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Description

Name; Freyr Erna
Age; 23
Sex; Male
Birthday; 11th of november (though he doesn't know the exact day himself; what kind of northman would bother with counting days? Freyr would rather say he belongs to the early winter.)
Clan; the Outer Dark
Role in clan; Homesteader/Woodsman (hunter)
Height; 1,74 m/68,5 inches
Weight; 64kg /141.09 lbs
Apperance;
Freyr’s appearance is, in every meaning of the word, lighter than his siblings; his hair is of the golden yellow of ripe oats (a trait from his mother’s father, as his grandmother likes to remind him of with a fond glint in her eyes; she loves to see the dead parts of her family come back to life in her grandchildren), his skin refuses to darken to the same level as anyone else’s, and his body makes it quite clear that he was born to be a swift hunter and not a broad-shouldered warrior. But instead of being bitter over it Freyr has taken his hunting to a level of art. He is a master at his bow, and can run for almost a full day while chasing his prey through the woods without tire.

As he spends his days in the woods he prefers to dress in the brown and green of it, the shades varying with the seasons. With such camouflage and his light, nimble way of moving it would be a true wonder if you spotted him before he wanted you to. His eyes seem to have taken on the green colour of the forest as well, and just like the seasons change, the young man’s eyes seem to shift as well. Freyr has never attempted to hide his feelings about anything; they are always clearly displayed on his face, as well as in the tone of his voice, and in the lightening or darkening of his eyes.

Apart from his younger brother Úlfur’s solemn silent ways, Freyr loves to laugh, live, talk and sing. There is always a playful glint in his eyes, be it when he is ready to tell a joke, or with the excitement of bloodthirst during a hunt. There is always a reason to smile, be it happy or grim.

Personality;
To say that Freyr is playful would be an understatement. But it is not always kind games he play. Should you pose any kind of threat to his family or clan, or simply be foolish enough to insult or threaten them, he is completely merciless. You will be killed, and he will enjoy it.

His love for games shines through in everything he does; if there is no way to have fun and enjoy a situation, he will find one. If he is not happy, he is angry, and those are the two moods he displays to the world. No one in his family has seen him cry since he was 5 years old. That is not to say that he does not feel sadness or grief; he just never lets anyone see him in such a state. Every year after the Winter Nights, when his clan honor the dead, he slips away to spend the rest of his day alone. He can not stand seeing all the grieving faces of his fellow clansmen, and he would never let them see him shred tears over his own brother. The next day he is always back, and is the first to share tales of those now gone, always happy ones that will have even the sourest of fishermen smile at the good memories.

Freyr seems to live only for excitement and joy, and the two things he seems to love most in the whole world is to please his family and clan, and to hunt. Even if he plays pranks every once in a while, flirts (with men and women alike), crack jokes, or have one mug of mead too many, these are always the two things he returns to in the end. He is by nature curious, and will follow any tracks or noises that are new to him until he has found answers. He has probably interrupted every human in his clan in order to ask questions (including the king and every single one of his housecarls), and most of the time one only has to voice an idea to make him intrigued enough to try it.

His is always honest, and rarely do things halfhearted. He would never make an empty threat; he only hands out promises. He never fights only to first blood, but to the death. He never fires a warning-shot, only to kill.
But as long as nothing poses a threat to those he care for, he can be as playful as a child, and completely relaxed in any kind of situation; he trusts his clan to keep his back, and trusts his skill to keep him alive.
When it comes to playing games he can be persuaded into almost anything. The tale of how he waited on the roof of Thuleshall for half a day only to be able to pour a huge bowl of whey over his uncle and then had to stay up there for the night as well to avoid the man’s fury is almost a legend by now. Just as all the times he snuck along to eavesdrop on the meetings meant for adult ears only, or the time when a fisherman was so tired of his questions that when he was asked why their mother always wanted them to avoid skunks he simply told the boy “Try catch one and you’ll find out.” and Freyr even managed to drag one inside their workshop to show his success.

