I do not know beneath what sky nor on what sea shall be thy fate, I only know it
shall be great..."

-Richard Hovey

Bleak. Cold. Grey.

Daylight tendrils of faded sun pursued by the leftages of the night, struggled to ignite the frozen earth below to little avail.

Bjorgar lay awake, listening to the last coughing of embers in the fire pit. In the smoke filled silence a bitter chill wafted in from outside, causing Sigewine who still slept beside him to stir restlessly.

Heavy with child, her breathing labored, a raw smile embraced the hard contour of his lips and he lay still, feeling the cold clutch of her fingers entwined in his. Soon she would give birth to his third child. A child of the third frozen winter.

It would be a girl, and with her birth, the warnings of a tumultuous omen also borne upon her arrival.

The secretive words of the mystic,Yrsa, interrupted his thoughts, and his brows furrowed at the familiar fear gripping his torso. It was whispered into his ear but in his mind it shouted to the heavens and beyond, echoing through the harsh, barren cliffs that bordered the icy fjords below.

"-In a time of sorrow
and a time of death,
A child will
come to us.
A child bathed in the blood
of our ancestors.
Destiny will raise its head
to us,
And our people
will speak.-"

Sigewine mumbled incoherently in waking and she drew her swollen body against him. The child kicked in her womb and he felt the shudder clear down to his soul.

This child.

This third of his heirs was to be the hinge of his future and his past, and her sight would be abnormal, otherworldly.

He was the vessel by which the gods had chosen to bring her forth and the outcome was clear. If he failed her life, the gods would require his life and his entire clan would be wiped out through her loss.

✹

They came across the sea from the verdant island that lay to the West of the shores of Västergötland. Strange men of bloodlust and rage, with unknown symbolisms tattooed across their lean bodies. They were sent to ravage and destroy that which would not bow to them and their Father, a King of renowned for their birth. Legendary stories spread far and wide about these men who held a deep, dark secret. They and their secret would come to be greatly feared for it was said they could not be tamed nor reasoned with.

When the Shadow Wolves visited, they came with teeth bared, on nights when a full moon was their only light. The moon, it was told, changed them. Turning them from mere men to something unholy. These warriors took no prisoners. Indeed they left a bloody trail of death and mourning wherever they went.

Neither lands nor coins could persuade the ¹Varulfr.

This season, the harvest moon would find them deep in the Upland Kingdom of Kvenland, but the village they had set their hunger upon, they would soon discover, was ruled by one wiser than they had ever encountered.

He would come to them in the dead of night, on the eve of the full, harvest moon bearing a gift. A thing of such great value; that he had been warned against the offering in the form of a dream by a soothsayer, who had beseeched him not to do that which he was planning for it would surely bring a curse upon his head and those of his children and their children for generations to come but he refused her words saying to himself;

..This I must do, to force the respect of these beasts and ward off their evil upon us, that we may live in peace on the lands we have inherited-- my children and their children for many seasons to come, even forever...

And this ⁴kärl, the ²Sig-urðr, would offer his life for the hope of a future protected from the shadowy beasts of the night.

His story is remembered thus. Sig-urðr, on the eve of the harvest moon went out to his livestock and taking the finest ram goat he owned, he tied a rope around its neck and led it out, journeying upland into the mountains where he had heard the ghostly howls of the varulfr wailing and there he approached them.

The Álfa, being of the name Faoil, seeing that there lived a man so brave, as to be equal to himself, shifted himself back into his human form and met Sig-urðr at the edge of the stand of trees where his pack bode, where Sig-urðr boldly offered him the prized goat as a sacrifice that the varulfr would spare his village from death.

Faoil, the man-wolf answered Sig-urðr and said; "Though I fear no man, I see that you are very great therefore I will grant you what you ask," and he called his varulfr's to bear witness to the pact.

As they gathered around Sig-urðr their backs arched and their coarse hair razed on end with glowering eyes of yellow, fierce as they slowly crept closer. His heart beat with fear as the goat bleated, screaming as it saw its death approach. Sig-urðr knew what he was about to do would be his end but he prayed to Great God Tyr for the bravery to see it done.

As the great man wolf threw his head back a direful sound erupted from deep within him piercing the night and damning Sig-urðr to his soul.

With the harrowing, haunting howl, Faoil's face elongated and drooling, vicious and bloodied fangs like curved swords dropped forth. Crying out in a pain as ancient as the sea, as the man wolf thrust his head down to claim the sacrificial offering, Sig-urðr threw the goat and thrust his own arm into the wolf's bite. He screamed in anguish falling to his knees as razor sharp teeth ripped through his skin and he heard the cracking of bone.

The man wolf froze, his teeth clamped rigid and tasted the blood dripping through his black lips. Realization dawned in his yellow eyes as Sig-urðr smiled. The deed was done and the man wolf knew it.

He had been tricked by a lesser species and he watched as the light faded from the farmer's eyes before changing to an evil glow, turning as yellow as Faoil's. His smile grew wicked with glee as his body cracked and he laughed maniacally. His face began the painful morph, elongating and great fangs pushed out of his mouth as his body underwent the organic shift.

Faoil was helpless to stop it. His was the pure blood of the first lineage and anyone he bit, received his pure power. The other wolves dropped their heads menacingly, snapping, snarling and circling back and forth around their Álfa and his new counterpart.

Sig-urðr pointed at Faoil and his lips curled back with a sneer. "Now, you will do what I say-- while your feet touch the soil of my homeland. I now know the secret of the Shadow Wolf for you yourself have planted it here," he beat his chest. "You will leave here or I will bring all your power against you! And you won't be able to stop it!"

✹

For forty long years Kvenland would live in peace.

Faoil's resentment would ferment, and he vowed within his heart that one day he would return to meet the farmer again and the ³Wolves of Ossory would make an end to him and his heirs.

✹

Definitions
1. Varulfr is a Norwegian word that translates to "werewolf" in English. In Norwegian, werewolves are said to transform from human to wolf during a full moon.

2. In Old Norse, The name 'Sigurðr' means "victory guard" - "sig" meaning "victory" and "urðr" meaning "guardian" or "protector"; essentially signifying a "winner" or "one who protects victory.".

3. Werewolves of Ossory
The legendary werewolves of Ossory, a kingdom of early medieval Ireland, are the subject of a number of accounts in medieval Irish, English and Norse works.

The werewolves were said to have been the descendants of a legendary figure named Laignech Fáelad whose line gave rise to the Kings of Ossory.

The legends may have derived from the activities of warriors in ancient Ireland who were the subject of frequent literary comparisons to wolves, and who may have adopted lupine hairstyles or worn wolf-skins while they "went wolfing" and carried out raids, but most believed these men shifted into werewolves.

4. Kärls: Free peasants and skilled craftsmen. The third level of the Viking hierarchy.