- Modern trolls lurk about social media, harassing and antagonizing, disguising their identity and hiding in the dark edges of the internet.

The namesake of this bad behavior makes more sense when you learn all about the early tales and evolution of this creature.

A Nordic creature based in Scandinavian legend, many trolls appear in the Icelandic Sagas.

And originally, the troll was less a certain type of monster and more a term used to refer to a variety of monsters.

It was more about what a creature did that made it a troll, not its appearance, a lot like our modern-day trolls.

(dramatic music) I'm Dr. Emily Zarka, and this is "Monstrum".

Before the 19th century, troll was a massively broad term.

Part of the reason it's so hard to define a troll, is that we still aren't even sure how the word developed or its original meaning.

The word troll in Old Norse Icelandic could have indicated huge creatures, giants, and titans, but most likely just meant some kind of magical being.

In Old Norse, it even has two forms and both have a myriad of meanings, but all indicate malevolence.

While in modern-day stories, trolls are typically portrayed as lacking intelligence, ancient trolls were actually quite clever.

The earliest stories of trolls date back to 1220-1230 CE, in Snorri Sturluson's "Prose Edda", we find Brage the Old, a fictional counterpart of a human poet of the same name who lived in Norway during the late 9th century, and who had a chance encounter with a female troll.

Brage came across the troll while driving some kind of sled or wagon through the forest at night.

Instead of greeting the man with threats of violence, she introduces herself in a poetic voice as, "Moon of the dwelling-Rungnir, giant's wealth-sucker, storm-sun's bale, seeress's friendly companion, guardian of the corpse-fjord, swallower of heaven wheel."

The poet responds with his own introduction, and the encounter ends.

By letting the troll speak first and mirroring her speech, the poet shows deference to the troll indicating he recognizes the land as hers.

From her introduction, we learn a few things.

She is wealthy, practices magic, and can bring about death and destruction.

These traits would form the backbone of troll mythos.

This is just one troll tale of many.

It should be stressed that ancient trolls weren't a clearly defined being.

In their earliest appearances in folklore and legends, a troll was an evil paranormal being that occupied the space outside of civilization, and posed a threat to the living things within it.

Trolls often lurked at the boundaries of the community as beings who inhabited areas away from the farms and communal spaces of humans.

Their presence marked danger and often death.

They were antisocial creatures that could be any kind of monster from witches to vampires, possessed animals to ghosts.

They could be large giants or diminutive elves, who were often skilled at magic, hoarded gold and other treasures, and we're incredibly strong.

Perhaps because of the early Brage example, and the general belief that women were more skilled at magic, female trolls were considered particularly evil.

Another saga describes the female troll, Oglinder, as the greatest troll and monster ever born in the Northern regions of the world.

This troll has a human head, fangs, a tail, and talons.

She appears to be a more than proficient fighter, wielding dual blades and taking out 60 men with surprising speed.

She's defeated only with a magic shirt and dwarf-made arrow.

Troll appearances in early 13th century literature add to the mutability of the creature.

Sometimes they were said to be smaller than most children.

In other accounts, they could shape-shift into animals and trees as well as non-living objects.

Trolls don't have to be humanoid.

In the late 13th century poem, "The Sybil's Prophecy", which was likely recorded even earlier, a wolf is described as the chewer of the moon in the guise of a troll.

Trolls can appear individually or in groups.

Like when in another Old Norse saga, two men of a king's retinue stumble upon a mountain cave with a group of trolls around a fire.

The trolls are discussing their fears that the king will attack their homes and drive them away, threatening the families and cultures they are trying to protect.

But still the narrator of the story calls them demons.

Again, this seems to be the general basis for calling something a troll, the threat of violence.

As one 13th century poet writes, "Not much is worse than trolls."

Since the publication of the sagas in the Middle Ages, trolls have lingered in the popular imagination, most notably in the Scandinavian countries.

Medieval Norwegian law even recognized the existence of trolls.

Between the 12th and 14th centuries, laws made it illegal to sit outside to awaken trolls in order to perform heathenism or to call someone a troll or a witch.

Trolls can be helpful.

Fixing tools, helping with harvests, or lending expensive goods, but often medieval trolls are threatening.

In part, because trolls marked the outside boundary of the rural community.

Beings who lived away from the farm and communal spaces humans inhabited AKA so-called wild creatures.

In addition to their tendencies to steal objects and land, another bit of famous troll lore is their penchant for stealing people.

