Moomin and Other Trolls

Moomin and Other Trolls.

When a Swede takes a walk through the forest at dawn, he sees the silhouettes of trolls everywhere. The Swedish forests are full of trolls but trolls are not limited to the forests - they seem to be everywhere.

John Bauer transformed the trolls of the folk tales into the fantasy creatures we are now so familiar with.

Tove Jansson made the trolls even less scary when Moomin trolls emerged into the fantasy family we would all love to have.

Trolls are, like the Swedish tomte, supernatural and they generally do not make appearances in front of humans. But in contrast to the tomte, näcken (the evil spirit of the water), skogsrået (siren of the woods) and other loners in the Germanic and Celtic culture, trolls live in families or bands. And whether they are gigantic or dwarf-like, they always look grotesque. In the old tales trolls could be both evil and kind. They would be incredibly generous with their riches when a human helped them but heartless when they robbed children, princesses and cattle. The fact that they were not terribly bright lent them a human quality that also made them likeable. Something Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney Studios and the manufacturers of the ubiquitous plastic trolls now have capitalized on.

John Bauer (1882-1918) was the son of a Jönköping butcher and he had no artistic traditions from home. He was so talented however, that he soon became Sweden's most widespread artist. Thanks to new colour lithographic methods, his beloved illustrations in popular books like "Tomtar och Troll" have reached virtually all Swedes.

Bauer's specialty was his hideous trolls, but other figures also emerged like the little shepherd boy and the fairy tale princess. Often contrasted with the huge and ugly trolls, the frail little princess in translucent whites is reminiscent of ancient religious paintings.

Trolls by John Bauer: "Look at them, said Mother troll. You cannot find more beautiful trolls than my sons on this side of the moon."

Gustaf Tenggren (1896-1970) was the artist who took over the illustrations in Tomtar och Troll after John Bauer's death. He kept up the Bauer tradition. He was head of Walt Disney Studios when many of the fairy tale films were created. So it is not impossible that a little of Bauer's Little Princess can be found in, for example; Snow White. In Disney Studios Beauty and the Beast, the beast may very well have a bit of a troll in him.

Helena Nyblom, Anna Wahlberg, AnneMarie Roos, Einar Norelius and Hans Arnold have continued to give us an array of fantastic troll personalities with such names as Bullsery-Bull, Drulsery-Drull, Klampe-Hampe, Trampe-Rampe, Jompa, Skimpa, Uggle-Guggle and Plupp. Robert Hbgfeldt gave us the amusing troll figures with or without tails.

The most well-known troll illustrator today is Rolf Lidberg who is a painter, botanist and a tireless environmentalist. Although his roots lie in tradtional Nordic trollpainting, he depicts trolls as the nuclear family in peace with the environment.

Trolls are now very much an international phenomenon and some of their popularity must be attributed to Tove Jansson and her Moomin trolls. Tove drew her first Moomin troll on the wall of the outhouse at the family's summer cottage fifty years ago. It was the ugliest figure she could think of but the world quickly fell in love with the whole menagerie. In the beginning there was the adventurous Moominpappa, the reassuring Moominmamma and Moomin himself. The nuclear family grew gradually into an extended family with chracters like the bohemian Snufkin, the wise Too-ticky, the anxious Sniff, Mymble, the angry Little My, the Hermulen, the Joxter, Hodgkins, the Groke and Pillyjonk.

In the original troll stories, it was the trolls who were supposed to be scary in an otherwise friendly environment. Tove Jansson turned that around with her friendly extended Moomin family that lives in a tough world where environmental disasters follow each other. There are floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, comets galore and if things are quiet, the family sets off on expeditions when something "I fear the worst" may happen.

The Moomin family is really a reflection of Tove Jansson's own eccentric and bohemian family. Her dad was the sculptor Victor Jansson, her mum the illustrator Signe Hammarberg and the family was always surrounded by crazy relatives and artist colleagues.

The Moomin valley in the nine books is "a mixture of granddad's happy valley and the Finnish islands - an excellent mixture". The season is summer at its best (Moomin trolls hibernate during winter) just as Tove remembers her childhood summers. Moomin's Summer Madness and the other books now make delightful reading in 31 different languages. They are written for children but loved by all ages.

Tove's brother Lars draws a- Moomin comic strip that runs in Svenska Dagbladet and other newspapers around the world.

A new Japanese TV-series about the Moomins is captivating audiences in Europe and North America. The Finnish china manufacturer Arabia has started marketing Moomin figures.

One Scandinavian troll has come a long way and maybe this is why Tove Jansson feels it is time to says goodbye to the trolls in Moomin Valley in November. (Tove now only writes for adult).
But her trolls and all the others will live on, and you never know what other new trolls are waiting behind the shadows of the trees in the dusk.