Refugees on the move...

The Legend of Arkto

In the years before the long winter, people came to our lands for freedom. Whether escaping problems in the empire or thirsting for a new life along the edges, settlers came to make homes in the far north. It was a bitter and barren place to live, with many dangers. Some people even came here - to this cave. They chased away the cave bears and placed the sacred stones to start our first community. 

Things did not change much for our people when the winter did not warm. We still hunted, and even found that the number of animals increased as they fled the windswept plains to the south. With them, came refugees, bandits, and monsters. We were forced from our home by these awful people. 

For years, our tribe wandered in the dark like a pack of hungry wolves. One day, we found a young man alone in the forest. When our chief tried to chase him away, the young man fought back. He transformed into a bear and slew the chief in a berserker rage. This young man's was named Arkto. We made him our leader. 

In the weeks that followed, Arkto led us back to our cave. The bandits tried to keep us out, but Arkto slew them and spread them into the forest like seeds in the wind. They were the first Skogarmaor or Forest men. He allowed their women and children to remain in the cave with our people if they wanted to. He fathered many children of his own with many different women. Our tribe grew very large and we were happy. 

But the Skogarmaor found each other in the forest and planned revenge. One of them was a magician who put his magic into a red stone hammer. When Arkto came to chase away the magician, he was frozen. He couldn't lift a finger against the evil man and his evil magic. The magician brought the Skogarmaor back to our camp where they made slaves of our tribe. These dark times only ended one early morning when the Skogarmaor were all sleeping after a night of heavy drink. Arkto found the evil hammer and dashed it against the sacred tower. The hammer's head splintered into pieces and the magic was destroyed. Then, Arkto went into a rage. He teeth and claws ripped apart the Skogarmaor and he hunted the survivors for weeks before finally returning to the cave. The years that followed were the best years of our tribe.

Alas, when Arkto's children grew up we found a new problem. Like Arkto, they would sometimes become filled with a bear's bloodlust. In this rage, they could even kill the ones they loved. After this had happened several times, our poeple began to send them into the forest as a new generation of Skogarmaor. We never knew in which child the bear's spirit might manifest, so we sent all boys without honour to live as outcasts. 

Arkto took up the pieces of the hammer and tried to understand its magic. He worked for years, in hopes that he might be able to control his sons. Only as an old man did he discover how to activate the old magic in a limited way or how to amplify the magic with drumming and chanting. He set about training honourable tribesmen as shamans who could control the Skogarmaor so that they might return to the tribe. One of these shamans named Gier who became head shaman when Arkto died. Gier passed to Calder who passed to Rannulfr who passed to my husband Halvar. Halvar was killed in combat by Vali who is the current Arkto of the Bear Tribe.