A real troll? (Part 2)

Last week, when we received the puzzling message from Nils Hiekkalinna, who thinks he might have snapped a photograph of a real Finnish troll, we knew just the person to bring in to help us solve the mystery. Reginald Bakeley is Castle in the Air's fairy identification expert, so we forwarded the photo on to him at his home in Wales. Here's the reply (and the slightly clearer photo) we got back from Reg this afternoon.

"Most intriguing! My personal 'expertise', as you are calling it, extends mainly to the real world which involves the sense of smell. And it's quite a good thing that Mr Hiekkalinna was traveling at highway speed when he got his shot in. Had he been standing in the path of an oncoming troll the scent alone could have knocked him senseless. Perhaps we can borrow a scrap of his clothing and see whether by chance it picked up any trace of the troll's earthy musk??

"HOWEVER: I won't leave you high and dry here. My colleague Professor Marcus White (Inverness curator and archivist) has an unfathomable love of all this email and computer mumbo-jumbo, and he got straight to work on sorting out this odd photograph business. He's got all the latest high tech, and is especially keen to use it regarding questions of fairy sightings.

"I attach his _slightly_ clearer version of the picture. Goodness knows how he's able to do this sort of thing. Hope this helps...I'll keep you up to speed as I hear more from Prof.

"RB"

A real troll?

Ever since we started the Castle in the Air weblog last fall, we've received emails from people who never would have heard of us otherwise. They often want to know more about the products and classes we offer, and sometimes they have questions about how to use a particular sort of craft material. Occasionally, though, the messages fall into the "special case" category. Here's one such note we received this morning:

To Whom It May Concern, I am writing to you from Finland and have something to tell you about that you may find interesting because your website is about the gnomes and trolls and such things as this. I always laughed when I heard of these creatures, even here where there is so much of them in the folk stories. But today I didn't laugh when I was driving through a part of the highway in Kurikka, because there I can tell you I saw something strange. A picture I have put in this email is of what I saw. I am very sorry for the quality because it is not very good, but I think what I saw might be one of the trolls of this country. I thought it was a bear maybe but it moved like no bear I have seen. Can you show it to your experts and tell me what they know of it? Maybe you can solve this strange mystery. I thank you!!! A new believer, Nils Hiekkalinna

Of course, Castle in the Air does have a few "experts" on hand in the field of troll identification, so we've sent Nils' picture on to them and will report back as soon as we can. Mysterious indeed!

Treasure Awaits!

For treasure-seekers brave and bold,
Who hunt for crystals and for gold,
We've something which you must behold!
Until tomorrow...
(In the meantime -- don't get Trolled!)