Trollcooking is the art of making trollrök (incense), trollpulver (magical powders), Trolldryck/Runedryck (magical potions) and other materials and tools used in Trolldom.
In the tradition we find influences from old oral lore – such as combining nine kind of leafy or fruit bearing trees, ancient and medieval medicinal texts as well as innovations made by individual practitioners.
Today we may not have daily access to the items and materials of a self-sustaining farm anymore- such as blood from our own animals gathered at home slaughter or personal hunting, , or the first drops from our own beer brew. Instead, we have access to a global market and an abundance of imported goods, like never before in the history of our Nordic culture.
In a sense this is both good and bad. On the good side we can easily find materials matching the ideas and sensations produced by our imagination, on the bad side we have not developed a deep relationship to these by raising them ourselves (if animals), or by growing the herb or spent time amongst the trees producing the wood, fruits or resins in question. So although we might easily get superficial matches for the mind content, we lack the context from which the material was produced by Nature. Shopping for an item also deprives us the reinforcement added from the process of acquiring the material. What happened to a pair of pants, a piece of rope or a metal sometimes plays a central role in its Trolldom use. How to get something magically useful out of the “I bought it from the internet and picked it up at the local parcel distributor”, remains a modern mystery beyond reach. If we had to walk all day to get it from the Northern slopes of a specific sacred hill or special spring well, now that we tend to use a bit differently when we set it up in our minds.
Perhaps it should be mentioned to those who never practiced Trolldom and only gotten their information from outsiders that what happens in your mind when connecting to a material through your senses is of vital importance.
When talking about the magical properties of some material we mean the kind of influence it has on us personally (even though many materials tend to have similar influences on people raised in the same kind of culture etc). The idea that a material has some kind of exclusive magical quality independent from you and your experience, is a delusion. Unfortunately, the human mind is not as intelligent as it is portrayed by those favoring it in front of all other human faculty. It tends to be so rigid that once connected to an idea and given the deluding impression that the individual itself are by no means part of producing the effect sought, it ascribes the effect to the material used alone. Sadly, this has led to the extinction of many animal species and to a mad hunt that still continues to this day. There are still ignorant and disconnected individuals thinking that a pink rivel dolphin penis, a rhino horn or tiger bone cannot be replaced and substituted by something else.
As if the magic was all in the material and their own mind and imagination was not a part of it. A very sad state, for which we probably have René Descartes and other influential renaissance “thinkers” as well as cultural Darwinism to thank for.
In any case, if you hear a practitioner of magic trying to sell you a magical material and you know this some endangered species or come from a non-ethical source – run! The chances are that you stand in front of a human being in the mindstate of being a dangeroud fool thinking they are disconnected from Nature and the eco-system and whos actual practice is to climb some supernatural ladder of power, while mindlessly stepping on every creature in the process. You can be certain that it is not Trolldom nor rooted in Native Scandinavian Spirituality. Because here we love Nature.
On January 25-26, 2025 Urhall is hosting an online Trollcooking weekend open to all current and former students of the school. During these days we will show a variety of traditional and modern recipes, we will be making Trollrök (incense), Trollpulver (magical powders), Trollknyten & Trollpåsar (Trollbags & Trollbundles), potions and tools of all sorts.
Check it out here, and if you are a former of current student – sign up and join the fun!
Speaking of recipes – Lucia is just around the corner. Baking some Lussebullar and Pepparkakor, and by doing so filling the kitchen with scents of Saffron, Cinnamon and other delicious spices, is an almost mandatory activity.
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