The Song of Huldra

Note: Originally published on Facebook on June 12

If you go to any village in the Norwegian hinterland, and offer to buy an old man a drink in a local pub, two things can happen. If you are a female, or traveling with females, the old man will gruffly accept your drink, and then ignore you for the rest of the evening. However, if you are a man, or a woman traveling with a man, the old man will tell you dark tales of a mysterious creature called Huldra, who appears in the mountains when you least expect her to, and sings a song so seductive, that no man can resist its call, he is forced to leave everything and run to her, never to be seen again.
But is Huldra just a myth, or is there more to her than meets the ear? Is she really a monster, out to kill innocent men, or is she maligned needlessly? With no access to Google for searching Huldra’s back story, I set out to create one of my own. It is not her true story, maybe, but it is what I imagine ger story could be, it is a possibility. And isn’t that what every story is, a possibility? So open your eyes, and minds, for
The Song of Huldra

She was sweet as the nectar from the honeybees on their farm, bubbly as the brook that passed through their village, innocent like a mother’s love, and beautiful as mother nature herself. She was Huldra, all of 16 years old, living with her close-knit family in a tiny village called Myrdal, 20 kilometers from Flam, consisting of only 110 people, all of them like her family only. She would trust any one of them with her life.

He was old, wise, sensible and mature, the exact antithesis of Huldra, so there was no way the two of them could hit it off, they had absolutely nothing in common between them.

But as it often happens, love does not look at logic or science, it looks at just hearts, and souls, and the pure souls of these two were reaching out to each other, so that one could complete the other.

Which was a problem. For the guy’s name was Johann, he was 300 years old, and most importantly, he was not human, he was a troll.

Now as was bound to happen sooner than later, both families found out about this strange, mismatched love, and decided to put a stop to it. But both Huldra and Johann believed in the power of true love, and so decided to convince their respective families.

Johann succeeded, and so did Huldra, or so it seemed at first. Huldra had seven brothers, each one loving her more than the next. So when she begged them for support, they had no choice but to give in. Hukdra personally pleaded with each member of her village, and though it was not an easy task, she finally convinced everyone, and a date was set for the wedding.

The groom and his entire village arrived in Myrdal, looking forward to a night to remember, a night that none would be ever able to forget.

And it certainly was a night to remember, for each of the 109 members of Huldra’s village took turns in stabbing Johann, and each member of his family to death. Huldra was waiting in her room, and she did not hear a thing.

And when she came out, the brook running through her village had become red in color. She waiked, how she wailed, the lament of innocence lost, of dreams shattered, the pain of betrayal by one’s own family, it all came out in that wail.

And then, something strange happened. Her family members, and the other villageers, started bleeding out of their ears, and started dropping dead where they stood, and within seconds, Huldra was the only one left alive in the village.

And now, Huldra started searching desperately for her true love, her Johann, but many bodies had been swept away in the brook, and try as she might, Johann was nowhere to be found.

And so, to this day, tens of thousands of years later, Huldra is still looking for her Johann. She sings a song of lost love and passionate moments stolen silently, and no man, animal or troll is able to resist her call. But when she finds that it is not Johann who has answered her call, she throws the person down the mountain, and continues her endless search.

So if you happen to see a girl in a red dress in the mountains in Norway, close your ears, and run. And pray that Huldra finally finds her Johann, and her search, and her song, can finally come to an end. Only then will these mountains find peace, and only then will Trolls be able to once again return to Norway.