ALICE HUDSON
You may not know it, but there is a whole community of trolls in our midst - and on Sunday, they are going to party.
Trolls of all shapes and sizes will lumber out of the bushes around the tiny Southern Hawke's Bay village of Norsewood to sample food
and wares at the country market, parade down the street to music and, most importantly, choose the "Troll of the Year".
According to the folklore of the village, small trolls - a symbol of Scandinavia - came to New Zealand in the luggage of the first Norwegian settlers, who arrived to Norsewood in 1872. They had hidden in bread making dishes, "bakstetrau" but soon escaped to the Ruahine Ranges, where they were disappointed not to find their favourite food, blueberries.
According to troll expert and Norsewood resident Stan Andresen, Norwegian trolls had gathered annually for thousands of years to choose a leader and give them a prize - blueberries, of course. The Norsewood leader, who would be awarded special troll berry wine, had to have done something inspirational that both trolls and humans could applaud.
Stan Andresen is a Norwegian author who came to Norsewood to research his non-fiction book Johanna's World, first published in 1996. The book tells of the struggle of Johanna Christiansen and her family, who settled in Norsewood from Norway in 1873.
In 2001, the work was translated into English and its author - whose real name is Oystein Andresen - moved here soon after with his young family.
Tomorrow will see descendants of Johanna gather together for the opening of Andresen's latest project - a "memory park" containing replicas of Norwegian style structures such as the "Pasoportet" log cottage, a copy of Johanna's childhood home in Norway.
