It Came from the North

by Carita Forsgren

  I creep closer and reach out my hand. The figure clearly hears me coming. He weakly raises his head from the crouching position for a moment, opens his eyes, and I can finally discern what’s there.

  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I know straight away that I want it.

  It’s small, slender and it’s curled up in a strange position, as if it were completely without joints. Its head is between its knees, and its full black mane of hair is brushing the muddy asphalt.

  It can’t be more than a year old. A year and a half at the most. A mere cub. By no means the huge bulk you see in illustrations of the full-grown specimens. It’s hurt or been abandoned, or else it’s strayed away from the others. How has it got into the yard in the middle of the town? Suddenly my heart starts thumping and I swing around, half expecting to see a large black hunched shadow slipping from the dustbins to the gate and then off into the shelter of the park.

  I react instinctively. I crouch down by it and carefully bend one of its forearms behind its back. It stirs but doesn’t struggle. Just in case, I twist the strap of my bag all around the troll so that its paws are fastened tightly to its side. I glance behind me and lift it up in my arms. It’s light, bird-boned, weighing far less than a child the same size. I glance quickly at the windows. There’s nothing but a reddish light glowing in the downstairs neighbor’s bedroom. The glamorous head of a young woman pops up in the window, her hand drawing the curtain. Now.

  In a moment we’re in my flat.

  It’s very weak. When I lower it on to the bed it doesn’t struggle at all, just contemplates me with its reddish-orange feline eyes with vertical irises. The ridge of its nose protrudes rather more than a cat’s, and its nostrils are large and expressive. The mouth is in no way like the split muzzle of a cat or a dog: it’s a narrow, horizontal slit. The whole face is so human-looking—like the face of the American woolly monkey or some other flat-faced primate. It’s easy to understand why these black creatures have always been regarded as some sort of forest people who live in caves and holes, beings accidentally created by nature as parodies of mankind.

  In the light, its cubbishness is even more obvious. Its face and body are soft and round, and it has the endearing ungainliness of all young animals. I examine its front paws: they’re like a rat’s or raccoon’s, with flexible, jointed fingers and long nails. I remove my bag strap from around it, and the cub makes no move to scratch or bite. It just turns on its side and curls up, drawing its tufted tail between its thighs and folding its front paws against its chest. Its tangled black mane falls over its nose, and it lets out that half-moan/half-sigh of a dog falling asleep.

  I stand at the bedside, looking at the troll-cub and taking in a strong smell—not unpleasant, though. It’s like crushed juniper berries with a hint of something else—musk, patchouli? The troll hasn’t moved an inch. Its bony side heaves to the fast pace of its breathing.

  Hesitantly I take a woolen blanket from the sofa, stand by the bed a while and then spread it over the troll. One of its hind legs gives a kick, like a reflex, swift and strong as lightning, and the blanket flies straight over my face. I struggle with it, my heart pumping wildly, for I’m convinced the frightened beast will go for me, scratching and biting. But no. The troll still lies there curled up and breathing peacefully. It’s only now that I face the fact that I’ve brought a wild beast into my home.

  My head and neck are aching. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa. It’s ridiculously early; still dark. And there’s nothing on the bed. So that’s what it’s all been: a fantasy that won’t survive the first light of day.

  Except that the blanket lies crumpled on the floor by the bed, and there’s a faint little sound coming from the bathroom.

  I get up and walk slowly, in the light of the streetlamps filtering through the window, creeping as quietly as I can to the bathroom door. In the dusk I can see a small bony black bottom, hind legs, a tufted twitching tail, and I realize what’s happening. It’s drinking from the lavatory bowl. The juniper-berry smell is pungent. Then I spot a yellow puddle on my mint-green tiled floor. Naturally.

  It has stopped lapping up water and has sensed that I’m there. Its torso is up from the bowl so fast I can’t see the movement. Its face is dripping with water. I’m trying to convince myself that the water is perfectly clean, drinkable. I’m trying to remember when I last twirled the brush around the bowl and put lavatory cleaner in. Its eyes are still dull, it doesn’t look healthy, and its pitch-black coat is sadly short of gloss. I move aside from the bathroom door, and it slides past me into the living room, exactly as an animal does when it’s got another route to take—pretending to be unconcerned but vividly alert. It walks on two legs, with a soft and supple lope: not like a human being, slightly bent forwards, its front paws stretched away from its sides—ah, on tip-toe, like a ballet dancer. I follow it and watch it bounce on to my bed, effortlessly, like a cat, as though gravity didn’t exist—then curl up and go back to sleep again.

