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Troll   Listen
noun
Troll  n.  (Scand. Myth.) A supernatural being, often represented as of diminutive size, but sometimes as a giant, and fabled to inhabit caves, hills, and like places; a witch.
Troll flower. (Bot.) Same as Globeflower (a).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Troll" Quotes from Famous Books



... while, as a member of a late Royal Commission, I gladly did my best to prevent the infliction of needless pain, for any purpose; I think it is my duty to take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition of the law which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frog bait, for idle amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher of that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses the same animal for the purpose of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... fellow with flaxen hair, a pendent underlip, and a tall, ungainly figure, by name Mishuk Diatlov, essayed to troll ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... upheld he walked, And ever the rain drove down; And now and again to himself he talked In the streets of Danbury town. And now and again he'd stop and troll A stave of music that seemed to roll From the inmost depths of his ardent soul; But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them And the few who chanced to ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... my fate, old man?" he asked, more as if he were in jest than in earnest. "Shall I feed the fishes, or make this strange change with Estein into a troll, [Footnote: A kind of goblin] or werewolf, or whatsoever form he ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... all your letters," was the first thing he said; and when she looked up a little and laughed, he felt that she was the most roguish troll he could meet in a wood; but he was captured, and she, too, ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern parts of Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant to be worth the managing. They universally, therefore, established the reformation in their own dominions. The tyranny of Christiern II., and of Troll archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them both from Sweden. The pope favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and Gustavus Vasa found no difficulty in establishing the reformation in Sweden. Christiern ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... singularly modern to the reader of to-day. It is this peculiar modern significance and application that has been one of the two reasons for presenting to the English public the first popular edition of Heine's lyrico-satiric masterpiece "Atta Troll." The other reason is the fine quality of the translation, made by one who is himself well known as a poet, my friend Herman Scheffauer. I venture to say that it renders in a remarkable degree the elusive brilliance, wit, and ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... coast at once, slipped quietly in after sundown, and took ship and prize with a rush, killing and throwing overboard such as resisted. In Sweden mothers hushed their crying children with his dreaded name; on the sea they came near to thinking him a troll, so sudden and unexpected were his onsets. But there was no witchcraft about it. He sailed swiftly because he was a skilled sailor and because he missed no opportunity to have the bottom of his ship scraped and greased. And ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... they partook of brandy-and-water at our expense. One of us gave his call dinner at Hoskins's, and a merry time we had of it. Where are you, O Hoskins, bird of the night? Do you warble your songs by Acheron, or troll your choruses by the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... bent down to take the rose a big dense snowdrift came and carried them away 168 The Troll was quite willing, and before long he fell asleep and began snoring 176 As soon as they tugged at the rope, the Captain and the Lieutenant pulled up the Princesses, the one after the other 184 No sooner had he whistled than he heard a whizzing and a whirring from all quarters, and ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen

... is but a broken bubble, Trill the carol, troll the catch; Sooth, we'll cry, "A truce to trouble!" Mirth and mistletoe ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... spoke and turned her sumptuous head with eyes Of shining expectation fixt on mine. Then while I dragged my brains for such a song, Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought, Or mastered by the sense of sport, began To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, I frowning; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook; The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows; 'Forbear,' the Princess ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... Gimp who moved ahead of him. Looking out, Frank saw what was certainly Ramos, already straddling a drum marked with a huge red M.R., riding it like a jaunty troll on a seahorse. He saw the Kuzaks dive for their initialled drums, big men not yet as apt in this new game as in football, but grimly determined to learn fast. The motion was all as ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... and botany A hundred wonders shall diskiver, We'll