My people have a proud history. For millennia we honed our skills as engineers, builders of roads, tunnels, and yes, bridges … we have always been nomads, and for aeons these pathways were trod by troll feet alone.

Then men appeared. For a time we were content to let them pass upon our roads, though we kept out of sight when one walked by. Most were harmless, but we’d heard tales of their run-ins with other wild folk, terrible acts of cruelty and destruction. They could be only rumors, we said, but better to take precautions. In time, the men learned to build roads and bridges in imitation of our own, and even believed they had invented them. We were willing to encourage this illusion.

But as the humans became more numerous, our bridges were clogged with their carts and wagons, made filthy by the droppings of their yoke animals. Beggars took up residence there, and though the robbers who waited along our roads were hoping for wealthy merchants, they were content to use our folk for target practice.

And as the kingdoms of men grew, several found occasion for war. Then our roads were filled with men on the march, thousands in tight ranks, pulling their siege engines behind. Our bridges became points of contention as the battle lines wavered across rivers and canyons. Soon they began to burn our bridges and collapse our tunnels, to deny their use to the enemy. By the time the war was won, centuries of our finest work was laid to ruin.

It was then that troll folk realized we could not continue as we had for so many years. We were no longer content to live our secret lives, to share our creations with the humans and trust in their beneficence. A huge labor was ahead of us, the task of rebuilding all that was lost - and now timber was less plentiful, as the human townships spread, and the best quarries had been claimed by their hands.

It became clear that certain crucial materials could only be got through the use of human money. Always we had disdained this practice, seen the cruelty and avarice gold inspired in men - but we had no choice. It was decided that an envoy of the troll folk would be positioned at each newly completed bridge, to collect a toll from all who wished to pass, and inform the humans of the debt they owed our people.

More than money, this was about the esteem of our folk - finally we would be recognized for the great engineers and hardy builders that we are. In time, our bridges, and the trolls who guard them, will become heroes of the human race. I am sure of it. Some of my fellows call me naive, say that men will never hold true respect for those who are not like them - but I say they are wrong.