D&D General A possible source for the regeneration power of Poul Anderson’s troll in Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne

[Doug McCrae]

The regenerating troll in D&D derives from Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953). A possible source for the regeneration aspect of Anderson’s troll can be found in Thomas Bulfinch’s Legends of Charlemagne (1863). In the chapters about Ogier the Dane, Bruhier the Sultan of Arabia heals himself using the magical balm of Joseph of Arimathea.

Chainmail: "True Trolls are much more fearsome beasts (see Poul Anderson's THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS)… True Trolls can only be killed in Fantastic Combat against Hero-types, Balrogs, Elementals and Giants--magical weapons will also kill True Trolls."

OD&D: "Trolls are able to regenerate… Even totally sundered Trolls will regenerate eventually… unless they are burned or immersed in acid"

Three Hearts and Three Lions was partly inspired by L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s Harold Shea stories. These feature protagonists from our world travelling to fantastical realms. In the first, The Roaring Trumpet (1940), Shea finds himself in the world of Norse myth. Here he meets several trolls, but they do not have the power of regeneration.

The relationship between The Roaring Trumpet and Norse myth is similar to the relationship between Three Hearts and Three Lions and the medieval, and later, legends of Ogier the Dane. It is likely that the three chapters on Ogier the Dane in Thomas Bulfinch’s Legends of Charlemagne were one of Anderson’s sources. Carahue, a Saracen king who converted to Christianity, appears in both. Other versions of the legend use different spellings such as "Karaheu". I could not find "Carahue" anywhere other than Bulfinch and Anderson.

In Chapter XXVI of Bulfinch, Ogier battles Bruhier, the leader of the Saracens:

[Ogier’s blow] cut away part of Bruhier’s helmet, and with it his ear and part of his cheek. Ogier, seeing the blood, did not immediately repeat his blow, and Bruhier seized the moment to gallop off on one side. As he rode he took a vase of gold which hung at the saddle-bow, and bathed with its contents the wounded part. The blood instantly ceased to flow, the ear and the flesh were restored quite whole, and the Dane was astonished to see his antagonist return to the ground as sound as ever.​

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Bruhier laughed at his amazement. "Know," said he, "that I possess the precious balm that Joseph of Arimathea used upon the body of the Crucified One, Whom you worship. If I should lose an arm, I could restore it with a few drops of this."…​

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Ogier, desperate at the unequal contest, grasped Cortana with both hands, and struck his enemy such a blow that it cleft his buckler, and cut off his arm with it; but Bruhier at the same time launched one at Ogier, which, missing him, struck the head of Beiffror, and the good horse fell, and drew down his master in his fall.​

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Bruhier had time to leap to the ground, to pick up his arm and apply his balsam​

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

This has been confirmed for decades.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This has been confirmed for decades.

This isn't Anderson's troll -> D&D troll. It's Bruhier's healing in Bulfinch -> Anderson's troll's regeneration.

I'm not sure anyone else has made this connection.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The Hydra of Greek myth with its regenerating heads that can only be stopped by fire seems like a more likely source of inspiration for the Troll's regeneration.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The Hydra of Greek myth with its regenerating heads that can only be stopped by fire seems like a more likely source of inspiration for the Troll's regeneration.

Good point about the hydra. I think you’re right that it’s the source for the method used to prevent Anderson’s troll from regenerating. Fire is not employed in Bulfinch’s Ogier the Dane story. Instead, Bruhier’s healing is stopped by simply moving him away from his horse:

Ogier, promptly disengaging himself, pressed Bruhier with so much impetuosity that he drove him to a distance from his horse, to whose saddle-bow the precious balm was suspended; and very soon Charlemagne saw Ogier, now completely in the advantage, bring his enemy to his knees, tear off his helmet, and, with a sweep of his sword, strike his head from his body.​

However I maintain that the regeneration itself works more like Bruhier’s self-healing. The hydra only ever regenerates its heads. It does not reattach severed parts but instead grows new ones. When it does so, one head is replaced by two. Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable:

The Hydra had nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal. Hercules struck off its heads with his club, but in the place of the head knocked off, two new ones grew forth each time. At length with the assistance of his faithful servant Iolaus, he burned away the heads of the Hydra, and buried the ninth or immortal one under a huge rock.​

The troll in Three Hearts and Three Lions reattaches its severed parts rather than growing new ones:

Like a huge green spider, the troll’s severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast...

Through and through that oak-branch arm the blade went. Iron belled in the dark. Ice-green blood spurted, turning black in the smoke of unnatural flesh. The sword seemed to glow. The arm sprang off at the shoulder. It rolled into a pile of leaves, flopped about, and began hunching its way back...

The troll scooped up his left arm and put it in place.​

In the quoted text in my original post, Bruhier also reattaches his severed arm.

 

[tommybahama]

Why that book hasn't been made into a movie is a mystery to me.

 

[Doug McCrae]

A comparison of the troll’s physical appearance in first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Three Hearts and Three Lions, and The Roaring Trumpet.

1e Monster Manual: "Trolls are horrid carnivores found in nearly every clime. They are feared by most creatures, as a troll knows no fear and attacks unceasingly."

3H&3L: "Like a wolverine to a bear, so be a troll to a giant. Not so big, mayhap, but fierce beyond measure, cunning, and gripsome o’ life." These are the words of Hugi, the woods dwarf.

MM: "Troll hide is a nauseating moss green, mottled green and gray, or putrid gray."

3H&3L: "The hairless green skin moved upon his body."

MM: "The writhing hair-like growth upon a troll’s head is greenish black or iron gray."

RT: "Instead of hair and beard it had wormlike excrescences on its head. They moved."

MM: "The eyes of a troll are dull black."

3H&3L: "two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam."

MM: "SIZE: L (9’+ tall)"

3H&3L: "He was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell."

RT: "A scaly being about five feet tall, with an oversize head decorated by a snub nose and a pair of long pointed ears." This is the troll Stegg.

3H&3L: "a yard-long nose"

RT: "His face was built around a nose of such astonishing proportions that it projected a good eighteen inches." This is Snögg, a troll with an unusually large nose.

 

[ccs]

This has been confirmed for decades.

Even so, newer players don't know this stuff. So sometimes it bears repeating.

 

[Haldrik]

The Hydra of Greek myth with its regenerating heads that can only be stopped by fire seems like a more likely source of inspiration for the Troll's regeneration.

The hydra appears to regenerate because it personifies the "abyss" − the underground freshwater that gushes up out of the earth from wellsprings.

The freshwater abyss under the earth contrasts the saltwater ocean around the earth.