flog and troll in strid and hole, And skim the cream of lake and river, Blow Snowdon! give me Ireland for my pennies, Hurrah! for salmon, ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... stared, thinking we should surely see the grim form of Sigurd loom gigantic and troll-like {iii} across the doorway; and the jarl half rose from his seat beside me, and cried out ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... its forms. In a Norse story[126] a Giant's heart lies in an egg, inside a duck, which swims in a well, in a church, on an island. With this may be compared another Norse tale,[127] in which a Haugebasse, or Troll, who has carried off a princess, informs her that he and all his companions will burst asunder when above them passes "the grain of sand that lies under the ninth tongue in the ninth head" of a certain dead dragon. The grain of sand is found ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... position, for he took her in as a part of himself. His honor was her honor, his rank was her rank, and she was his helpmeet. My ideal woman is not one who is good for nothing, "bred only and polished to the taste of lustful appetence; to sing, to dance, to dress, to troll the tongue and roll the eye." She should be a helpmeet as termed in the Bible. She should be a creature not too bright and good to labor in her proper sphere, that is, to prepare daily food, serve it up and guide ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various

... the shore whenever we have money—I mean whenever we can manage to leave home. She knows every fisherman's hut from Henlopen to Barnegat. No better place to go for a breath of salt air than Sutphen's Point. You can troll with him all day, or dig for roots in the pine woods, or sleep on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... sensible proceeding my bookseller objected—in fact, there was hardly any reasonable suggestion I had to make for beguiling the time that my bookseller did not protest against it, and when finally I produced my "Newcastle Fisher's Garlands" from my basket, and began to troll ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... bull goose again,' said my father. 'Here, mother, try and teach this boy to think better, and not go and believe that every sound he hears is all troll and hobgoblin. Feathered wolves that fly, eh, Johannes? That kind of fowl has not been hatched yet, my boy. Now, the next time you hear a flight of fowl going south in the night, you'll ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... all lives longest, Come fill us of the strongest, And I will drink a health to honest John; Come, pray thee, butler, fill the bowl, And let it round the table troll, When that is up, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... the crone, in Iarnvidir, and there reared up Fenrir's progeny: of all shall be one especially the moon's devourer, in a troll's semblance. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... and carefully banded hair, and their blushes, bowed and stood back; the three students bowed very low, in the humble hope of making an impression of extreme good-breeding; then there was a thin, dark-skinned man with full eyes, an odd creature, like a child, and like a troll, quick, detached; he bowed slightly; his companion, a large fair young man, stylishly dressed, blushed to the eyes ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of "AEolus's winds" whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous "beat," "beat" of the keleustes's hammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... he could take up two of the heaviest men in the ship, and run along the deck with them as lightly as he would have done with a couple of young children. He had a generous, kind heart, could tell a good story, and troll forth a ditty with any man; and as to his bravery, where all were brave, I need scarcely mention it, except to say that I do no not think anyone beat him at that. Boatswain's mate though he was, Toby Kiddle had a heart as gentle as a lamb's. He scarcely ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... the troll, quite terrified. "No, no! Thank you. I shall stay at home in that case. Give my best respects to your master, and I thank him for the invitation, but I cannot come. I did but once go out to take a little walk, and some people ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... the other personages were not equally ill-provided. Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is a sort of troll; nobody can explain—and yet an explanation seems requisite—what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright for once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of Rosmersholm that in it, ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... seethed with blood That would not be allayed with any toil, Whether of war or hunting or the oar, But was anhungered for some joy untried: For the brain grew not weary with the limbs, But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll, Building all night a bridge of solid dream Between him and some purpose of his soul, Or will to find a purpose. With the dawn 10 The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist, Denied all foothold. But the dream remained, And every night with yellow-bearded kings His ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... youth, so fresh and strong, While Bobtail in his face would look, And mark'd his master troll the song,— "Sweet ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger

