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Overview
A rich troll and his wife live on a mountain across a bay from a Finnish farmer and his three sons. Receiving the sons, the troll offers his three daughters as wives so that he can gain power over the visitors. He marks the youths with red caps and his daughters with white ones, intending to kill the youths at night. The youngest son, Olli, secretly exchanges the caps, and the troll instead beheads his own daughters. Olli and his brothers escape while the couple sleep.
Olli repeatedly returns and steals the troll’s gold-and-silver-haired horse, silver money and silk-and-gold coverlet. Trying to take a golden bell finally wakes the troll, who captures him and directs his wife to roast him while he invites other trolls. Olli pretends not to understand how to fit into the oven. When the wife demonstrates, he pushes her inside, roasts her and arranges a straw dummy in her bed. The returning guests eat her thinking the meal is Olli; even after discovering her bead in the food, the husband decides that they might as well finish the feast.
At dawn the troll calls across the bay to Olli and asks about the missing bell and his wife. Olli points at the rising sun as though the wife were there. The troll turns, looks directly at the sun and bursts, ending his life. Other trolls avoid that side of the mountain thereafter. This particular retelling supplies sunlight destruction, but no stone petrification, tail, horn count or universal rule about all trolls. The daughters’ deaths and the wife’s separate oven death are not omitted from the couple’s failed plot.
Origins & earliest records
Parker Fillmore, Mighty Mikko (1922), The Terrible Olli, printed pp. 157–170; author’s note vii–xi.
Records & interpretation
Complete English retelling, including separate deaths, sun-burst ending and the horse’s limited stated properties. The author’s own-version qualification remains.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Mighty Mikko: The Terrible Olli, pp. 157–170
Complete selected narrative; no literal Finnish-source translation claimed. Direct sunlight causes husband’s bursting, not stone transformation.
Family, evolution & connections
The troll’s three daughters — Fillmore’s Olli retelling
Complete Terrible Olli retelling, pp.157–170.
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- His three unnamed daughters (collective group)
Male troll’s explicit daughters designation; wife relationship stated separately. The daughters are unnamed and all are killed. No completed marriages to the human brothers are stated. The female troll is his wife, but her biological motherhood is not independently supplied. Other troll guests are not assumed kin.
The old troll and his unnamed wife
The narrative repeatedly identifies the old female troll as his wife. The guests invited from beyond the mountain are other troll folk, not explicitly his relatives.
The male troll’s three unnamed daughters
The male troll calls the three girls his daughters. His offer of marriage to Olli and his brothers is a trap; the girls are killed before any completed marriage is narrated. The wife’s motherhood is not independently stated.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary historical literary retelling of folkloreFillmore1922: The Terrible OlliResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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