Door County, Before You Die

by Mary Bowers

  I had one of those little feelings you get, and I decided we’d better not talk about trolls in front of Arnie, but it was too late.

  “Who’s been taking you down to the troll’s mound?” he asked Faye.

  She turned big, round eyes on him, and the old man softened immediately.

  He pulled a chair up next to our table and began to speak very gently to the child.

  “Now, young Faye, I don’t want you wandering around down there. Will you do that for me? Girls that are little and pretty aren’t anything against the pull of those waters, and there’s nobody down there to help you if you get into trouble. Loki’s a good dog, but he’s old, and he can’t be everywhere. That water’s cold,” he said, trying to impress it on the child, “and in places it’s deep.”

  “And the trolls don’t like it when people come too close?” she asked in a sweet little voice. “Justin said they aren’t bad, but they just wanted to be left alone.”

  I saw him bridle when she said it was Justin who had told her, but he was in better control of himself now. “That’s right. It’s important to give to every creature in the world the space that’s meant for them, and down by the river is where things like trolls belong. Not little girls.”

  “But they wouldn’t hurt me, right? Justin said they’re not bad.”

  “No, they’re not bad, but trolls aren’t people. They’re bjergfolk; they’re different from us. We can’t understand what makes them do the things they do. You see what I mean? We might think we’re not doing anything to upset them, but it might upset them anyway.”

  “But why don’t they want to be with people? We’d be nice to them.”

  “Not all people are nice. And I suppose Justin told you all about what happened to them to make them so sad, so you remember all that and leave the poor things alone.”

  “But Justin didn’t tell me! He wouldn’t tell me the story. He said it would make me cry. But I want to know the story. I won’t cry, I promise. Will you tell me? Please?”

  He was caught. I could see the calculation in his eyes. Tell her a scary story so she won’t traipse off to the shoreline by herself and possibly drown. My clever, clever aunt had seen this coming a mile away, and I gave her a knowing glance.

  To Evaline’s obvious surprise, Arnie relented. “I’ll tell ye the story,” he said, nodding. “Yes, I suppose it’s the only thing to do now. If you already know the first little bit, then you have to know all of it, or you’ll be too curious to behave yourself, and I’ll have only myself to blame.”

  I felt a thrill, though I knew already that what I was about to hear was all nonsense. But it would be fairytale nonsense, and everybody loves a good story. This was an old one, and I was pretty sure Arnie would be repeating words he’d heard directly from his own father’s lips, reciting them by rote, no matter how he’d decided to adjust it for Faye. The moment was very fragile; I knew that if any of the rest of us said a word, Arnie might change his mind.

  He was settling himself into storyteller mode, and Evaline leaned back against the breakfront along the house’s outer wall and we all waited for him to begin.

  Chapter 10 – The Tale of the Troll

  “Now what I have to tell you is true,” he began, concentrating only on Faye. “Not a made-up story for children, to keep them quiet, or to teach them a lesson. That would be a fairytale. The story I have to tell you is a legend. That is a very different thing. It is an old tale, and a true one. It is the legend of our troll family here, and especially of the troll-girl, Essie.

  He took a very deep breath and began. “Once upon a time, on this very bay, there lived a family of trolls. They were already here when my father first came to this place. People told him about the strange goings-on, right in this spot on the bay, but my father already owned this land by then, and he had to build here and make the best of it.

  “Now, when the guests started to come, he warned them about the troll’s mound. Some of them thought he was having a joke with them, and they went to see for themselves. They came back wiser and they weren’t curious anymore. One woman who was very rude and thought she’d make a fool out of my father with his old wives tales – well, she never came back at all. My father didn’t know what happened to her and he didn’t want to know. The sheriff in those days was a Dane, like my father, and he understood. So just you remember that, young Faye, when you start to feel curious about the trolls.

  “I’m sure the trolls were unhappy about us, but after a while the humans left them alone, and so they left us alone, and that was that. The trolls were here before us and they knew they would be here after us. We humans are too complicated to go on forever, while the trolls are just earth and stone. They are simple, and simple things are the hardest to destroy. But as you will soon see, they can also be the easiest.

