Trolls and Norway are linked the same way as Brothers Grimm and Germany or Anansi the Spider and West Africa. 

The folk tales of each part of the world and those who tell them become inexorably linked.

Arvid Kristoffersen found his calling with his home country’s trolls.

Kristoffersen, 85, has been an artist since before he entered grade school in Kragerø, Telemark, Norway. He will debuting some of his giclée prints of “happy trolls” this weekend at the Artists and Craftsmen of the Flathead “Christmas at the Fairgrounds” show Nov. 28, 29 and 30.

“My mother was a well-known carver,” he said. “I must have got some of her pencils because I was drawing on every available piece of paper.”

His mother worked with trolls, the human-like creatures which range in size from mountainous to tiny have been a part of Norwegian culture for hundreds of years, and Kristoffersen draws and carves the happy little troublemakers in colorful and story-telling pictures.

“The difference with trolls is you don’t have to worry about perspective,” he said. “You can draw them cute or draw them ugly, but you don’t have to draw them any one way.”

Kristoffersen’s trolls play hockey, pick cotton, go fishing, gossip and line dance. He tries to draw each fictional creature with its own personality. 

The artist himself has a big personality hidden behind his soft-spoken Scandinavian temperament. 

Born in Norway in 1929, he was working in a bakery when German soldiers occupied the country. Being a young boy, he asked the soldiers if he could have some bread for his family.

They said no.

“It was then I wanted to get back at them,” Kristoffersen said. “So about every other day, I tossed some bread out the window and would collect it before closing time to bring home to my family.”

As he aged, he grew bolder. He and several teenage friends planned a raid on a food storehouse that fed thousands of German soldiers in the area.

Sneaking over barbed wire and into the warehouse, the clumsy boys loaded up on sausages and meat before one of them tripped and made a clamor. Shots rang out from the guard tower and the boys dashed to the gap in the wire. Kristoffersen was last and came face to face with a German soldier. He hit the German in the face with the only weapon he had — a frozen leg of ham.

The soldier collapsed and the young man bolted into the woods. It was several minutes later he noticed he had been bayoneted in his thigh. The blade missed the major artery by millimeters. Neighbors reported seeing German wieners strung up on barbed wire the next day.

Kristoffersen emigrated to the United States in 1952, moving to Montana. His uncle, in what the artist calls “a dirty trick,” signed him up for the draft so his own sons could stay with the farm.

He joined the Army Topographical Survey, serving one tour in Korea, two in Alaska and one in Panama.

Kristoffersen returned stateside to San Jose, California, and eventually back to Montana, where he decorated the Hill County Courthouse in Havre.

He was commissioned to decorate the Conrad Mansion as well, and has made his home with wife, Roz, in the Flathead. They met because his strong Norwegian accent and lack of cigarettes (she hates the smell of smoke) stood out to her.

Kristoffersen’s still a prolific artist, and his happy trolls adorn about every surface of his den.

“People ask me where I get my ideas from and I just say you have to keep your eyes open,” he said. “I used to go to Sykes’ to get ideas. There were a lot of characters there. I made their noses bigger, but kept the same idea.”

Kristoffersen’s prints will be available at this weekend’s event, $40 for 8x10 prints or $20 for 5x7. For more information on how to purchase prints or to see more, contact Darlene Wagner at HappyTrollsArt@gmail.com.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.