The Blue Belt Part I

 I’ve been meaning to talk about The Blue Belt since July of 2012, when I mentioned it briefly in a post about White Bear stories. (East of the Sun and West of the Moon, White Bear King Valemon, and, sort of, this one).

The Blue Belt is Norwegian, from Asbjørnsen and Moe. It’s basically 24 pages of absolute chaos, and I love every second of it.

We open with an old beggar woman and her son. They’re out begging, and the son spots a cool blue belt lying on the ground. He wants to pick it up, but the mother warns him not to, because there might be witchcraft in it.

A little later, when the woman is stopping to rest, the boy runs back and gets the belt. As soon as he puts it on, he feels strong enough to lift a mountain. He runs back to his mom, who’s mad at him for wandering off, but doesn’t seem to notice the belt. He must have put it under his shirt.

They keep walking, until it’s dark out, and the boy spots a house in the distance, where he says maybe they can stay tonight.

The mom explains that this must be a troll house, because no Christians live in this area. The boy is not bothered by this. He lets himself in the front door, where they immediately encounter a troll at least 20 feet tall, and the mom faints.

Boy and troll make friends. It comes up in conversation that the troll is over 300 years old, which isn't super relevant, but I think it’s interesting, especially considering how things are about to go down re: relationship developments.

Mom wakes up. Mom is desperately frightened. She kicks and scratches and flings herself about, trying to get away. The boy asks for supper. The troll says sure. The mom becomes convinced that the troll is going to eat them.

Troll serves a meal consisting of a whole ox and a cask of wine taller than them, with two six-foot knives as their only utensils. Mom is terrified of the knives. Mom is terrified of everything. I cannot, at this time, overstate just how terrified mom is.

They go to bed. The boy lays awake eavesdropping. The troll suggests that he and the mom get rid of the kid, and then the two of them can hook up and everything will be cool.

THE MOM AGREES WITH THIS PLAN. THE MOM, WHO NOT HALF AN HOUR AGO WAS DESPERATELY AFRAID OF THE TROLL, NOW WANTS TO STAY WITH HIM AND MURDER HER OWN SON.

You may be thinking, “She’s just too scared to argue with him. She doesn’t actually want to hook up with a terrifying troll. She doesn’t actually want her son dead.”

If so, you are wrong.

Because if she was just agreeing because she was scared, she would be trying to hurry her son out of there in the morning, before any murdering could occur.

Instead, she just hangs out in the troll house, while the troll invites the boy to work in the quarry with him.

The troll tries to crush the boy with a massive rock, which doesn’t work, because the blue belt gave him super strength. The troll ends up getting injured himself. And instead of fleeing the scene like a sensible person, the boy carries the troll home and puts him to bed to recover, then just stays there in the house with two people he knows want to murder him.

Mom and troll discuss options for a second murder attempt. There is no longer any room for doubt about mom’s true intentions, because she helps the troll come up with plans.

Mom pretends to be sick, and says nothing but lion’s milk will heal her. Troll tells boy his brother has a garden with twelve lions in it. Boy goes to milk some lions.

Of course, the lions do not want to be milked. Boy fights the biggest lion, until there’s nothing left of him but two paws. The remaining eleven lions are then feeling very cooperative. (The lion gender breakdown is not clear here. We have at least one boy lion, or did before the boy killed him, and at least one girl lion, for milk acquisition. The other ten are mysteries.)

Boy returns home with eleven lions and one drop of lion milk.

Troll refuses to believe boy did the milking. Boy sets lions on troll, but calls them off before he gets hurt too bad.

Time for murder plot number 3!

We send the boy to the castle where two more of the troll’s brothers live. The castle is surrounded by apple trees, and anyone who eats one of the apples will sleep for three days and three nights. Which will give the brothers time to tear him apart without worrying about his super strength. We’re gonna get him there by, again, having mom fake sick, with apples as the only cure this time.

And just, like. Sweetheart. You know they want you dead. You literally just eavesdropped on their conversation about it. Why do you keep going where they send you?

He goes to the orchard. He takes his eleven lions. He climbs a tree and eats as many apples as he can, because our dude has no chill and no fear.

He falls asleep. The lions guard him. The trolls come.

These are shapeshifting trolls, and they come in the shape of “man eating steeds.” But they don’t get to eat any men today, because the lions eat them first.

Our guy wakes up and goes to the castle, where he finds the princess of Arabia, who the trolls kidnapped. They decide to get married. He also claims the trolls’ really cool, massive sword. The two of them live together in the castle for a while. It’s unclear whether anyone else is there. Did a priest perform the wedding? Do they have a cook, or are they living on apples? (That sounds wildly impractical, considering the nap factor.)

Eventually, the princess decides she better go home and visit her parents.

In her absence, our guy remembers that he was supposed to bring apples home for his mom. A lot of time has passed, and he’s over the murder. (Not that he seemed particularly bothered in the first place.) So he invites his mom and the troll to come live in the castle with him.

Mom asks him about his super strength, and he shows her the belt. Which she then rips off of his waist.

She wants to dash his brains out, now that his strength is gone, but the troll thinks that’s too good a death for him. So instead, they burn his eyes out and put him out to sea in a little boat. The lions swim after him, pull him to shore, and take care of him, because they are good lions, and I love them.

One of the lions watches a blind rabbit fall into a spring, then come out able to see. Smart lion drags the boy to the spring and dunks him, and his sight is restored.

And then comes my favorite part, a beautiful moment for which, alas, I have never seen an illustration.

The little boat the troll sent our guy out on wasn’t seaworthy, apparently. Because the way we get home is that the lions all line up together to make a raft, and he sails home on a raft made of lions.

Back home, he steals back his belt. The mom tries to convince him to give it back to her, because apparently she thinks he’s an idiot, which I guess is fair, because he did keep letting her try to kill him, and showed her the belt when he knew she was trying to kill him.

He dashes her brains out, which I guess is also fair because that’s what she wanted to do with him, but it still feels intense.

He blinds the troll and puts him out to sea, which I am a lot more on board with.

And this story still has eight pages left!

Which we’re going to pick up next week, because this post is already three pages long. Stay tuned for the reunion between our protagonist and his wife, as well as giant chickens, improbably convincing bear suits, brutal murder, etc!