All hail Bjorn the Great One, founder of the land
Once king-chosen by the one Blessed Three
He fought the draugr off by the pow'r of his hand
And destroyed Eastern Witch by the Gods' decree!
Four thousand years after the Mighty Udvall struck the Dead Stone with his great steel-sword, there lived a righteous man named Bjorn of Nith, of whom all have heard tell and tale. All in Vallness know his Blessed name. Bjorn the Great One of Nith was born to the Isles of Nith to the south and the west, where sea creatures lurk beneath the waves, waiting to taste the blood of children. Monsters of demon-visages ravage the Nithean shores with teeth like knives and eyes like those of death itself. Those infamous sea-monsters of Nith possess scales far more valuable than gold, but their hearts are more murderous than those of the most man-eating Eastern Witches.
It has long been said that the sea monsters of Nith were sent by fickle Luzeus to punish the Isles for the laziness and cowardice of their chiefs. For when the Nitheans arrived on the Isles of Night, the lands were bountiful and sweet, and the people ate their fill. So it was for three hundred long years of prosperity. But prosperity turned to demon-greed. The chiefs of every Nithean village held great feasts of abundance and wealth in their own honor, growing fatter and lazier with every year. While the poorest of the Isles began to complain of hunger and sickness as crops waned and disease spread, the chiefs of the Isles covered their ears and ate the pig-legs without a care. When the ill and weak shouted that there was yet no more inhabitable space on the Isles and called for expansion to the empty lands to the North, the strong and rich laughed and threw them into the maw of the sea with demon-grins. Luzeus, being the harbinger of rage, was disgusted as he watched from his Black Throne. Without a second thought, he called upon the mouth of Hell to open and summoned forth a thousand sea monsters with rainbow scales to terrorize the Isles of Nith. But this was not enough for hungry Luzeus. He pointed at the skies, too, and commanded them to rain ice and hail upon the Isles forevermore. The people of the Isles, old and young, rich and poor, weak and strong, quailed beneath the horrors of Luzeus' hand, and the Sea of Nith was red with blood, as it remains to this day: frozen over and infested with creatures of Hell. All on the Isles of Nith were punished for the cruelty of a few greed-demons. At last, the Chiefs of the Isles were ousted, and a mission was agreed upon by the people: the people of Nith must explore the abandoned lands to the North and migrate there to escape Luzeus' wrath, as well as the disease and famine of the past.
Many parties were sent by ship to the Northeast with cheers and barrels of mead. All returned with faces gaunt with death-terror, half of their men and women dead and gone. Those who ventured forth were said to never be the same again—for the lands to the Northeast had not been found fertile and abandoned, but crawling with the undead. Legions of draugr from centuries past swarmed the land like carrion-flies, moaning for the blood of the living and rotting with a corpse-stench that could kill a man. Any who attempted to fight their way onto the land were dragged into the depths of the draugr hordes, only to rise up again as yet another undead drooling for flesh. And so, the Isles of Nith continued to be ravaged with Luzeus' merciless god-rage. Hope waned with the moons, and wailing could be heard daily. Countless wept as widows and widowers, and orphan-children wandered into the sea to be swallowed whole.
And so it was for one hundred years.
In the hundredth year of Luzeus' cursed rage, there lived a poor woman named Sigrid of the village of Fiskr. On her wedding night, she was visited in her dreams by the joyous goddess Ymjir. In the dream of Sigrid, Ymjir touched her breast with a white hand and sang to her:
With thick fists, your Son god-strong
Will crush the draugr far beneath
For he is my chosen, Bjorn the One
To you a hero I bequeath!
In the morning, Sigrid cried the good news in the roads of Fiskr, and word spread throughout the Isles. At last, word of a Messiah, a glimmer of hope, had arrived in the mourning Isles of Nith. Nine months passed like sand through a sieve. It was over three days and three nights that Bjorn the Great One was birthed in much sweat-blood and toil-wails. From that day forth, Bjorn was raised and trained as the greatest warrior of Nitheans. None have achieved his heights of strength since, and none will surpass him henceforth. Bjorn the Great One was sent to the most seasoned teachers of Nith, so that he might grow strong and hard; He was smithed the most deadly weapons, so that he might smite every draugr to the ground; He was wrapped in fur capes and ruby necklaces and revered as the Chosen of Ymjir. A voyage was prepared for Bjorn's twentieth birthday, as Ymjir had, too, come to him in a dream at the age of ten, and sung to him without touching him:
Ten more years you must wait, my child
For to rush will bring you grisly death
Take time to grow, tough and wild
So that you may pierce each draugr's breast!
And so it was not until Bjorn was a strong and training-hardened man of twenty that his hero-voyage set forth. The people of the Isles prepared a banquet feast fit for the Day of Udvall to see him off on his journey: there was wine from the Northwest; barrels upon barrels of honeyed mead; and spiced boar enough for even the poorest to feast upon. Enormous crowds stood on the shores of the Isles of Nith as the ship of Bjorn the Great sailed out to sea. Even Luzeus' demon-creatures of the ocean dared not touch the ship of the Chosen of Ymjir, goddess of wealth. And so, the sailing of Bjorn was smooth.
