The Troll of Senja

On Senja, Tromsø's neighbouring island, the old stories never quite agreed on where the troll lived. Some saw it on land, among the jagged peaks of Okshornan, the 'devil's teeth' that look troll-carved themselves. Others swore they saw it out in the sea. Perhaps both were right.

In 1993, Senja gave its troll a body: Senjatrollet, eighteen metres tall, once recognised as the largest troll statue in the world, and adored by a generation of children. Then, one night in March 2019, fire took it.

A statue can burn. A legend cannot. With Senjatrollet gone, this museum carries the Senja troll's memory forward for the whole region, the shape-shifter of land and water, still moving somewhere between the mountains and the waves.