The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods
By Cole Herrold
In the world of faeries, there is a
phenomenon akin to what demonologists would refer to as attachment. In the
demonological concept, the idea is that a spirit or entity will attach itself
to a person and follow them wherever they go. While faeries are often
associated with specific places in nature, there are several examples of them
being attached to families or types of people. In Russia, there are tales of
the Domovoi, and in the United Kingdom, there are Brownies and Boggarts; these
household entities are usually guardians of specific homes; however, they also
have been in some accounts associated with families. This is noticeable as the
creature's behavior or appearance is continued to be seen after a family moves
to a new location. We see the same type of phenomenon with Banshees in Ireland.
Banshees are almost always associated with a specific family, and they are
believed to herald the death of a member of that particular family. Now
typically these encounters are solely in the same country; however, when these
cultures began to migrate to America during the 1800s during this wave, tales
of Banshees and the like were brought over, but interestingly enough, accounts
of these entities continued as though they too immigrated to the "New
World."
From the 1850s to-1930s, the Swedish and
Norwegian, much like the Irish and the British, made their way to America and
so began staking their own settlements in the ever-growing country. While the
immigrants spread throughout the country, there was a heavy focus on the
Minnesota area. Apparently, these settlers were not alone in leaving their
country; however for just like the Irish beforehand, there seemed to be a small
group of inexplicable entities that too sought some potential better life in
America.
In Northern Minnesota, a young Irish boy
named Richard O’Donnell was born and living in a Scandinavian descended town.
As with every town, there was one specific legend that everybody knew and that
would be uttered in a whisper. A farmer by the name of Ulmer Sorenson owned an
extensive patch of land north of town that was filled with orchards and grassy
knolls. On this picturesque landscape, however, was a dark domain, a cave that
was rumored to be the home of a family of creatures that seemingly followed the
founders of the town to this bucolic land. Richard O'Donnell knew the story
well and knew how many a fellow peer would wander onto Sorenson's land and
stand outside of the cave. Those who were brave enough or foolish enough to
approach the cave would throw rocks into the mouth of the cave, holler
schoolboy threats attempting to get the beasts to come out and chase them off
the property. Only a few of these young fools or overly brave children had
managed to step a few feet into the cavern before returning back to the light
of day. Yet while in these few times no creatures were seen, everyone who
entered the cave would always comment about how the cavernous crack always
smelled fierce. This odorous lair was worse than a skunk's or a civet cat's
stench, and only those who knew the tale knew that the smell was only from the
monstrous creatures known to those in the villager's motherland as Trolls.
While most of the tales Richard knew were
of those who had entered the cave and experienced nothing except a horrid smell,
there were a few times when some of his friends would rush him completely out
of breath, proclaiming that they had actually seen one or a few of the
creatures wandering not near the cave but in the open orchards and fields or
the dense woodlands of Sorenson's land around dusk. The folks in town would
also experience the loss of several of their livestock late at night,
particularly chickens and eggs. The people knew it had to be these creatures as
the animals were seemingly missing for no particular reason; there was no
evidence of fox activity, and all the coops were undisturbed. Those who had
seen the coops were certain that this was the work of the late-night working
Trolls.
Richard had heard all of these accounts
and was unsure of what to make of them, and so he proceeded in asking the
wisest person he knew, which was, of course, his father. His father smiled when
he asked him about the Trolls, and so he began to explain that the Scandinavian
folks had tales of the wee people and other dark creatures as they did with
leprechauns and the gentry. Yet he was certain that's all they were tales that
were kept in circulation by Ulmer Sorenson to keep would be the young kids from
the apples in his orchard during harvest time. Richard accepted his father's hypothesis
and continued to keep it in the back of his mind as more and more reports of
the diminutive beings came out. That is until summer came.
