Boots Who Ate a Match with the Troll
This week for Fairy Tale Friday, I'm featuring one of my favorites when I was a child. We actually had this troll story in two books, "The Stone Cheese" in Favorite Tales of Monsters and Trolls retold by George Jonsen which has awesome illustrations and "The Lumberjack and the Cheese" in Trolls compiled and illustrated by Doug Cushman. I don't know why it was a favorite, but we actually still have both of those books, one at my mom's and the other at my house.
In the story, an old man lives at the edge of a forest. In turn he sends his two oldest sons out to chop wood, but both brothers are frightened off by the "ugliest, meanest-looking troll anyone could imagine" who threatens to rip them to pieces. On the third day, the youngest brother goes out to chop wood, taking a piece of white cheese with him. When he is confronted by the troll, he takes out...