Categories
News

Troll Keeping

Hello my friends!

I want to share some little baubles of thoughts with you on a subject that’s only an inchworm’s width away from my heart: Troll Keeping.

If you’ve spent even a few minutes reading J. Parrish Lewis’ The Goblin Road, a true-to-life depiction of my adventure so many years ago (though disguised as a story about my good friend of those days, Ruarc, and his brother) then you know that trolls usually hang around tree gates. Yes, they make them too, and they’re quite good at it–so good, in fact, that they have a monopoly on the job. Usually. I think a few of us brownies can do a decent job, except when I make a gate they’re more fit for anything smaller than a squirrel. But I can put my arm through it, so if I make it a portal to somewhere else, say, the top of a nice apple tree, I can grab a few tasty treats.

But I’m getting off the point here! Which is this, the point I’m getting at: trolls are gatekeepers, but who keeps the trolls?

It’s a well-known fact, or at least it was when I was a young brownie, that any troll worthy of the name is a dreadful housekeeper and cannot prepare a meal worth consuming. Just because they’re super-strong trolls with tough skin and dubious looks (aside from the half-troll Sasja, my lovely friend who is blessed with sprite genes) doesn’t mean they don’t get hungry.

As a result: we brownies and other creatures can be quite helpful at keeping trolls healthy and happy. I like to think now of those cute rhinos and the birds who live on them. Though I’d rather not perch upon a troll’s shoulder, we have a good friendship with these creatures. (Usually, that is: there was one such exception in J. Parrish Lewis’s The Goblin Road, that described a particularly odorous troll that I had hoped would turn out for the better)

I myself spent a fair number of years, a century or two before Ruarc ever stepped his little toes onto the Goblin Road, keeping one particularly quiet troll quite well-fed with apple milk and apple pie, my specialties. It’s not a lot of work, but the reward is immense: have you ever seen a contented troll smile? It’s darling!

So during those years, I came up with a few simple rules for Troll Keeping: The practice of supporting our hard-working gatekeepers (though we never could quite figure out why there were gates in the first place, a mystery solved later on):

Rule 1: An apple will do the trick in any meal. Hot or cold, food or drink, an apple is the ingredient you don’t want to skip, for it pleases a troll to no end.

Rule 2: Larger meals are better than smaller meals. A troll does not diet. In fact, I’m not sure they need to digest. Maybe their magic just keeps them fit?

Rule 3: Watch your fingers. Cousin Bark lost a thumb once, accompanying me. Sure, we eventually managed to re-grow the thumb with some nice little magic, but she was decidedly anti-troll after that.

Rule 4, and the most important: If it’s a cold time of the year, warm foot-covers can be knit for your troll friend. Why let them be uncomfortable? It’s an inexplicable job to be a gatekeeper, but being a troll keeper makes plenty of sense.

Do you part today. Find a troll and see if he needs a keeper. The rewards are heartwarming, my friends!

With sweet regards,

Lichen the Brownie, former Troll Keeper

By J. Parrish Lewis

J. Parrish Lewis was born and raised in Maryland. In his youth there, he and his brother had many adventures in the dogwood forests near his home. His nostalgia for these adventures has strongly influenced his characters, their relationships, and their perspective on the world they inhabit. He moved to California’s coast to earn his degree in communications and now lives with his family in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. He enjoys hazelnut coffee, captioned movies, and walking his dog.

2 replies on “Troll Keeping”

Comments are awesome. I approve positive comments, even if you disagree with me. I don't approve comments that are negative, even if you're agreeing with me.