''The Sea of Trolls'' is a

fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fa ...

for children, written by American author

Nancy Farmer Nancy Farmer is an American author of children's and young adult books and science fiction. She has written three Newbery Honor Books and won the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature for ''The House of the Scorpion'', publish ...

and published by Atheneum in 2004. It inaugurated the unofficially titled Sea of Trolls series, which Farmer continued in 2007 and 2009.. Retrieved 2012-04-15.

Plot summary

''The Sea of Trolls'' is set in

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom o ...

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

, and the mythical realm of Jotunheim. Jack Crookleg, the main character of the book, is being trained by a famous skald (bard) named Dragon Tongue, when he and his younger sister, Lucy, are captured by Viking raiders. The pair are to be sold as slaves to "

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...

" as soon as they reach land. On board the Viking ship Jack meets and ultimately befriends Thorgil, a young would-be berserker, and Olaf, the leader of the raiders, along with Boldheart, the crow. The two captives are spared because Jack is a bard and because Lucy is to be given to the queen, a half-troll named Frith. When they arrive at the court nothing goes as planned. Jack is sentenced to menial labor and made to clean the barn. There Jack encounters the deadly troll-pig, Golden Bristles, who is to be sacrificed to the goddess, Freya, by being placed in a wooden cart and left to sink in a bog. After singing Olaf One-Brow's praise-song for the Northman's homecoming, Jack inadvertently makes Queen Frith lose her hair. Queen Frith threatens to sacrifice Lucy (instead of the troll-pig) to the goddess Freya, because Jack set Golden Bristles free. However, Frith allows Jack a chance to save Lucy and their freedom if he can make her hair grow back, which is much more difficult than she makes it sound. Jack goes with Olaf and Thorgil to Jotunheim, land of the Trolls, to seek the mythic Mimir's Well, a well with magical water (song mead) which gives the drinker knowledge, at the roots of the world tree

Yggdrasil Yggdrasil (from Old Norse ), in Norse cosmology, is an immense and central sacred tree. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds. Yggdrasil is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'' compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional s ...

. Olaf One-Brow is killed by a "trollbear," a gigantic bear native to Jotunheim. Jack and Thorgil are captured by a dragon, but Bold Heart tricks the dragon and enables Jack and Thorgil to escape. Thorgil slays the baby male dragon but gets some blood on her tongue, allowing her to speak with birds. On the way Jack also visits the queen of the Jotuns (

Trolls A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

), as he needs her consent to continue seeking Mimir's Well. He finds the tree

and Mimir's Well. Both he and Thorgil drink from the well, and Jack saves some for Rune, a skald (bard) who teaches Jack poetry. With the knowledge Jack gains from drinking from Mimir's Well, he returns to the land of the Northmen to restore Frith's hair. Upon return, Jack and Lucy are summoned to the court. Jack explains to Queen Frith that she needs to cut off 1/3 of the hair from her troll cats but no more to restore her hair. She doesn't listen and cuts all of the cats' hair off. As a result, Frith's hair grows everywhere not just back on her head. She runs off crazed. Later Olaf's oldest son commands the ship and takes Jack and Lucy back to their village. Jack finds his mother and learns that Dragon Tongue has been crazed ever since Jack and Lucy's kidnapping. He goes to see Dragon Tongue with Bold Heart and Dragon Tongue's heart stops beating. Jack gives Dragon Tongue the remaining mead from Mimir's Well and he comes back to life. Dragon Tongue tells him that he became a crow during the voyage.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sea of Trolls, The 2004 American novels 2004 fantasy novels Children's fantasy novels Novels by Nancy Farmer Novels set in the Viking Age The Sea of Trolls Trilogy Novels set in the 8th century American young adult novels Atheneum Books books

Plot summary

See also

References

External links