Nancy Farmer - The Islands of the Blessed

Jack: Age fourteen; an apprentice bard

Hazel: Jacks sister; age eight; stolen by hobgoblins

Lucy: Jacks foster sister; lost to Elfland

Mother: Alditha; Jacks mother; a wise woman

Father: Giles Crookleg; Jacks father

The Bard: A druid from Ireland; also known as Dragon Tongue

Ethne: Daughter of the Elf Queen and the Bard

Pega: An ex-slave girl; age fifteen

Mrs. Tanner: The tanners widow; mother of Ymma and Ythla

Ymma and Ythla: The Tanner girls; ages ten and eight

Brother Aiden: A monk from the Holy Isle

Gog and Magog: Slaves of the village blacksmith

King Brutus: Ruler of Bebbas Town

Father Severus: Abbot of St. Filians Monastery

Sister Wulfhilda: A nun

Allyson: Thorgils mother; deceased

Thorgil: Olaf One-Brows adopted daughter; age fourteen

Olaf One-Brow: A famous warrior and Thorgils foster father; deceased

Skakki: Olafs son; age eighteen; a sea captain

Rune, Sven the Vengeful, Eric the Rash, Eric Pretty-Face: Members of Skakkis crew

Egil Long-Spear: Sea captain and trader

Bjorn Skull-Splitter: Olaf One-Brows best friend

Einar Adder-Tooth: A pirate

Big Half and Little Half: Brothers working for Adder-Tooth

The Bugaboo: King of the hobgoblins

The Nemesis: The Bugaboos second-in-command

Mr. Blewit: Hobgoblin foster father of Hazel

The draugr: Avenging spirit

The hogboon: Soulless being that feeds on life

The Shoney: Ruler of the fin folk

Shair Shair: The Shoneys wife

Shellia: Their daughter; also known as the drauger

Whush: A fin man

Man in the Moon: An old god; exiled to the moon

Yarthkins: Also known as landvttir; spirits of the land

Pangur Ban: Large white cat from Ireland

Odin: Northman war god; lord of Valhalla and the Wild Hunt

The Mountain Queen: Glamdis; ruler of Jotunheim

Fonn and Forath: The Mountain Queens daughters

Schlaup Half-Troll: The Mountain Queens son

Jacks fingers ached and blisters had formed on the palms of his hands. Once he could have done this work without harm. Once his skin had been covered with comfortable calluses, protecting him from the slippery handle of the sickle, but no longer. For three years hed been freed of farmwork. Hed spent his time memorizing poetry and plucking away at a harpnot that hed ever equaled the Bard. Or ever would.

Sweat ran down his forehead. Jack wiped his face and only succeeded in getting dirt into his eyes. Curse this job! he cried, hurling the sickle to the earth.

At least you have two hands, said Thorgil, sweating and laboring nearby. She had to hold the bracken ferns in the crook of her arm and slice through them with her knife. Her right hand was frozen, useless, yet she didnt give up. It both impressed and annoyed Jack.

Why cant someone else do this? he complained, sitting down in the springy bracken.

Even Thor does inglorious chores when hes on a quest, said Thorgil, stolidly dumping an armload of bracken into a growing pile. She turned to gather more.

This is no quest! This is thrall work.

Youd know, retorted the shield maiden.

Jacks face turned even hotter as he remembered how hed been a slave in the Northland. But he swallowed the obvious response that Thorgil herself had been a thrall as a child. She was prey to dark moods that rippled out to blight everyone around her. That was the word for her, Jack thought grimly. She was a blight, a kind of disease that turned everything yellow.

Nothing had worked out since shed arrived in the village. It took the utmost threats from the Bard to keep her from revealing that she was a Northman, one of the murdering pirates whod descended on the Holy Isle. Even as it was, the villagers were suspicious of her. She refused to wear womens clothes. She took offense readily. She was crude. She was sullen. In short, she was a perfect example of a Northman.

And yet, Jack had to remind himself, she had their virtues tooif you could call anything about Northmen virtuous. Thorgil was brave, loyal, and utterly trustworthy. If only she were more flexible!

If youd shift your backside, I could harvest that bracken. Or were you planning on using it as a bed? Thorgil said.

Oh, shut up! Jack snatched up his sickle and winced as a blister broke on his hand.

They worked silently for a long time. The sun sent shafts of heat into the airless woodland. The skywhat they could see of itwas a cloudless blue. It pressed down on them like an inverted lakehot, humid, and completely still. Jack found it hard to believe that a storm was on its way, but thats what the Bard had said. No one questioned the Bard. He listened to birds and observed the motions of the sea from his lonely perch near the old Roman house where he lived.

A rumbling sound made both Jack and Thorgil look up. The blacksmiths two slaves had arrived with an oxcart. A moment later the large, silent men crashed through the underbrush to gather up the bracken. They tramped to and fro, never speaking, never making eye contact. They had been sold by their father in Bebbas Town because they were of limited intelligence, and Jack wondered what kind of thoughts they had. They never seemed to communicate with each other or anyone else.

Even animals thought. As the Bard had instructed Jack, animals had much lore to impart to those who paid attention to them. What kind of lore did Gog and Magog, as the slaves were called, have to impart? Nothing good, Jack decided, looking at their brooding, averted faces.

When the oxcart had been loaded, Jack and Thorgil set off for home. Most of the time they lived at the Bards house, but now, during the crisis of the impending storm, they had returned to the farm Jacks parents owned. It had grown a great deal in the last three years.