The Book in Brief
Simon is a fourteen-year-old kitchen boy raised in the Hayholt, the ancient castle from which King John Presbyter rules Osten Ard. He becomes the apprentice of Doctor Morgenes, a scholar secretly connected to the League of the Scroll. After John dies, his eldest son Elias takes the Dragonbone Chair and increasingly follows the advice of the red priest Pryrates. When Simon discovers Prince Josua imprisoned beneath the castle, he and Morgenes free him. Morgenes is killed, and Simon escapes through the buried ruins of the Sithi city Asu'a.
Outside the Hayholt, Simon witnesses Elias receive the gray sword Sorrow from servants of Ineluki, the undead Storm King. He travels north toward Josua's fortress at Naglimund, meeting the troll Binabik and his wolf Qantaqa. Pursued by human soldiers, Norn hounds and the hunter Ingen Jegger, they rescue a disguised girl named Marya and reach the forest witch Geloë. Marya is eventually revealed as Princess Miriamele, Elias's daughter.
At Naglimund, the scholar Jarnauga explains that Ineluki survived the fall of Asu'a as a bodiless spirit and now seeks revenge against humanity. A prophecy suggests that three legendary swords---Memory, Sorrow and Thorn---may oppose him. Elias already possesses Sorrow, while Memory is lost. Josua sends Simon, Binabik and a small company north to recover Thorn from the frozen mountain Urmsheim.
The expedition is joined by Jiriki, the Sitha whom Simon earlier rescued. They find Thorn beneath the frozen Uduntree, but their enemies awaken the dragon Igjarjuk. Simon wounds the dragon with Thorn and is covered in its burning black blood. At the same time, Norns, giants and the Red Hand destroy Naglimund, forcing Josua and a few survivors to flee. Simon awakens in the Trollfells scarred and white-haired, with Binabik and Sludig condemned to death by Binabik's own people.
Important Characters
Simon: A dreamy kitchen boy who becomes Morgenes's apprentice and is drawn into the struggle against the Storm King.
Doctor Morgenes: The Hayholt's physician, scholar and secret member of the League of the Scroll. He becomes Simon's mentor.
Binabik: A Qanuc troll, apprentice of Ookequk and member of the League's circle. He guides and protects Simon.
Qantaqa: Binabik's intelligent and fiercely loyal wolf companion.
Princess Miriamele: King Elias's daughter, who flees the Hayholt disguised first as Malachias and later as Marya.
Prince Josua: Elias's one-handed brother and political opponent, based at Naglimund.
King Elias: King John's eldest son, whose fear and jealousy make him vulnerable to Pryrates and Ineluki.
Pryrates: A cruel priest and sorcerer who engineers Elias's alliance with the Storm King.
Jarnauga: A northern scholar and member of the League of the Scroll who explains Ineluki's history and the prophecy of the three swords.
Jiriki: A Sitha prince who owes Simon a life-debt and joins the search for Thorn.
> Spoiler warning: The following summary reveals the complete plot, > including the major deaths, betrayals and ending.
Part One: Simon Mooncalf
Chapter 1: The Grasshopper and the King. Simon avoids his work in the Hayholt's kitchens, daydreaming until Rachel the Dragon finds him. His curiosity and inattention have made him a constant source of frustration to the castle servants, although he enjoys errands that take him to Doctor Morgenes.
King John Presbyter, now old and dying, remembers the victories that united Osten Ard beneath him. He entrusts his sword Bright-Nail to the jester Towser, asking that it be given to his heir, Elias.
Chapter 2: A Two-Frog Story. Simon trades two captured frogs to Morgenes and listens as the doctor explains the ancient history of the Hayholt. The castle was once Asu'a, greatest city of the immortal Sithi, before human conquerors drove them away with iron.
Morgenes offers to make Simon his apprentice. Simon expects magic, but the doctor begins with reading, writing and the discipline the boy has always avoided.