It was late in the afternoon on a
particularly warm July day that Richard was walking towards his girlfriend's farmhouse
when he was walking near Sorenson's woods. He noticed the embossed "No
Trespassing" sign and, deciding to give in to the edginess of youth,
decided to ignore the request and use the woods as a kind of shortcut to his
significant other's house. He found a worn deer path and proceeded to use this
naturally made highway to cross through the forest, and after walking for a
short period, he happened to notice a short dark form coming towards him. The
figure was too far to make out any significant features, but he thought that
perhaps it could be a deer or a large dog, but as the two began walking towards
each other, he could tell that this was most certainly not the case. As the
figure was only a short distance away, he could tell that this was not an animal
but a short, stocky guy. Expecting it to be another peer from school or some
other child who also decided to give in to the angst of youth, he continued
unabated, and so to did his path ward companion. Yet as he got even closer, he
instantly realized in a look of disgust that if this was a child, it was the
ugliest one he had ever seen. The "boy" had coarse black hair that
seemed to just be jutting straight out of the skull. The "boy" had
deep-set black eyes that were particularly unnerving, but this was not its most
noticeable feature, for there just below these black pinpoints was a large
proboscis that Richard described as an "enormous "honker.""
Richard could not get over the "boy's" nose, for it was so abnormally
large that it seemed to take up most of the individual's face. The boy was
about the size of him he estimated about 5ft 4” and that he was built like a
fire hydrant. Other than the "boy's" bizarre appearance, he was
dressed rather shabbily it wore a pair of overalls that were seemingly several
sizes too big for him, a very tattered work shirt, and had no shoes at all.
While the “boy” walked around shoeless he had incredibly large black hair
covered feet that Richard estimated to be well over a size 13 men’s shoe.
Richard stopped short as the "boy" continued to approach him as it
came closer it began to smile at Richard, and in doing so it showed him it's
teeth which were caked yellow and jagged which Richard felt was "badly in
need of dentistry."
This being a small town, Richard's first
thought now that the figure was overly close to him was that he was surprised
he had never seen the stranger in town or in school. The figure was only a few
feet from him now and had slowed its pace, ultimately stopping directly in
front of him. As the two stood there eyeing each other up and neither saying a
word, the "boy" in front of him began to look down at Richard's jeans
and boots, and a look of want came across the creature's face. Richard noticed
this as a mischievous grin seemed to crawl across the creature's face. Richard
was just about to back away from this bizarre boy when all of a sudden, this
odd boy uncurled an animal-like grunt and lunged towards his waist and legs,
ultimately toppling Richard over. Richard laying now on his back, could feel this
person trying to reach its hands into the waistline of his pants as it
attempted to pry the fabric from his body. Richard was only 5" taller than
this figure but was 180lbs of muscle and what this person did not know was that
he was the captain of the high school wrestling squad and that whenever someone
had attempted to fight him he never turned down a scrap. Richard would describe
what happened as the two began to roll on the ground in the following "The
Ugly little guy was incredibly powerful, and he seemed very surprised when I
did a reversal, escaped from his takedown, and flipped him over on his
back." The two began an almost Olympic style tussle in the weeds and grass
and Richard seemed to have the upper hand he had managed to get this would be
thief face down in the grass and was putting its arm behind its back when
something that seems straight out of the pages of a Marvel or Batman comic
happened. The "boy" that Richard had almost pinned seemed to be
quivering expecting him to finally be subdued Richard was about to let him go
when he noticed that the figure seemed to be getting larger. Its limbs seemed
to be stretching out growing in length and its torso seemed to become even more
beefier. Richard could tell that this was the case as the once ill-fitting
overalls were now tightly covering his attacker's body like a layer of skin and
the work shirt that he was wearing was ripping down by the shoulders. Richard
got off the figure which he now knew was not human and realized that the entity
was 6ft 2" and had gained some 50lbs. It towered over him and outweighed
him. This, however, was secondary to what the creature also gained, an increase
of its terrible smell. Richard would describe it in the following, "And
the smell of him became almost overpowering. He stank bad enough when he was a
short little bugger but now he could win a fall by his smell alone. Of course,
not being an idiot, I realized that I was up against something beyond my power
of reasoning. This was no ordinary farm boy. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I
knew that I would now be fighting for more than my pants and my boots".
