Anthony Blackshaw, 28 Dec '12

Now I am quite sure that you have heard of trolls before, and that when you think of a troll you imagine a huge lumbering monster of a figure, with scaly green skin, great big muscles, and a wide mouth filled with hundreds of sharp teeth just waiting to eat you. You probably believe that all trolls are very stupid, and that they only live in dark damp places such as under bridges or deep within caves, hiding in wait for any unsuspecting passer by.

Well it simply isn't true. Of course some of it is, there really are some very big trolls about, and some of them are exceedingly stupid. But you only hear about these trolls because they are so big, and so stupid, and so much easier to spot. There are, however a great many other trolls; some much smaller, most much smarter, and many much closer than you might guess.

Now you might be thinking, if what I'm saying is true, how is it that you so rarely, or even never, see a troll? Well quite simply, trolls for the most part, are invisible.

"Hooey" I hear you cry, or at least words to that effect which I am far to polite to put in writing, but I assure you it is true, and what's more I'll tell you how.

You see all trolls produce an unbelievably enormous amount of earwax. In just one year the average troll will typically secrete over half a ton of earwax - that's enough to fill ten bath tubs to the brim or a small swimming pool! And how does that make trolls invisible? Well, troll earwax has a quite unique property that makes any surfaces it is smeared onto completely see through. Exactly how it does this I couldn't say, but the effect is very similar to the way that chip oil also makes the newspaper you eat your fish'n'chips out of see through. And so to keep themselves invisible, trolls spend a large part of their day poking their fingers into their oversized ear holes, and picking out earwax, which they smear all over themselves.

Now at this point I feel I must stress that this is something very unique to trolls, and that human earwax does not share the same unique invisibility property. Even if you believe that someone you know, perhaps an elderly relative, must surely be related to a troll because of the amount of earwax they produce, I strongly advise against smearing their earwax all over yourself to become invisible. It will almost certainly not work, and the consequences of being caught with your finger buried deep into Grandpa's ear, and then having to explain that you suspect him of being related to a troll, are severe indeed.

If you really want to make yourself invisible, the only way is to use real troll earwax, and to do that you'd have to catch a real troll. For the more ambitious of you this may seem like a feasible idea, after all you probably know where there's a bridge or a cave, and now you know that trolls are invisible, well you've most likely already thought of some ingenious way of detecting them. But a word to the wise, throwing bags of flour off the top of a bridge may seem like a clever way to discover a troll, but the only trolls that live under bridges tend to be of the bigger and meaner variety, and no troll is overly fond of being covered in flour. No, if you really must hunt for a troll I would recommend you look much closer to home.

Far more practical to hunt than a bridge troll is the bed troll. Bed trolls are among the smallest of trolls, averaging only ten inches in height, and almost the same around. Imagine a soccer ball made out of snot, add two black beady eyes, and a wide mouth filled with hundreds of needle sharp teeth, and there you have a bed troll.

Bed trolls of course live under beds, but you needn't threat, they don't eat people, not even children, though it is possible should you leave a toe dangling over the edge of your bed you may wake up to find it missing – but it really is a very rare occurrence! No as a rule, bed trolls prefer to eat small insects like spiders, flies, woodlice and earwigs.

One final word of warning though, before you put this down and start hunting under your bed, take a pair of leather gauntlets with you, or in a pinch oven mitts will do. If someone tried to stick a finger in your ear, and you had lots of sharp teeth, what would you do?