The Lore of Old Elfland by Linda Raedisch

Author:Linda Raedisch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CVR12212018;elfland;lore of elfland;linda radish;linda raedish;elves;history of elves;elf;elf lore;elf crafts
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2019-09-30T18:50:27+00:00

SPELL BREAK: Knocking on Elfland’s Door

I have never been to Sweden, but if I ever do go, I’ll head straight for Halland on the Kattergat, the bit of sea that separates southwestern Sweden from Denmark’s Jutland and which the mound people’s sailless longboats were probably able to cross without much difficulty. When I get there, I’ll make tracks for Tvååker, where the folktale “Investigation of a Grotto” 50 takes place. Once I reach the town, I’ll be looking for a certain ridge, the north side of which is supposed to drop off into the above-mentioned grotto.

The word “grotto” puts me in mind of Circe and the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. Why not just call it a cave? Cave, cavern, or grotto, the only way to explore this one is to lower the hardiest—or foolhardiest—of the local men down through the entrance by a rope. What were the villagers in the folktale hoping to find in there? It seems to me that whenever the practical Scandinavian peasant went poking into mounds or rock formations, he was looking for one of two things: building stones or treasure.

It would be very inconvenient to haul building stones up by rope one at a time, clutched in the arms of our stalwart spelunker, so we must assume they were looking for treasure. The cave was already known as the “troll’s parlor,” 51 which makes me think of polished woodwork glowing in the light of the hearth, a place to enjoy hot tea and seedcakes, not unlike a hobbit-hole. The resident troll was said to be one Hakon. In the Viking Age, Hakon was a name for kings and earls, so this would be a high-born troll and our local-on-a-rope (we’ll call him Sven) was probably expecting something a little grander than Bilbo Baggins’ sitting room.

While the Swedish troll was more or less the equivalent of an elf, the trolls had a special reputation for sitting on piles of treasure. In Småland to the east, they had a story about a little boy who was spirited into a mountain. The boy was eventually freed by the emergency tolling of the church bells, but not before he got a glimpse of the inside of the mountain. He reported that it had “gleamed,” 52 presumably with silver, for it was forevermore called Silver Mountain.

What Sven did find after he had crawled some way into the mountain outside Tvååker was an oversized iron door. It was locked from the inside, but Sven, no doubt scraped and bruised by now, was not ready to give up. He pounded his fists against the door, then pressed his ear against it to hear the startled residents of the mountain exchange muted words, probably something along the lines of “Who could that be?” and “Quiet! Pretend we’re not home!”

If Sven had gone on pounding, would the trolls eventually have opened the door? I’m afraid we’ll never know, for just then his antsy friends decided he had been down there too long and pulled him up again.

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