The Tail Of Aslaug

Once upon a time, there lived a hulder girl named Aslaug. Like all other hulders, Aslaug looked like a human from the front, but she had the tail of a cow and a large, gaping hole in her back like one would find in a hollow oak tree or a rotten log. Hulders were gifted with superhuman strength, shapeshifting abilities, and immunity to fire. They lived deep inside forests and mountains. As such, they were quite knowledgeable when it came to what grew in nature. They knew which berries were poisonous and which were safe to eat, they knew which herbs to use to treat ailments and illnesses, and they knew which flowers made for great tea.

  Aslaug loved playing with her fellow hulders of the Wolfwood Forest, but now she was the only one left. Even her parents were with her no more. And as time went on, she became increasingly lonely. She became more and more curious about the tiny human village on the other side of the bridge outside the forest. Every day for an entire month, she would climb a tree near the bridge and look across at the human village. She saw the birthday celebrations they threw, the festivals they held, and the games they played with one another. To Aslaug, it looked like they were having so much fun. She had wanted to visit the village since she was a little girl, but her father forbade her from doing so.

“Why can’t I visit the human village, Father?” Aslaug had asked her father one day while they were filleting a fish.

“Because the humans won’t accept you,” her father said. “I went to that village before. One look at my tail and they called me a troll.” Her father snorted. Trolls hated hulders, finding their ethereal beauty repulsive. Hulders weren’t particularly fond of trolls either. “I tried telling them I wasn’t what they thought I was, but it didn’t matter. Once they made up their minds, they were impossible to change. So don’t go to the human village, alright?”

“Yes, Father,” Aslaug said obediently.

But time went on like it always did, and Aslaug found it increasingly hard to obey her father’s words. She was lonely and she yearned for companionship. She couldn’t stand being alone any longer. So, one day, she decided to leave the forest for the first time and go to the human village to make friends with the villagers. 

It was early in the afternoon when Aslaug arrived in the human village. The marketplace was in full swing. She approached a red-haired woman trying to drag her goat with her. The goat had its hooves firmly planted in the dirt, refusing to budge a single inch.

“Come on, you stupid goat!” The woman yelled.

“Hello!” Aslaug smiled warmly. The woman looked up at Aslaug. “My name is Aslaug. I just came from the Wolfwood Forest and I—”

“T-Troll!” The woman yelled, staggering back a step, her eyes wide with fright. She had noticed the long cow tail peeking out from the bottom of Aslaug’s dress and dragging along the ground.

"I'm not a troll, I'm a hulder,” Aslaug said. 

The woman dropped the goat’s leash and ran away. “Help! Troll!”

"I'm not a troll!" Aslaug called after the woman.

By now, some of the nearby villagers had heard the woman’s cries and looked over at Aslaug. Their eyes widened in fright.

“Troll!” They yelled. “Troll!”

Aslaug watched as the marketplace turned into complete chaos. Mothers scooped up their children. Merchants quickly gathered up what was left of their wares. The only living thing in the marketplace that wasn't sent into a frenzy was the red-haired woman’s goat. It trotted over to Aslaug and bent his head towards her, like it wanted to be petted.

“Aw,” Aslaug cooed as she bent down a little to pet the crown of the goat’s head. “Aren’t you the cutest little thing?” 

“Look! She’s bewitched my goat!” The red-haired woman cried out. “Someone, stop her!” 

“But I didn’t…” Aslaug trailed off when she saw several of the villagers grabbing wood planks and firewood. They drew closer to Aslaug, brandishing their makeshift weapons at her.

“Leave!” They yelled. “You’re not welcome here!”

Aslaug stared at them. “Um…I’ll just come back another time.” She turned around and walked away.

Aslaug could tell the villagers weren’t receptive towards her. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She was going to win them over by proving she wasn’t a threat and that she wanted to be friends with them. 

“Be kind to everyone, even if they don’t deserve it,” Aslaug’s mother told her one night while she was brushing through Aslaug’s long hair. “Always do the right thing even if your kindness goes unappreciated.” 

“Yes, Mother,” Aslaug said obediently. 

The next day, Aslaug put her plan into work. She went down to the docks where there were several men hard at work putting together a boat, their brows slick with sweat. 

“Hello!” She smiled as she approached the men. “Can I lend a hand?”

“It’s the troll!” One of the builders cried out. Everyone’s heads snapped towards Aslaug.

“I’m not a troll," Aslaug said. "But I am pretty strong so I can help lift things.” She demonstrated her strength by lifting a long wooden beam with one hand. 

“D-Drop that!” Another one of the builders said. “We don’t want your help! Just leave us alone!”

“But I’m trying to help you,” Aslaug said.

“Leave us!” “Yeah, leave us!” “We don’t want you here!” The rest of the builders joined in with their protests.

Aslaug looked at their faces. They were full of fear and anger. 