  “These trolls were a family: a father, a mother and a daughter. The father was thick and old, with fingers like knotted wood, and when he worked too hard, splinters and chunks of his hide, which was like bark, would sprinkle down to the ground all around him.

  “The mother, she was cunning and fair. Are you surprised, Faye? Yes, a troll can be fair. A troll can be much like a human, so you wouldn’t know it if they walked beside you, or they can be like nothing else but a troll. It varies. Sometimes I think the fair ones were bergtagning – taken – changelings. Sometimes,” he said carefully, watching his young listener, “when a troll mother liked a human baby, she enchanted a block of wood to make it look like the child and then snatched the real baby away. But no,” he said quickly as Faye tried to speak. “Enough about that. I said I’d tell you one tale today, and that would be quite another. So.

  “The daughter of the trolls looked much like her mother, and more beautiful still. She was the fairest in the land, whether you saw beauty in trolls or humans or both, though she had none of her mother’s cunning. Essie, the daughter was called, and when her name was said aloud, it came to the ear like the sighing of the wind, or like a wood elf singing, far away.

  “I say her name aloud to you, though it is bad manners and bad luck to do so, as you surely know. Even on this day, her old father may hear and come forth, which would be a bad thing for all of us. If you see him, young Faye, you must warn us. Your eyes are not dull, like the eyes of the old people. You can still see the ones who are among us, but of us. If you see them you must quickly bless yourself. Call out the name of God and you will be protected.

  “But I think he will not come. He is even older now than he was then, and may only believe it is the wind talking to him, as it always does. I say her name aloud (though softly) because it pleases me.

  “On the far side of this bay there lies an island. I mean the big island; not the small one. On it was another troll, and this one lived alone. He was even older than Essie’s father, and far uglier. This troll was huge and thick and clumsy, and he had eyes as big and round and empty as the moon, and above his eyes were bushes of brows that he needed to push up out of the way with both of his hands whenever he wanted to look at something, which wasn’t often. Things that live underground have eyes for seeing underground. They are not like our eyes. They are the eyes of the huldrefolk – the hidden ones.

  “One night – for as you know, if the trolls come out in the daylight, they will return to the stones and boulders they are made of – so as I say, one night, this troll came out of his burrow for some dead leaves to boil into the stew he was making for his supper, and the wind was so strong it blew his eyebrows back over his head and behind it. He opened his moon eyes and when he turned them toward the water, they set down upon Essie, who was sitting by herself on this shore, just down by the water behind us.

  “And after that, almost never did this old troll’s eyes move away from Essie again. Though water and rocks and trees be between them, and many miles also, above the ground or below, the eyes of this troll stayed upon Essie. One night, when she went down to the water he came out to his own shore and called to her, saying that he was lo
nely and hungry with no troll-wife to comfort him, and she would be blessed by all the spirits of the waters between them if she would let him come to her for a morsel of food to eat, and a kindly word.

  “Essie’s heart was tender and she was unwise, as I have said. She believed the old troll, and pity struck her so deeply she trembled all over herself. So she looked across the water in the moonlight and lifted her hand, beckoning to him. When she did this, the old troll quickly pulled forth his boat from the shore and threw himself into it, planning to pluck the girl up and be off with her!

  “But Essie’s mother was cunning, as I have said, and the hair of her arms gave warning. They lifted and waved about in alarm. All trolls have much hair on their arms, Faye, as I am sure you know, but did you know that this hair is not just a covering to keep them warm and make them pretty? No, these hairs are living, wiggling things, and when there is food nearby or danger is coming, they lift up and give warning. Now, the troll-family had long stores of food, sufficient for ninety-nine years and half, so the hairs on the arms of Essie’s mother were not speaking to her about food. There must be danger instead. And so she went forth to find her daughter.

