The Sea of Trolls

Golden Bristles is a friend of the Mountain Queen, and he carries the adventurers to her “enormous castle with turrets and airy walkways and courtyards” (328). To reach the palace, they must cross a slippery bridge made of ice. A troll-eagle attacks Jack during the crossing. Thorgil manages to strike the bird, but the momentum of her attack makes her and Jack fall and dangle over the side of the bridge. Jack uses magic to melt the surface of the bridge, and Golden Bristles slides down it, dragging the children to safety. Thorgil enthuses, “What—a—wonderful—adventure! [….] I’m—so—happy!” (331). Suddenly, a troll looms over the group. Jack faints at the fearsome appearance and smell of the creature.

The Mountain Queen and two of her daughters, Fonn and Forath, tend to Jack’s injuries. When he awakens, Fonn explains that he isn’t in any danger and that they found the golden chess piece Frith gave him. Thorgil bursts happily into the room and declares that she’s freed Jack, as Olaf intended to do before he passed. Jack grows alarmed when Fonn tells him that he was unconscious for a week. The troll counsels, “Worry makes it difficult to recover. Everything is decided by the Norns, and nothing any of us can do will change it” (339). As the weeks pass, Jack gradually regains his strength. He becomes increasingly fearful for Lucy as the harvest festival approaches.

Fonn reveals that her mother fell in love with Olaf, and he visited the castle every other year, even though he refused to join the Queen’s harem. She also tells him how the trolls’ ancestral home of Utgard, the Land Beyond the Sea, was lost in a volcanic eruption, and he is moved by the displaced creatures’ plight. Every year, the trolls are weakened as the world slowly becomes warmer, but they remain determined to take back Middle Earth from humans someday.

The Mountain Queen summons Jack to her throne room, pledges to do what she can to help him on his quest, and tells him to call her “Mother” due to his young age. She has mended Bold Heart’s wing and calls the bird “a cheeky rascal” (345). Queen Glamdis throws a celebration in Olaf’s honor, complete with feasting, dancing, and song. During the celebration, Jack asks Glamdis if she can summon the Norns. She explains that she cannot alter destiny and tells him, “To ignore joy while it lasts, in favor of lamenting one’s fate, is a great crime” (348). The boy recognizes these words as a lesson his mentor taught him, and Glamdis says that she taught the Bard.

The next day, Fonn shows Jack a greenhouse full of plants from Middle Earth, which she built with help from the Bard and Olaf. Fonn isn’t close to her half-sister, Frith, and she laughs when Jack recounts how he made her hair fall out. Thorgil grows attached to the boisterous male trolls, and this friendship makes it much easier for Jack to get along with her.

Queen Glamdis invites the Norns to play chess at her castle, and Jack and Thorgil are permitted to be present. Thorgil informs Jack that the Norns are so powerful that they will decide when everything, including the gods, is destroyed at Ragnarok. Fonn instructs the children not to speak or flee, despite the fear that people feel in the Norns’ presence. 

Jack draws strength from Thorgil and the rune of protection as the Norns’ approach fills him with an overpowering terror that “all that was bright and brave and beautiful” is doomed (355). After the three Norns finish their chess game, they beckon to Jack and Thorgil. Jack overcomes his fear by reminding himself that there are many worldviews: “I serve the life force […] I do not believe in Ragnarok” (357).

The Norns magically transport the children back to the valley where they saw the capercaillie. Jack and Thorgil find Yggdrassi in a grove full of bees. Ratatosk the squirrel climbs the tree while a serpent bites its roots, and an eagle gently fans its topmost leaves. Jack and Thorgil see Valhalla, the Islands of the Blessed, the Christian Heaven, and many other afterlives nestled among the World Tree’s upper branches.

Jack climbs the hill to Mimir’s Well, which sits at the base of the World Tree. When he touches the bucket, an invisible force sends him rolling back down the hill. He becomes angry when Thorgil insists that he needs to make a sacrifice to the well, and he declares that the Northmen’s religion is stupid and vicious. Jack reminds Thorgil that she was a thrall for most of her life, and she enters a berserk rage. The shield maiden pledges to sacrifice her life in exchange for the water, but the same invisible force pushes her away, too. Jack holds Thorgil as she sobs and asks why her gods have rejected her.

Thorgil doesn’t want to live without Olaf, and she prepares to die by suicide. Jack stops her by giving her the rune of protection, “his only link with the Bard” (367). The pendant, which is stamped with the image of Yggdrassil, causes Thorgil to remember and regret the times she was unkind to her mother, Olaf, and other people who showed her love. The rune of protection takes away her desire to kill and to die, so she can no longer be a berserker. Jack consoles her by saying that she can still be a shield maiden.

Now that they have each lost something precious, the children are able to drink the water from Mimir’s Well. The water fills Thorgil with hope and vivacity, and she rejoices in the natural beauty around her. Jack fills a bottle with water for Rune. A Norn appears and orders him not to, but she relents when Jack explains that the old bard “sacrificed his voice in the service of his people” (372). The Norns transport the children back to the Mountain Queen’s palace.