The creature, now after transforming in an
almost Hulk or Bane-like manner, loomed over the boy, and as the boy watched,
the demeanor of the creature changed. Instead of the mischievous smirk or even
the jagged tooth smile that greeted him on the path, the creature was
noticeably angered by the boy's rebuttal to its attempt of clothing theft. The
creature's enormous frown and proboscis were secondary to the boy's sight as
the creature's black eyes started to change to a piercing red, almost as if it
was some kind of living cartoon. The creature's chest heaved forward and back,
and as it did this, it unfurled a low steady growl behind closed lips. Richard
knew this was not a fight he could win or even survive, and so he began to run
like hell. The thing was still roaring as he turned tail and sprinted back the
way he came. As he ran, he looked back twice to see if the now colossal
creature was coming after him but from what he could tell, he was in the clear,
but he still did not slow his pace until he made it to town.
In town, he found several of his friends
hanging around and began to tell them his experience in the woods between
gasping breaths. His tale was convincing enough to his friends that a group of
them began to follow him to the spot where he had encountered the terrifying
Troll. The group looked at the overturned sod where clearly some sort of
struggle had occurred, but there was nothing else; no footprints, hair, or
Troll could be found. The group then decided that if this was one of the Trolls
said to live on the property, they knew where it should be, and so they headed
towards the dark and profusely odorous cave. One of the boys had brought his
rifle along and aimed it at the mouth of the cave as though he was expecting the
creature to come running full tilt towards him. The brave, albeit foolhardy boy
began to yell several challenges into the cave and indicated that he had a
weapon as a means of intimidating the trolls into giving up, yet none came out.
No one in the party, even the boy with the rifle, however, wanted to enter the
stalagmite-ridden abode, and the smell that wafted from the entrance was enough
to make everyone in the party gag. For these reasons, the group decided that
this was enough excitement for one day, and they all returned home.
Richard was sitting at the Dinner table
with his family when he decided to let them in on his little misadventure.
After telling the full account, his father began to laugh and said that “Ulmer
Sorenson often hired temporary field hands from the pool of unemployed
lumbermen from up north. A lot of those men are pretty rough and tough and a
bit short on manners and they might take fancy to your new boots and jeans and
decide to 'borrow' them without your permission. You best not tangle with any
of them". Richard was a little downtrodden by his father's account and
knew for certain that what he experienced that day was far from a down and out
lumberjack; he was certain that the entity he encountered was one of the Trolls
said to lurk in the lands of Sorenson's woods and from that day on he never
again took a shortcut through Sorenson's land.
Now, this case is a pretty clear-cut and
dry case of a faerie encounter. Unlike other cases where one can look at
alternative views, there are not really many other options to point to.
Cryptids typically don't wear clothes even though there are reports of Bigfoot
and other hairy hominids occasionally wearing them, cryptids also typically
appear as flesh and blood animals if they have anomalous properties most are
things that can be attributed to scientific phenomena like bioluminescence or
fluorescence, or enzyme expulsion or something along those lines but for a
creature to seemingly grow excessively in height and weight in a matter of
moments for combat purposes are not exactly something we see in nature. There
are illusions of this when animals like frigate birds which will puff out their
chests to appear bigger, but for something to actually grow taller and gain
more noticeable mass is something else entirely.
It's pretty safe to say this entity is not
extraterrestrial in origin as there's a history of these entities in the same
area. They even have a specific cave where they are believed to live; this gets
less into UFO encounters where a craft lands and entities are seen and gets
into something native to the area and not an alien in the true sense of the
word. Also, the fact that no craft or lights are associated with these
creatures also seems to indicate that they are earth or interdimensionally
bound.
Now it's also safe to say that this entity
is not a ghost or a demon as it appears to be a physical flesh and blood entity
even though it has anomalous traits and behaviors. It is not wispy or
see-through, and the thing that solidifies this even more is the fact that
Richard wrestled with this entity. There have been some encounters with spirits
where they can inflict damage or even have sexual experiences with humans, yet
in these cases, they seem to be almost a one-way street as the phantasms appear
to be able to interact with us, but we cannot physically interact with them.