  “When she came down to the water calling for Essie, she saw the evil old troll coming in his boat when he was not yet halfway across the bay. Then she closed her eyes and bowed her head and she began to sing. As her voice flowed over the waters, the waves began to roil and the havsfru – the maids that slept below; you would call them mermaids – the havsfru were stirred awake and they rose, shedding pebbles and shells and sand from the bottom of the bay, beneath which they slept, and it all came streaming up behind them, like rolling brown clouds in the water.

  “‘Who has called to us?’ they demanded when their heads came above the water, for the havsfru did not like to be disturbed in their sleep.

  “‘It was I,’ cried Essie’s mother. ‘I beg for your help!’

  “‘No, it was I,’ cried the old troll from his boat. ‘I beg for your help!’

  “This made the havsfru angrier still, for they knew that one of these creatures was lying to them.

  “‘If it was you who called us,’ they said to the old troll, ‘then call us again, just as you did before.’

  “Thus challenged, the old troll tried to bring forth the song of Essie’s mother, but when he did, the frogs began to croak and the fishes began to writhe in the water and the birds in the air were stunned and fell from the sky in agony. In their own voices they called for the old troll to stop his terrible noise, for it was like the sound of the earth tearing itself apart.

  “‘If it was you who called to us,’ the havsfru said to Essie’s mother, ‘then call us again, just as you did before.’

  “And thereupon, Essie’s mother began to sing, and with her cunning, she took the same song as before and filled it with sadness, wrenching tears from the havsfru, whose hearts were as cold as the baywater, but who had long memories of sadness and tears from the things the young of this world always bring upon themselves, through ignorance and impatience.

  “‘Stop,’ the havsfru called at last, when the song had made their eyes stream like waterfalls. ‘What is it that you want of us? Tell us, so that we may no longer weep.’

  “And Essie’s mother told them of her love for her daughter, and how she feared the day she might lose her beloved one, and loved the day that she herself would die because she would die knowing that Essie was happy and free, for it was better to know the pain of death than to endure the pain of bereavement.

  “At this time, hearing her mother, tears poured forth from Essie, and she begged of her mother to know how she might ease her fears.

  “‘You must never leave me,’ the mother said quickly.

  “‘And so I never shall,’ pledged the daughter.

  “Satisfied, the mother turned to the havsfru in the bay and charged them to keep the old troll from passing over the waters, for his aim was to take her daughter and make her a prisoner and a slave.

  “Filled with pity, angered by what memories I do not know of the pain from their own young days, caused by careless love or cruel bondage, the havsfru rose up in fury, commanding the waves to rise and the wind to push the old troll back to the other side of the bay where he belonged. And they told him to burn his boat and cool his ardor, because never would they allow him to cross the bay to the other side. And so, Essie was safe.

  “But after many a long year, even the stars forget to shine. Strong was the anger of the havsfru on that day, but then, again, they slept under the sands, and the waters above cooled their minds and drenched their memories.

  “But the old troll, who had lived five hundred years and more already, was patient, and he waited.

  “One night the moon failed to appear, hiding its face behind the hands of the clouds and looking away from the earth to the lord in the sky, for it was the night of remembrance, when all the sky-world pauses to pay homage. That was very unfortunate, for the old troll awakened the maids of the water and began to tempt them. Fish he offered them to eat, but being half-fish themselves, they refused in disgust and laughed at him.

  “Then he brought stones unlike those under the water, pretty stones of red and purple and yellow, taken from the land, upon which the havsfru could never go. But the maids of the water looked upon the stones and said, ‘What should we do with those stones? We can never see them by sunlight, in their pretty colors; we must always see them by moonlight, where they are gray and common.’ And they laughed at him again, which made him very angry.

  “Gold would tempt them, he knew, and the old troll had hoarded gold at the back of his cave and under trees and in hollows. But when he tried to say, ‘I will give you gold,’ his tongue grew thick and filled up his mouth until he could not speak at all.

