Please, what is the meaning of "rude" in Emerson's poem about "...the rude bridge"?
JM, Connecticut

The Old North Bridge was an early colonial structure. By the time of the battle of Concord in 1775, it had already been rebuilt, as Mike Ryan recounts here. Mr. Ryan maintains -- as many others do -- that "rude" refers to the crudeness or roughness with which the bridge was constructed. However, there is an alternate theory which has been only been hinted at in the past...one which we publish here perhaps for the first time.

It is well known that bridges are a favorite environment for trolls. Usually large and hairy, they are given to all sorts of mischief and love best to impede the flow of human traffic over their given bridge.

When the structure in question was first built, of course a young troll took up residence. But instead of being large and hairy, he was large and...well...follicularly-challenged.

Yes, this was a rather balding troll, and if you think large hairy trolls are ugly, well think of what a large and nearly hairless one would look like and you'll get the picture. You can only imagine how the other trolls picked on and made fun of him growing up.

Being yet quite young when he took up residence under what we now call the Old North Bridge, he was still smarting from the traumas of his youth. He was a depressed, demoralized troll. And instead of getting up some really naughty trouble to plague the human inhabitants, the most he could do was to be rude.

He'd make passing remarks like "your powdered wig looks like a dead goose sitting on top of your head" and "you call that a horse? I've eaten better than that during famine." Things like that. He was sarcastic, sardonic, insulting, and derogatory. Soon, the bridge came to be called the Rude Bridge, and passers-by would often pause and mock this defeated troll for his feeble attitude. It seems that rudeness went both ways on this bridge.

Eventually, the troll started to wander away from the bridge during the night and his often bawdy and always off-key singing would be heard as much as a mile away depending upon atmospheric conditions. Often, locals would find him in a deep sleep by some nearby road come daybreak, obviously intoxicated on cherry licorice which, for trolls, is an addictive substance. Later, he wandered further and further away, being seen once or twice on a drunken toot as far away as Haverhill.

No one really knows what finally happened to him. If you visit the once-rude bridge, you will no longer find an insulting, hairless troll -- just quiet water lapping against the shore. There were some reports of him joining a 12-step program in the Midwest and getting a crack at a new bridge, but these are unsubstantiated and must be considered a part of oral history only.

Editor

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