A 13th-century Icelandic lawbook, the Grágás, declared that anyone who called a troll by its true name would be cursed. The monster, by contrast, had no legal protection at all. The troll is a specific creature from Norse and Scandinavian folklore, bound by rules of sunlight, iron, and lineage. The monster is a category that includes trolls, but also dragons, giants, and any being that threatens the human order. The key difference is specificity: trolls have a defined ecology and weaknesses; monsters are defined by their function as a threat.
What exactly distinguishes a troll from a monster?
The word “troll” appears in Old Norse poetry as early as the 9th century, often paired with þurs (giant) and jǫtunn (giant). In the Poetic Edda (Codex Regius, c. 1270), trolls are described as wielding supernatural strength and dwelling in remote mountains or forests. They are not mindless brutes. The Hávamál warns that a troll can be a cunning shape-shifter, one who might appear as a beautiful woman to lure a man.
A monster, from the Latin monstrum (a divine omen or prodigy), is a broader classification. The monstrum is a sign: a being that violates the natural order, often sent by gods to warn or punish. The Beowulf poet (c. 8th–11th century) calls Grendel a mearcstapa (border-walker) and a giant but also a monster because he embodies the chaos outside the hall. The troll is a kind of monster, but not every monster is a troll.
Where do trolls come from in folklore?
The earliest written sources for trolls are the Old Norse sagas and the Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson, c. 1220). Snorri describes trolls as a type of jǫtunn, the primordial giants born from the frost of Niflheim. They are older than the gods. The Vǫluspá (The Seeress’s Prophecy) lists troll-women who gave birth to the race of monsters, including the wolf Fenrir, suggesting a tangled genealogy.
Scandinavian folktales collected in the 19th century, such as those by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published 1842–1844), codified the modern image: trolls live under bridges, in caves, or inside mountains. They turn to stone if caught by sunlight. They hoard gold and silver. They can be outwitted by human cunning. The Danish folklorist H. F. Feilberg (1890s) documented dozens of regional variants, from the bjergtrold (mountain troll) of Norway to the skovtrold (forest troll) of Denmark.
Monsters, on the other hand, have no single origin point. The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BCE) gives us Humbaba, a guardian monster of the cedar forest. The Bible has Leviathan (Job 41) and Behemoth (Job 40). Greek myth supplies the Minotaur, the Chimera, and the Hydra. Each monster is a custom-built threat, tailored to the culture that fears it.
What do trolls and monsters symbolize?
Trolls symbolize the unbounded wild. They are the forces of nature that do not care for human fields or fences. In the Norwegian folk tale The Princess Who Could Not Solve the Riddle, the troll is a warden of the mountain’s treasure, an obstacle that must be overcome by wit, not strength. The troll does not represent evil in a moral sense. It represents the indifferent, sometimes dangerous, world beyond the town wall.
Monsters tend to carry a heavier symbolic load. The medieval bestiary (a genre of didactic texts, 12th century onwards) interprets every monstrous creature as a moral or spiritual lesson. The griffin, for instance, represents Christ’s dual nature. The siren warns against lust. The monster is a mirror held up to human vice. When the 16th-century Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner published Historia Animalium (1551–1558), he included real creatures alongside mythical ones, treating each as a demonstration of God’s creation.
The difference is this: the troll is a folk being, local and specific. The monster is a universal archetype, versatile enough to carry meaning across cultures and centuries.
How were trolls and monsters handled in practice?
Folk magic against trolls is well documented. In Scandinavian tradition, church bells were believed to drive trolls away. The Gutasaga (13th century) tells of a troll-wife who begged that the bells of a new church be silenced because they caused her great pain. Iron, especially a knife or a pair of scissors crossed on a threshold, could repel a troll. The Norse Galdrabók (a collection of spells, c. 1600) includes a charm to bind a troll with the names of the high gods.
