Of Trolls and Mountain Kings

I was introduced to the music of Edvard Grieg – a famous Norwegian composer – early in life, thanks to the many Disney Halloween specials on TV as I was growing up. Disney’s Fantasia short, Night on Bald Mountain, uses Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite as the musical background for a haunting evening in the far North.

The cartoon highlighted the ancient traditions in the Nordic area; trolls and other scary creatures roaming the land, tall mountains, ancient relatives coming alive for the winter season, light processions to honor the dead. There is a lot there. Watching it recently, I suddenly saw the northern lights in the spirits’ movement and Odin on his horse, racing with the others.

In ancient times, this season was seen as the end of the year. Nature was headed into its yearly hibernation, crops and animals were harvested and put away for the winter. The people transferred their focus indoors to wait out the cold and dark together. And this particular moment of the year was seen as the time when chaos increased and wild spirits roamed the land at night, including trolls. 

It seems many of the pagan roots of Halloween originated in the Nordic area. Replaced with Christian themes once they converted, the main traditions of the pagan holidays haven’t changed much. All over the world cultures still focus on the dead and on the thin separation between this world and the afterlife at this time of year.

I’ve loved the song In the Hall of the Mountain King since I was little, thanks to my older sister’s piano lessons. Grieg himself described this music as being ultra-Norwegian, according to Henrik Ibsen’s book Peer Gynt (Penguin, p17).

So in the spirit of the holiday, I’ll leave you with a little treat. Enjoy. And Happy Halloween!

What did I learn from this?

We may have exported trick or treating to the Nordics, but they invented Halloween.