... myself a singer, though I can troll a stave or two," replied the young man. "But I fear that my minstrelsy would be rude and uncouth to the cultivated ears of one who, like you, Sir Christopher, hath listened to the lays of many lands, and so, refined ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... peeping from a heavy cloud. And she was made like a lad for suppleness. Taller than her mother by head and shoulders, and within a full inch o' my forelock. By'r lay'kin! how she could sing too! She would troll thee a ditty i' th' voice o' a six-foot stripling, but for a' that, as sweet as bells far away on a still noon in summer-tide. And she was always getting hold o' saucy songs, and putting them to tunes o' her own invention. A could 'a' had aye ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... and then to empty them, lay the especial friends and companions in arms of the Amal, Goderic the son of Ermenric, and Agilmund the son of Cniva, who both, like the Amal, boasted a descent from gods; and last, but not least, that most important and all but sacred personage, Smid the son of Troll, reverenced for cunning beyond the sons of men; for not only could he make and mend all matters, from a pontoon bridge to a gold bracelet, shoe horses and doctor them, charm all diseases out of man and beast, carve runes, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... say against trout," said Daddy, "but I feel like crying for a salmon as a baby cries for the moon. There is not much in life outside of salmon and Wall Street. Even when I have to go to California I troll a little on Puget Sound, but it ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... dog, did not sing any of the modern songs that he was wont to troll out at the club, or on the march, but chose for his second number a song that subalterns sang to pianos, to banjos and guitars, and even without accompaniment, the favorite song of the subaltern, ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... For pain will not troll off as pleasure doth, nor imitate it in its pleasing and tickling touches. But as the clover twists its perplexed and winding roots into the earth, and through its coarseness abides there a long time; so pain disperses and entangles its hooks and roots ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... fairies "dance delicate measures" in the light of the moon and stars. The troll dances his gruesome jig on lonely hills the gnome executes his little pigeon wing in the obscure subterrene by the glimmer of a diamond. Nature's untaught children dance in wood and glade, stimulated of leg by the sunshine with which they are soaken ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... first, Josias Kling, had compiled a Wagner Dictionary—Wagner Lexikon—which made it possible in a moment to know the master's thoughts de omni re scibili: it had been his life's work. He was capable of reciting whole chapters of it at table, as the French provincials used to troll the songs of the Maid. He used also to publish in the Bayreuther Blaetter articles on Wagner and the Aryan Spirit. Of course, Wagner was to him the type of the pure Aryan, of whom the German race ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... at the well"," said he who could hear the grass grow; "I can hear him snoring, and a troll is scratching his head." Ashiepattle then called the one who could shoot to the end of the world and told him to send a bullet into the troll; he did so and hit the troll right in the eye. The troll gave such a yell that he ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... Maaltrost, syng med oss i lund dronningi i saelan blund: Byssam, byssam barne, gryta heng i jarne. Troll og nykk, gakk burt med dykk denne saele skymingsstund! So god ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... was cured merely by recognizing him while in his brute shape. A Swedish legend tells of a cottager who, on entering the forest one day without recollecting to say his Patter Noster, got into the power of a Troll, who changed him into a wolf. For many years his wife mourned him as dead. But one Christmas eve the old Troll, disguised as a beggarwoman, came to the house for alms; and being taken in and kindly treated, told the woman ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... weeks. Ling wore well as a sole friend and partner. Looking at the big, devoted fellow, Parr did not feel so revolted as at their first glimpse of each other. Ling had seemed so hairy, so misshapen, like a troll out of Gothic legends. But now ... he was only big and burly, and not so hairy as Parr had once supposed. As for his face, all tusk and jaw and no brow, where had Parr gotten such an idea of it? Homely it ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman

... at the trout Lisle laid down. "They'll hardly carry us over to-morrow, and I only got a couple from the canoe with the troll. We've gained nothing by stopping ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... mutineer, But still the boldest of the crew When deed of danger was to do. He grieved that day their games cut short, And marred the dicer's brawling sport, And shouted loud, 'Renew the bowl! And, while a merry catch I troll, Let each the buxom chorus bear, Like brethren ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... fanns ej ett stl, som bet p hans skalle av jrn, och drfr nmndes han Jrnhs. Viking allena, som nyss fyllt femton vintrar, emottog striden, i hopp p sin arm och p ngurvadel. I ett hugg 70 klv han till midjan det rytande troll och frlste den skna. Viking lmnade svrdet till Torsten, sin son, och frn Torsten gick det till Fritiof i arv: nr han drog det, sken det i salen, liksom flge en blixt drigenom eller ett norrsken. Hjaltet var hamrat ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner

... "eternal feminine," so called, I presume, because it eternally is getting the better of the eternal masculine. Be that as it may, "Anitra's Dance" is the very essence of witchery and grace. In the scene "In the Hall of the Mountain King" the trolls gather for the marriage of Peer to the Troll King's daughter. When Peer, at the last moment, refuses to go through the ceremony, the trolls dash at him. One bites himself fast to his ear. Others strike him. He falls. They throw themselves upon him in a heap. At this critical moment, when he is writhing beneath ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... said to Oswald, as they lay down side by side. "Never have I felt so free, since Otterburn—never, indeed, since that unfortunate day when I was wounded, and conceived the fatal idea of becoming a monk. Two or three times, the impulse to troll out a trooper's song was so strong in me, that I had to clap my hand over my mouth, to ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... Anterior adventures he had known of the right princely sort. But concerning his traffic with Schamir, the chief talisman, and how through its aid he won to the Sun's Sister for a little while; and concerning his dealings with the handsome Troll-wife (in which affair the cat he bribed with butter and the elm-tree he had decked with ribbons helped him); and with that beautiful and dire Thuringian woman whose soul was a red mouse: we have in this place naught to do. Besides, the Foolish Prince had ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... of the king of that land had been carried off into the hill by a Troll, and the king had no other children; so he and all his land were in great grief and sorrow, and the king gave his word that anyone who could set her free should have the Princess and half the kingdom. But there was no one who could do it, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... the star-gazers[4] of Mesopotamia were reading future events from her towers of sun-dried bricks, Dravidian tribes were cultivating the rich mud of the Ganges valley, a slow-changing race. Did the lonely traveler, I wonder, troll the same air then as now to ward away evil spirits from the star-lit road? Did the Dravidian maiden do her sleek hair in the same knot at the nape of her brown neck, and poise the earthen pot with the same grace on her daily pilgrimage to ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... had his line out and baited up and began to troll at the end of the boat. In a few minutes he got a bite and pulled up a fair-sized perch. A sunfish followed, then a sucker, ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... matter with taking a log and straddling the same?" asked Tom. "Three of us could manage it, one to troll with a spoon, another to cast near the shore and the third to ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... troll a jolly air, Come what come will to-morrow; I'll be no cabotin of care, No souteneur of sorrow. Let those who will indulge in strife, To my most merry thinking, The true philosophy of life ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... raged, Hakon praised the gods and encouraged his men to fight more fiercely. Then, as the battle went against them, the Jomsvikings saw in the clouds a troll, or fiend. In each finger the troll held an arrow, which, as it seemed to them, always hit and killed ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... set hands on his war gear. And we hold that the ghost of a man hides near his body for many days, and therefore see that at hand is set the food that may be needful if the ghost hungers and will come back for a space to eat. Else he may wander forth, troll-like and terrible, to ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... bow, the sneak-box moves rather over the water than through it, and this peculiarity, together with its broad beam, gives the boat such stiffness that two persons may stand upright in her while she is moving through the water, and troll their lines while fishing, or discharge their guns, without careening the boat; a valuable advantage not possessed by our ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... of blood upon thee, nor any stain at all." Then she reddened, and said: "Ah, I forgot how keen-eyes thou art." And she stood silent a little while, as he looked on her and loved her sweetness. Then he said: "I am exceeding full of joy, but my body is uneasy; so I will now go and skin that troll who went so nigh to slay thee, and break up the carcase, if thou wilt promise to abide about the door of the house, and have thy sword and the spear ready to hand, and to don thine helm and hauberk ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... say