The Folklore of Discworld

his daughter, who was apparently quite good-looking, whereas it is unlikely that a female Discworld troll would ever appeal to a male human, no matter how cheap the beer and however bad the club lighting.
    Earthly trolls can, in fact, look like humans and humans can become trolls, and it has been suggested that trolls have their origins in ‘folk memories’ of earlier races (even Neanderthals) who were pushed to the edges of the habitable world by the stumbling advance of civilization, and then into myth and story. This attractive and beguiling idea is very familiar to folklorists as an explanation for ‘fairy’ folk of any sort (who look outlandish and have strange powers), and so we will back tactfully away and leave it to the anthropologists.
    It’s worth adding that Discworld trolls cannot digest human beings (though they have been known to try), whereas those of Earth find them both tasty and wholesome. In Norway, men have heard she-trolls bellowing to one another among the crags, discussing their cooking: ‘Sister, can I borrow your big pot?’ – ‘What for?’ – ‘Here’s Jon the woodcutter coming up this way, I want to make a stew of him.’ – ‘All right, Sister. When you skim the broth, save some of the fat for me.’ Somehow, bellowing across the landscape that you are waiting in ambush seems so very troll.
    Trolls were still being talked about in Iceland as late as the nineteenth century. There were certain cliffs where seabirds nested, and it was said that when men went over the edge on ropes to gather eggs or to catch the birds themselves for food, great, grey, shaggy hands carrying very sharp knives would reach out from caves and cut the ropes, and so kill the men who hung there. So then some priest would be sent for to drive the trolls out by going down on a rope and blessing the cliff, while men on the cliff-top sang psalms as loud as they could. The really intelligent priests would bring a hammer, and chip away the sharp ridges on the cliff face as they blessed it – after which, the ropes hardly ever frayed and broke. But there remain a few cliffs which were never blessed, and where egg-gatherers never go, however many birds there may be. This is because once, when a bishop had gone down on a rope and was working his way along the cliff face, a voice from inside the rocks called out: ‘Don’t bless anything more! The wicked do have to have somewhere to live!’ And the bishop, being a fair-minded man, left this place unblessed.
G ARGOYLES
    Although gargoyles are very different from a standard troll in size, appearance, habitat and habits, they are in fact a subspecies which has evolved to fit an urban environment. They are, if anything, even more stony; they squat motionless on some rooftop, which they arevery reluctant to leave. On the other hand, their digestive system is quite different from that of trolls; they are carnivores, preying on pigeons. Their main occupation is absorbing rainwater from the gutters and ejecting it vigorously, through their gaping jaws, on to the heads of pedestrians below. When they do move, it is in slow, grinding jerks; their mouths are permanently fixed open, making it hard to understand their speech. But their endless patience and keen eyesight make them valuable members of the Watch in Ankh-Morpork, somewhat like CCTV cameras in a modern city on Earth.
    Gargoyles are also a familiar sight on the roofs of Earth’s medieval churches and castles, where they got their name. It suits them well, for they gurgle, gargle and glug in their gullets, and most of them goggle too. But there are few, if any, stories about them, probably because they are too high up for anyone to see them properly.
S EA-TROLLS
    It should be mentioned that ‘trolls’ of one sort or another apparently exist elsewhere in the multiverse. The wizard Rincewind, in one of his early adventures described in The Colour of Magic , was almost swept over the Edge of the Disc, where an endless cascade of ocean pours away into space. Instead, he crashed into the Circumfence – a single rope, suspended a few feet above the water from occasional wooden posts, and extending for tens of thousands of miles round the rim of the Disc. This particular section was patrolled by a sea-troll, a creature of a pleasantly translucent blue colour, apparently composed of sea-water and very little else. As for size, he gradually swelled as the hours went by, then just as gradually shrank; owing to the