Chapter 3: Birds in the Chapel. Rachel remembers Simon's birth. His mother Susanna died delivering him, and Morgenes secretly took a small object that fell from her hand. Simon's father, Eahlferend, was said to be a fisherman who had known the doctor.
In the chapel, Simon overhears Elias arguing with his younger brother Josua. Josua warns him that Pryrates is dangerous, while Elias accuses Josua of responsibility for the death of his wife Hylissa. Simon notices another hidden listener but cannot identify the watcher.
Chapter 4: Cricket Cage. Morgenes continues his account of Osten Ard's past. Rimmersmen invaded with black iron, destroying Sithi strongholds, while the Hernystiri remained the Sithi's final human allies.
He describes the fall of Asu'a and the terrible magic performed by the Sithi king's son, but refuses to explain further. Simon treats the history as an exciting tale without understanding that its unfinished business is returning.
Chapter 5: The Tower Window. As King John weakens, fighting spreads between the followers of Elias and Josua. At the market, Simon encounters the frightening priest Pryrates and a drunken monk named Cadrach, who steals his purse.
Simon climbs Green Angel Tower and passes through the throne room, where he touches the Dragonbone Chair. On his way down, he meets a mysterious boy called Malachias and suspects that this is the spy from the chapel.
Chapter 6: The Cairn on the Cliffs. Josua asks Morgenes for medicine to end his father's suffering, but news arrives that King John has died. During the funeral, John is buried with Bright-Nail rather than leaving it to Elias as he intended.
At Elias's coronation feast, Simon watches Pryrates casually kill a small dog. The act convinces him that the priest's cruelty is not rumour or superstition.
Chapter 7: The Conqueror Star. Months pass during Elias's first year as king. Morgenes continues Simon's education and warns him to avoid Pryrates. A book illustration called the Conqueror Star hints at a horned power looming over terrified people.
Drought begins damaging the kingdom, and the feud between Elias and Josua worsens. Morgenes receives a secret message from Jarnauga warning that the White Foxes are active, while Pryrates reveals that he knows about the doctor's messenger birds.
Chapter 8: Bitter Air and Sweet. Simon practises fighting with Jeremias and dreams of escaping the kitchens for a soldier's life. Outside the Hayholt he sees refugees displaced by drought and glimpses Malachias among them.
A strange shared dream is interrupted by Duke Isgrimnur, who is searching for Towser and worried by Josua's disappearance. Later, Simon, Jeremias and Isaak find the arrow-pierced body of one of Isgrimnur's messengers while gathering herbs.
Chapter 9: Smoke on the Wind. Simon alters a letter signed by Morgenes so that both he and Jeremias can apply to join the guards. Count Breyugar rejects them. Isgrimnur secretly tells Count Eolair that the murdered messenger had been carrying a warning connected to Skali Sharp-Nose.
Simon explores the rooftops while following a cat. From the castle he sees smoke rising from Falshire, where Earl Fengbald has brutally suppressed his own subjects.
Chapter 10: King Hemlock. Inch, Morgenes's resentful former assistant, makes his dislike of Simon clear. Morgenes discovers Simon's forgery and warns that the glory he associates with soldiers conceals cruelty, including Fengbald's massacre at Falshire.
At court, Isgrimnur and Eolair confront Elias about the drought, taxes and growing disorder. Towser mocks the king with a song about Prince Hemlock poisoning Prince Holly, openly suggesting that Elias is destroying the realm he inherited.
Chapter 11: An Unexpected Guest. Towser reveals that Elias could not bear to hold Bright-Nail and ordered it buried with John. Miriamele confronts her father about Pryrates, but Elias refuses to hear her fears.
Exploring a hidden route beneath the castle, Simon narrowly avoids Pryrates and descends farther underground. There he finds Prince Josua chained in a secret cell, starved and prepared for an unknown purpose.
Chapter 12: Six Silver Sparrows. Simon tells Morgenes about Josua. Together they free the prince and carry him to the doctor's rooms, where Morgenes revives him and sends him through a secret tunnel toward Naglimund.