Trolls usually kidnap female victims, likely because Nordic beliefs of the time were that at certain periods in a woman's life, during childbirth or right after it, they were considered outside of the church, and therefore, more vulnerable, but men weren't necessarily safe.

In a 14th century saga, a young man is kidnapped by hideous female troll.

She is as small as a child, but incredibly stout with a long face, crooked nose, black hair, and a black skull.

The man must kiss her despite her dripping nose.

When he wakes up in her bed, he is surprised to see his beautiful fiancee lying next to him, her troll woman's skin at the foot of the bed.

The woman's stepmother had turned her into a troll with a curse, but her fiance's kiss broke the spell.

And yes, the story seemed familiar to me, too.

It seems like "Shrek" has some grounding in ancient Nordic tradition.

These early troll tales laid the foundation, but the 16th century saw the biggest change in troll folklore.

The mid-16th century marks the religious reformation of Scandinavia when Lutheranism became the dominant religion.

During this period of religious focus, trolls were associated less with the supernatural and more with the devil.

Although, that connection would fade over time, and a waning belief in witches.

In an attempt to quell the legends of trolls and other supernatural creatures, a collection of Christian hymns was published in Iceland, hoping to replace the pagan notions with formalized religion.

The text's introduction states that the "Unprofitable songs of trolls and of the pagan peoples of old are in the service of the devil and are of a heathen tradition."

This post-reformation period is also when we see more stories about trolls who wish to convert to Christianity.

In Scandinavian and Irish tradition as well, fairy and elf lore includes stories of the fay going to mass and participating in Christian rituals.

Trolls could become Christians.

Even a malevolent beast could be reformed.

One Icelandic folktale, "Goldbrow and Skeggi in Havammur", tells of a greedy and evil troll, named Gullbra.

Having set her sights in a particular parcel of land, she uses witchcraft to appear as a young and beautiful woman, and tricks a man into selling the land of his bedridden boss, Audr, a well-known female settler and political leader, who also just so happens to be one of the few Christians in the overwhelmingly pagan country.

The troll builds a pagan temple on the land Audr intended to preserve a sacred space, but Gullbra's success is short-lived.

Driven off the land, Gullbra's attempts to flee with her gold, blindfolding herself to avoid looking at the crosses that would forbid her from leaving.

But when her treasure tumbles, the greedy monster hastily rips off her blindfold, and in doing so is exposed to the crosses.

Her eyes are horrifically burned.

She escapes, but dies from the wounds, But death is no burden for our good lady troll.

She rises as a ghost killing animals and a couple humans, behavior a famous Nordic pagan, Skeggi, attempts to stop.

His first battle against the troll is unsuccessful, and a few days later, he tries again.

This time he defeats the troll and takes her gold, but is gravely injured.

On his death bed, Skeggi asks that part of the treasure is used to build a church because the pagan gods did not help him in his time of need, gut the Christian god did, by turning the troll to stone.

Despite their pagan association and malevolent reputation, trolls came to be known for building churches.

In a 1654 account of the construction of Lund Cathedral by Saint Lawrence, a troll offers his services on the condition that he would be paid with the sun and the moon or the eyes of the saint, unless Saint Lawrence could guess his name.

Surprisingly, the deal was struck.

The lucky saint overhears the troll's wife say the builder's name, Finn.

Upon hearing his name uttered the troll grabs one of the church's foundational stone pillars and tries to topple the building.

The saint averts the collapsed by transforming the troll, his wife, and their child to stone, just like God had done to Gullbra.

If you go to Lund Cathedral in Sweden today, you can see a giant figure carved into the stone.

Although scholars now identify the carving as the biblical Samson.

Given that Saint Lawrence was martyred in Rome centuries before Christianity reached Sweden, and you know, the whole troll thing, this story was likely fabricated to give local context to the unusual carving.

Legends of similarly greedy troll church builders exist in Denmark and Norway, as well.

If you ask me, I believe that the troll as builder legend was a way to keep ancient Nordic influences alive post Christianity when stories were introduced to try and reshape pagan and ancient traditions.

If I've learned anything from my research for "Monstrum", it's that cultures will try to keep nods and winks to their ancient monsters despite all the odds.

Other support for this theory is found in an ancient Nordic myth about the building of a wall or palace around Asgard, the home of the gods.

The man who takes on the task asks for payment of the sun and the moon, and the goddess Freja.

Luckily for her, the man is tricked by the God of mischief, Loki, into not completing the task by the assigned time.

