A farmer in 18th-century Sweden found a large, oddly shaped stone in his field. He did not throw it away. He placed it on a shelf above the door, facing outward, because he knew exactly what it was: a troll’s tooth, turned to stone by the sun, and the only thing standing between his cattle and the things that moved in the forest after dark.
Troll teeth in folklore were protective amulets, not weapons or trophies. They were believed to be petrified remains of trolls who had been caught aboveground at dawn, and their primary use was apotropaic magic: warding off evil spirits, protecting livestock, and ensuring safe childbirth. The tooth was never meant to be used against trolls. It was meant to keep everything else away.
What Exactly Are Troll Teeth in Folklore?
In Norse and Scandinavian folk tradition, troll teeth are not literal teeth pulled from a living troll. They are fossilized shark teeth, megalodon teeth, or large prehistoric bones that rural people found in fields, riverbeds, and coastal cliffs. Before paleontology explained what these objects were, the folk explanation was simple and vivid: trolls turned to stone when sunlight hit them, and their teeth survived as the hardest part.
The belief appears across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and parts of northern Germany. It is documented as early as the 13th century in the Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson, ca. 1220), where Snorri describes trolls and jötnar (giants) as beings that could not tolerate daylight. By the 17th and 18th centuries, Scandinavian folklorists such as Olaus Magnus (1555) and later Hyltén-Cavallius (1863) recorded specific practices involving these stones.
The teeth were called trolltänder in Swedish, trolltenner in Norwegian, and trølltenn in Faroese. They were never called “troll fangs” in the sources. The distinction matters: a fang implies a predator’s weapon. A tooth, in this context, is a remnant, a relic, something that once belonged to a creature that no longer exists.
Where Did the Belief Come From? A History of Fossil Misidentification
The belief in troll teeth begins with a simple problem: people kept finding giant teeth in the ground, and they had no category for them.
The first recorded European encounter with a megalodon tooth comes from the 16th century. In 1565, the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner illustrated a massive triangular tooth in his De Rerum Fossilium and called it a glossopetra (tongue stone), following the ancient Roman belief that these were serpent tongues turned to stone. Scandinavian farmers had their own name: trolltand.
What made the Scandinavian interpretation unique was the sunstone myth. In Norse folklore, trolls and giants could not survive daylight. If caught aboveground at sunrise, they turned instantly to stone. The Eddic poem Alvíssmál (The Sayings of Alvíss, ca. 1200) tells the story of a dwarf who talks too long with Thor and is turned to stone by the rising sun. The same logic applied to trolls. Their teeth, being the densest part of their bodies, were the last to petrify and the most likely to survive erosion.
By the 18th century, naturalists like Linnaeus (Carl von Linné, 1707–1778) had begun classifying these objects correctly. In his Systema Naturae (1735), Linnaeus identified fossil shark teeth for what they were. But folk belief did not vanish overnight. As late as 1845, the Swedish folklorist Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius recorded that farmers in Småland still kept trolltänder in their barns.
What Were Troll Teeth Used For? The Four Main Practices
The uses of troll teeth fall into four distinct categories, each documented in Scandinavian folk sources.
1. Protection of Livestock and Barns
This was the most common use. A troll tooth was placed above the stable door, buried under the threshold, or hung from a beam inside the barn. The tooth was believed to prevent mara (nightmares or night-hags) from riding the horses and cattle at night. The mara was a female spirit that sat on the chest of sleeping animals, causing them to sweat, tremble, and sometimes die.
In his Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555), Olaus Magnus describes how Swedish farmers used “stones that fall from the sky” (a reference to thunderstones and fossil teeth) to protect their stables. The tooth was not the only object used. Flint arrowheads, called thunderstones, served the same purpose. But the troll tooth was considered stronger because it came from a creature that had already been destroyed by sunlight. It carried the memory of the sun’s power.
The practice continued in rural Norway into the early 1900s. The folklorist Jonas Lie recorded in 1907 that farmers in Telemark still kept trolltenner in their cow barns, and that a tooth lost or broken was considered a bad omen for the coming year.
2. Protection of Children and Childbirth
Troll teeth were placed in cradles or hung above the bed of a newborn. The belief was that trolls and huldrefolk (hidden folk) could swap a human child for a changeling, a troll child left in its place. The tooth prevented the swap.
This practice is recorded in the Folklore of the Scandinavian Countries by J. C. H. R. Steenstrup (1861), who collected accounts from Danish midwives. A tooth placed under the mattress was said to keep the nattravn (night raven, a spirit that caused infant death) away. In some accounts, the tooth was boiled in milk, and the milk was fed to the mother to ensure a healthy recovery from childbirth.
3. Divination and Luck
Not all uses were protective. Troll teeth were also carried as personal talismans for luck, particularly by fishermen and sailors. A tooth carried in a pocket or sewn into a coat was believed to prevent drowning. This belief appears in the Faroe Islands, where trølltenn were collected from coastal caves and traded among fishermen as late as the 1920s.
