The Trickster and the Troll

The friendship and adventures of Iktomi and Troll, the trickster figure from Lakota legend and the well-known character from Norse mythology, are the subject of this imaginative, marvelously spun tale. The gentle, lumbering Troll meets Iktomi while searching for his Norwegian immigrant family, from whom he became separated while crossing the Great Plains. The vain, opportunistic trickster soon discovers that he has also lost his people, the Lakotas. When their peoples are eventually found, Iktomi and Troll are neither recognized nor wanted. The Lakotas and the Norwegians have changed and forgotten their friends. The lonely trickster and the Troll find solace in their friendship and take refuge in a cave. It will be many years before they are rediscovered and loved again for all they represent. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a well-known Lakota writer whose husband is of Norwegian descent, conceived of this story as a way to teach her children about their mixed-blood heritage. Her sparkling prose conveys a gentle yet important message for children and adults about the value of cooperation, the richness and vitality of a mixed ethnic heritage, and the need to understand and respect the cultural traditions of others. Sneve is the author of many children's books and of the memoir Completing the Circle (Nebraska 1995), winner of the 1992 North American Indian Prose Award. She and her husband live in Rapid City, South Dakota.