The Troll Under Your Bridge

I'm sure most people know of the story of the "Billy Goat Gruff" and the Troll under the bridge. To refresh the minds of those who's it is not at the forefront it is the story of three goats who are told not to travel over a bridge.  They are told not to travel over the bridge because a hungry troll lives under the bridge and his next meal is those unfortunate enough to cross the bridge. It becomes a case of "the grass is greener on the other side of" in this case the bridge and the goats end up venturing a cross.  The story then follows the Troll as he stops the smallest goat and is going to eat him then the little goat tells of his older brother who is bigger and a better meal, which also happens when the second brother comes along as well.  Lastly the big Billy Goat Gruff comes along and he is too big for the troll to handle and knocks the troll off the bridge and into the river.  This is in all generality a "grass is always greener/ don't bite off more than you can chew" type of story when looked at and painted with a very simplistic brush. When broke down a little bit more and when looked at symbolically one can see many more parallels to everyday life.

Trolls in modern ages are no different than the ones in the fairy tales, I am sure that everyone has a troll in their neighborhood.  Whether its the guy who yells at the kids passing by for walking on his lawn, or the one who poisons the neighborhood cats because they keep crapping on his property.  The person in your neighborhood that just seems to want nothing to do with anyone else and always seems to hate everything under the sun.  It is easy to write these people off as just the neighborhood crazies, but in many ways we each could be considered trolls at different times in our lives.  Much like in the story we sit around waiting to hear the clippity clappity of little hoofs crossing our bridges so we can lash out and make our presence known to them.  Sure we may not be looking to eat a meal as the troll in the story, but our own versions of the troll take the more modern view of them as people who "Troll" discussion boards looking to illicit responses from others and give others a hard time.

We each have built bridges for others to cross over in our minds and we do so when we decide that if someone were ever to do such and such thing we would be angry.  For example I know (and have decided) that if I were ever to see someone vandalizing my house I would be forced to confront them and in all probability attack them.  For in our minds we draw lines in the sand and decide when and what situations we would be justified to act certain ways, to go crazy on someone, to chew someone out, to force our wills on others.  When thinking of this fact it is no wonder why there is so much conflict in this world, when everyone has there own set of rules which they live by.   How much better would the world be if there was less of these premeditated responses to situations? It can be agreed at times its a good thing while at other times it is not so much. It is in this way that we have made our bridges for other unsuspecting victims to accidentally stumble on to with us waiting so patiently to pounce.  Whether the situation is socially acceptable such as tackling a mugger or not like poisoning the neighbors cat, we each become a troll lying in wait under our own personal bridges. "Man can never be truly free when one day the troll under his bridge will be me, and mine he."