Norway's "trollpikken" has been [insert phallic pun here]

July 8, 2017 9:21 AM

Norway's "troll penis" -- a phallic-looking rock formation that made international headlines after it was apparently lopped off by unknown vandals -- was standing back up to attention as of Friday. After it was vandalized, local residents started a crowdfunding campaign to rebuild the rock, and eventually raised 226,000 kroner (around $27,000). The reattachment work was apparently successful, although tourists will have to wait a week before they can see the formation in order to allow it to fasten properly. Cement, glue and metal fastenings were used to re-attach the Trollpikken, or "The Troll's Penis," to the cliff.
posted by mandolin conspiracy (25 comments total)

tourists will have to wait a week before they can see the formation

Look, lads, we've all had performance anxiety, admit it.

phwoar!
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:30 AM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

This just, uh, cements Scandinavia's reputation as the metal center of the universe. "Chop our big rock cock off? We'll just reattach it with BIG METAL BOLTS! BRUTAL!"
posted by notoriety public at 9:37 AM on July 8, 2017 [9 favorites]

Translating trollpikken as "the troll's penis" is doing it a disservice. It's more like the troll's dick or the troll cock.
posted by Dysk at 9:43 AM on July 8, 2017 [9 favorites]

That has a better ring to it.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:46 AM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

*suppresses every impulse and attempts to read all OP's links with a straight face*
posted by infini at 10:00 AM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, just rolls off the tongue.
posted by Horkus at 10:00 AM on July 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is an endearing story, probably because it reminds me of a tree in a random front yard of the neighborhood I grew up in that local kids called the penis tree. I don't need to explain why to readers of this thread, or Norwegians. In what I will call a precocious display of gender equality, we searched the nearby lawns until we found an equivalent object from nature that was dubbed vagina rock. Bear in mind that I am refining this narrative to make our motivations more progressive than they possibly could have been. We were teenagers with freshly minted drivers' licenses, raging hormones, and a lot of free time.

In those increasingly rare moments as an adult where I find myself driving around my hometown with childhood friends, it is only ever a matter of time until the driver of the car we're in makes a specious declaration of the need to make a detour for some practical matter and then makes a beeline for the penis tree so we can all sit in the idling car and cackle at it, an enduring and obscene blight on the suburban tableau. The vagina rock has, sadly, since disappeared. I understand these Norwegians, spending $27k to restore their own penis tree. Something so essentially human and delightfully simian about this kind of perverted apophenia. One wants to return to it from time to time.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:09 AM on July 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

That has a better ring to it.

So... this troll... he likes jewelry?
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:16 AM on July 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

have to wait another week to go and gawp at Trollpikken, in order to give the glue, cement and metal fastenings time to seal properly.

same here
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:18 AM on July 8, 2017

[insert phallic pun here]

Do what with it, now?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:17 AM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

So what you're saying is that visitors can't view the troll cock until it's fully hard.
posted by dazed_one at 11:20 AM on July 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

So... this troll... he likes jewelry?

Heavy is the head that wears the...
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:21 AM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

The anti-circumcision yahoos must've been all over this one.
posted by jonmc at 11:34 AM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

left lucky cat, in case you haven't seen these: medieval penis trees!
-Mefi post
-Mefi comment
-Massa Marittima mural at Atlas Obscura
-history blog
-medieval blog on Massa Marittima
-Feminae at U Iowa on medieval manuscripts
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:39 AM on July 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

Will John Wayne Bobbit be invited to the ribbon cutting?
posted by ocschwar at 12:27 PM on July 8, 2017

Translating trollpikken as "the troll's penis" is doing it a disservice. It's more like the troll's dick or the troll cock.

As long as the troll can get his rocks off again, he's probably ok with whatever you call it.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:02 PM on July 8, 2017

Will John Wayne Bobbit be invited to the ribbon cutting?

He was going to, but Lorena cut him off in traffic and got there first.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:03 PM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

[insert phallic pun here]

Let's not be so childish please? Many people contributed to the re-erection of this natural wonder. Surely we can rise above the novelty of it. The second coming of this sacred place is important to people.

I have to stop. It does deserve respect. I love Norway.
posted by adept256 at 1:57 PM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I bet they didn't put a cute giant plaster on it like they did to this big tengu head who lost his nose.
posted by sukeban at 2:59 PM on July 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

The metal studs making the reattachment secure were made possible by a generous grant from the Prince Albert memorial fund.
posted by traveler_ at 4:42 PM on July 8, 2017 [6 favorites]

That's going to really confuse someone in the distant future.
posted by lucidium at 4:46 PM on July 8, 2017

makes a beeline for the penis tree so we can all sit in the idling car and cackle at it, an enduring and obscene blight on the suburban tableau.

left lucky cat, you can't give us a story like that and not provide pictures!
posted by tavella at 7:13 PM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

left lucky cat, you can't give us a story like that and not provide pictures!

There's a sort of unspoken agreement to not photograph the penis tree. Or provide written directions to it, or coordinates. One must know where it is, dare I say atavistically. True to the manner of its finding (and perhaps its being) it's never a destination, always a diversion. According to no plan you find yourself there, behold it, and tell your friends in a text message later: "I was in the old neighborhood with R. yesterday; we visited the penis tree" to which others in the message chain reply merely "ah" or in times of adult doubt with "still there?" or "hahaha".

I would not plan a visit to Norway to see something so childish. But I hope that in future, if I find myself there with some free time, I will remember and ask a local "say, isn't there some kind of trollpikken around here?" And I'll make a detour, hours out of my way, probably missing a job interview or a wedding as a result, and I will see it, and chuckle.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:40 PM on July 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

We can spend 200.000kr on a penis rock, but an informational traffic sign is too much?
posted by mbrubeck at 9:27 PM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Heh. Reminds me of Big Stoney in Kodachrome Basin in Utah.
posted by darkstar at 2:40 AM on July 9, 2017