that this same she-wolf was the mother of King Siggeir, who had turned herself into this likeness by troll's ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... island—"Grettir's lairs," as they are called, it would seem, to this day—sometimes countenanced for a short time by well-willing men of position, sometimes dwelling with supernatural creatures,—Hallmund, a kindly spirit or cave-dweller with a hospitable daughter, or the half-troll giant Thorir, a person of daughters likewise. But his case grows steadily worse. Partly owing to sheer ill-luck and Glam's curse, partly, as the saga-writer very candidly tells us, because he "was not an easy man to live withal," his tale of ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... beautiful figures in poetry. Peer deserts her, and she lives in the hut alone and grows an old woman while her lover roams the world, seeking everywhere and through the wildest adventures the satisfaction of his Self, acting everywhere on the Troll's motto, "To thyself be enough," and finding everywhere his major premiss turned against him, to his own discomfiture, by an ironical fate. We have one glimpse of Solveig, meanwhile, in a little scene ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... His grey and restless eyes followed the merchant's track with unwearied fidelity; yet was he a man full sparing of words—the ever ready "Anon, master," being the chief burden of his replications. It was like the troll of an old ballad—a sort of inveterate drawl tripping ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write. The golden fee finds the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were infectious. So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a morning, and the little time they make them in. They go to dinner and unload their pockets; and sally out again to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... troll in Mountaineer Lake, but caught nothing. Apparently there was nothing there but trout, of which fish I caught eight at the inlet. I shot with my pistol a muskrat that was swimming in the lake, but George did not cook it, as he said the flesh ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... also, in his drawings of the Landsknechte, those famous Mercenaries of "Blut und Eisen"; always ready to drink a good glass, and a-many; to love a good lass after the same liberal fashion; to troll a good song or fight a good fight; and all with equal zest. He had not mixed with these masterful gentry for nothing; nor they with him to wholly die. There are a number of drawings where they are engaged in combat, too, which show that Holbein's heart leapt to the music of ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... round the glass, And merrily troll the glee, For he who won't drink till he wink is an ass, So neighbor I drink to thee. Merrily, merrily puddle thy nose, Until it right rosy shall be; For a jolly red nose, I speak under the rose, Is a sign of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... "Or troll for pickerel in the lake Mr. Melton was telling us about," amended Bert. "He says there are some whopping big fellows up there. We'll find plenty of bass, too, and ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... disheartened by historical comparisons. We insisted on putting our living luck to the proof, and finding out for ourselves what kind of fish were left in Jordan Pond. We had a couple of four-ounce rods, one of which I fitted up with a troll, while she took the oars in a round-bottomed, snub-nosed white boat, and rowed me slowly around the shore. The water was very clear; at a depth of twenty feet we could see every stone and stick on the bottom—and no fish! We ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... votary of the "Great Pooh-Pooh"; And come, for Labour's in the valley, come, For Toil dwells in the valley, come thou down And watch him; by the dim slum threshold, he, Or hand in hand with poverty in the docks, Or black with stithy-swartness by the forge, Or troll-like in the mine; nor cares to walk With Wealth and Fashion in the parks and squares; But follow! Come thou down, and let the cold Cramp-headed cynics yelp alone, and leave The mugwump scoffers there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... me that on account of the shore being so full of weeds and the clearness of the water, fishing from the banks was almost an impossibility, and how they had to accustom themselves to troll from a boat so small as to only accommodate ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... beneath his enormous white hat large, solemn eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy semicircle of beard falling low on his breast—a figure to recall the old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold."[183] By birth he was a Friend, but the Society in England disowned him on account of his revolutionary propensities. He took up residence in the West Indies, but was compelled to leave on account of his violent denunciation of slavery. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... though they were the merest trifles, and lay down your life for a friend with an idle jest. You make nothing of yourself and all of others. You can suffer, and pretend that you enjoy it; and when your heart is breaking, you can force your voice to troll out verses from old songs as though your chief occupation in life were nonsense, and that alone. And this is the man," continued Talbot, in a dreamy tone, like that of one soliloquizing—"this is the man ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... She had recently been digging into a couple of old volumes of classic myths and northland folklore which she had found in Aunt Olivia's attic; and for us, god and goddess, laughing nymph and mocking satyr, norn and valkyrie, elf and troll, and "green folk" generally, were real creatures once again, inhabiting the orchards and woods and meadows around us, until it seemed as if the Golden Age had returned ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... of foul weather to men that have sailed the salt seas! Haul forward your stools, mates, and we'll have a concert and make all snug. I warrant some of you can troll a ditty, though ye be too modest to own it; and not being plagued wi' modesty myself, I'll heave ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... Peers, as dang'rous and unusefull? 180 So CROMWELL, with deep oaths and vows, Swore all the Commons out o' th' House; Vow'd that the red-coats would disband, Ay, marry wou'd they, at their command; And troll'd them on, and swore, and swore, 185 Till th' army turn'd them out of door. This tells us plainly what they thought, That oaths and swearing go for nought, And that by them th' were only meant To serve for an expedient. 190 What was the Public Faith found out for, But to slur men of ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... Snowball continued to "troll" his line in the most approved fashion; and was soon again joined by his brother "piscator," who, after settling the scores with the second fish he had caught, had adjusted a fresh bait, and once more flung his line ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... at the top of his voice, a sea-song he had learnt of a mariner at the inn he frequented at Greenwich, with a troll at the end, taken up by Moll and me. And to hear his wife's voice bearing part in this rude song, made Mr. Godwin's heart to sink within him. Under cover of this noise, Simon mounted the stairs without hesitation, Mr. Godwin following at his heels, in ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... Bjarki's fight with the winged monster with the story in Beowulf of Beowulf's fight with Grendel. That it was a sea-monster (havjtte) that caused the trouble in Denmark, while it was a mountain-troll that caused the trouble in Norway, he thought was as characteristic ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson

... The sound of a small boat won't disturb him, because he's used to the noise of motors from crabbers. We'll hope there is no guard on the place. If there is, we'll be fishing. Better have the rods ready. One of you can sit in back and troll ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... survives), is spoken of. There was great fear of monsters attacking them, a fear probably justified by such occasional attacks of angry whales as Melville (founding his narrative on repeated facts) has immortalised. The whales, like Moby Dick, were uncanny, and inspired by troll-women or witches (cf. "Frithiof Saga" and the older "Lay of Atle and Rimegerd"). The clever sailing of Hadding, by which he eludes pursuit, is tantalising, for one gathers that, Saxo knows the details that he for some reason omits. Big fleets of 150 and a ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... understood every word of it. And he inclined to think that the Cantor, or minister who led the praying, also understood; he sang with such feeling and such fervid roulades. Many solos did the Cantor troll forth, to which the congregation listened in silent rapture. The only time the public prayers bored the child was on the Sabbath, when the minister read the Portion of the Week; the Five Books of Moses being read through once a year, week by week, in a strange sing-song with only occasional ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... his troll, with the face of an angel? Where had she gone? Where would she go, except to her devil's lover at Slow ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... has been strange since the troll took his daughter, three years ago," went on Torbek. He shivered in a way the winter had not caused. "Never does he smile, and his once open hand grasps tight about the silver and his men have poor reward and no thanks. ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson

... hearty, and we found a score of friends. Titanic Fopp, whose limbs are Michelangelesque in length; spectacled Morosani; the little tailor Kramer, with a French horn on his knees; the puckered forehead of the Baumeister; the Troll-shaped postman; peasants and woodmen, known on far excursions upon pass and upland valley. Not one but carried on his face the memory of winter strife with avalanche and snow-drift, of horses struggling through Fluela whirlwinds, and wine-casks tugged across Bernina, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the muse desert thee? or is memory getting dull? You see the child is wilful in his melody, and must sing of loves and sunshine or he fails. Now touch us a stronger chord my men, and put life into your cadences, while I troll a sea air for the honour ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... fisherman who is willing to fish only when fish are biting." The real angler will sit all day in a boat in a pouring rain, eagerly watching the point of the rod, which never for an instant swerves a half inch from the horizontal. The real angler will troll for miles with a hand line and a spinner, winding in the thirty-five dripping feet of [Page 3] the lure every ten minutes, to remove a weed, or "to see if she's still a-spinnin'." Vainly he hopes for ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green

