Setting: A cozy wooden cabin in the Norwegian countryside, with a fire crackling in the hearth. Snow gently falls outside. Two friends, Lars (the rational one) and Ola (the superstitious one), are sipping hot chocolate after a long hike through the nearby forest.
Lars: (laughing) You still slowed down near that rock formation like you expected a troll to jump out. You’ve lived here your whole life, Ola — you know that’s just an old folktale, right?
Ola: [grinning] A folktale with more truth than you think, my friend. That rock did look suspiciously troll-shaped, and you know what happens if trolls get caught in sunlight.
Lars: Let me guess… poof, stone forever?
Ola: Not poof. It’s more like — crack! — they freeze, mid-roar. And then they stay there for centuries. That’s why we have so many weird rock shapes in the mountains. Trolls, Lars. Trolls.
Lars: Or, and hear me out… erosion? Glacial movement? Freeze-thaw weathering? Norway does have some of the oldest rock formations in the world.
Ola: You sound like my high school science teacher. “It’s all geology, Ola,” she’d say. But she couldn’t explain why the rock near Flåm looks exactly like a troll scratching its head.
Lars: Because our brains are wired to see patterns, especially faces — it’s called pareidolia. You see Jesus on toast, trolls in boulders, faces in the moon. Doesn’t mean they’re real.
Ola: So you’re saying all those stories from the sagas — all the farmers who heard heavy footsteps in the forest at night, the sudden landslides — were just… people being paranoid?
Lars: Or… bears. Wind. Avalanches. Maybe even earthquakes. You think ancient Norwegians had seismographs? No. They had goats, ale, and wild imaginations.
Ola: [laughs] Hey! Wild imagination is half the fun of living out here. You city folks with your science and streetlights forget that sometimes it’s good to believe in a little mystery.
Lars: I love mystery. I just prefer ones I can eventually solve with evidence. Like that time I followed moose tracks for three hours thinking I’d discovered a new species.
Ola: [mock gasp] And did you?
Lars: Nope. Just a drunk moose. Seriously, it had been eating fermented apples and was walking in zigzags. Almost walked into my tent.
Ola: So even you have met a creature of legend!
Lars: Not the same, Ola. Drunk moose are in biological textbooks. Trolls are in fairy tale books.
Ola: Then explain this: when I was ten, I left porridge on the porch like my grandma told me. Next morning, empty bowl. Cleaned out. And weird footprints in the snow — huge ones, with three toes.
Lars: Neighbour’s dog. Or the wind. Or you, with an overactive imagination and cold feet.
Ola: [smiling] You know what, Lars? I like believing trolls might be watching us from the trees. Makes the world a little more exciting. Safer, even. You don’t disrespect the forest if you think it’s full of ancient stone-skinned giants.
Lars: Fair. That’s actually kind of poetic.
Ola: And you keep me grounded. Remind me not to run screaming when I hear a branch snap.
Lars: Deal. You believe in trolls. I’ll believe in physics. And when we hike again tomorrow, I promise not to poke any “trolls” with my ski pole.
Ola: Good. Last time you did that, we had a rockslide.
Lars: Because you knocked a snow drift off a ledge!
Ola: Or because the troll didn’t like being tickled.
Lars: Touché. Now pass the marshmallows, you magnificent mountain mystic.
Ola: Only if you promise not to tell me marshmallow trolls aren’t real either.
The fire crackles louder as they both laugh, the line between myth and science softened by friendship and snow.
Science Vs Superstition 
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