One almost has to include interdimensional
as an option for entities like this because that's always a possibility since
who knows where these creatures truly come from. The same goes for the
Ultraterrestrial since their primary goal is to be trickster-like minor gods or
entities that feed on fear or other human emotions. A tulpa is also a
possibility since there's the chance that the population's belief in these creatures
based on their homeland tales might have created a small population of these
entities, but all of these other possibilities are speculation.
The most conclusive possibility is that
this is another example of faerie. It has many of the hallmarks, as previously
discussed in the intro and in other articles. These creatures have a connection
to the environment, they have a connection to a population/specific individual,
they are essentially "magical" or react in ways that we don't
scientifically understand in their behavior, and the account follows an
archetype of entity that has a rich history. Unlike other Troll accounts on the
site, such as the Friendly Troll of Oslo or the Staffordshire Trolls, this is
the first one I've covered that actually wears clothes. In folk traditions,
however, Trolls constantly wore beaten, dirty clothes that seemed to mimic the
appropriate clothing that humans would wear in a given environment. This Troll,
however, intrigues me even more than the fact that it's wearing farmwear on a
farm but the fact that baggy overalls are a classic clothing article that
appears on trolls in Norwegian and Swedish wood carvings. So perhaps this is
not simply a design for tourist trinkets but actually a common article of
clothing worn by these entities.
One thing that aside from the clothes that
fascinates me, needless to say, is the creature's ability to change size at
will. Trolls are all over the map when it comes to reported sizes; the Oslo
Troll was taller than trees, whereas the Staffordshire Trolls were about the
same size as the Troll seen here before it grew to tower over Richard. If this
is the case, it could explain a lot of Trolls seemingly based on folklore seem
to grow much like humans, but just on a larger scale; this seems to dash that
claim and implies that they can change their size as is. Other faeries are said
to be shapeshifters like the Phooka, so it's not unheard of for a faerie to do
this, but its important to point out this in the data for Trolls since the
study of faeries is something that has not gained the same credibility or
countless tomes from a serious standpoint as Cryptozoology or Ufology.
With all that said, while I’m extremely
interested in a more scientific study of faeries, I have to admit it's
extremely difficult to even comprehend how to go about doing it. Faeries
seemingly have noticeable species like aliens or cryptids, but they clearly are
neither. They behave anomalously; they have skills we would call magic but
could be something we currently don't have the scientific mindset or tools to
understand. They are not spirits in the sense of ghosts as they are physical
and can be touched and are almost exclusively found in nature, with only a few
exceptions. The final problem is compared to things like Bigfoot or lake
monsters, they're relatively rare even though there are folkloric accounts
dating back centuries, and some are most certainly normal cryptids when looking
at these older accounts. I'm at a loss as to a methodology of study because of
this and because there's such a wide gamut of potential species, locations, age
ranges, and differentiations between folklores that finding some single method
is almost impossible. As for this account, however, I think in terms of this
kind of research its incredibly important as it is almost identical to a
folktale even though it takes place reasonably in modern time; the exact year
and day are not specified, but with the account appearing in Steiger's 2001
book it's safe to say it was well before then. Richard was also an adult when
talking to Steiger, so it's safe to say anywhere between 20-40 years spanned
between the time of his sighting and the publication of the book. So much like
the other Troll accounts mentioned earlier and that appear on the site, this is
a continuing phenomenon and one that definitely needs to be investigated
further by Forteans, just once we figure out how.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species:
Mammal/Supernatural Entity
Location: Sorenson’s Woods, Minnesota
Sighted: July, year and day unspecified
sometime before 2001 (probably around the 1950s -1980s)
Work Cited:
The Inhumanoids By Barton M. Nunnelly
Out of the Dark: The Complete Guide to
Beings from Beyond By Brad Steiger
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