[Translator's note: This document is based on a hand-written manuscript found in connection with the renovation of a hospice facility in the southern outskirts of Stockholm. Though it has been speculated that the author was a public figure, this appears unlikely to be the case.]
The only modern thing in the village where I grew up was the schoolhouse. We learned to read, write, do arithmetic and, above all, to pray. The teacher sometimes spoke of railroads and steam ships, but those things might as well live on the far side of the moon. The things that were truly real to us were our sheep and cattle and the wolves and bears that might take them from us at any moment, the rye and barley harvests and all the things that might cause them to fail. Not even the mountains were truly part of our world, though they always loomed above us. That was where the trolls lived. We never went there. We went to the fields and pastures, into the forest for lumber and firewood, to the lake to fish if we ever had the time.
My mother was a pious woman. She refused to ever have anything to do with the trolls. Sometimes she almost seemed to pretend that they didn't exist. Of course, that was what a good christian was supposed to do. The trolls were not creatures of god. Since god was almighty, they could not exist. Yet, they plainly did exist and they were not so different from us. Whenever they came to the village, which they did sometimes to trade wagon loads of barley for tiny pieces of gold, the women wore long skirts and the men wore coats that concealed their tails. It was not because they were ashamed. I got the feeling that it was rather the opposite, that they did not want to shame us by ostentatiously displaying their tails when we had none.
That summer it once again fell on me to herd our sheep to the common pasture. I had been herding sheep and cattle around the village since I was eight and I had gone to the common pasture since I was fifteen. But I was still frightened to go alone. A large portion of what little wealth we had would be in my hands and the terror that this instilled in me had gotten worse, not better, each year. I had grown to understand how easily we could fall from ordinary poverty into outright starvation. My younger sister was supposed to go this year, but since that promise was made she had gotten both married and pregnant. I had not.
The last thing my mother said to me before I left was that if I didn't watch out for the trolls and their magic, I would never get married 'just like that girl'. That made me angry. Josephine, my best friend from school, who she was obviously referring to, had by that time been seeing a troll boy for over a year. It was supposed to be a secret, of course, but everybody knew. Her parents could have put a stop to it but didn't. They probably figured that it was best that she was with someone who wouldn't make her pregnant until they found someone for her to marry. I didn't understand why at the time, but I knew that relationships with troll almost never produced illegitimate offspring.
Most of all, I think I was hurt that my virtue was all that was on my mother's mind. I was convinced that this would be the year in which I would get mauled by a bear, eaten by wolves, raped by brigands or die from exposure -- all of which were things that had happened to herder girls within living memory -- and she was worried that I would have a fling with a troll boy!
It would take two full days to get to the pasture. I brought as much dry flat bread of bread as I could carry as well as barley, cabbage, onions and a piece of cheese in a box made from birch bark. The way led through dense forests with only scattered meadows in shade from the walls of trees. It was tempting to let the sheep graze there so I could go home at night, but the experience of those who came before me told me I could not do that. Those lands were known as 'the starves'. Animals that would graze there would get thinner, not fatter, for winter. The grass was just too meager. We spent the night, my flock and I, in a dilapidated shelter that consisted of three crooked walls and a roof.
It was late but not dark when I arrived to the pasture lands. The first thing that struck me was how beautiful they were; I seemed to forget every winter. I could see the mountains, noticeably closer than from the village, across a sea of green grass and blue lakes interspersed with groves of birch trees. Down the gentle slope of the meadow, next to the lake was the herder's cottage. It was made from rough logs and suitable for habitation only in the summer. No one knew exactly how old it was -- some said hundreds years -- and it was treated as common property of all the surrounding villages. There was also a similar, but even simpler, building that served as a barn for the animals.
A column of smoke rose from the chimney. I approached the cottage carefully and as silently as I could. Though I knew I should expect another herder, I could not get the thought of brigands out of my head. I found a dozen white goats in the barn. I didn't know of anyone who kept white goats, so I got both confused and a bit alarmed. After all, the brigands could have stolen the flock somewhere far away and come here to escape the rightful owner. Just as I was about to open the door I heard sighs and moans that made me suspect that someone inside was in pain. Naturally, I was terrified, but if there was someone injured in the cottage, I had to help them. That was just how things worked: you never asked for help needlessly and never denied it to someone in need.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I opened the door just an inch and peered inside. The sight is forever etched into my mind though I laid my eyes on it for less than a heartbeat. The light from the roaring fire in the hearth illuminated the naked body of a young woman, lying on her back on a thick blanket. Her eyes were closed and her full, red lips half open. They were the source of the sounds that I now knew that I had completely misapprehended. Her hands were on her breasts, the thumbs and index fingers pinching and rolling the nipples between them. Her legs were spread wide and her tail, for she was a troll, looped back on itself like a hairpin and its tip pumped in and out of her wet, eager pussy.
I closed the door and hurried back to my sheep. Under normal circumstances it was expected that the cottages would be shared, even between strangers, but there was no way that I was going back tonight. Everyone knew that the trolls were at their most dangerous when they were insulted or embarrassed. If the troll woman had opened her eyes and seen me I was sure she would have either cursed me for seven generations or struck me dead right there, with a spell or her bare hands. Maybe she had sensed my presence by magic and bided her time until morning? Maybe she stayed awake to think of a suitable punishment that she would unleash at first light? I ended up spending the night in the barn with my animals and I had little sleep.
When I woke up I was thirsty and needed to pee, and in any case I could not stay in the barn all day. There was no sign of life from the cottage. I said a prayer before I left the barn. Even then, I did not believe in God in the same way as my mother did, but I was still a christian by any reasonable standards. I had some hope that Jesus Christ, my lord and savior, would give me tangible protection against the troll's sorcery. To hedge my bets, I took my knife from its sheath and instead secured against my hip under my dress, right where my belt kept it tight. Everybody knew that you were not vulnerable to magic when you touched iron against naked skin.
I found the troll when I went to the lake to fetch water. She was bathing herself. At first, I saw only the head emerging from behind a bank of reeds. Her face looked like the princess from the book from which I had learned to read in school. There were trolls in that book as well and I was always puzzled why they didn't look at all like the real ones.
