Hrothwulf of Midgard (HROTH-woolf)
First Voice of Midgard
Hrothwulf was born on the icy coastlands of what his people called Midgard, the “middle world” stretched between sea and forest. His clan were shipwrights and herders, known for longhouses carved with interlacing beasts and for their fierce loyalty to kin. From an early age, he was tested by the elements: winter storms that froze rivers solid, summers that brought both abundance and sudden famine. These conditions hardened him, but they also taught him reverence for balance — for every gift of the earth carried the shadow of peril. His mother told him sagas by the fire, not only of gods and giants but of ancestors who forged peace when war threatened to tear the clans apart.
In his youth, Hrothwulf gained fame as a warrior, but he was remembered more as a lawspeaker. He possessed the rare ability to still a hall of feuding chiefs with a few carefully chosen words. Rather than boasting of conquest, he spoke of obligation: that strength must defend the weak, that justice was not decreed by the gods but shaped in the hands of men and women who sat together in council. When he was chosen to carry Midgard’s voice to Antioch, it was not for his battle skill but for his wisdom, a quality his people believed rarer than courage.
At the Council, Hrothwulf stood as a reminder of the North’s endurance. He compared the Accord to a great longship: if one plank was weak, the voyage endangered all. His words carried the cadence of sagas, but his meaning was practical — no federation could survive unless each culture was given dignity, lest the vessel leak and founder. He was thirty-two at the signing, broad-shouldered and solemn, with a presence that many remarked was “like oak in winter: immovable, yet sheltering.” His call for balance and solidarity resonated strongly, securing Midgard’s place in the Accord not as a distant outpost but as a vital contributor of strength and memory.
After returning north, Hrothwulf devoted himself to codifying his people’s laws, ensuring that disputes could be resolved without endless blood-feuds. He trained younger speakers in the art of mediation, teaching that words could heal wounds faster than blades. He lived into his sixties, an elder statesman whose presence at Thing gatherings carried weight long after his hair turned white. When he died, it was said the fjord waters stilled, as though the land itself paused to honor him. His legacy endured in the tradition of lawspeakers across the northern world, remembered as “the Oak Voice,” steady and enduring in the Accord’s memory.
Previously Held Ranks & Titles
Date of Birth
13 Āsha 57 zc (Vidya)
Date of Death
01 Zhìdé 119 zc (Mila)
Life
57 zc
119 zc
62 years old
Birthplace
Fjord settlement near modern-day Bergen, Midgard
Place of Death
Northern lands, Midgard
Children
Belief/Deity
Christianity + Norse/Ásatrú + Slavic/Rodnovery
Transitional leader bridging old Norse faith with Christian moral philosophy.
Other Affiliations
Comments