Home, Rules, Message Boards, The Parthenon (AIM), The Parthenon (AOL)
Back to World, White Seas
Tribes of the White Seas
The AEsir tribes of the White Seas can be divided into two broad groups: the Ice People, who live by the frozen sea, and the Fensalir, who live further inland. The Fensalir, who are by far the more numerous and warlike, are what most outsiders think of as AEsir. The Ice People, who are fewer, more reclusive, and physically smaller, are occasionally not recognized as AEsir at all; some scholars have written of them as though they were an entirely distinct race. Many in the southlands are wholly unaware that they exist.
The origins of both groups are clouded by myth. One of the creation stories told by the White Sea tribes runs as follows:
Ages ago, when the gods were still shaping the world, a frost giant princess named Juttanla gave birth to a son in the White Keep. Her younger sister Fredja was jealous, for the new child would be ranked higher than her own sons when he came of age, and when the baby crowned she seized him and threw him into a fire, instead of bathing him in snow as should have been done. This caused the child's skin to turn pink and put the fire's red-gold color in his hair, making him an outcast among the white-skinned, blue-haired giants. Because of his abnormal colors he could no longer be a prince, but Juttanla loved her son and nursed him despite his deformity. She named her son Godhar, and he was the first of the AEsir.
The skalds of the Fensalir have many songs of Godhar's heroic deeds, for he was constantly striving to win the acceptance and respect of his kin. No matter how clever or brave he was, however, he remained smaller and pinker and softer than they, and he could not take the touch of fire out of his hair. No giant-princess would have him, so he prayed to the gods for a wife, and they breathed life into a spearmaiden's statue of ice and stone. This was Ingssal, the first AEsir woman. It is because of her that the AEsir sometimes say women have hearts of stone and ice, for the gods' touch never fully thawed Ingssal's heart, and she was both more courageous and crueler than her husband.
Godhar and Ingssal had many children. Some had yellow hair and some had red, but all were born with the colors of fire, and Godhar despaired for them as much as he loved them, for he knew that his kin would never welcome his children.
One day he took all of his children to the shores of the frozen sea, intending to bathe them in its icy waters until they chilled to the proper shades of blue and white. He did not tell his wife what he planned, for ice-hearted Ingssal cared nothing for the giants' condemnations. Godhar bathed half his sons and daughters in the frigid sea, and they shivered and grew smaller as they curled in on themselves for warmth, but their skin stayed pink and their hair stayed bright as flame.
Before Godhar could bathe the rest, Ingssal came upon him, and in her fury she struck a blow which broke his skull. The children in the water huddled beneath the ice in terror; those on land fled across the hills. Ingssal, distraught at what she had done, threw herself into the frozen sea and drowned. In some stories, drowned Ingssal still sings to her children, imploring them to come back to her, and will drag the ships of unwary sailors into the water to join her in death.
The children who hid in the White Sea stayed by its shores and became the Ice People, smaller and paler than their kin. Those who scattered across the land became the clans of the Fensalir.
There are no comments on this page. [Add comment]