Inch has betrayed them. As soldiers and Pryrates break in, Morgenes sends six messenger birds, gives Simon his unfinished biography of King John and forces him into the tunnel. The doctor then creates an alchemical explosion, sacrificing himself to stop the pursuit.
Chapter 13: Between Worlds. Grieving and terrified, Simon becomes lost in the ancient passages beneath the Hayholt. He crosses abandoned forges and chambers filled with Sithi remains, witnessing fragments of Asu'a's destruction as though the past were occurring around him.
The experience connects his personal loss to the ruin of an entire people. He eventually emerges beyond the walls, uncertain which sights were real and which were visions.
Chapter 14: The Hill Fire. Simon is drawn to a ritual fire on Thisterborg hill. Pryrates and Elias meet white-haired Norns beside a black cart, using Count Breyugar as the sacrifice originally intended to be Josua.
The Norns deliver the gray sword Sorrow. Elias accepts the weapon and confirms his pact with Ineluki, the Storm King. Simon flees with proof that the kingdom's crisis extends far beyond the rivalry between two brothers.
Part Two: Simon Pilgrim
Chapter 15: A Meeting at the Inn. Alone outside the Hayholt, Simon struggles to separate memories of Morgenes's death from the horrors he witnessed at Thisterborg. He knows that he must reach Josua at Naglimund but has no money or useful wilderness skills.
At the Dragon and Fisherman inn he encounters Cadrach, who produces Simon's stolen purse to pay for their food. When Simon confronts him, the monk escapes and leaves the boy to deal with the angry innkeeper.
Chapter 16: The White Arrow. After nearly two weeks of hunger and exposure, Simon finds a Sitha caught in a woodsman's snare. When the trapper tries to kill the prisoner, Simon strikes him with a stone and kills him.
The freed Sitha fires a white arrow into a nearby tree before disappearing. Simon does not understand the gesture until a small stranger arrives and tells him that the arrow signifies a sacred debt.
Chapter 17: Binabik. The stranger introduces himself as Binabik of Yiqanuc and retrieves the white arrow for Simon. He also introduces Qantaqa, the great gray wolf who serves as his friend and mount.
Binabik feeds the exhausted boy and questions him about the dead woodsman. Since both are travelling toward Naglimund, they agree to continue together.
Chapter 18: A Net of Stars. Binabik's companionship begins lifting Simon out of despair. As they travel, the troll teaches him about the forest, the Qanuc people, Qantaqa and the moon goddess Sedda.
Simon remains impatient and suspicious, but he begins learning that survival requires attention rather than heroic gestures. Their cautious friendship becomes the emotional centre of the journey.
Chapter 19: The Blood of Saint Hoderund. Binabik accidentally reveals that he knows Simon came from a castle, confirming that he has hidden information. He nevertheless leads them toward Saint Hoderund's monastery, where they expect shelter.
They find the monastery burned and its inhabitants slaughtered. A surviving monk named Hengfisk cares for the wounded Langrian and the maddened Dochais, who raves that white foxes have marked Simon through his dreams.
Chapter 20: The Shadow of the Wheel. Simon dreams of a vast wheel crushing the land. Pryrates reaches for him through the dream, but a darker presence---the Storm King---drives the priest away and attempts to claim Simon.
After waking, Simon reads in Morgenes's book about Sir Camaris and the black sword Thorn. Langrian describes the ambush at the monastery, and Simon is captured while searching the ruins for supplies.
Chapter 21: Cold Comforts. Simon's captors are Rimmersmen serving Duke Isgrimnur, whose party was attacked at Saint Hoderund's. Isgrimnur questions Simon but does not recognise the full truth of his story and permits him to travel north with them.
Bukken erupt from the earth and attack the camp during an unnatural storm. Binabik and Qantaqa rescue Simon. Binabik finally admits that Morgenes asked Ookequk to protect the boy and that he inherited his master's duty.