Three days and three nights passed to sail from the easternmost beach of the Isles to the Southwesternmost shore of the land to the north. On the third night, a dream came to Bjorn as he slept. There was a great white light. Immediately, he knew it was of the Gods. As the light cleared, Bjorn the Great One saw that in front of him stood not one, not two, but all three of The Blessed Three: the sour Luzeus on the left, the righteous Udvall in the center, and the glowing Ymjir on the right. They spoke in verse, each bestowing him with a warning. Ymjir the Mother spoke first, with a voice like a melody:
O my Child of Choice, you must know
A legion of draugr cannot not rise on its own
We Blessed Three saw long years ago
'Twas an Eastern witch made their legions grow!
Then spoke Luzeus, with a voice cold like ice:
Still That Witch lurks among these barren lands.
Though undead hunger for blood day and night
The draugr answer her dark commands
It is not the undead, but she, whom you must fight.
Last spoke Udvall, with a voice booming like thunder:
O! You must not trust what may then seem
To be a woman of great charm and beauty-love
Destroy her, boy; consume her demon-screams
Or She will strike your people with Death from above!
Each of the Blessed Three placed a hand on the head of Bjorn the Great One in blessing, and he was thus granted with this knowledge none had known before him.
When the great ship docked at the shores to the North, the draugr swarmed forth like ants—clawing at the hull-wood, climbing and falling like dying flies and twitching upon the beach-ground. But where all others had failed, the Great Bjorn the One succeeded. With his blessed sea axe, Bjorn cleaved them head to toe one by one, their long-rotten innards littering the ground like a blood-lake. His valiant crew followed close behind, striking down any draugr who were stupefied enough to run around the death-arc of the Blessed sea-axe. And so, it was in this way that the northern beaches, now called the Shores of Bjorn, were wiped clear of the draugr plague.
For three days and three nights, Bjorn the Great One went on in this way: by day, sleeping in the trees with his men, by night slaughtering the draugr as they crawled out of their hiding-holes. It was clear that Bjorn was Blessed by the Three; for where all others had been consumed by the hordes in mere moments, his axe rang true and bright with the light of Udvall's heaven-righteousness, striking down draugr in the dozens until their bodies littered the island floor. Soon enough, not one step could be taken without trampling the undead underfoot. It was on the third night of his great success that a visitor-stranger came to his tent in the trees.
For you see, the Eastern Witch of the Northern Lands had become distressed at Bjorn the One's great hero-success. Her undead warriors, though she cared not for their souls and defiled bodies, had fallen in such great numbers as she had never seen in her hundreds of years of solitary tyrant-rule. Though she was old and blackened with evil in her heart, her outward appearance was that of a ripe young creature, pale and enticing to all who looked upon her. She was not of the Nithean race, for she had come from the Far East to rule the lands, descended from that strange Geuman race of perverted witches and dangerous magicks that corrupt the mind. It was she who arrived in hooded cloak to the tent of Bjorn the One on the third night of his travels through the land.
Bjorn the Great One awoke from his blessed dreams to see the Eastern Witch hanging over him from the treetop like a demon, her eyes dark and cold as the depths of deepest Hell. Her hair was long and straight as a sword, her face pale as a ghost-creature's, and her lips red as cherry-juice. Bjorn the One drew his sword and spoke without alerting his men, wanting to see how this Eastern Witch would react. He spoke:
Oh Eastern Witch, I know your goal;
It is by my hand that you shall die.
Do you desire last words from lips so cold?
For your fate foretold by my Gods is no lie.
Upon the branches the Eastern Witch bristled, her teeth sharp and her eyes like murder-knives. But her appearance was so lovely, and through her dangerous magicks of the mind, she appeared to Bjorn the One as a soft young woman of weak stature and kind features, despite the strange shape of her demon-eyes. She spoke in a voice sweet like spring-honey:
A handsome young warrior I see before me—
And three hundred years I have lived so alone.
Would you spend time with me, just days three,
Before you kill me with your axe so cold?
Bjorn hesitated, but then steeled himself with his faith. He was the chosen of his birth-Gods three, and no harm could come to him by the hand of this woman or any other until his purpose was carried out. Unsure of her powers and desiring to watch her more closely, he agreed—for to know the weaknesses of one's enemy is to know how to bring them death. The Eastern Witch told Bjorn that her name was Cleverness, and he told her that his name was Bjorn the Great One. That night, Bjorn informed his men that he would be out of their sight for three days and three nights. When they protested, he reminded them with the righteous faith of Udvall to not fear—for no harm could come to the Chosen of the Blessed Three. And so Bjorn the Great One left his camp to abscond into the death-forests of the land to the North with Cleverness the Witch.