... who had a good voice, began to troll out the chorus from Robert the Devil, an Opera then in great vogue, in which chorus many of the men joined, especially Pen, who was in very high spirits, having won a good number of shillings and half-crowns at the vingt-et-un—and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... drink till they nod and wink, Even as good fellows should do; They shall not miss to have the bliss Good ale doth bring men to; And all poor souls that have scour'd bowls, Or have them lustily troll'd, God save the lives of them and their wives Whether they be young or old. Back and side go bare, go bare; Both foot and hand go cold; But, belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... gone for his forgotten lenses our Nimrod missed a fine eagle which swept over our heads at long range. So we returned to our island camp in no very good mood, but a successful troll for lake-trout, and a good supper off two fine fellows baked under the coals in birch jackets, sent us to bed in good spirits and with no regrets save ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... polite]. Is it some troll's dish that you are both concocting for midsummer night? Something to pierce the future with and evoke ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... than in sitting in an omnibus. But for trolling, many a boat would come home "clean" in the evening, on days of calm, or when, for other reasons of their own, the trout refuse to take the artificial fly. Yet there are men at Loch Leven who troll all day, and poor sport it must be, as a trout of a pound or so has no chance on a trolling-rod. This method is inimical to fly-fishing, but is such a consolation to the inefficient angler that one can hardly ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... in stature—his hair was black, and black his beard, and on his lower lip there lay a great black fang. His eyes were small and narrow, but his cheekbones were set wide apart and high, like those of a horse. Koll thought him an ill man to deal with and half a troll,[*] and grew afraid of his errand, since in Koll's half-wittedness there was much cunning—for it was a cloak in which he wrapped himself. But as Ospakar sat in the high seat, clothed in a purple robe, with his sword Whitefire on his ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... Germany, the materials for the bonfire were collected by the young folk from door to door.[367] In many parts of Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits who are especially active at this season.[368] When the afternoon service on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking rattles ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... The Troll came crouching at his feet and wept for lack of it. "Oh, give me back my magic cap, for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... number of incoherent republics. They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to figures whose power is to arise from their place in the table. The elements of their own metaphysics might have taught them better lessons. The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there was something else in the intellectual world besides SUBSTANCE and QUANTITY. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... thy soul Fill the human hearts with gladness, Till their lives shall gladly troll Songs that banish all their sadness! Bathe their breasts with songs of love From the Edens found above, Till their lips shall sing the story Of their ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... "Hammer-troll ogress has done him to death. Thirsting for blood the war-fiend came. With hard-edged blade she gaped, o'er his head, nor spared she his ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... yourself a great Troll-garden, such as our forefathers dreamed of often fifteen hundred years ago;—a fairy palace, with a fairy garden; and all around the primaeval wood. Inside the Trolls dwell, cunning and wicked, watching their fairy treasures, working ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... he could speak again, "never say more that you fear troll, or nix, or ghost—for you have done what you told me but half an hour ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... example set by King Edgar, and had never allowed any decrease in the naval establishment. Let the present generation do as he did, with the modifications changed times and circumstances have introduced, and then, although we may not be able correctly to troll forth "Hearts of oak are our ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Troll" :   music, folklore, speak, mouth, fisherman's lure, fish lure, circle, Scandinavia, praise, wheel, trolling, troller, verbalize, utter, talk, circulate, partsong, angling



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