Troll Bridge

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Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 1st short story – 3rd Individual story
Outline
Characters:	Cohen the Barbarian
Locations:	The mountains
Motifs:	Fantasy clichés,

Troll Bridge is a Discworld short story, written by Terry Pratchett in 1991 for a collection entitled After The King: Stories in Honour of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The story stars Cohen the Barbarian, who plans to prove himself by killing a troll in single combat. Instead however, he and the troll find themselves reminiscing about how the Discworld used to be, when trolls all hid under bridges to be killed by heroes, and there weren't farms all over the place. In other words, as encroaching civilisation tames the landscape the environment required for "typical" fantasy adventures disappears, until characters such as Cohen become mythical. This would be further explored in Interesting Times and The Last Hero.

Specific Tolkien references include a spider-haunted forest similar to Mirkwood, which the troll's brother-in-law plans to sell to a lumber yard, and a long ago war which Cohen barely remembers, but which bears some similarity to the War of the Ring.

A movie of Troll Bridge is in production by Snowgum Films.^[1]

[edit] Translations

Language	Title	Round-trip translation	Anthology	Notes
Czech	Trollí most	Troll Bridge	Divadlo krutosti
Croatian	Trolov most	Troll's Bridge	Monolith 005
French	Drame de troll	Troll Drama		Not in an anthology
German	Troll Dich	Sod off^[2]	Das Grosse Lesebuch der Fantasy. (1995)
German	Die Trollbrücke	The Troll Bridge
Polish	Trollowy Most			Not yet published
Russian	Мост троллей	Troll Bridge
Spanish	El Puente del Troll	The Troll Bridge	Homenaje a Tolkien

[edit] Notes

^ Homepage: Snowgum Films.
^ A word for word translation would be Troll you which means "Sod off" and is a pun on troll.

[edit] References

Colin-Smythe

Reading order guide
Preceded by Moving Pictures	3rd Individual Story Published in 1991	Succeeded by Small Gods

v • d • e Terry Pratchett's Discworld (Portal)

Novels:	The Colour of Magic – The Light Fantastic – Equal Rites – Mort – Sourcery – Wyrd Sisters – Pyramids – Guards! Guards! – Eric – Moving Pictures – Reaper Man – Witches Abroad – Small Gods – Lords and Ladies – Men at Arms – Soul Music – Interesting Times – Maskerade – Feet of Clay – Hogfather – Jingo – The Last Continent – Carpe Jugulum – The Fifth Elephant – The Truth – Thief of Time – The Last Hero – The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents – Night Watch – The Wee Free Men – Monstrous Regiment – A Hat Full of Sky – Going Postal – Thud! – Wintersmith – Making Money – I Shall Wear Midnight

Short stories:	"Troll Bridge" – "Theatre of Cruelty – "The Sea and Little Fishes" – "Death and What Comes Next" – "A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices"

Other books:	The Discworld Companion – The Science of Discworld – The Science of Discworld II: The Globe – The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch – The Pratchett Portfolio – The Art of Discworld – The Unseen University Challenge – The Wyrdest Link – The Streets of Ankh-Morpork – The Discworld Mapp – A Tourist Guide to Lancre – Death's Domain – Nanny Ogg's Cookbook – The Discworld Almanak – Where's My Cow? – The Unseen University Cut Out Book – The Discworld Diaries – Once More With Footnotes* – Wit and Wisdom of Discworld

Games:	The Colour of Magic – Discworld MUD – Cripple Mr Onion - Discworld – Discworld II – Discworld Noir – GURPS Discworld – Stealth Chess – Thud

Films and TV series:	Welcome to the Discworld – Soul Music – Wyrd Sisters - Hogfather – The Colour of Magic – Going Postal - Troll Bridge