Progress and Hulder

Since I did a lot of time squandering alternative career building at work today, I will have to concentrate on the tasks at hand tomorrow, among them examining Rosetta Stone, and setting up the English Language Acquisition graduation. So…you get tomorrow’s posts tonight!

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First my own stuff. I whacked the second version of the beginning of the story, but I replaced it with the keeper. I’m surprised that Old Nick turns out to be a bit effeminate and intellectual. That’s not what I was expecting at all! The Widow, though, she as scary a story book ogre as you could want. So, I finally have my beginning for real. I’ll buff up the description later. My goal for tomorrow night is to show the Widow’s cave and her goals for the Princess Marion. I want a Rapunzel/witch vibe. We also will introduce the second of two hulder characters.

7070 / 90000 words. 8% done!

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What, you may well ask, is a hulder? Well, that’s complicated. Scandinavian trolls started out as these big, scary, rocky foes of the Nordic gods. As the centuries progressed, some of them remained big and scary, while others of them became cuter and smaller. Some cultures call them all trolls, and some cultures call them all hulder.

In my book, the big tough trolls are my heroes. The little trolls are going to be hulder. Have you ever bought the troll dolls? We’re not talking that cute, but I want some small wild Nordic invisibles (which is what the Scandinavians call their faerie folk generically).

Trolls and hulderactivities range from downright evil (eating people; killing people) to nice (marrying people and taking good care of them; returning lost babies) It strikes me that we can give them a wide range of behaviors, rather than only big, stupid, and ugly.

You D&D players, stop yer stereotypin’!

There are some other faeries that are specific to Norway, and next folklore entry I’ll talk about nissestories, which are not as cool as milk folklore, but still pretty cool.

Catherine

Author: Catherine Schaff-Stump

Catherine Schaff-Stump writes fiction for children and young adults. Her most recent book, The Vessel of Ra, is the first book in the Klaereon Scroll series. She is currently working on its sequel, as well as penning the middle grade adventures of Abigail Rath, monster hunter.

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