The wonderful history of Troll Dolls

Dam would sit near the fireplace, carving bits of wood while he thought. He often carved funny creatures to entertain his children, and eventually, his wife persuaded him to try selling the figurines. Dam packed up as many as he could carry and traveled to Aalborg, the nearest city, where he planned to knock on doors. He came home empty-handed, having successfully sold them all.

As Dams figurines found fans in Aalborg, customers began commissioning bigger projects. Before long, Dam became a working sculptor whose reputation eventually exceeded Denmarks borders. In 1956, a Swedish department store hired him to create a large sculpture of Santa Claus, kicking off the chain of events that nudged Dam to fully embrace toy making.

When he finished installing the Santa Claus sculpture, Dam realized that it wasnt completely visible from the street. He proposed an accompanying window display with a clever design. First, he sculpted tiny figures of Christmas elvesdesigned in a similar style to his soon-to-be-famous troll dollsand dismantled a mattress, hiding a spring in each figurines body. Next, Dam built a display with a mechanism that lifted and dropped a long piece of wood.