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Troll Bridge

Troll Bridge

FantasyHigh Fantasy
Pages
10
Published
1992
Language
English

Synopsis

Cohen the Barbarian — eighty-seven years old, the last of the great heroes, with aching joints and a lifetime of impossible quests behind him — encounters a troll on a bridge. The troll is supposed to eat him. Instead, they talk. A melancholy and quietly funny short story about what happens to heroes and monsters when the age of adventure is over, and what it means to be the last of something. Originally published in After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien (1992).

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

MelancholicFunnyReflectiveThought-Provoking
Reluctant HeroSurvivalComing of Age

Genres

Fantasy High Fantasy Adventure Humor Short Stories

About the author

T
Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an English author best known for the Discworld series, a sequence of forty-one comic fantasy novels set on a flat world carried through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. Across four decades, the Discworld grew from a parody of sword-and-sorcery fantasy into one of the most sustained works of social satire in English literature, examining politics, religion, science, gender, race, capitalism, and the nature of stories themselves. Pra...

Characters

Cohen the BarbarianProtagonist
MicaSupporting
BerylSupporting
All characters in Troll Bridge

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Troll Bridge a novel?

    No. Troll Bridge is a short story of approximately 7,000 words, first published in After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, in 1992. It was later included in Pratchett's short fiction collection A Blink of the Screen.

  • Who is Cohen the Barbarian?

    Cohen the Barbarian is a recurring character in the Discworld series — a parody of sword-and-sorcery heroes like Conan, now very old but still indestructible. He appears in The Light Fantastic, Interesting Times, and The Last Hero, among others.

  • Was Troll Bridge adapted?

    Yes — a fan film adaptation was crowdfunded in 2016 and released in 2018. It was produced with the support of Rhianna Pratchett and is notable for being one of the most successful Pratchett fan productions.

  • Do I need to know the Discworld to read this story?

    No. The story works independently. Familiarity with Cohen adds depth, but the emotional content — aging, obsolescence, and the end of an era — is immediately legible without prior context.