Chapter 22: A Wind from the North. Elias sends Guthwulf to Hernystir to demand taxes from King Lluth and complains that Fengbald's hunters have failed to capture Simon. The court claims Miriamele is ill and has been sent away.
In Nabban, Eolair asks Duke Leobardis to support Hernystir and Josua. Leobardis is sympathetic, but his son Benigaris, wife Nessalanta and Elias's representative argue that Nabban should remain loyal to the High King.
Chapter 23: Back into the Heart. Binabik explains that his master Ookequk belonged to the League of the Scroll with Morgenes. Ookequk died while walking the Road of Dreams, shortly before a message arrived asking him to find and protect Simon.
With the Bukken active and the roads unsafe, Binabik decides they must return to the living heart of Aldheorte. He hopes the forest woman Geloë can explain the signs their dead masters were investigating.
Chapter 24: The Hounds of Erkynland. Simon dreams of a frozen tree that resembles Green Angel Tower. While travelling, he and Binabik read Morgenes's account of the famous duel between King John with Bright-Nail and Camaris with Thorn.
Pryrates's special hunters close behind them with a pack of unnatural white hounds. Simon and Binabik flee until the animals trap them against a cliff.
Chapter 25: The Secret Lake. Binabik uses a fallen tree, rope and poison darts to kill several hounds and escape the cliff. The bodies bear the mark of Stormspike, proving that Norn creatures are hunting on Elias's behalf.
The companions rescue Malachias and an injured child named Leleth from another hound. They watch Baron Heahferth and the black-helmeted hunter Ingen Jegger searching nearby, then hurry toward Geloë's hidden lake.
Chapter 26: In the House of Geloë. Geloë confirms that unnatural cold and the movement of Norn servants cannot be explained by a human civil war. She leads Simon and Binabik onto the Road of Dreams, where they see Stormspike, the Norn queen Utuk'u, gathering armies and three swords.
The Storm King notices Simon, but Geloë pulls him away. Malachias reveals that she is actually a girl named Marya and claims to carry a message from Princess Miriamele to Josua. Leleth remains with Geloë while the others continue toward Naglimund.
Chapter 27: The Gossamer Towers. Geloë distracts their pursuers in the form of an owl while Simon, Binabik and Marya escape by boat. They travel along the Aelfwent through the beautiful, abandoned Sithi city of Da'ai Chikiza.
Simon tries to discard Jiriki's white arrow but finds that it returns to him. Ingen Jegger catches up and burns their boat. During the escape, an arrow strikes Binabik.
Chapter 28: Drums of Ice. The narrative widens across Osten Ard. Guthwulf humiliates and threatens King Lluth before his children Maegwin and Gwythinn, pushing Hernystir closer to war.
In the southern Wran, the scholar Tiamak receives a delayed message from Morgenes. Eolair continues seeking help in Nabban, while the northern scholar Jarnauga waits near Stormspike for riders he knows are coming.
Chapter 29: Hunters and Hunted. Simon carries the badly wounded Binabik while Marya follows. Baron Heahferth's armoured men attempt to cross a Sithi bridge, but it collapses and temporarily prevents Jegger from following.
The companions reach the Stile but are cornered by a giant. Simon tries to defend them with a torch until Prince Josua and his hunting party arrive, kill the creature and carry the survivors into Naglimund.
Part Three: Simon Snowlock
Chapter 30: A Thousand Nails. Simon awakens in Naglimund and finds Binabik recovering. With Sangfugol's help, he rescues Qantaqa from a pit and reunites the wolf with her companion.
Sangfugol explains that the castle's countless iron nails were intended to repel the Sithi. He also tells Simon how Hylissa died and Josua lost his hand while escorting her to Elias.
Chapter 31: The Councils of the Prince. Father Strangeyeard asks to study Morgenes's manuscript. Josua thanks Simon and arranges for Haestan to begin training him with weapons, while Binabik delivers a brief letter from Marya.
At Josua's council, nobles debate Elias's taxes, failures and coming attack. The mysterious witness called to prove the king's instability is Marya, who reveals herself as Princess Miriamele.