Monsters required different tactics. The Greek pharmakos (scapegoat) ritual involved expelling a human or animal to carry away the monster’s curse. Roman apotropaic amulets, like the fascinum (a phallic charm), were worn to turn the evil eye, a monster in its own right. Medieval churches kept monster relics: the bones of dragons or giants, displayed in reliquaries to prove that God’s power had subdued them.
For the practitioner, the distinction matters. If you suspect a troll is troubling your land, you know the countermeasures: iron, sunlight, church bells, a riddle. If you face a monster, you must first identify what kind it is, because each monster demands its own remedy.
How do trolls compare to related creatures?
Trolls are often confused with giants, goblins, and ogres. A giant (jǫtunn in Norse) is a larger being, often primordial, sometimes allied with the gods. The frost giant Ymir is not a troll. Trolls are smaller, more closely tied to the local landscape. In the Prose Edda, the trolls are a subcategory of giants, but later folklore shrinks them.
An ogre is a French import, from the Orco of Italian fairy tales, made famous by Charles Perrault (1697). Ogres eat children, dress in coarse clothing, and can be tricked by clever peasants. Trolls may eat people, but they are equally likely to hoard treasure or demand a bride.
A goblin is a household or cave sprite, often malicious but not usually deadly. Goblins steal things, break tools, and pinch sleepers. Trolls are more dangerous: they kill, abduct, and curse.
The term “monster” covers all of these, plus dragons, werewolves, vampires, and the Loch Ness Monster. The monster is a hypernym. The troll is a hyponym.
What do people get wrong about trolls and monsters?
The most persistent misconception is that trolls are always stupid. The literary tradition says otherwise. The Hárbarðsljóð (a poem in the Poetic Edda) shows a troll-woman named Hlébarðr who engages in a mocking flyting (verbal duel) with the god Thor. She is sharp and sarcastic. Many folktales depict trolls as cunning, capable of shape-shifting and illusion.
Another error: that all monsters are evil. The giant Grendel, in Beowulf, is a monster, but the poem gives him a father, a lineage, and a grievance. He is a tragic figure. The Monster Theory of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (1996) argues that monsters are cultural constructs that embody anxieties, not cosmic evil. A troll can be a neutral guardian of a mountain. A monster can be a protector: the Chinese dragon (long) is a monster of good fortune.
A third mistake: that trolls are always large. Scandinavian folklore includes small, house-dwelling trolls who behave like brownies. The tomte or nisse is sometimes classified as a “troll” in earlier sources, though later scholarship separates them.
FAQ
Are trolls and ogres the same creature? No. Ogres come from French and Italian fairy tales, while trolls are Norse and Scandinavian. Ogres are typically man-eating giants; trolls can be large or small, and they are often bound to specific natural features like bridges or mountains.
Can a monster be a troll? Yes. A troll is a type of monster. The monster category includes any creature that violates the natural order, and a troll certainly does that. But not every monster is a troll.
Why do trolls turn to stone in sunlight? The earliest written source for this is the Prose Edda, where the dwarf Alvís is turned to stone by the morning sun. Later folklore extended this to trolls. The motif may be a Christian allegory: the troll represents the pagan past, frozen by the light of truth.
What is the oldest known monster in folklore? The oldest recorded monster is the Imdugud (Anzû) of Sumerian myth, c. 2500 BCE. It is a storm-bird that steals the Tablets of Destinies. The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BCE) gives us Humbaba, a guardian of the cedar forest. Both are monsters in the strict sense: they are signs of the boundary between order and chaos.
The troll belongs to a specific landscape and a specific people. The monster belongs to everyone. When we read the Edda or the Saga of Grettir, we meet trolls that are named, localized, and bound by rules. When we read Beowulf or the Panchatantra, we meet monsters that are universal, adaptable, and endlessly reimagined. The distinction is not one of value but of scale. The troll is the monster of home, the one you can find in a local cave or under a bridge. The monster is the monster of the world, the one that fits every story.
For further reading, explore our guide to mythical creatures and the glossary entry for troll. You may also find the Norse mythical creatures guide useful for understanding the broader context of Scandinavian folklore.