Troll Bridge

For week six, I decided to read Terry Pratchett's short story Troll Bridge.  The Hero's journey is definitely a prevalent device in this novel as it follows Cohen the Barbarian, now an old man and his horse. The journey starts off with Cohen planning to take on a Troll in hand to hand combat. He says that his father told him that if you've killed a troll you can take on anything. This was Cohen's call to adventure so that he could prove himself. Cohen plans to combat this troll in single hand combat with no aid from his horse or anything else. This is the refusal of supernatural aid. Crossing the first threshold would be when Cohen comes across the Troll called Mica at his bridge and gets ready to fight him but Mica brings his family to come and marvel at Cohen. Cohen then starts to feel conflicted about killing the troll. The belly of the whale proves much more difficult to identify in this story. If I had to guess, I'd say the belly of the whale is Cohen's realization that he had never intended to kill the troll which we realize when he admits this information to the troll. He says that he actually planned to just throw him over a the bridge and take his treasure.  In the end, Cohen gave the troll his last 12 gold pieces and realizes that he misses how things used to be.

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