  I go back to the kitchen for a cereal bowl, fill it with water and put it by the bed. Then I start mopping up the bathroom floor, though I’ve got a splitting headache. What the hell do trolls eat?

  Back in my study, I leave the door open, boot up my computer, connect to Navigator and tap out the word TROLL.

  http://www.finnishnature.fi

  Troll (older forms: hobgoblin, bugbear, ogre), Felipithecus trollius. Family: Cat-apes (Felipithecidae)

  A pan-Scandinavian carnivore, found only north of the Baltic and in Western Russia. Disappeared completely from Central Europe along with deforestation but, according to folklore and historical sources, still fairly common in medieval times. Officially discovered, and scientifically classified as a mammal, as late as 1907. Before that assumed to be a mythical creature of folklore and fairy tale.

  Weight of a full-grown male: 50–75 kg. Height standing upright: 170–190 cm. A long-limbed plantigrade, whose movements nevertheless show digitigrade features. Walk: upright on two legs. Four long-nailed toes on the hindlimbs, five on the forelimbs, both including a thumb-like gripping toe. The tail long, with a tuft. The tongue rough. The overall color a deep black, the coat dense, sleek. A thick black mane on the head of the males. Movement only at night. Main nourishment: small game, carrion, birds’ nests and chicks. Hibernates. Cubs probably conceived in the autumn before hibernation, the female giving birth to one or two cubs in spring or early summer. About the behavior of this animal, however, so extremely shy of human contact, there is very little scientific knowledge. Extremely rare. Supposedly there are about four hundred specimens in Finland. Classified as an endangered species.

  Angel

  This is making me no wiser. I click on SEARCH and come up with the following:

  http://www.netzoo.fi/mammals/carnivores

  Because of their great outward resemblance to humans or apes, trolls were originally mistaken for close relatives of the hominids; but further study has demonstrated that the case is one of convergent evolution. Considered a primate, the species was first erroneously designated “the Northern Troglodyte Ape”—Latin Troglodytas borealis. Later it was observed that the troll belonged to a completely independent family of carnivores the Felipithecidae, but the apelike attributions survived for a time in the nomenclature, Felipithecus troglodytas. At present, the established, scientifically accepted nomenclature of the species still bows to popular tradition as Felipithecus trollius. An interesting episode in the naming of the troll was a suggestion from the prestigious Societas pro Fauna et Flora: relying on the mythical and demonic connotations, they proposed the name Felipithecus satanus.

  Only one other species of the Felipithecidae is known, the almost extinct yellow cat-ape (Felipithecus flavus), a roughly lynx-sized creature whose habitat is the heart of the Indonesian rain forest. The common ancestor of the species is believed, on fossil evidence, to have inhabited South-East Asia.

  Though, on the evidence of its mode of life and dentation, the troll is
clearly a carnivore, many scientists consider that the species does not properly belong to the order of Carnivora. Theories exist that the troll is more closely related to the insectivores and primates than to the true feline predators, and this is supported by certain anatomical features.

  It has been suggested that several other species whose existence has not been scientifically established beyond doubt (such as the legendary Tibetan “Abominable Snowman,” or Yeti, of hearsay, and the mythical North American Sasquatch, or “Big Foot”) may also be humanity-shunning representatives of the Felipithecidae family.

  Firm proof of the existence of Felipithecus trollius was not obtained until 1907, when the Biological and Botanical Department of the Tsar Alexander University of Helsinki received the carcass of a full-grown troll that had been discovered dead. There had been previous reports of first-hand sightings of trolls, but this legendary creature, oft-mentioned in folk tradition and in the Kalevala, was considered a purely mythical beast in scientific circles. Clearly, the occasional troll-cub encountered in the wilderness served to maintain myths of gnomes and goblins, especially since there is a theory that the trolls regulate any great increase in their population by abandoning newborn offspring.

