Troll Mountain: The Complete Novel

Exactly where the notion of a large, thick-skinned, semi-intelligent and usually hostile creature known as a troll originated is not known.

Some anthropologists have postulated that the term “troll” was used by early humans to describe isolated groups of declining hominids: Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, or even the so-called “Missing Link” in the human evolutionary chain. Others suggest that trolls were simply another species of mega-fauna — like mammoths and sabre-toothed cats — that became extinct as northern climates warmed …

From: The Origins of Mythology

Douglas Mackenzie

W.M. Lawry & Co., London, 1974