Peer Gynt and the Trolls of Dovre

The Dovrefjell mountains in central Norway are the setting of one of the country's most famous folk figures: Peer Gynt, a boastful young man from Gudbrandsdalen whose adventures were collected as folk legend by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen in the 19th century before Henrik Ibsen turned him into the hero of his 1867 play. According to the tale, Peer wanders into the Dovre mountain, home to the Old Man of the Mountain (Dovregubben) and his court of trolls, who capture him after he insults and flirts with the troll king's daughter at a wedding feast. The trolls try to force Peer to marry her and become one of them by having his eyesight twisted so the world looks beautiful to him as a troll would see it, but Peer refuses to let them cut his eyes, and escapes as the mountain hall collapses around him — some versions say the church bells of a nearby valley, rung at dawn, are what finally scatter the trolls. Local guides in Dovre still point out rock formations said to be the troll king's frozen hall, careful to note it as an Ibsen-era legend, not a natural history claim.