Fightingstyle; Melee. Though he tends to avoid battle if he can; he is a hunter, not a warrior. If he wins a battle it will be thanks to his swift speed and quick doges; you can’t hurt what you can’t hit, and to catch Freyr is harder than grabbing on to the wind.
He would never turn his arrows against a human being unless he has been commanded so by someone superior to him, and is even then reluctant to fire; there is no honor in treating your enemy like a wild game, and even less for the clansmen that has now been robbed of a fight.
(Though should you act the part, he might start to view you as an animal, and then there is no stopping the hunt…)
Weapons; His greatest treasure is his bow, which he cares tenderly for. Of course he has made it himself (as well as every arrow in his quiver) like any decent hunter, and it is an impressive weapon; almost as tall as Freyr himself, and so strong that even the greatest housecarls have trouble stringing it (but Freyr knows his weapon, knows how to tilt and bend it, and it has never let him down even the slightest).

But a bow is for hunting; in a battle he would rather rely on the knife with a blade made from a whale’s tooth his grandmother gave him, or the small axe he inherited from Úlfur when the large boy moved on to heavier weapons.
He also knows his clan powers to some extent, but has to this day never used it against any living creature.
Equipment/Armor; Preferring to move quick and quiet Freyr doesn’t bother much with armor; thick leather, worn soft around the edges so it doesn’t make a single sound, and perfectly colored to disappear like a shadow in the undergrowth of the forest, is the only kind of defense that he would bother with.
Apart from his clothes and weapons Freyr does not carry much, so that he would not be slowed down. An extra string for the bow, a small knife for housework, a horn to send signals of game, danger or strangers to any nearby clansmen, and a treat for his pet raven Hrafn, and he is all set.

Background;
Freyr was born during the beginning of one of the coldest winters in many years, and being thinner and smaller than most other children of his age, a few wondered if he would outlive the raging snowstorms or join the gods before he could even talk. But what he lacked in physical strength the child made up for with his mind and determination, and he turned out to be quite hard to kill, even for ice and hunger combined. The next winter he was already the loudest of the children that played around Thuleshall, and even if he could barely stand in the snow he always struggled to keep up with the others. That was also the year that he saw the king up close for the first time, and grabbed two handfuls of his beard at the first chance he got.

As he grew older it took him quite a while to get used to his own body, and at first Áki and Embla thought they had been given a true klutz of a son. He always stumbled, slipped and tripped his way through everything (and more than once turned his head so fast he walked straight into a tree). It wasn’t until the Wise Woman of the time suggested putting him to a test to see what eyes the gods had granted him that anyone thought him to be anything unusual. It was she who in the end figured that the boy had the eyes of the eagle; he saw perfectly on a further distance than normal men, but up close things started to get blurry for him. No wonder he stubbed his toes on things that were right in front of him; he couldn’t see them. Not very good anyway. As such he was quickly put to learn from those in the clan who knew how to hunt in the night; those who didn’t rely entirely on their eyes, but what they could sense around them. Those who listened to the world instead of watching it. Those who knew their surroundings well enough from one glance to then be able to walk blindfolded through them and still be as silent as a wildcat. It of course took time. Years upon years of struggles, failed attempts, scolding and silent rage from the child. But he learned. As he grew older his eyes grew somewhat better, but they are still not very good close up. But now he is as lethal as a lynx; a creature of prefect balance and nimble swiftness, silent as a ghost and quick as a swallow. He is just as comfortable hiding up in treetops as he is on the stable ground, and can make his way between the branches like a squirrel. Had he lived in any other place or time he would have been a perfect assassin. But the Outer Dark does not care for such coward ways, and he is now nothing but a skilled hunter amongst many others.

Then came the day that awoken the old berserkerblood inside him;
Just like his younger brother and the rest of the family, Freyr was devastated at the death of his youngest brother Thale, who instead of a bear came to face a pure monster during his initiation. A creature he stood no chance of defeating, nor surviving. But when Embla howled in anger and heartbreak at the sight of his dead body, and Úlfur sank to the ground when the grief stole all his energy and breath, and silently hugged his baby brother’s corpse, Freyr’s mourning turned to rage in the matter of seconds. Extracting revenge came more natural to him than a funeral, and so he used all his focus, everything he had learned from all his years of practice to take the life of the creature who had stolen a light from his. With his eyes he didn’t even have to lean down to follow the tracks, didn’t need to trace the ground to find the smallest droplets of blood when he could sense the smell of it plenty of steps away. He perhaps didn’t need to rob the creature of eyes and so many fingers either, but he did gladly either way. Even though he was the first to spot the creature, and the first to draw its blood, it was his siblings who killed it. Had it been up to Freyr the monster would have suffered for days…
While Embla proudly dresses in its coat and Úlfur carries the claws as a memory, Freyr keeps the scull of the monster, and the empty eyesockets of it still makes him smile whenever he’s in a bad mood.

