country_of_origin the troll
Julia Catherine Donaldson MBE ( born 16 September 1948 ) is an English writer , playwright and performer , and the 2011  2013 Children ' s Laureate . She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children , especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler , which include " The Gruffalo ", " Room on the Broom " and " Stick Man ". She originally wrote songs for children ' s television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs , " A Squash and a Squeeze ", were made into a children ' s book in 1993 . Of her 184 published works , 64 are widely available in bookshops . The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme , which is part of the Oxford Reading Tree . Norse mythology is the body of mythology of the North Germanic people stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of ___MASK4___ and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period . The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology , Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities , beings , and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period , including medieval manuscripts , archaeological representations , and folk tradition . Axel Scheffler ( born 1957 ) is a German - born illustrator and animator based in ___MASK92___ . He is best known for his cartoon - like pictures for children ' s books , particularly " The Gruffalo " and " The Gruffalo ' s Child ", written by Julia Donaldson . Children ' s Laureate is a position awarded in the ___MASK1___ once every two years to a " writer or illustrator of children ' s books to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field ." The post stemmed from a discussion between the ( now deceased ) Poet Laureate Ted Hughes and children ' s writer Michael Morpurgo . A mermaid is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish . Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide , including the Near East , ___MASK72___ , ___MASK62___ and Asia . The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria , in which the goddess Atargatis transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover . Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods , storms , shipwrecks and drownings . In other folk traditions ( or sometimes within the same tradition ), they can be benevolent or beneficent , bestowing boons or falling in love with humans . A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features folkloric fantasy characters , such as dwarves , elves , fairies , giants , gnomes , goblins , mermaids , trolls , unicorns , or witches , and usually magic or enchantments . Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends ( which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described ) and explicitly moral tales , including beast fables . The term is mainly used for stories with origins in European tradition and , at least in recent centuries , mostly relates to children ' s literature . A troll is a class of being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore . In Old Norse sources , beings described as trolls dwell in isolated rocks , mountains , or caves , live together in small family units , and are rarely helpful to human beings . Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of ___MASK4___ and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries . ___MASK4___ is a historical and cultural region in Northern ___MASK72___ characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages . The Troll by Julia Donaldson and David Roberts is a children ' s story about a troll and some pirates . The troll in this story is based on the troll from the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairy tale . However , in this story , no goats ever cross the troll ' s bridge and he is forced to survive on fish that he catches from the river . He does encounter , in turn , a spider , a mouse and a rabbit , each of which convinces the troll not to eat them by telling him that he should try a bridge further down the river that is more suitable for capturing goats as he is `` sick of fish '' . Meanwhile , the pirate captain Hank Chief and his crew ( Peg Polkadot , Ben Buckle and Percy Patch ) are searching for the treasure that is marked on their map , but are unable to locate the correct island . The pirates also display very poor culinary skills . Eventually , the troll reaches the sea and realises that he has been tricked by the other animals ; he sees what he thinks are goat tracks in the sand and sets about laying a trap for the goat in a spot not too far from the location on the pirate ' s treasure map . He duly discovers an old chest when digging a large hole to ensnare his prey and throws away the `` round shiny objects '' he finds therein . He decides to lie in wait in the chest for the goat and falls asleep . Predictably , the pirates then arrive and make off with their `` treasure '' ; upon opening the chest the pirates decide to make the troll walk the plank , until Peg discovers the troll ' s frying pan and cookbook . On discovering the troll ' s culinary talents , they agree to spare the troll and make him their cook . The troll is delighted and proceeds to tell the pirates that he will make them his favourite goat stew only to be advised , to his horror , that all the pirates desire is . . fish . Scandinavian folklore or Nordic folklore is the folklore of ___MASK11___ , ___MASK16___ , Finland , Denmark , Iceland and the Faroe Islands .