  The troll’s ability to merge with the terrain, the inaccessibility of its habitat, its shyness of human contact, its silent night-habits and its hibernation in cave-dens, causing them rarely to leave snow tracks, may partially explain the late discovery of the species. The troll’s zoological history is thus very similar to those of, for example, the okapi, not identified until 1900, the Komodo dragon (1912) and the giant panda (1937). In spite of abundant oral tradition and many sightings by the aboriginal population, these animals were long classified by scientists as myth and folklore. It is worth remembering that an estimated 14 million subspecies of animals live on the planet, of which only about 1.7 million are recognized and classified, or less than 15%. The relatively large cloven-footed animals, Meganuntiacus vuquangensis and Pseudoryx nghetinhensis, for example, were discovered as late as 1994 . . .

  Angel

  As I sit at my computer I glance from time to time at the bedroom. When I was drunk it seemed such a hell of a good idea to bring this touching, rejected wild-animal cub into my pad. An animal that may grow as much as two meters tall.

  But even now, when I’m totally sober, the animal has something absolutely captivating about it. Is it just its visual grace to a professional’s eye?

  Or is it that as soon as I see something beautiful I have to possess it? With my camera or with my eye or with my hand? With the shutter or by shutting the door?

  Even though I won’t know what to do with it?

  But nothing changes the fact that the creature’s still small. And sick. And weak. And totally abandoned.

  I print off a whole load of internet material, without feeling it’s any help. I return to netzoo and click on EVOLUTION. I learn that “convergent evolution” refers to species that develop in ways resembling each other without there being any close zoological relationship. Good examples are the shark, the ichthyosaur, and the dolphin, which have developed from completely different vertebrate forms: the shark from fish, the ichthyosaur from land-dwelling reptiles, and the dolphin from land mammals. Nevertheless, they’ve all developed into streamlined, finned, and tailed animals in the same ecological group: swift piscivorous marine predators. There are many other examples: grassland-dwelling flightless birds, such as the emu, the ostrich, and the extinct moa; or such semi-aquatic marine creatures as seals, sea-lions, and herbivorous sirenians, notably the dugong and the endangered manatee.

  I’m becoming hellishly well informed. According to the entry, convergent evolution means that, in widely separated terrains, the same atmospheric and environmental conditions can, through their physical properties, produce similar kinds of living organisms from totally different prototypes. Cases of convergent evolution are, on the one hand, the trolls and the South-East Asian cat-apes, derived from a small arboreal animal slightly resembling the mustelid or raccoon, and, on the other, the apes and hominids derived from proto-primate mammals. Both occupied the same ecological niche, where bipedalism and prehensile forefingers were survival factors for the species . . .

  Nothing to help me, though. I look at my machine. It’s just a machine. I’ll have to try elsewhere.

  I can only speculate about the effect of the telephone beeping at Dr. Spiderman’s—at my old flame Jori Hämäläinen’s, that is—“Hämä-hämähämäläinen,” because getting worked up always makes him stammer. Hämähäkki being Finnish for spider, he’s naturally been dubbed “Spiderman.” Eight beeps go before he replies, and his voice reveals he’s ready to flip his lid.

  First I fumble for the customary “How are things?,” etc., but I know that this road will soon be blocked.

  “Sweet Angel, golden-haired cherub,” comes Spider’s slightly nasal, taunting voice. “It’s not very long ago you gave me a very nasty kick in the gluteus—after scarcely a couple of months of your angelic blessings. So what, I wonder, makes you call me up now. And especially at this early hour.”

  I splutter something about how I thought we’d agreed to be friends.

  “I was beginning to think your mother had talked you round—she always did dream you’d be partners with a real doctor, didn’t she?” Spider lashes out, making me blush. Then his tone changes, sounding almost interested. “You didn’t manage to net that guy, did you?”

  It’s already coming home to me that this call is a terrible mistake, but Spiderman goes on relentlessly.

  “There you were, your great blue eyes moist with tears, trying to stammer out that I’m not your type, that I’m not the right one, and how ‘you’d be wounding me if you went on with a relationship where you yourself couldn’t be a hundred percent committed.’ And meanwhile you were going on about that other guy the whole time.”

  Was I really? Hell, it was possible. As if I could have possessed him by talking about him, throwing his name about, would-be casually.

  “You really relished his name on your tongue. Martti, Martti—Martti this and Martti that. Guess how flagrant and repellent it sounded. And it was crystal clear that all your would-be serious, pretty little speech meant was this: you wanted me out of the way, so you could be free to step on the gas when this object of distant adoration—obviously your right-and-proper future commitment—gave the green light. Or what?”

