Trolling: Etymology and Three Billy Goats

So my own journey to look into trolling led me inevitably, obviously, into folklore because trolls, we know of trolls. Three Billy-Goats’ Gruff in Norway, is that right?

Exactly, yeah. That was this troll tale that was published, first published in America in English translation around 1860.

And three billy goats went across a bridge and there’s a troll guarding the bridge and they go trip, trap, trap, trap, trap, trip, trip, trip, trip. So it’s this great sound in it. And when this story was published, it immediately captured the imagination of people and became embedded into our culture.

What is common to all these forms of trolling, which really helped me get to my definition of emotion, moving, activity, body, speech, and mind, is this TRA and this movement. And in early English, for instance, “trole, trole the bowl to me…“. It’s in Shakespeare. It’s used in Shakespeare. And it goes back into very deep into language.

Source: Swifty Decoding Interview

The etymology of ‘trolling’ itself. Three Billy-Goats’ Gruff, first published in English around 1860, embedded the troll archetype into Anglophone culture. But trolling runs deeper: ‘trole, trole the bowl to me…’ in Shakespeare. The TRA- root carries the sense of movement, emotion-moving activity. Internet trolling, bridge trolling, and Disinfolklore trolling all share this core: provoking emotion to move energy. See Trolling and Trolls and Mana.

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