  “Finally, after much thought, he tried to speak again, and this time his tongue behaved and let the words come forth. ‘I will give you combs for your hair,’ he said. ‘Clever I am, at making things, and I will give you combs made from the bones of fishes to work the slime and the weeds from your hair.’

  “Now the havsfru are very vain, and especially are they proud of their hair. It spreads in the water like blooming flowers and covers their nakedness when they rise to the surface. It slides down their backs like wriggling eels and caresses them about their shoulders and their arms.

  “‘My combs will make your hair more beautiful still,’ he cried when he saw them hesitate. ‘Think how it will shine and ripple when the weeds and the sand and the bones of dead things are combed out of your beautiful hair!’

  “And so a bargain was made to allow him to pass over the bay. They took the combs and let him pass among them in his rough-made boat of bark and knots and bones all twined together. And so he came, soft upon the water, making only the sounds that water makes and passing among the havsfru, who turned their backs in shame and disgust.

  “He took her, didn’t he?” Faye cried suddenly, deeply shaken.

  Nettie, Henry and I glanced at one another, and I knew they were thinking the same thing I was. We hadn’t expected the legend to turn ugly. Mesmerized as we had been by his sing-song voice and the sheer other-worldliness of the tale, I hadn’t noticed the effect it was having on Faye.

  Arnie was ready with his answer. “Haven’t I warned you, child, that this was not a fairytale? Not even a folktale, which is also a silly thing, but for grownups, not for children. This is a legend, remember, and a legend is real. But you are right, Faye, and I can see that this part of the story is not for one as young as you. Yes, little one, he took her away, but she had sworn to her mother that she would never leave, and when the old troll had her but halfway across, the havsfru rose in the water to show off their hair. The old troll paused in his rowing and turned around to look at them. While he looked away, Essie leaped from the boat.”

  “Did the mermaids save her?” Faye asked anxiously.

  “They saved her, but in their own way, which is not our way. They took her to be
their sister and showed her their ways. With soothing voices and ancient songs, they quieted her mind and washed away her fears, and along with everything else, her memories left her, too.

  “And so, sometimes at night, still half-dreaming, I walk out to the shoreline and look to the waters that cover the havsfru as they sleep. If the moon is good, I see it shining on the islands across the way. And sometimes, I see her. More often I do not. She lives among the water creatures now, sleeping under the sands of the bay, cold through to her heart as fishlike things are, and with only dreamlike memories of her life here on the land, in her father’s burrow, underneath the ground.”

  “And her mother?” Faye asked. “Is she still there, and is she sad?”

  He nodded solemnly. “She is still there; she is very sad. Her father is, too. They will never leave this place, where Essie is near, even though she is lost to them now.

  “I could say the name of the terrible old one who took her, since he is dead now, but to say the names of the huldrefolk is always dangerous, and it may be that some will think I honor him, and I will not honor that one.

  “The father of Essie, when he knew that his daughter was asleep in the water, crossed over the bay one night. In her cunning, his troll-wife had told him of a plan, and he went forth in his boat with his pockets full of gold. He found a place beneath a rock that was like a stony mushroom, and there he hid himself and waited for the dawn to come. The danger to himself was great, but he was filled with his purpose and would not turn back.

  When the light came softly through the trees, Essie’s father waited until the eye of the sun turned red and the gray mist of dawn turned orange. Then he brought from his pockets the gold, and protecting his hands from the rays of the sun with moss and leaves, he put the gold forward beyond the shadow of his rock, letting it glitter and flash upon the burrow of the old one who had taken his Essie away.

  “Lured by the smell and the taste of gold in the air, the old one sniffed his way out of his hole and there he saw the dancing light that played about the gold, moving and twinkling all around him, flashing through the air. He reached out his hand for the gold just as Essie’s father withdrew his own, and quickly, without thought, the old one crawled forth, full of greed. Just at that very moment the red eye of the sun flamed into luminous yellow, and there the old troll stopped, for he had turned into solid stone as he crawled on the ground. He was returned to the stuff from which he had come in the beginning of his days.