Chapter 32: Northern Tidings. Feeling deceived by Miriamele, Simon drinks with Towser and listens to stories about King John's rise. Miriamele later explains that she envied Simon's apparent freedom and hid her identity for safety.
Isgrimnur returns with Jarnauga and news that Elias has declared him a traitor while granting Skali control of his lands. Jarnauga tells the council that their true enemy is Ineluki, the Storm King, who died five centuries earlier beneath the castle where Simon was raised.
Chapter 33: From the Ashes of Asu'a. Jarnauga recounts the fall of the Sithi. Ineluki forged Sorrow by combining witchwood with deadly iron, killed his own father with the blade and unleashed a final spell with five servants known as the Red Hand when Asu'a fell.
The spell destroyed their bodies but preserved Ineluki's hatred. Simon remembers the ritual at Thisterborg and collapses. At the Hayholt, Pryrates prepares siege engines and sends Ingen Jegger after Simon and Miriamele.
Chapter 34: Forgotten Swords. Binabik, Jarnauga and Strangeyeard search Morgenes's book for the prophecy recorded in Nisses's Weird of the Swords. It identifies three blades: Sorrow, which Elias possesses; Minneyar or Memory, apparently lost within the Hayholt; and Thorn, once carried by Camaris.
Towser remembers that Camaris gave Thorn to his squire Colmund, who sought the dragon Igjarjuk's treasure in the north. Josua forms an expedition led by Binabik. Simon initially refuses, then agrees after Miriamele gives him a scarf and a farewell kiss.
Chapter 35: The Raven and the Cauldron. Simon's expedition leaves Naglimund while Ingen Jegger watches. Across Osten Ard, the alliances harden: Skali attacks Hernystir, Josua seeks aid from Nabban, and Tiamak studies his copy of Nisses's forbidden book.
Vorzheva secretly sends Miriamele south with Cadrach to win Nabban's support, unaware that Duke Leobardis is already considering Josua's cause. When Josua discovers her departure, he realises that she may have been sent into danger unnecessarily.
Chapter 36: Fresh Wounds and Old Scars. Sludig's inherited distrust of trolls creates tension with Binabik, although he eventually apologises. Simon's group follows clues linking Thorn to the Uduntree, a legendary tree of ice on Urmsheim.
Miriamele and Cadrach cross the aftermath of Skali's victory over Hernystir. A dying man recognises Cadrach as "Padreic," exposing another fragment of the monk's hidden past. Ingen Jegger catches Simon's company, but Sithi warriors intervene.
Chapter 37: Jiriki's Hunt. The Sithi kill Jegger's followers and take the surviving travellers into a hidden shelter. Simon presents the white arrow and recognises their leader as Jiriki, the Sitha he rescued from the trap.
At Naglimund, Deornoth reports that Leobardis is bringing aid but Hernystir has been defeated and Lluth wounded. Ingen Jegger survives beneath the snow and begins following Simon again despite his severe injuries.
Chapter 38: Songs of the Eldest. Isorn reaches Naglimund after escaping Skali and confirms that Norn-allied Rimmersmen aided the attack. Josua sends Isgrimnur to find Miriamele. In Hernystir, Benigaris persuades his father Leobardis not to strike Skali before sailing onward.
Jiriki hears the purpose of Simon's quest and points the way to Urmsheim. Bound by his debt, he decides to accompany the mortals into the northern mountains.
Chapter 39: High King's Hand. Jiriki returns the white arrow, explaining its ancient importance. At Naglimund, Jarnauga reveals that Pryrates once belonged to the League of the Scroll, just as Leobardis's army approaches.
Benigaris betrays and murders his father during a planned attack on Guthwulf. Fengbald's hidden forces spring an ambush, forcing Josua and the surviving allies to retreat inside Naglimund.
Chapter 40: The Green Tent. Elias invites Josua to negotiate outside Naglimund and demands the return of Miriamele and Simon. The brothers nearly reach an understanding, but Elias grips Sorrow and becomes consumed by rage, ending the parley.
