In the Dark Forest, far away in the Northern Lands, where summer is short and winter is ruthless, lived an Old Troll, so old, that Time itself did not remember when he had been born.
Only the creatures of the Dark Forest knew what went on under those dense tree canopies, in those bottomless swamps, among tussocks and boulders, covered with green moss and bustling with large crimson cowberries...
Back in the days when the winds blew higher and the rivers flowed faster, there was a little tribe of gnomes who came down from their
mountains hoping to build a new life in the valley below.
The Northern Lands were no kinder to living creatures back then than
they are now – the summers were just as short and the winters
were just as long and fierce...
The winter was still far, far away, but the forest creatures already felt a premonition of its freezing breath in the early morning hours. Hamsters and chipmunks rushed to the fields searching for grain with which to fill their underground stores to the top. Wood goblins gathered barrels of clover honey and pine nuts. Trolls and gnomes picked berries and brewed an abundance of berry jam that would later fill hundreds of clay pots that lined up on long shelves in ranks...
Since the beginning of time, the Dark Forest has been home to many legends, old and new, long and short, sad and funny.
Some of them were written in old books, books with soft leather bindings and grey pages made of flattened reeds. Some survived only in the memories of the Forest folk, retold over and over from mouth to ear, year after year...
When the great and mighty Northern Wind has completely banished his younger Southern brother from celestial spheres, the glaciers at the tops of the Blue Mountains that had reluctantly receded during summertime begin happily growing back, and every living creature in the Northern Lands knows that the time of play and joy is over. And woe to those whose stores and burrows are not full to the top, for the Northern winter knows no mercy...
Most people think that the Bridge Trolls build their own bridges.
While trolls, of course, concur hotly with that idea, if someone asked the oldest and the wisest of the mountain gnomes, they would only shake their heads and smile. That is because they knew perfectly well whom the First Troll entrusted to take care of the mountains, who were the first masons and the first...
Most wonderful thing it was, watching the Dark Forest come back to life after a long winter.
The revival sets in motion gently, step by step, with just little hints and indications at first.
Birds chirp a bit louder, foxes run a bit faster and a big grumpy bear rolls over in his den,
trying to make the most of his last days of sleep.
Then a little mouse shows up on the surface.
He sniffs the air...