The tooth was also used in a form of divination called tandspådom (tooth divination). A tooth was dropped into a bowl of water. The direction it pointed indicated where lost livestock had wandered. If the tooth sank immediately, the animal was dead. If it floated, the animal would return.
4. Medicine and Folk Healing
Troll teeth were ground into powder and mixed with water or milk to treat fevers, stomach ailments, and “troll sickness” (a general term for illnesses believed to be caused by malevolent spirits). The Swedish physician and folklorist Johan Hjerpe recorded in 1789 that a powdered troll tooth was given to cattle that had stopped producing milk.
This use overlaps with the broader European tradition of lapidary medicine, where gemstones and fossils were ground for medicinal purposes. The troll tooth was considered especially effective because it came from a creature that had been “killed” by the sun. The logic: if sunlight could destroy a troll, it could also destroy the illness the troll had caused.
How Troll Teeth Compare to Other Protective Objects
Troll teeth belong to a larger family of apotropaic objects in Scandinavian folk magic. Understanding what they are not helps clarify what they are.
Thunderstones (flint arrowheads or Neolithic tools) were also placed in barns and cradles. But thunderstones were believed to have fallen from the sky during thunderstorms, carrying the power of Thor. Troll teeth carried the power of the sun. The two objects were not interchangeable. A thunderstone protected against lightning. A troll tooth protected against night spirits.
Iron objects (horseshoes, knives, scissors) were the most common protective tools in European folk magic. Iron was believed to repel fairies and trolls. But troll teeth were not iron. They were stone. This made them useful in situations where iron could not be used. For example, iron was forbidden in some childbirth rituals because it was believed to attract mare spirits. A troll tooth, being stone, was safe.
Amber was also used for protection, particularly in the Baltic region. But amber was associated with the sea and with Freyja, not with the sun’s destructive power. Troll teeth occupied a specific niche: they were the remains of a creature that had been destroyed by light, and they carried that light forward as protection.
Common Misconceptions About Troll Teeth
Misconception: Troll teeth were used to fight trolls. This is the most persistent error. In no recorded folk source is a troll tooth carried as a weapon. The tooth was a passive protective object. It was placed, not wielded. The idea of using a troll’s own tooth against it comes from modern fantasy literature, not from tradition.
Misconception: Troll teeth were taken from living trolls. The folk tradition is explicit: troll teeth were found, not harvested. A living troll could not be approached, and a dead troll turned to stone. The tooth was a fossil, recognized as such by the people who used it.
Misconception: All large fossil teeth were called troll teeth. In practice, the term was applied selectively. Megalodon teeth, mammoth molars, and the petrified bones of prehistoric whales were all called troll teeth at various times. But the term was never used for dinosaur bones, which were not widely recognized in Scandinavia until the 19th century.
Misconception: The belief died out with the arrival of modern science. It did not. As late as 1950, the Swedish folklorist Carl-Herman Tillhagen recorded that farmers in Dalarna still kept trolltänder in their barns. The belief persisted because it worked within its own logic. The tooth did not need to be a real troll tooth. It needed to be believed to be one.
FAQ
Are troll teeth real? The objects called troll teeth are real fossils, mostly megalodon and prehistoric shark teeth. The belief that they came from trolls is a folk explanation that predates modern paleontology.
Where can troll teeth be found? Fossil shark teeth are found in coastal cliffs, riverbeds, and agricultural fields across Scandinavia, particularly in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The largest deposits are in the limestone quarries of Gotland and the chalk cliffs of Møns Klint in Denmark.
Did Vikings use troll teeth? There is no direct evidence that Vikings used troll teeth specifically. The belief is documented from the 16th century onward, but the underlying myth of trolls turning to stone is much older, appearing in the 13th-century Eddas.
Can troll teeth still be used for protection today? In contemporary Scandinavian folk magic and heathenry, some practitioners do keep fossil teeth as protective objects. The practice is not widespread, but it has been revived alongside other forms of traditional folk magic.
What Troll Teeth Tell Us About Folk Belief
Troll teeth are not curiosities. They are evidence of how pre-modern people made sense of the world using the materials they had. A farmer in 18th-century Sweden did not need a paleontologist to tell him what a megalodon tooth was. He already knew. It was a troll’s tooth, and it kept his cows safe.
The tooth worked because the story worked. The sun that killed the troll still shone. The stone that remained still carried the memory of that destruction. And the farmer, by placing the tooth above his door, was not performing magic. He was maintaining a relationship with the landscape and the creatures that had once moved through it.
That is what troll teeth were used for. Not to fight monsters. To live beside them.
For more on the creatures that left these teeth behind, see our guide to mythical creatures. To understand the broader tradition of protective objects in Norse folk magic, read about protective symbols. And for the full context of how trolls themselves were understood, see our guide to trolls in Scandinavian folklore.