The Sea of Trolls

Nancy Farmer’s The Sea of Trolls is the 2004 introduction to a wildly popular children’s fantasy trilogy. The novel’s setting changes greatly over the five-hundred-page journey of twelve-year-old Jack Crookleg, who the reader is first introduced to in his quaint Scandinavian village.

Jack leads a very modest and ordinary life with his mother, father, and younger sister, Lucy. His father, Giles Crookleg, quite literally has a bad leg. Giles doesn’t hide the fact that he favors Lucy over Jack. Lucy is innocent and a picture-perfect daughter, often lost in her own little fantasy world with dreams of becoming a princess. Jack has his fair share of magic in his life: He’s apprenticed to a famous bard named Dragon Tongue.

Dragon Tongue teaches Jack about everything from magic, to friendship, to the history of the Northmen and the mysterious Queen Frith. One day during their training, the bard is startled when Jack finds a floating box at the edge of the ocean. The bard realizes this means the vikings—likely the very same ones that he fled from before landing in Jack’s village—are coming by sea. The two warn the village and stress that everyone must prepare for battle. Jack learns to magically call upon fog and mist for a line of defense against the vikings, but is exhausted.



The viking raiders, also known as Berserkers, arrive. They attack the bard and Jack while surrounded by a flock of crows. Jack wakes up in a daze and realizes that the bard is missing and both he and Lucy have been kidnapped.

On the viking ship, Jack meets the leader of the Berserkers, a man named Olaf One-Brow. Olaf tells Jack that he and Lucy will be brought to land and sold as “Picts,” or slaves. He also meets Rune, a former bard who lost his voice and enjoys the company of a crow he names Bold Heart. Jack also befriends Thorgil, an eleven-year-old Berserker in training.

The ship begins to take on water fast, and Jack is forced to use his training to magically save the ship from sinking. Because of Jack’s abilities, Olaf decides that he won’t sell Jack and Lucy. Instead, he will use Jack for himself and offer Lucy to Queen Frith. Olaf even makes Jack, his new slave, clean the cage of a troll bear named Golden Bristles. Jack’s easygoing nature saves him, however, and he completes the task without a scratch.



Olaf demands that Jack serenade Queen Frith. Jack’s singing has terrible consequences, though, and the queen loses all of her hair. She angrily threatens to sacrifice Lucy unless Jack reverses what he’s done. The only way to reverse this magic is to drink from Mimir’s Well in the mystical land of Jotunheim in order to become wiser. With no other option to save his sister, Jack begins a journey to the well with Olaf, Thorgil, and Bold Heart.

Jotunheim is full of horrifying and humongous creatures. There’s even a dragon that flies overhead occasionally, threatening all those below. The group first encounters a troll bear. Thorgil breaks her ankle in the fight, and Olaf dies killing the troll. Right before the fight, however, Olaf gives Jack something very special: a chess pawn that grants him entry to the Jotun Queen’s palace, the next stop on his journey to the well. As Olaf dies, he reveals that Thorgil is his daughter.

Jack and Thorgil continue on without Olaf until the dragon flying overhead finally catches them. The dragon places them in front of several younger dragons to eat, but Bold Heart appears. He tricks the dragons into turning on one another, saving Jack and Thorgil’s lives. Thorgil kills the last dragon standing but gets some of its blood in her mouth. The blood of the dragon gives her a new ability: she can understand birds.



Thorgil uses this new power to lead the duo to a safe, isolated place after following the directions of three wise owls. After recuperating for a short time, the duo is surprised to find Golden Bristles at their campsite. They hop on the troll’s back and head toward the troll queen’s palace.

While crossing the bridge to the castle, a giant eagle swoops down and ambushes the group. Thorgil fights back and kills the eagle, while Jack uses his walking stick and his bard powers to burn the bridge after them. The two safely cross, and when Jack presents the chess piece Olaf gave him, they are welcomed into the palace with open arms.

After the troll queen grants permission for Jack to continue his quest to the well, the ice walls of the palace begin to crack. Mimir’s Well is revealed within the roots of the world tree, Yggdrasil. To drink from the well, one must sacrifice something. Jack offers up his rune of protection to Thorgil, who then gives up her aspirations of becoming a Berserker.



The two drink from the well, and Jack even bottles some to bring back with him. On the way back, Jack and Thorgil are once again captured—this time by an enormous spider. Jack, desperate to get back to his sister, sings the spider to sleep, allowing Bold Heart to rescue the duo one last time.

Back at Queen Frith’s palace, Jack tells her what he’s learned. She must cut one-third of her troll cats’ fur in order to regain her own hair. Queen Frith, greedy as always, orders that all of the cats’ fur be cut. All the extra hair grows back on her body, leaving the queen even more hideous than before. She runs off as her cats angrily chase her.

Lucy is freed, and the two Crookleg siblings finally return home. Once they’re back, it is revealed that the bard hasn’t been acting like himself since the children were taken. Jack gives the bard some of the extra water from the well. The bard is then set free from Bold Heart’s crow body. As it turns out, he was with Jack all along.