{"id":299,"date":"2023-05-17T12:51:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T16:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/?page_id=299"},"modified":"2023-07-10T11:22:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T15:22:12","slug":"females-and-the-supernatural-the-tale-of-thorstein-bulls-leg","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-tale-of-thorstein-bulls-leg\/","title":{"rendered":"Females &amp; the Supernatural: The Tale of Thorstein Bull\u2019s Leg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <em>The Tale of Thorstein Bull\u2019s Leg<\/em>, there are several mentions of female trolls\u2014non-human entities. The female trolls are explicitly mentioned as negative or evil entities, thereby representing a supernatural female presence:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Then they rode on their way until they came to where they saw a great hall standing. They saw three female trolls running from the hall, two young ones and one very large one. She was as hairy all over as a grey bear. They all had swords in their hands. They also saw a huge man coming, if it could be called a man, and two boys with him. He had a drawn sword in his hand. It was so bright that sparks seemed to fly from it. All the trolls looked very evil. (trans. Clark 1997)<\/p>\n<p>The idea of the supernatural female is once again suggested later in the story, when the male protagonist Thorstein enters the home of a troll family and observes a sleeping female troll:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Thorstein saw that a woman was lying in the bed, if she could be called a woman. She was both tall and thick-bodied and totally troll-like. Her countenance was coarse and black and blue in aspect. She was lying dressed in a silk shift. It looked very much as if it were washed in human blood. The ogress was sleeping and snored very loudly. A shield and sword were hanging above her. (trans. Clark 1997).<\/p>\n<p>Here, the troll\u2019s sex is explicitly stated as female, with emphasis placed on the bodily disfigurement and non-humanlike qualities of this female entity. In this way, we may see how the female trolls are representative of the association of Viking Age females with the supernatural.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-second-lay-of-helgi-hundingsbane\/\">\u00ab Previous<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/\">Home<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-old-english-analogues\/\">Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In The Tale of Thorstein Bull\u2019s Leg, there are several mentions of female trolls\u2014non-human entities. The female trolls are explicitly mentioned as negative or evil entities, thereby representing a supernatural female presence: Then they rode on their way until they came to where they saw a great hall standing. They saw three female trolls running<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/female-narratives\/females-and-the-supernatural-the-tale-of-thorstein-bulls-leg\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4492,"featured_media":0,"parent":268,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-nosidebar.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-299","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299\/revisions\/585"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}