Book Description

The internationally acclaimed artists & authors are your personal guides to the enchanted world of Trolls in this book of troll tales and culture. Not since Brian Froud’s conceptual design work with Jim Henson on the classic films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth has he created a faerie world with such imagination, dimension, depth, and detail. Trolls opens a new realm in the celebrated faerie worlds of famed artists Brian and Wendy Froud, renowned for their vast and personal knowledge of faeries, goblins, and other folk. Through their art, sculptures, and stories, the Frouds take you on a wonderous adventure into the world of trolls. Trolls live through the telling of tales and the passing on of stories, weaving them together, then letting them flow separately again, as streams, rivers, tree roots, and branches do. Stories, as they are collected, are tied to a troll’s tail: “A tale for the asking, the giving, the keeping.” Trolls includes stories of stone and bone, wood and feather, along with tale fragments, snippets of stories to be told in full down the road or ones that have been lost and are to be remembered again. Interspersed among the stories are troll customs, philosophies, and practices: How many kinds of trolls are there? Where do they live, and what do they like to eat? Why do some trolls father together while others seek solitude? Troll lore is interwoven with a vast treasure of artifacts and symbols of their world, from the wind knot to the Petrified Parsnip Poetry Pen, from the witch’s cursing bundle to the elusive Earthling Gift. Your journey through Trolls will reveal many mysteries, wonder, and enchantments, and there are no better guides for your adventure than Brian and Wendy Froud.