Skegga's Edda Chapter 9 - Odin's Troll Hunt

Odin's Troll Hunt

Tyr basked in his double victory and throughout Godhome the air was noisy with his praise.  His fellow Outlanders felt they needed to gain a success of their own to prove their equal worth.  The friends were gathered in Odin's private chambers at Battlehall, sharing their plans over a barrel of good ale.

'All we need to do' said Hoenir 'is go out into the Outlands, find a troll and kill him.'
'Tricky,' muttered Odin 'they are very strong.  Tyr must be more powerful than we realised.'
'I could bring one down with magic' Loki reminded them.
'No' Odin objected 'we are Osfolk now and should behave as warriors, not as chanting trollwives.'
'I am not a warrior' Loki replied sulkily.
'Then stay here' Odin retorted coldly.
Loki rose to leave, but concern for his friends forced him to speak.  'Beware of the trollwives, if you meet one without my aid, she will kill you.'
'Don't worry yourself' Hoenir smiled. 'We will only look for a male.'

Odin and Hoenir made ready and sharpened their weapons.  Mother Bestla looked over their travelling clothes and made repairs where needed.  Loki boasted of his intention to seduce every farm lass at Stormbright Hall, as he was not needed, and breezed off.  Once out of sight he changed his shape into that of a crow, a bird common and unremarkable both in Godhome and the nearer reaches of the Outlands, and followed the hopeful warriors.

The friends rode out through the fields of Stronghome and took the path past Urd's Well to the wilds beyond.  'So' said Hoenir 'how do we find a troll without a female?'
'By smell?' Odin guessed.  'You can smell male trolls for miles.'
'I would be happier if we could smell the females.'
Odin stood his horse a moment and pondered.  'The males live like animals in caves and holes.  The females live in house-like dwellings.  If we track the troll scent to a cave he should be alone.  If we track it to a hut we will leave them be.'
'I hope you are right' Hoenir replied uneasily.

They rode three leagues beyond the Great Ash and finally entered the troll lands.  Hoenir spotted a likely looking cave above the pine darkened valley.  They moved down wind and breathed in the air.  Odin nearly choked, 'Garrrgh!  That is foul, that's a male for sure.'
'Well, it's a cave,' Hoenir muttered 'should be safe.'
'Indeed.  Let's go.'

They crept through the trees: trolls are dangerous opponents and surprise would be a valuable weapon in the fight.  They ignored the crow flapping from branch to branch above them.  Spears raised ready, they crept up the rocky slope to the cavemouth.  Using their well-tested hunter's signals, they stepped quietly as one into the reeking hole.

The cave was dark and piled high across the floor with bones, scraps and dung.   A central fire filled the space with smoke and half hid a lumpen figure that faced away from them and seemed to be scraping at the floor with a stick.  Odin and Hoenir crept forward, hearts pounding with excitement.  The foul matter on the hearth burned away and the air cleared a little.  The figure turned and Odin swore, for facing him across a tidy new built hearth was a female.

The females are much smaller than the males but far more dangerous, for they are wise and skilled in all the magical arts.  It is a foolish warrior who does not fear them.  The trollwife snarled, spoke a harsh word and their weapons shattered in their hands.  She spoke again and their sinews were frozen leaving them helpless.  Odin stared up in growing horror.  She was seven feet tall but very broad, with wide hips to push out the stockier male young.  She was heavy breasted and her face was a nightmare, wild straw-like hair tangled in witch knots and lumpy saggy flesh around smoke redden eyes.  'Boy!' she shouted, her voice distorted by her protruding tusks.  'Fire the oven!'

From the dark rear of the cave a lad of Middle Garth appeared, the flesh that showed about his ragged shirt was blue with bruises.  He hurried to do the monster's will.  The trollwife lashed her prey's hands and legs tightly and hung them up on iron hooks hammered into the roof of the cave.  Odin and Hoenir dangled there in great discomfort, still frozen by her spell.  The trollwife hissed over the spear fragments and cast them into the fire.

There was a vast oven at the rear of the cave that looked newly made and the floor there had been scraped clean.  The harried lad carried embers to the oven and added kindling and logs so that a fire roared below it.  'Keep it hot, Boy' the trollwife snarled around her teeth.  'I am eager to taste their flesh.'  She returned to her work, shovelling the piled filth onto the fire.

Loki peered into the cave, still in his crow's shape, saw and understood all in an instant and flew off to safety.  There was little about trolls that Loki did not know.  He knew well that the trollwife was looking for a mate, and was preparing an offering that no male troll could resist, a good meal and a tupping in his own cave.  His friends had saved her the trouble of hunting manflesh.

