The Goat And The Hungry Troll

What does “troll” mean in English?

In fairy tales, a troll is a big, ugly creature that lives under a bridge or in the mountains and wants to eat people or goats. Today the same word has a second meaning: on the internet, a troll is a person who writes rude comments just to make others angry. One spelling, two very different pictures.

The story here is a version of the old Norse tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The troll says “I’m a big, hungry troll” and then the joke arrives: trolls eat grass. The online meaning also gives a verb: to troll someone means to annoy them on purpose, and “Don’t feed the trolls” means “don’t reply to them.”