  I’m speechless. Incapable of anything else. “So then. What do you want?” I clear my throat. This isn’t going to be easy. “What do you know about trolls?” There’s a howl of satanic laughter in my ear. “Angel, darling, now I must have your permission to be inquisitive. Are you writing an essay for school?” I mumble something stupid about having a bet on it. “You know,” I wind up helplessly, “about the sorts of things they eat.” I can feel the receiver radiating embarrassed silence into Spiderman’s ear. He finally bursts out, “You ring an expensive veterinary surgeon at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning to ask what trolls eat?” I know Spider can be a devil and always is, given the chance, but then he’s never been able to resist an opportunity to show off his knowledge either. I’m right. A familiar lecturing tone creeps into his voice.

  He starts ticking items off. “Frogs, small mammals. They rob birds’ nests. Sometimes they’ve been reported as preying on lambs in outlying fields, but that’s probably just rumor. There’s a theory that they fish with their paws, like bears, which I’ve no reason to doubt. Hares. Game birds. Now and then a reindeer-calf caught by the leg can end up as a troll’s dinner. Sometimes they harass white-tailed deer, too. They eat carrion when they come across it. A full-grown individual requires a kilo or two of animal protein a day. Any more questions?”

  I nod at the receiver and let out assenting noises.

  “Definitely carnivores, but not omnivorous like, for instance, bears. Similar digestive system to cats. So if you’re punting on the troll’s diet as gnawing at spruce shoots by moonlight, your
money’s down the drain. And if you want more information, Angel, my fairy queen, go to the library and consult Pulliainen’s The Large Predators of Finland.”

  And then, cuttingly, he hangs up on me.

  Iivar Kemppinen

  Finnish Mythology, 1960

  As with the folklore of other peoples, Finnish mythology finds a significant place for not only ghosts and fairies but many demonized animals, particularly the bear, the troll, the wolf, the snake, the lizard, the frog, the weasel, the shrew, the wasp, the death-watch beetle, and the louse. Demonic animals differ from ghosts and fairies in that they are usually clearly visible and recognizable, with the exceptions of the shy and secretive troll and the weasel. Sometimes, however, a demonic creature is so closely identified with faerie existence that a creature—the troll, for example—may be offered sacrificial food on an altar stone; and a pet snake has been accused of being a witch’s “familiar spirit” (Finnish Folklore Archives, Karttula, Juho Oksanen, No. 10129; Sortavala, Matti Moilanen, No. 2625).

  Demonic animals have been much discussed in international scientific literature, and various theories have been presented. Finnish folklore itself has its own explanation for the demonic resonance and significance of the above animals: they are predatory or otherwise baneful beasts generated by Pohjola or Manala, the Underworld or Hades of northern Finnish folklore, and sent to be a torment and a scourge on the face of the earth. As representatives of the malign powers of Manala they are hated but at the same time propitiated and placated. Thus, if anyone does harm to these semi-supernatural creatures, such as a pet snake or frog, they will bring misfortune on themselves.

  Tapio, the tutelary genius of the forest, originally personified the forest, the spirit of the forest, and as such is one of the earth sprites (Ganander, 1.89; Gottlund, 1.350). The genius of the gloomy forests is also called Hiisi, or Demon. Thus Tapiola and Hiitola, as names for the forest, mean they are the dwelling places of Tapio or Hiisi. But sometimes the forest itself is given the appellation Tapio or Hiisi, without any reference to a guardian or the forest fauna (SKVR VII 1, No. 810, 823). Similarly the Karelians refer to the forest people as Hiisi’s people, and Hiisi has acquired a Demon’s reputation as a representative of the malign forces of Manala. In the parish of Hiitola the forestlands are called Hiisi’s hills (Hiijje miät in the Karelian dialect), where bad Hiisis, or Demons, are said to live. Also, in a Karelian dialect, metšh (Finnish metsä, forest) means “the devil” (Kujola, 1.234‒35). This identification of the forest people with the Underworld’s people, the Demon’s people, has clearly occurred because the dark forest, with its bears, wolves, trolls, and other bugbears, was frightening, so that it was an easy transition to equate it with Manala, the fabled breeding place of the beasts of prey, given birth to by the Mistress of Pohjola, the Northland (§313).