“Well, it seems like you guys have everything under control so I’ll just...come back another time.” Aslaug gently put down the wooden beam and walked away.

Aslaug made a second attempt the following day. This time she went to the edge of the forest down the river where there were some women picking berries.

“Hello!” Aslaug greeted them with a smile.

The women turned their heads towards Aslaug. They gasped in fright, dropping the berries in their hands. 

“I have some wild mountain berries you guys can use.” Aslaug moved her long hair over her shoulder and reached behind herself to pull a bag from out of the hole in her back. She held it out in front of her. “I picked them myself since they only grow at the top of the mountain.”

“S-S-Stay away from us!” A woman cried out. “W-We don’t want your berries!”

“Are you sure?” Aslaug said. “They taste really good. You should try them.” 

“Stay away!” “Yeah, stay away!” “Leave us alone!” The rest of the women joined in with their protests. 

Aslaug looked at their faces. They were full of fear and anger. 

“Uh…Well, I guess you guys have all the berries you need, so I’ll just leave then.” Aslaug stuck the bag of berries back in the hole in her back and walked away. 

Aslaug still wasn’t deterred by the treatment she experienced so far and made a third attempt the next day. 

She went down to the Great Hall where everyone in the village was gathered. The musicians were playing a festive tune, and everyone was feasting and laughing and having a great time. 

Aslaug walked through the front doors. “Hello everyone!” She called out.

The clamor of laughing and talking and plates and cups clinking died out immediately. Several people gasped. Even the musicians had stopped playing.

“It’s that troll girl again!” Someone cried out.

“I just wanted to—”

“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” Someone else cried out. 

“But I just wanted to—”

“We don’t want any trolls around here!"

"But I already told you!" Aslaug said. "I'm not a troll, I’m a hulder!”

“Don’t try and fool us!” Someone cried out. “We can all see your tail!”

“But I’m not a troll,” Aslaug said.

“Get out of here!” “We don’t want any trolls around here!” “Yeah, get out!” The people shouted at Aslaug. Soon enough, everyone in the hall had joined in.

Aslaug looked at their faces. They were full of fear of anger.

“Oh,” she said sadly. “Then I guess…I’ll just leave.” She turned around and walked away.

Aslaug returned to the deep forest, upset. She didn’t go back to the human village the next day, or the day after that, or even the day after that. She decided to give up on befriending the humans in the village. She thought if she showed enough kindness to humans, they would eventually start liking her. But her mother was wrong. And her father was right. Not everyone deserved kindness. And she wouldn’t step a foot back in the human village ever again. 

A week after Aslaug’s last visit to the human village, she was walking through the forest at night when she suddenly heard distant screams in the distance. Confused, she climbed the nearest tree and looked towards the human village. 

There were seven trolls attacking the human village, rounding up the villagers that were screaming and running for their lives. The trolls had rope and were using it to tie up the captured villagers. One troll was lugging a giant pot with him. The villagers would be made into stew soon. 

Aslaug's mother’s words rang through her mind. “Always do the right thing even if your kindness goes unappreciated.”

Aslaug couldn’t leave the villagers to get eaten by trolls. Even if the way they treated Aslaug was less than ideal, if she let them get eaten by trolls, then the villagers would be right to call her one. 

Aslaug climbed down the tree and raced back to her family’s longhouse. She pulled up one of the floorboards near her mother's bed and pulled out her mother’s potions book. She turned to a worn page and read over the list of ingredients for a particular potion; most of the ingredients she needed were already in the longhouse and the rest she could easily find in the forest on her way to the human village. 

     Aslaug stuffed the ingredients in the longhouse into a bag which she stuck in the hole in her back. She stuck her mother’s potions book in there as well before she changed out of her dress and put on her father’s favorite dark green tunic and trousers. She returned to the forest and finished gathering all the ingredients she needed for the potion. She raced to the human village as fast as her legs could carry her. 

     Before she crossed the bridge, Aslaug stopped and transformed herself into an old man, changing her black hair to grey and growing a long, grey beard. She bent down and scooped up some dirt with both hands, rubbing it all over her clothes to disguise her hulder scent. She crossed the bridge and crept into the village under the thick cover of night.  

The trolls had set up camp in the village square and had a dozen screaming villagers roasting over two large fire pits. There was a troll at each fire pit, rotating the slowly-roasting villagers. Two trolls were tending to a huge pot of stew cooking over a fire while two others were sitting on the ground. One troll seemed to be supervising the rest. His left eye was missing and he was the meanest-looking out of all of them. The rest of the villagers were tied up, huddled around each other. Even from where she was, Aslaug could see them trembling. As she got closer to the village square, she could start making out the conversation the trolls were having.

“We made a good little find tonight, boys!” One of the trolls said. “All these people, ours to gobble down!”

“I'll say,” another one of the trolls said, licking his lips as he stared at the roasting villagers. “I can’t wait to sink me teeth into 'em.”