In Hernystir, Skali presents Maegwin with Gwythinn's severed head while King Lluth lies dying. On the northern road, Jiriki reminds Simon's companions that human conquest created the suffering from which Ineluki's hatred grew.
Chapter 41: Cold Fire and Grudging Stone. Elias begins the siege of Naglimund, but the defenders repel repeated attacks. Jarnauga and Strangeyeard continue searching Morgenes's writing for anything that might change the war.
Simon's company reaches Urmsheim. Jiriki notices Morgenes's ring and is surprised that Simon possesses a symbol connected to an unnamed secret. Elsewhere, Isgrimnur follows Miriamele's trail and learns she has already sailed for Nabban.
Chapter 42: Beneath the Uduntree. After two weeks of failed siege, Elias makes a new bargain with the Norn queen Utuk'u. On Urmsheim, Jiriki uses a dragon-scale mirror to show Simon a vision of the vanished Sithi world.
The expedition finds the frozen Uduntree and Thorn beneath it. The sword is too heavy for the others but allows Simon to lift it. Ingen Jegger attacks and kills Grimmric, cracking the ice and awakening Igjarjuk. Simon strikes the dragon with Thorn and is drenched in its burning black blood.
Chapter 43: The Harrowing. Elias's human army withdraws from Naglimund, but a supernatural storm brings Norns, giants, Bukken and the five spirits of the Red Hand. The Red Hand destroys the gate, beginning a massacre inside the fortress.
Father Strangeyeard remembers an escape tunnel. Josua leads a small group through it while Jarnauga remains behind to collapse the passage and stop their pursuers. In the forest, Josua swears that he will take the crown from Elias.
Chapter 44: Blood and the Spinning World. Simon dreams that the dragon's blood enters and transforms him. He awakens on Mintahoq in the Trollfells, where Jiriki and Haestan have helped keep him alive. An'nai and Grimmric are dead, while Binabik and Sludig have been imprisoned by the Qanuc and face execution.
Thorn has been recovered, but Simon's face bears a long scar and a broad streak of his hair has turned white. Jiriki names him Seoman Snowlock, marking the end of Simon's childhood and the beginning of a far more dangerous journey.
Ending Explained
Simon succeeds in finding Thorn, but the victory comes at a severe cost. The sword appears to choose him or at least permit him to carry it, suggesting that his importance goes beyond his accidental involvement in Josua's rebellion. Igjarjuk's blood permanently scars him and produces a physical transformation that reflects the change already caused by grief, exile and violence.
Naglimund's destruction proves that conventional armies and castle walls cannot stop the Storm King. Elias's bargain gives Ineluki's servants direct access to the human war, while Jarnauga's death further weakens the League of the Scroll. Josua survives, but he loses his stronghold and openly commits himself to removing Elias from the throne.
The ending is therefore both a success and a defeat. The heroes obtain the first sword available to them, but they are scattered across Osten Ard. Simon is injured, Binabik faces execution, Miriamele is travelling with an untrustworthy companion, and Josua has become a fugitive. The conflict has expanded from a royal rebellion into a war against the living power of the past.
Unresolved Questions
Why did Morgenes possess the ring connected to Simon's mother, and why did he later send it to Binabik?
What is Simon's connection to the Road of Dreams, Asu'a and the legendary swords?
Where is Minneyar, the sword called Memory?
What does the Storm King ultimately intend to accomplish through Elias and Sorrow?
Why did Pryrates leave the League of the Scroll, and how much of its knowledge does he possess?
What is Cadrach's real identity, and why does a dying man call him Padreic?
Can Binabik and Sludig escape the death sentence imposed by the Qanuc?
Where will Josua's survivors go after the fall of Naglimund?
About the Book
The Dragonbone Chair is the first volume of Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. DAW first published the novel in hardcover in October 1988. It contains 44 chapters divided into three sections: "Simon Mooncalf," "Simon Pilgrim" and "Simon Snowlock."