In his rage, the man began smashing the stones around him, revealing himself to be a giant, a foe of the Nordic gods.

The thunder god Thor kills the giant with his hammer.

Like many ancient beliefs, troll legends began to fade as science progressed and formal education became commonplace.

That is until the folklore fascination of the 19th century.

The famous Danish author, Hans Christian Anderson included a princess taking a troll lover in his first-ever published fairytale in 1830, marking the trolls entrance into fantasy literature.

In 1852, the T-R-O-L-L spelling appears in English for the first time in Benjamin Thorpe's "Scandinavian Popular Traditions and Superstitions".

And around that time troll illustrations began to accompany folklore and fairytales, giving us some of the first and lasting ideas of a trolls appearance.

The very first illustration sketched by Johan Fredrik Eckersberg in 1850 is a hairy, ugly, bearded troll with a large nose.

And honestly, that's a foundational image we still draw from.

That same book, by Norwegian folklorist Peter Christen Asbjornsen, is the first publication of the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" story, where a long-nosed troll tries to eat three goats as they cross a bridge before being defeated by the third and largest billy goat.

A story that lives on today.

Another Norwegian illustrator, Theodor Kittelsen, produced some of the most influential and striking images of trolls in the latter part of the 19th century.

His trolls vary in size and appearance, but their bodies always blur and blend with their surroundings, implying that the border of the supernatural and natural are nebulous, and perhaps giving a little nod to their one-time shape-shifting capabilities.

The middle of the century also marked the first time trolls were taxonomized into their own monster category.

The first written collection of Icelandic folktales was published by Jon Arnason and Magnus Grimsson in 1852.

Arnason, like many other folklorists of the century, was influenced by the scientific classification system that was on the rise.

They attempted to divide the supernatural into species and categories.

He essentially divided elves, trolls, ghosts, and other monsters into their own categories.

When, before there had been greater overlap, especially when it came to refer to a supernatural or evil creature as a troll.

In 1867, famous playwright, Henrik Ibsen featured trolls in "Peer Gynt", and invented a new aspect of troll lore, the troll king.

First performed in 1876, the play would become Norway's most performed play of all time.

Even today, there is a "Peer Gynt" festival every year.

At the turn of the century, 19th century fairytale trolls move to novels, notably into science fiction and fantasy.

In the 1950s, J.R.R.

Tolkien really delivered on the troll.

In "The Hobbit" and his "Lord of the Rings" series, one of the most successful literary series of all time, Tolkien includes warrior trolls, stone trolls, hill trolls, cave trolls, and mountain trolls.

And fun fact, in the Norwegian translation of "The Lord of the Rings", Gandalf the wizard is called the troll man.

Given that Tolkien was both an Old English and Old Norse scholar, I think he'd be pretty chuffed about that.

The fantasy tabletop game "Dungeons and Dragons" released in 1974, included the troll as one of its first monsters, further solidifying the image of a green-skinned troll in the fantasy genre.

We also can't talk about modern trolls without talking about Troll dolls.

Yes, those odd childlike figurines with jewel belly buttons.

While the exact origins of the first Troll doll are somewhat dubious, it is generally believed that Thomas Dam carved the first wooden Troll doll in Denmark in the 1940s post-World War II.

The dolls became locally popular, and eventually Dam was commissioned to carve a Santa Claus for a Swedish department store.

The display also included elf troll dolls, long story short, everyone loved the little things, and in 1961 he mass produced the crazy-haired plastic version we now know and love, or find inherently creepy, if you were me as a child.

The immensely popular 2016 animated movie inspired by the dolls, introduced a whole new generation of parents and children to the creatures, and made trolls popular again.

But today, trolls aren't always so fun and colorful.

They appear in horror literature and film often as threatening monsters, and as a manifestation of foreignness.

1986's "Troll" horror comedy follows a fairy who was forcefully transformed into a troll as he uses magic to try and eliminate all humans by turning them into mythical creatures.

The 2010 Norwegian film "Troll Hunter" alludes to many of the old legends in a modernist retelling where trolls have been forced to hide in the woods by the Norwegian government.

In 2018's fantasy romance "Border", trolls live among humans, ostracized for their looks, behavior, and intersexuality.

From Nordic sagas to medieval law, to those ugly little dolls, and of course, hateful online internet users who lurk in comments, trolls have been around for more than a thousand years.

While they haven't always looked the same, the malleability of their original monstrosity has allowed them to endure.