《哈利波特与魔法石》（精讲之二）-英语点津

4. Be that as it may

意为"Nevertheless, it may be true but 然而，不过"，例如：Be that as it may, I can't take your place on Monday.

5. Take on

这里的意思是"对抗，打败"，例如：This young wrestler was willing to take on all comers.

文化面面观

Troll 身世探查

Troll 在哈利·波特系列丛书中被描绘成是a creature that lives in the mountains. They are very large, ugly, small brained, and they have very bad tempers.

事实上，troll这种生物在很多古老的北欧神话中早已有之，在很多世界经典魔幻小说、童话书中也经常出现。下面我们就来探查一下troll的身世。

"The Troll." A statue under the north end of the Aurora Bridge in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, USA.

A troll is a fearsome member of a mythical anthropomorph race from Scandinavia. Their role ranges from fiendish giants - similar to the ogres of England - to a devious, more human-like folk of the wilderness, living underground in hills, caves or mounds. In Orkney and Shetland tales, trolls are called trows, adopted from the Norse language when these islands were settled by Vikings.

Nordic literature, art and music from the romantic era and onwards has adapted trolls in various manners - often in the form of an aboriginal race, endowed with oversized ears and noses. From here, as well as from Scandinavian fairy tales such as Three Billy Goats Gruff, trolls have achieved international recognition, and in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games, trolls are featured to the extent of being stock characters.

The meaning of the word troll is uncertain. It might have had the original meaning of supernatural or magical with an overlay of malignant and perilous. Another likely suggestion is that it means "someone who behaves violently". In old Swedish law, trolleri was a particular kind of magic intended to do harm. It should be noted that North Germanic terms such as trolldom (witchcraft) and trolla/trylle (perform magic tricks) in modern Scandinavian languages does not imply any connection with the mythical beings. Moreover, in the sources for Norse mythology, troll can signify any uncanny being, including but not restricted to the Norse giants (j?tnar).

A traditional norwegian troll

In fairytales and legends trolls are less the people living next to humans and more frightening creatures. Particularly in these tales they come in any size and can be as huge as giants or as small as dwarves. They are often regarded as having poor intellect (especially the males, whereas the females, trollkonor, may be quite cunning), great strength, big noses, long arms, and as being hairy and not very beautiful (Once again, females often constitute the exception, with female trolls frequently being quite comely). In Scandinavian fairy tales trolls sometimes turn to stone if exposed to sunlight, a myth generally attributed to pareidolia found in naturally eroded rock outcrops.

In the genre of paleofiction, the distinguished Swedish-speaking Finnish paleontologist Bjorn Kurtén has entertained the theory (e.g. in Dance of the Tiger) that trolls are a distant memory of an encounter with Neanderthals by our Cro-Magnon ancestors some 40,000 years ago during their migration into northern Europe. Spanish paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga provides evidence for these types of encounters in his book, The Neanderthal's Necklace (El collar del Neandertal, 1999 ). The theory that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons occupied the same area of Europe at the same time in history has been theorized based on fossil evidence. Other researchers believe that they just refer to neighboring tribes. The problem with this theory is that neither Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons existed in this part of Europe during the ice-age. Most of Scandinavia was covered by a large glacier and the area was not occupied until much later.