Three nights and three days Bjorn the Great One spent with Cleverness. Cleverness was a cunning Witch, and did not try to bring him harm at first. She showed him her solitary tyrant-castle, built of wood rather than stone, and painted red and yellow. She showed him many evil spells: raising the dead from the earth, striking the fear of death into passing creatures with a thought, and controlling the creatures of the earth with a single-worded command. Cleverness drank poison in front of Bjorn to prove that she could not be harmed by such means. Bjorn watched carefully; for to destroy her, he must know the limits of her powers. For three days and three nights, Bjorn did not eat or drink the food Cleverness offered to him, for he did not trust her to not poison him with ivy-mead or nightshade-broth. And yet, she did not harm him. Perhaps she was truly a lonely woman, Bjorn thought—though it was not a thought of his own. The Witch Cleverness had begun to weave her web in his mind over days and nights of magick-work. That is the danger of Eastern Witchcraft. One can never know where it begins and where it ends.
On the third night, in a state of magick-skewed judgement, Bjorn accepted a cup of wine from Cleverness' ghost-hand. In it was a cup of hot tea, and in the hot tea a love potion had been poured. Seeing Bjorn's insurmountable strength and blessed nature, Cleverness the Witch intended to work Bjorn the Great One into a stupor of attraction and take advantage of him in his weakness, stealing away his youth and life for her own uses until he was naught but a withered corpse. And so it would have been, had Bjorn the Great One not been blessed by the hands of all the Blessed Three above. Cleverness watched with anticipation in her demon-eyes as Bjorn swallowed the mixture and placed the cup down, empty. When after a long while, there was no effect, Cleverness could not understand—for she did not worship the Great Blessed Three, and her magicks could not compare to their power. And so she poured him a cup again, and Bjorn the Great One drank it. She poured him another, and he drank it. And once more, and once more, and once more, until all the tea had been drunk. Cleverness was enraged. Her plot to take his youth and vitality for her own had ended in nothing. What is more, Bjorn the Great One had destroyed horde upon horde of her enchanted draugr soldiers, and would surely end her solitary reign if allowed to live. Cleverness could not stand this idea. She was a tyrant and a creature of murderous blood. At last, her mask of beauty dropped, and beneath was revealed a face that would terrify even the most courageous of Vallnean warriors to a face of stone: gaunt and stretched over bones, teeth sharp like blades of hardened grass and empty eyes hollow-black like a starless-night. The fingers of Cleverness grew long and sharp, turning to dirty demon-claws; her silken robes ripped as her body grew tall and bony like that of a poison-spider. With a scream of rage, the Eastern Witch lunged at Bjorn as he drank, claws outstretched towards his throat.
In that moment, Bjorn reached for his Great sea axe and raised it. There was no need to strike hard, for the power of Ymjir and The Blessed Three guided his hand and pushed the Eastern Witch onto the tip of his sharpened blade. Sinew tore; papery skin cut like butter; black blood spurted. And there went the Witch's head, rolling on the ground in a gaunt look of desperation-despair. The tyrant-castle was stained with blackened blood, but Bjorn the Great One was untouched by the Witch's stinking liquid. From the severed stump of the Eastern Witch's neck flew a black magpie, screaming the Witch's screams of rage even as her demon-head lolled. It was at that moment that the power of Udvall rushed through the blood-veins of Bjorn the Great One, and the magpie was turned to stone as it tried to escape, falling into the hands of Bjorn in one piece. The remnants of the Spirit of the Eastern Witch were captured in this magpie, and Bjorn deemed it a suitable war trophy.
It was with the stone soul-magpie and the gaping demon-head of the Eastern Witch that Bjorn returned to his men at their camp in the trees. When they saw him, they rejoiced, for they had plotted many ways to destroy the Witch in his name if she had managed to destroy him instead. Though Bjorn was joyous with his deeds, he scolded them for their lack of faith, for he had never doubted. With the blessing of the Three, his safety was secure. His men were chastised and kneeled at his feet, amazed by his strength and righteous faithfulness. That night, Bjorn and his men rejoiced over many barrels of honey-mead on the beaches of the North. No draugr came to gnaw at them, for with the Eastern Witch's death, every draugr on the land had fallen back to the ground from whence they came in a moment, rotting away into fertile earth. And so the land to the North was at last cleared of its plague of three hundred years. In three years, all the suffering people of the Isles of Nith had migrated to these new and fertile lands to escape the arbitrary wrath of Luzeus at last. Now made King in the name of the Blessed Three, Bjorn the Great One named these new lands Vallness, in honor of Udvall, the Head of the Three. The three greatest cities of Vallness were called Udvall, Ymvik, and Luzborg, in honor of the Blessed Three who made Bjorn the Great One their Chosen Champion and cleared the lands for Nithean kingdoms to flourish. It is by the hand of The Blessed Three that we live in prosperity and righteousness today as Vallneans and Nitheans. But forgot not: though the greatest Eastern Witch was felled by the hand of Bjorn the Great One, the Witches of Geum still roam the world today, plotting for revenge against the descendants of Bjorn and his people. All heed this warning, as Bjorn warned his people on the day of his king-coronation:
To trust the Eastern Witch is to wish for death
Avoid them like plague, weed them from our blessed lands
Be cautious of each Eastern woman who draws breath
For she may seek vengeance for righteous deeds by Chosen hands.