There and Arensbak Again: A Trip to Trolltown!

Pigeon Forge, TN → Cosby, TN → Knoxville, TN
80.8 mi (130.0 km)

More 2025 Adventures

Let’s rock and troll, everyone!

I felt like I’d been trolled waking up this Labor Day morning to a notification that my shuttle to Knoxville Airport was waiting for me outside! Had I accidentally booked it for 6:00 AM instead of PM? No, I double checked, and they had indeed sent a driver at the wrong time! Grumbling over breakfast with Tyler and Marie, we were further trolled by Labor Day itself, which had canceled our original plans to visit the Bush’s Baked Beans Museum! Well, we were not to be defeated on our last morning adventuring together, so we motored into Gatlinburg and wandered around a bit, stopping at such unmissable places as the Donut Friar and Fannie Farkle’s Arcade, plus a place that was nowhere on my radar: Arrowmont, a school of arts and crafts founded way back in 1912 by members of the the Pi Beta Phi sorority!

Way back in the day, Marie had been a member of Pi Beta Phi, the first sorority in the National Panhellenic Conference to have its own philanthropy! She and Tyler had spent two snowy days here back in 2017, learning about the early Settlement School, first taught by Della Gillette, which had grown into a cultural hub where folks could practice—and market—traditional Appalachian crafts like quilts and baskets! When they visited, it had just lost three buildings in the Chimney Tops 2 Fire of 2016, but the school, and its mission, continued on even after disaster!

That enabled us to enjoy the unique baskets and wood sculptures at leisure until it was time for Tyler and Marie to hit the road. They had to get to the New River Gorge visitor center before it closed at 4:00! As luck would have it, there was one special place where I hoped they would drop me off on their way. It was home to a very unique kind of Appalachian craft, and as luck would have it, that place happened to be on their route! After many “until next times,” I found myself roadside in the magical forest of Cosby, Tennessee, where the moss grew thick and the biting bugs were abundant!

No, I wasn’t here to see the 1914 Laurel Springs Primitive Baptist Church, even though it was on the National Register of Historic Places as an outstanding example of vernacular architecture! I was searching for something even more primitive, something old as Nature herself, and with wisdom to match!

I’d booked a tour at the secluded 5 Arts Studio, a place I’d heard about long ago on the other side of the country, but based here in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains! It’s home to the most whimsical and mysterious of mountain creatures, the Arensbak Trolls, and at 1:30, I checked in right on time to learn more about these secretive beings!

What kind of trolls are these, you might ask? After all, trolls take many shapes! There are trolls on the internet, who look convincingly human. There are trolls with big hair and jewels on their tummies. There are trolls that stand many stories tall and prowl the arctic wastes of Scandinavia, as well as jolly trolls who pose on the sidewalks of Scandihoovia! The Arensbak trolls are something altogether unique!

I didn’t know much about troll etiquette when I walked up to the studio door and faced a humongous House Troll hovering above the threshold! I didn’t think he was very scary, just big, probably strong, and very stoic. “Open Sesame” didn’t work, and neither did asking about the velocity of an unladen sparrow, but luckily, before I exhausted all my riddles and passcodes (I was starting to wonder if I needed to pick which squares contained a troll), my studio guide, Ted, opened the door and welcomed me in with a bottle of water! Super refreshing!

Ted started the tour right away, starting with the tale of his in-laws, the Arensbaks, and their journey to America! Ken Arensbak had been the son of Danish bookshop owners and a talented artist who, at the age of 16, had put his skills to use forging passports and documents for Jewish families fleeing German occupation during World War II! He’d met his future wife, Neta, in a record shop in 1943, they bonded over Duke Ellington, and then moved to Canada together, getting married on December 31, 1949! The nines would be important in the tale of troll making, because in 1959, Ken made his first troll as a gift, accompanied by vivid stories adapted from Scandinavian folklore. In 1969, the Arensbaks visited the Great Smoky Mountains for the first time, making a troll delivery to a Gatlinburg gift shop, and there, they found the hilltop lot where they would build 5 Arts Studio, one Art for each Arensbak!

Since that first gift shop delivery, what was once just called a “Ken Troll” blossomed into dozens of different kinds of trolls, nature’s lightning-fast helpers, who paint dewdrops on spiderwebs and store acorns for squirrels! There are doctor trolls and mystic trolls, bookworm trolls and grape stomper trolls! You can tell a boy troll by its mustache and beard, while the lady trolls only have mustaches! Plus, these trolls have friends galore, like gnomes, witches, and unicorns, and even pets, from cats to hice mice (the plural of house mouse), to a black German Shepherd in memory of their beloved studio greeter, Max!

Once inside the studio, I got to meet Vivi Arensbak and her sister, Marianna, (now Mrs. Shaffer since Ted’s her hubby), both hard at work making the 2025 Christmas Trolls! They were super warm and welcoming and immediately offered me a gingersnap cookie shaped like a troll face, before showing off their work. They talked about the different materials that go into making trolls, from the poplar wood foundations to their hemp or sisal rope hair, to the amazing assortment of nuts, twigs, and pinecones that shape each wholly unique, handmade troll. And 54 years since the founding of 5 Arts Studio, they’re still making upward of 9,000 trolls a year!

And it just so happened I’d arrived right as they were preparing to launch an all new troll: the Travel Troll! “Bill,” they said, “will you help us introduce the Travel Troll? We want to inspire people to get out and explore more of our world.” Well, they were asking the right beaver! I selected my companion, and we prepared to make our dramatic exit to Knoxville, hailed by the ancient song of the trolls… But my Lyft driver canceled, and the app said there was no one else around. What a pickle. Did I mention the folks of 5 Arts Studio were really, really, exceptionally nice? Ted took me all the way back to Gatlinburg, where I was able to catch a ride back to Pigeon Forge to catch the shuttle to Knoxville, to rest up for an early morning flight back to LA.

And wouldn’t you know it? This Travel Troll was raring to kick off an adventure of his own! After we landed, I took him right to the most recognizable spot in LA, the Hollywood Sign, and even after our circuitous journey across the country, he seemed ready to get right back to the airport and explore more places! The Dubai chocolate-covered strawberries from one of the vendors may have been responsible for his surge of adventurousness, but who could say?!

Follow the Travel Troll’s adventures on the 5 Arts Studio Facebook Page, and stay tuned, because I have at least one more mystical mountain adventure coming up before the year is out!

A trolling stone gathers no moss!