“There’s plenty of time till daylight," the one-eyed troll said. "We ain't gunna rush.”

Aslaug continued creeping forward and hid behind a low wall, just a stone’s throw from where the trolls were. She took the bag of ingredients and her mother’s potions book out from the hole in her back and held both in either hand. She stood up and walked out from behind the wall into full view of the trolls. 

She cleared her throat. “My goodness!” She exclaimed, lowering her voice to sound like her grandfather’s. “What’s going on here?” 

The trolls manning the fire pits and the trolls cooking the stew stopped and stared at Aslaug along with the rest of the trolls. The one-eyed troll pulled his upper lip back in a snarl. “Eh, it’s just a shriveled ol' man.” According to Aslaug's father, trolls didn’t eat the elderly because they didn’t like how they tasted. “Keep it movin', old man,” he told Aslaug. “We don’t have no business with you.”

“Ah, but you can’t eat those villagers!” Aslaug said as she walked forward. “Not without some of my special seasoning!”

“Special seasoning?” The one-eyed troll said. 

“That’s right! I regularly travel into forests and mountains to find rare ingredients. It’s why I’m so covered in dirt, as you can see. But it’s worth it to find the best ingredients to make the best stew you can eat on this side of the valley. I have some with me right now.” Aslaug held the bag up in front of her. “Normally, I charge a hefty fee for such precious ingredients, but since I’m in a generous mood, you can have the bag for free right now!”

“Ooh, I want to try!” One of the trolls said.

“We ain't gunna wait for the first group to stop cookin'?” Another one asked.

“A little taste won’t hurt,” Aslaug said. “It won’t take long to mix the ingredients into the stew. I guarantee this will be the best stew you ever tasted!”

“Well…” The one-eyed troll thought about it for a moment. “I suppose a wee taste couldn’t hurt.”

“Excellent!” Aslaug walked towards the pot of stew. The two trolls standing over it stepped back to give her some space. She opened her mother’s potions book and turned to the worn page from earlier. The title read The Sleeping Potion. Aslaug didn’t have to hide the words since she knew trolls couldn’t read.

“The recipe isn’t complicated,” she said, “but I like to take a quick look here and there to make sure I get the measurements right.” 

Aslaug followed along with the recipe, adding each ingredient to the stew as it was called for. After the last ingredient was thrown in, she grabbed the stirring spoon and stirred everything together. Once she was finished, she stepped back. “Alright, it’s done!”

All seven of the trolls went over to the pot. One of the trolls took a sniff. “Oh my, that smells lovely,” he said.

    “Don’t just stand there!” Aslaug said. “Take a sip!”

The trolls grabbed their serving spoons and sampled the stew, smacking their lips loudly.

The one-eyed troll gasped in surprise. “Blimey! This is the best stew I’ve ever tasted!”

The other trolls voiced their approval. They dipped their spoons back into the stew, taking several more samples. Seconds later, they all fell onto the ground, one by one, each with a massive thud.

Aslaug stuck her mother’s potions book back into the hole in her back and transformed back into her regular form. The villagers stared in stunned silence as she went over to the fire pits and gathered up all the burning firewood in her hands, as well as the burning firewood underneath the pot of stew. She ran down to the river and threw the firewood into the water. She went back to the village square and searched the trolls for a filleting knife, which she found. She used the knife to cut through the ropes restraining the villagers tied up over the fire pits and released them onto the ground. She then went over to the villagers tied up together and cut the ropes around them. Soon enough, the entire village was free. 

    “I fed the trolls a sleeping potion so they’ll be out for the rest of the night,” Aslaug said. “Once dawn comes, they’ll turn into stone. You can chip away at their bodies with axes and do whatever you want with the stone afterwards.”

She smiled at the villagers before she turned to walk away.

“Wait!” The red-haired woman with the goat said. “Where are you going?” 

“Back to the forest," Aslaug said.

    “You mean you’re not going to stay around?”

Aslaug’s eyes widened in surprise. “You…want me to stay?”

The red-haired woman looked ashamed. “I’m sorry for accusing you of bewitching my goat.”

“I'm sorry too for not accepting your help when building the boat,” one of the builders said. The rest of the builders apologized too.

“I'm sorry as well for not accepting the berries you offered to us,” one of the berry-picking women said. The rest of the women apologized too. “And I think I speak for everyone here when I say we’re sorry for running you out of the Great Hall.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry!” “Thanks for saving us!” “We would have been dead if it wasn’t for you!” The villagers said.

“You don’t have to stay in the village if you don’t want to,” the red-haired woman said, “but could you at least stay until tomorrow for a feast in your honor for rescuing us?”

Aslaug gasped. “A feast? In my honor? Of course I’ll stay!”

The villagers cheered. Aslaug looked at their faces. They were full of joy and admiration. 

“Always do the right thing even if your kindness goes unappreciated.”

Aslaug’s kindness had finally been appreciated.