The Troll of Tridstak

Not many years ago in Eastern Europe, there lived a group of people in a village who were known as the Trids. Neither counted among the wise, nor numbered among the mighty, the Trids were a people marked more by a fondness of ale and good food than for wealth and status.

Tridstak was located at the bottom of hill into which the elements over the years had carved a deep cave, that by the year 1683 had become the dwelling-place of a particularly vicious troll. Throughout that harvest season, whenever the Trids had gathered their food into sacks, the troll would come into Tridstak and take the sacks away, severely pummeling anyone who got in his way or fought back. When the Trids tried to storm the cave and take their food back by might, the troll would use his place at the mouth of the cave to great advantage, and with a mighty kick would send the hapless Trids back down the hillside.

By the time November was fading, the situation in Tridstak was looking bleak. Every man in Tridstak had tried to reclaim some of the food, and with a mighty kick of his powerful right leg, the troll had sent each one back down the hill. Friars at a nearby monastery had spent the past several weeks setting bones and binding wounds, and the village priest had officiated at more funerals than anyone cared to remember. There was no food left in the entire village, and with winter coming in fast, most of the Trids were going to starve if help didn’t come soon.

The first winter snows were beginning to fall when Rabbi Moses ben Gershom arrived. He listened in horror as the Trids explained their dire straits, and although he questioned what he, a lone man passing through on his way to another town, could do, he agreed to make the Trids’ cause his own, and as the sun rose the next morning, he made his way to the troll’s cave.

The Trids had warned him of the troll’s vicious disposition, so when he approached the cave, his knees were knocking together in fear. The troll glared at the rabbi as he approached, but said nothing. The silence was terrible, and in many ways, the rabbi wished that the troll would simply kick him and be done with him.

When no kick was forthcoming, the rabbi raised his voice and addressed the troll. He explained how the Trids would starve without their food, how many of them had been badly injured or even killed by the trolls’ attacks, and how he, Rabbi Moses ben Gershom, had come to retrieve the food. For ten minutes he stood there, pleading his case, before the troll’s baleful glare, and the troll never said a thing.

Rabbi Moses ben Gershom stood in the mouth of the cave, uncertain, but at last, butterflies twitching in his stomach, he took a step inside. At any moment, he knew, the troll would kick him and his inside would explode with pain. He took one step, and then another, and still the troll made no effort to stop him. In a moment, he had reached the sacks of food, and though the troll’s eyes narrowed as the rabbi hefted one to his shoulders, it made no move to stop him.

Scarcely believing his luck, the rabbi carried the sack of food down to Tridstak, where he was met with a volley of cheers.

“Don’t go back, he’ll kill you for sure,” the village priest begged the rabbi.

“Was the troll asleep?” somebody else asked. “How did you defeat him?”

Rabbi Moses ben Gershom shook his head in wonder. He had no explanation for what had happened, but he knew he couldn’t stop until he had retrieved all the food the troll had stolen from the Trids, so after a moment, he began the trek from Tridstak to the cave, and back again. All that day and the next, the rabbi made the journey, and though he felt fear clawing at him every time he came near the troll’s cave, it never made a move to attack him.

At last, after three days’ work, the rabbi had retrieved all the food from the cave. The Trids were ecstatic, and the night before he left, they threw a raucous party in his honor. Three Trid mothers promised to name their sons after him, and fully a third of the Trids declared their intent to convert to Judaism.

Still, all his excitement for the Trids’ deliverance aside, the good rabbi was perplexed. The troll could have stopped him, could have killed him, with one kick. The troll’s leg was as thick as a tree growing in the private gardens of the czar, and while the rabbi was not frail with age, he no longer could be said to be young.

When the sun had risen in the morning, Rabbi Moses ben Gershom bid farewell to the Trids, and decided to take one final trip to the cave of the troll. The brute must have seen him coming, because it already was seated at the mouth of the cave. It stared at him with its large left eye, but bid him be seated, and gave him a steaming mug of cider.

“What is it?” the troll demanded in a voice like cracking granite.

“I do not understand,” the rabbi said. “Whenever anyone else has come to your cave, you have assaulted them, and killed many. Yet when I, a rabbi without the strength to oppose you, arrived, you did not make any effort to stop me from taking the food back to the Trids. Why is that?”

The troll rested its elbows wearily on the stone table between the two of them, and it sighed wearily like the wind blowing among the mountains.

“Silly rabbi,” it said. “Kicks are for Trids.”