then he suddenly was torn away from his thoughts by some noise. Did he hear somebody coming? Yes, now he was certain that he heard steps – it sounded even like two people coming towards the beautiful tulip. He could feel the earth shiver from their tramping – they came closer and closer, and now! now they stopped just at the tulip. The little troll was totally alert, the two people above him were the only thing in his mind. He could hear the people talk about the beautiful tulip – and now they were bending down, stretching their hands out to pick it. The time had come! He pushed the little button that would release the poison pump – and PAUWW, a jet of poison steered up through the stem of the tulip and hit both the people in the face. The caustic liquid blinded them immediately, and they felt a burning all over the body. Their screams could be heard miles away, while they staggered away from the tulip, trying to get away from the unbearable pain.

The little troll was satisfied. Another two enemies were gone. They would be dead within two months – two months with incredible pains, while the poison slowly would etch their bodies. The little troll took two grains of sand and laid them in the pile in the back of the cave. He counted the sand grains, and found that he had killed 1.047 people this year. A pretty good result and he could happily look forward to the annual meeting in 4 months. Oh, he longed to meeting his brothers and sisters again, and he really hoped they were doing just as good as he was himself. They were only twenty-three left, so they had to live departed from each other to fulfill the huge job they had been given by the old members of the family, just before they had to leave this world. The last day in the forest was a living scene in his mind, a very sad day indeed. Well, he wouldn’t think more about it for now. He had a job to do in filling the little container with new poison, so the setup would be ready for the next person attracted to the red tulip. It was a hard and lonely job, but very very important – and the elder had ordered him and his siblings to fulfill it in the short period they still would have to stay on earth.

 

He got up and went to get a small bowl for the new poison. There would be lots of it right outside his door in a big container, so he wouldn’t have to go far to get it. There would be room for four drops of poison in the little container with the spray, and that was the exact volume needed for killing two persons. He could only carry one drop at a time, so he had to go out four times before the pitfall was ready for function again. He took on a mantle and gloves for protection – both made of coarse cobweb and sealed with snail slime. The clothes were durable and solid, meant to secure the little troll when he had to carry the deadly drops of poison. And it was the last thing his grandmother had made for him and all his brothers and sisters, before she left the world together with the other grown ups. The little troll took very good care of his protection mantle. Every time he had been using it, he brushed it with a brush made of the eyelashes from a swallow before he hanged it back in the wardrobe. And once a month he would polish it with dandelion juice and poppy fat. The dandelion juice and the poppy fat were farewell gifts from his dear mother – and until now he had only used half of it.

It was a lonely life, and sometimes he felt a deep hopelessness in his little heart. No matter how many people he killed, there would be more and more of them. And almost every one of them was treating nature badly. They could only see the world from their own little narrow point of view, and they didn’t understand how subtle a balance there has to be on earth for the best of every thing and living being. People would just grab for whatever they needed, and oh, how he missed his family. He loved them all and wished from the bottom of his heart that he could be together with them again. The sun had set while the little troll sat pondering on his sad life. It was time to go to bed. And he got to think about the most positive thing about the humans. They only destroyed nature in the daytime. At night every flower, tree and animal could breathe again and the little troll get his well deserved sleep. The container was filled with poison for tomorrow, the protection mantle and the gloves were cleansed and hung away. Hmm, he would have a good sleep. The little troll went out to say good night to the plants, the trees and the animals before he lay down between two oak leaves on a tiny tuft of soft, soft moss.
 
He fell asleep quickly, and started dreaming almost right away. His grandmother came to him in his dream and talked to him. ”My dearest little troll,” she said,”you have done a very, very good job in all these lonely years. We are all very proud of you.” Mmmmh, what a wonderful dream. The little troll curled himself up in his sleep, this was the best that had happened to him in many many years. Grandma continued,”The next annual meeting you have with your brothers and sisters will be your last. I will join you at the meeting and take you all with me to our family, so we can be together again. I will take you to a place where there is only light and happiness. The humans call it Paradise, but they don’t really believe that it exists. I guess, humans are hard of hearing. Otherwise they would have heard all the wonderful stories about Paradise that are told all around in nature. Everyone who has a pure heart and act for the benefit of all beings gets a key to Paradise. And now the time has come for you and your brothers and sisters.

Your job on earth is finished for this time. You shall not sit again in the tulip and spray poison. I have 3 new tasks for you to be solved before the annual meeting. Please listen to me carefully, so you won’t forget anything.

The first job you have to do is spreading the poison you have gathered. Give it to the plants you feel are in most badly need of protection. When mankind finds out that a plant is poisonous, they will let it be.

The second job for you to do is to give a gift to mankind, but it has to be a gift that will contribute to the best for all living being. You can’t save the earth from human attacks by being angry. So we have to try to give them a blessing instead.

The third job you will have to do is to secure a piece of woodlands, a forest to be left in peace by humans for at least 1000 years. I will help you in this job by giving you all the magic power you will need. But you have to choose the forest yourself, and find a way to protect it from human abuse.

