FernFolio

Raised by a god-fearing, and embittered father, and a mother who has quietly stopped practising her women’s magic because of her husband’s disapproval, Jack has been accustomed to sorrow and disappointment, and to working hard from dawn to dusk tending the sheep and the crops, gathering firewood, hauling water, and carrying food to the village Bard.  Though he works cheerfully, his parents’ love and attention is focused on his five-year old sister, Lucy, with her golden hair, pretty face and insistent manner.  Captivated, Jack’s father has invented stories about the little girl, telling her she is actually a lost princess whose real parents live in a beautiful castle.
When the village Bard chooses Jack as his apprentice, the boy moves into the old man’s cottage, where he begins to learn about music and magic, and discovers the joy and power of the natural world.  At first, he relishes his new life, quickly developing a deep affection for the wise and caring old man who endeavours to teach him, and delighting in his fledgling magic skills.
Then one night Jack is awakened by the Bard who is caught in the grips of a nightmare, one visited upon him by an enemy from across the sea.  Recognising the impending danger, the Bard explains to his apprentice that years before, when he was Bard to King Hrothgar, he helped a hero named Beowulf defeat the monster Grendel.  That monster’s sister Frith, queen to King Ivar the Boneless, who is half-troll and therefore possesses a dangerous amount of magic herself, has sworn to find the Bard and kill him.  A shape-shifter, Frith has ridden the nightmare over the sea from Ivar’s hall in the North in search of the Bard, and now that she has found him, only chaos and destruction can follow.
Too soon, ships are spotted off the coast, and the Bard identifies the raiders as Berserkers, who drink a strange potion and become something other than entirely human.  Alerted by the Bard, the villagers abandon their cottages and hide in the forest, while the old man and Jack remain to summon a thick fog, hoping to confuse the raiders.  Jack’s sister, Lucy, long used to getting her way, refuses to stay in the forest and return to the village, where she is captured by the berserkers.  Torn between his duty toward the Bard, and his affection for his sister, Jack allows himself to be seized by the raiders, hoping that he will somehow be able to protect and free the little girl.
Jack and Lucy are taken north to the lands of Ivar the Boneless and Queen Frith, where Jack become slave and bard to Olaf, the giant of a man who captured him, while his golden-haired little sister is given to the queen.  After hearing the poem sung by Jack in Olaf’s honour, and greedy for her own glory, Queen Frith demands that the boy sing a poem for her.  Terrified, Jack begins to sing, drawing on magic to help him, but things go awry and somehow Jack undoes the spell that makes Frith appear beautiful, and causes all of her long, red-gold hair to fall out.
Furious, Queen Frith vows to kill Jack, until she is reminded that he is the only one who can undo the effects of his magic.  When it becomes apparent that, as an apprentice bard, Jack does not know how to restore the queen’s beauty or her hair, the half-troll issues an ultimatum.  Jack will go on a quest into Jotsunheim, the land of the trolls, to find Mimir’s Well and drink the song-mead which it contains, .  He will then return to Ivar’s hall and undo his magic in time for the harvest festival or Lucy will be sacrificed to the goddess Freya.
So Jack sets off with Olaf and Thorgil, a bad-tempered and hot-blooded shield maiden, to brave the many dangers of Jotsunheim.  Along the way, they will be almost overcome by the sweet and deadly perfume of a meadow full of giant flowers, attacked by a troll-bear, and have to do battle with a nest of dragonlets.  On that journey, Jack will learn a great deal about himself and others, both human and non-human alike, and he will come to understand that, as the Bard once told him, “the world’s a frightening place, full of glory and wonder and danger.”
Set against the backdrop of the 800s, when Viking raiders pillaged Saxon villages along England’s coast, and drawing upon medieval and Norse legends, The Sea of Trolls is a complex and richly-detailed adventure with strong and believable characters.  It is written by three-time Newbery prize winner Nancy Farmer, whose other books include A Girl Named Disaster.
FernFolio Editor