Branch Trolls Quotes

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon. The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified. It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel. One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice. The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched. The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward. Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dis­mount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along. In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment. Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there. There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them. For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops. But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.

to a cave-like hollow. The black river swept through the middle under a roof of trunks and branches. Jack looked up uneasily. He could see patches of sky, and it seemed little would be needed to bring the logs crashing down. But Olaf said the hollow had been there many years.

Trolls live through the telling of tales and the passing on of stories, weaving them together, then letting them flow separately again, as streams, rivers, tree roots, and branches do. —Trolls, by Brian and Wendy Froud

The day, with all its pain ahead, is yours. The ceaseless creasing of the morning sea, the fluttering gamboge cedar leaves allegro, the rods of the yawning branches trolling the breeze, the rusted meadows, the wind-whitened grass, the coos of the stone-colored ground doves on the road, the echo of benediction on a house – its rooms of pain, its verandah of remorse when joy lanced through its open-hearted doors like a hummingbird out to the garden and the pool in which the sky has fallen. These are all yours, and pain has made them brighter as absence does after a death, as the light heals the grass.

As they ran, Janner looked over his shoulder and saw a line of Fangs weaving in and out of the trees, and among them, three lumbering trolls, which broke fat limbs like twigs. Janner felt a combination of horror and fascination and wished he could somehow stop the pursuit so he could get a better look at one of the smelly hulks. “Janner, watch where you’re going,” Nia said, and he just had time to dance around a small tree. Ahead, Nugget trotted beside Podo, choosing his path with care so that Leeli was safe from low branches. With each troll bellow, Nugget’s ears flattened against his head and he whined.