 

My dearest little troll, I am sure that you will get these three jobs done like a real super troll, and I look forward to seeing you again at your last annual meeting on earth. Farewell, and see you soon.” And gone she was! The little troll lay in his tiny bed slowly coming back to a new day. What a fabulous dream. His own loving dearly grandma. At last the day had come, the day he had been waiting for year after year in his lonely tulip bulb. And he would do his utmost to fulfill his last purpose on earth, by making three perfect jobs. Oh, he was feeling really proud and happy.

He got up and took a bath before he got dressed in his most beautiful mantle, the one he normally only wore for the annual meeting. But this was a solemn moment and everything had to show its best. He needed all his resources to find a solution for how to fulfill the three tasks. He took a good drink of the nourishing golden dew, and started to think. He sat there in his wonderful clothes thinking hardly for eight days, before he knew what to do. He got up, a bit impatient, he could hardly wait to carry his plans through.
 
He started to walk around in the forest talking to the butterflies. He asked if they would help him by giving him all the dust from their wings they could spare. His idea was to let the butterfly dust absorb the poison. It could then be spread onto many many plants without wasting one drop. During the next couple of weeks there were butterflies coming from all over the world to the little troll, brushing off their spare dust from the wings into the container with the poison. They kept on coming until every tiny drop of the poison had been absorbed. The little troll thanked the butterflies for their help, and started to fill the dust into the tiny bags he had sewn in the meantime. He filled 100 bags before the poison container was empty. 100 tiny bags filled with poison dust. He went to the Lord of the snails and asked for their help to transport the 100 bags. The next day you could see a line of 100 snails coming toward the little troll’s house. It took several days to load all the bags onto the snails. At last they were ready, and the procession started. The little troll was leading the procession, and every time he saw a plant needing special protection, he would take one grain of poisonous dust and give it to the plant. Often he would stop at a mushroom, because the fragile mushrooms were often destroyed by careless humans. So he turned them into what people later would call toadstools. But there were many other plants and bushes he offered a poisonous dust grain for future protection. Every time he gave a dust grain to a plant, he explained thoroughly how the plant could encapsulate the poison, so it would be given on to the future generations with the genes. Many, many days passed by before the job was done, and it was a tired but satisfied little troll, who declared job fulfilled and gratefully sent back the 100 snails. He had enjoyed the job because he had been able to walk around in the forest, talking to the plants. He hadn’t done that for a long, long time. But now he was tired, and he would have a good, deep sleep before starting on the second job.

The next morning the little troll woke up, rested and ready for work. He was pondering for a long time about what gift to give to mankind. And finally he got a brilliant idea. What if he gave a disease to mankind? A disease which would infect only people without a pureness in their heart. A disease, not life threatening, but a disease to keep the infected indoor for a while. As long as they would be indoor they couldn’t harm nature, and it would give nature a little break to recover. To mankind the disease would be like a puzzle, and some would find the key to it. They would know that if they kept their heart pure, they would not get the disease at all. They could avoid the disease and be a part of balance in nature at the same time. The best blessing they could ever get! The little troll was happy with his considerations and sent the gift – flue and cold – to the ever growing mankind.
Two out of three jobs were done! Oh, he was looking forward to the end. But he had one job left. One last job, and the most difficult of them all. He was thinking about it so heavily that you could hear his brain creak. Several days went by, before he suddenly knew what to do.
 
He started to look for a forest with pine trees, and he found one lovely situated by the sea. It had to be pine trees, because the pattern on the trunk of the pine is very much alike the pattern on the python snake. And that was an essential part of his plan! He walked into the pine forest and started to talk with the pines. He wanted to teach them how to twist their branches to imitate the huge pythons. It was quite difficult for the trees, so he used his magic power from grandma to grow into a giant. Being a giant he could easily twist the branches and the trunks, and the pines would find it easier to see what he wanted them to do. While he was doing the twisting he saw to that he was visible to humans. And everyone who came by the forest in those days got so frightened when they saw this huge giant twisting the trunks and branches of the pines.

“A troll “they screamed before they ran away! And that was exactly what he was – but they didn’t know that! They believed that trolls were gigantic creatures, mean and evil, eating human beings. Especially small children and young virgins were amongst their favorite dishes. So no wonder they got scared. After the little troll had shown himself several times as the giant twisting the trees, people stopped coming near the forest. They called it”The Troll Forest” and wrote it on a sign to warn everyone passing by. The little troll was about to leave the forest again, but not until he was sure that the pines knew how to twist their trunks and branches. Pine trees are quick to learn, and they are still today twisting their branches and trunks. People will pass the forest but never go in there with bad intensions. Not many people today know about the origin of the troll forest, and not many people believe in magic and trolls. But even from them, the forest is protected, because nobody feels safe amongst all the python like branches. And if you don’t believe me, you may go there yourself to have a look. The location of the forest is in Tisvildeleje in Denmark on the north shore of an island called Zealand, and the name of the forest is”The Troll Forest”.