Oh, What A Little Pipsqueak! Cried The Troll (1912 CE)

Oh, what a little pipsqueak! cried the troll is one of John Bauer’s most vivid and theatrical illustrations, capturing the instant when the small but fearless Nisse stands before a hulking troll deep inside its cave. The contrast is immediate and unforgettable: the boy appears almost fragile, while the troll looms over him in a world of stone, shadow, and menace. Yet the image is not only threatening. Like so much of Bauer’s work, it holds wonder and danger in the same breath, drawing the viewer into a folktale world where courage matters more than size.

John Bauer and Among Gnomes and Trolls

Created in 1912, the illustration belongs to John Bauer’s celebrated work for Among Gnomes and Trolls, the annual Swedish anthology that helped define the visual language of Scandinavian fairy tale art in the early twentieth century. Bauer, born in 1882 in Jönköping, drew deeply on the forests of Småland, on Italian Renaissance painting, and on Sámi culture, shaping a style that feels at once decorative, atmospheric, and unmistakably his own. This image was made for Alfred Smedberg’s tale The Boy Who Was Never Afraid, published in the 1912 volume. Like many of the stories Bauer illustrated, it turns on a simple but powerful idea: that courage, kindness, and inner strength can prevail even in a world filled with strange and dangerous beings.

A Tiny Sketch Becomes a Great Confrontation

One of the most fascinating details about Bauer’s working method is that he often began with very small sketches, sometimes scarcely larger than a postage stamp, before expanding them into finished illustrations. That process helps explain the image’s remarkable clarity. Everything is concentrated around the encounter itself: the troll’s immense body, the cave’s enclosing darkness, and the boy’s stillness before it. The famous line, “Nej, sicken liten puttefnasker!” roughly, “What a tiny little creature!” gives the scene its particular tone, balancing humor and menace in a way that has made it memorable for generations of readers.

Courage in a World of Trolls

The illustration holds an important place in Swedish cultural memory and reflects the romantic nationalism of Bauer’s time, when folklore was seen as a vital part of national identity. At its center is a theme that feels almost archetypal: the small figure facing the monstrous one without fear. Nisse’s encounter with the troll gives visual form to the old folktale truth that moral courage can outweigh brute force. At the same time, Bauer does not reduce the scene to a simple lesson. The troll is frightening, but also strangely alive and full of character. The image captures that special quality in Swedish folklore where the magical world is never merely charming, but always edged with danger.

Watercolor, Line, and Atmosphere

The illustration is executed in watercolor, one of Bauer’s preferred media and one that suited him perfectly. It allowed him to build soft veils of tone, subtle transparencies, and deep contrasts between light and shadow. That sensitivity is evident here in the cave’s muted browns and greys, in the troll’s rough textures, and in the delicate handling of the smaller figure. Bauer’s flowing line, shaped in part by Art Nouveau, gives the forms a quiet rhythm, while the restrained palette keeps the image grounded in earth, moss, and stone. Although works of this kind were generally modest in size, they carry an extraordinary visual richness, making the scene feel much larger than the page it was created for.

In Jönköping Today

The original artwork is preserved in Jönköpings läns museum in Jönköping, Sweden, which holds the world’s largest collection of John Bauer’s work, including more than a thousand paintings, drawings, and sketches.