Loki flew far from the cave and far downwind.  His time as a hunter had taught him the use of scents to track and attack prey.  He took on a new shape; his flesh boiled and flowed upwards and outwards until a rugged he-troll stood on that lonely fell.  He worked hard on the details, the broken tusks, the neck boils, the fetid moss clinging to the damp soil beneath the tail.  Then more important than all, the smell.  He created a reek so potent he could barely stand upright within its dank cloud.  He roared and heard the mating call echo down the valleys.  Perfect.

Loki crashed through the trees, circling back towards the cave until the stiff breeze did its work.  The trollwife had stripped Hoenir of his clothes and shaved his hair.  She was just reaching for the flint blade she used for gutting when her nose began to twitch madly.  Fortunately for Hoenir there was something she wanted more than food.  She knocked her dinner senseless with a stone and screamed her willingness.

Odin watched in horror and fascination from his hook, not recognising his friend.  Loki had the trollwife's full attention, the stench, almost fatal to menfolk, was driving the female into heat.  The  two coupled roughly, causing the cave to shake.   Loki looked meaningfully at Odin and winked, no male troll was so expressive and the bloodbrother realised he had been rescued.  Loki looked to the lad and with a toss of his head urged him to free his friend .  The lad seized up the abandoned flint knife and cut the ties binding Odin's legs.  The trollwife had forgotten her prey in her pleasure and the binding spells had faded.  'Can you lift me lad?' Odin whispered.  The boy heaved up gasping with all his meagre strength and Odin freed himself from the hook.

Odin wasted no time: he seized up one of the heavy hearth stones with hands still bound and brought it down smartly on the trollwife's head.  She collapsed, her skull broken.

Loki returned to his own form most willingly and Odin rushed to check on Hoenir, to his relief he was still alive.  'Lets get out of here.'
'Give me a moment' gasped Loki, still recovering from his exertions.
Another roar startled them all and a fresh wave of troll-stench filled the cave.  The lad and the folk of Godhome, dragged Hoenir back into the shadows and hid themselves at the back of the cave.
'Oh Ymir!' Odin swore. 'Now what can we do, we are unarmed!'

The male troll ducked into his cave his grunts echoing painfully loud in the small space.  He peered around aware that something had changed and sniffed.  He roared, filling the cave with a foul smelling mist and hurting their ears even more.   Eagerly he moved forward, he had smelt the female, still lying by the hearth with her tail uncovered.  He seized her in his claw-like hands and started to tup the warm, lifeless lich.

'Now what do we do?' whispered' Odin.
The lad looked at Loki with admiration 'Can you turn into a female troll?  It worked so well last time.'
'You want me to do what?'  Loki glared at him.  
'We have got to do something' urged Odin. 'Eventually he will realise that someone has killed his mate and become very angry.  Do it Loki!'
'You have got to be joking.  What happened to 'Don't use troll magic now we are respectable Osfolk...  What kind of pervert do you take me for?''
Hoenir interrupted the quarrel by groaning blearily.
'Use the rope then' urged the lad.  There was indeed a good coil of rope that the trollwife had kept to secure her prey.
'Good thinking' Loki praised him, much relieved.  He tied a noose in the heavy rope and secured the end about one of the trollwife's meat hooks.  He passed the noose to Odin, not before time as the troll was nearly spent.  As the troll grunted out his seed, oblivious to all about him, Odin stepped forward and tossed the rope about his ugly head.  The troll howled in surprise and rage as he felt the rope tighten, then raged about the cave trying to free himself, too dense to realise he was throttling his own neck.  Finally he bashed his head so hard on the cave roof that he fell senseless to the floor with a crash.  Odin rushed forward and finished him off with the same hearth stone that had taken the life of the female.

Odin and Loki dragged Hoenir out into the fresh air and gulped in the clean breeze.  Odin glanced down at the trollwife's lad.  'You showed spirit and wits, what is you name?'
'Hermod.'
'Have you got family Hermod?'
'No, she killed them.'
'Then you come to Godhome with me, I suspect you will prove most useful.'
'Willingly, lord.'

The three sons of the Outlands slunk back to Godhome, none keen to tell of their adventures.  And if this tale is ever told it is because Hermod, in his youthful eagerness, let his tongue wag.  But in fairness to the young manchild, he served Odin faithfully from that time on.

Notes:

This tale is completely my own invention.  A number of the Norse myths concern the three gods Odin, Hoenir and Loki, or Odin Hoenir and Lodur an otherwise forgotten deity.   By placing the emphasis of this work on Jord and Thor these three have lost one of their tales, the creation of mankind.  I have added this story to help develop the characters.

At this time the only inhabitant of Godhome practising magic as opposed to spae-craft (divination) is Loki.  This places all the other godfolk at a great disadvantage.  This tale is in part a warning of what is to come.

Descriptions of the trolls, ettins and other mythical creatures varies quite widely.  The trolls in these stories are based on tales of Thor's battles with troll women who fight with sorcery.  There is a strong emphasis on trollwives suggesting that they are the more dangerous.  They are not harmed by daylight.