A wealthy ice harvester, Kristoff Bjorgman, wanted to go harvesting in a part of northern Arendelle where few people had ever done so before. He traveled to Oaken's Trading Post and tried to find a guide to take him. But no one would do it. It was too dangerous, they said.
Finally, he found a troll who needed money badly, and he agreed to take him. The troll's name was Pabbie. They made camp in the snow near a large frozen fjord. For three days they tried to harvest ice, but they had nothing to show for it. The third night a windstorm came up. They lay in their tent listening to the wind howling and the trees whipping back and forth.
To see the storm better, Kristoff opened the tent flap. What he saw startled him. There wasn't a breath of air stirring, and the trees were standing perfectly still. Yet he could hear the wind howling. And the more he listened, the more it sounded as if it were calling out something.
"Let-iiiiitttttt-gooooooo!" it called. "Let-iiiiitttttt-gooooooo!"
"I must be turning into a fixer-upper," Kristoff thought.
But Pabbie had gotten out of his sleeping bag. He was huddled in a corner of the tent, his small head buried in his stubby arms.
"What's this all about?" the ice harvester asked.
"It's nothing," Pabbie replied.
But the wind continued to call to him. And Pabbie became more tense and more restless.
"Let-iiiiitttttt-gooooooo!" it called. "Let-iiiiitttttt-gooooooo!"
Suddenly, the troll jumped to his feet, and he began to run from the tent. But Kristoff grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.
"You can't leave me out here," the harvester shouted. Then the wind called again, and Pabbie broke loose and ran into the darkness. Kristoff could hear him screaming as he went. Again and again he cried, "Oh, my icy feet, my freezing feet of ice..." Then his voice faded away, and the wind died down.
At daybreak, the ice harvester followed Pabbie's tracks in the snow. They went through the woods, down toward the fjord, then out onto the ice.
But soon he noticed something strange. The steps Pabbie had taken got longer and longer. They were so long that no troll could have taken them. It was as if something had helped him to hurry away.
Kristoff followed the tracks out to the middle of the fjord, but there they disappeared. At first, he thought that Pabbie had fallen through the ice, but there wasn't any hole. Then he thought that something had pulled off the ice into the sky. But that made no sense.
As he stood wondering what had happened, the wind picked up again. Soon it was howling as it had the night before. Then he heard Pabbie's voice. It was coming from up above, and again he heard Pabbie screaming.
"...My icy feet, my freezing feet..." But there was nothing to be seen.
Now the harvester wanted to leave that place as fast as he could. He went back to camp and packed. Then he left a few fire crystals for Pabbie, and he started out. Days later he reached the southern part of Arendelle.
The following year he went back to harvest in that area again. He again went to Oaken's Trading Post to look for a guide. The people there could not explain what had happened to Pabbie that night. But they had not seen him since then.
"Maybe it was Queen Elsa," one of them said. "She's supposed to be one with the wind and sky. She drags you along at great speed until your feet are completely frozen up, and more of you than that. Then she carries you into the sky, and drops you. It's just a crazy story, but that's what some of the trolls say."
A few days later Kristoff was at Oaken's Trading Post again. A troll came in and sat by the fire. He had a moss blanket wrapped around him, and he wore his hat so that you couldn't see his face. The harvester thought there was something familiar about him.
He walked over and asked, "Are you Pabbie?"
The troll did not answer.
"Do you know anything about him?"
No answer.
He began to wonder if something was wrong, if the troll needed help. But he couldn't see his face.
"Are you all right?"
No answer.
To get a better look at him, he lifted the love expert's hat. Then he screamed.
There was nothing under the hat but a pile of snowflakes.