http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/ Stories of Selma Lagerlöf's translated in irregular instalments. en-us blogstuff@thewormbook.com Sun, 04 Dec 2005 21:26:45 +0000 http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/000914.html who, in an act of heroic pedantry, sent me a three page email full of typos that had crept -- in some cases, bounded, barking and wagging their tails -- into the translation. All fixed now, I think.... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001359.html I have been meaning for ages to resume these translations. Thanks to the wonderful Runeberg project I have found most of the rest of the book online (I still can't find the story about the house elf who forces his... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001360.html A couple of hundred years ago there was an uncommonly strict and powerful priest in J�sseh�rad in Värmland, who exerted all his strength to make the people of J�sseh�rad observant and pious. It was not enough that he tried to... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001362.html But the memory of the voice from the bottom of the lake was alive in him. He heard again and again the greedy animal cry, and all his childhood fears of the kelpie and the raw things of the forest... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001363.html The priest had talked to the stranger for two hours, and now they had both fallen silent and the room was quiet. Dark had long ago fallen outside, but a tallow candle burnt on the desk and illuminated the two... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001364.html He told the priest that a few months before he, Gille, had been born, his mother had been out walking one summer night. The path she found had taken her through a thick wood, where the branches had woven themselves... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001365.html He had managed to avoid doing so, though it had not been easy. It was hard not to moisten himself with so much as a drop of water when he was out on the lake on hot summer days. When... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001366.html The priest liked the young man, and his stories had, as I said, reminded him of his own childhood in the forests and on the lakes; this was what had lulled him and stopped him from warning Gille to watch... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001369.html The vicar had been out on the ice half the night with the farmers and their labourers, looking for Gille Folkesson, who had left the vicarage in anguish of mind. At last they had discovered that there was a hole... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001639.html Once, as a child, I travelled past an old manor, where there was known to be a house troll. The estate was very isolated and ugly on a bare lake shore. There was no garden around the high white manor... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001646.html When the housekeeper knocked at the door the coachman opened it for her. He started at once to apologise for sitting with a naked flame in the hayloft. He seemed to think that she had walked out in the dark... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001648.html The coachman shut his book. “The worst thing is that he doesn’t understand that he can’t do this. I can’t remember all the times I told his departed father, “Don’t give Töreby to Henrik” I would say, “He will never... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001649.html Some questions for the invisible reader: Are you reading it? Does it make most sense posted as it is, with newest last, or would you prefer the new episodes at the top? Has anyone tried printing? There should be a... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001652.html The housekeeper, silent as a flickering shadow, left the door to the gambling room and passed into the larder, where she stood with her nose pressed against the little window which opened on the hall. There stood Silfverbrandt bent over... http://www.darwinwars.com/troll/archives/001657.html Captain Silfverbrandt lay very pale, huddled into one corner of the bed. “Did you see him?” he asked. “No”, said the housekeeper, as she always would. It was not right to admit one had ever seen the house troll. He...