While his older sister and younger brother stay home out of love for their family and their company, Freyr always had a restlessness inside of him that constantly called him back out into the wild. He loves the solitude just as much as he cared for his family, and to this day he has not yet found any kind of balance within himself; he can only stay home for a few days before the call of the wilderness starts to eat away at him and the walls of their house becomes suffocating. So then, no matter weather or time of year, he has to leave. But he can never stay away for very long before the love for his family calls him back. It’s tearing him apart, and has left him wandering back and forth between the two, as he has done for years.

He loves company, big crowds, and to have all his friends surround him. He has never shied away from attention, conversation or strangers the way his younger brother does. But he can never stay there.

Other;
-His family consists of;
Áki, the father, nicknamed Átti Klær/Eight Claws after the bear he killed at his initiation.
Edda, the grandmother, a refugee who has still not given up on her own traditions, and will thus never be fully trusted by the Clan.
Elva, the mother, a refugee who is still carrying the secret that made her flee her home. She has abandoned the ways of her family, despite all that her mother speaks of help and good use.
Embla, the oldest child, and a skilled, fire-tempered warrior. She has vowed not to marry until she can find a man who can defeat her in melee combat (which her family both agrees with and laughs at, since she has not lost a fight since she turned 14).
Freyr, the second child.
Úlfur, the third child, the giant of the family only inches shorter than his father. He still mourns the loss of their younger brother most openly of them all. Has a pet yak named Vinur.
Thale, the fourth child. Recently killed during his initiation, and avenged by his three older siblings.
Hulda, the youngest child, who admires her older sister greatly, to Embla's great pride, and attempts to imitate her at any given chance
“Sindri”, the unborn child Elva is currently carriying, that so far only has a nickname
((all their names are icelandic names or words, except for Thale which is norwegian, since the culture is supposed to represent vikings and stuff like that))

-He has a quite trustworthy companion in his pet raven Hrafn, whom he stole as an egg from his parent’s nest when he was 17 years old. The clever bird has been trained for all kinds of tricks, but the most useful things are scaring up games when they hunt together, and carry small things in its claws (a trick mostly used by Freyr if he has spotted something unusual on his many trips and wants to send a word back home, and he never bothers with the letters people in the city uses for their books; he uses a set of symbols and runes that his friends and family would understand with only a glance, even those who can’t read). He also uses Hrafn to distract people he wants to sneak around guards without being spotted, as a quite risky game.

-As he watched his mother and older sister learn from other clanmembers how to shepherd their yaks in the old northern way, he grew so jealous of the herdingcalls that they got to learn that he wanted to join as well, despite being too young for it (such a small child could not be trusted with looking after the big beasts!). But as stubborn as the ground itself he was soon sitting there amongst them, calling the herd home just as the others. Now that he is older he helps out with it now and then, since he travels far enough to find any lost animals out in the wilds, and because he just enjoys being loud.
(The ancient herdingcalls, “kulning”, has been used for centuries, before finally dying out when people started to put up fences for the animals instead www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvtT3U…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKImmI…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioum5X… but I can imagine the Outer Dark still using it, since they like their old traditions)

-When he grew a bit older and his near-vision improved a tad bit his grandmother decided he should learn how to read. In her clan it can be a quite useful skill. And while Freyr couldn’t see how he could ever have any use of it (that same reasoning had kept his sister from learning it all together) he was curious enough to go through with it. He is not a fast reader by any means, and will most likely forget all about it in due time since he never practices it, but he still knows more of it than most in his family.
(He would still need to hold a book at arm’s length to see the letters at all)

-What the two oldest siblings know that neither Úlfur, Thale nor Hulda ever learned of is that when Freyr was 5 years old their father was actually offered to become one of the housecarls of Thuleshall, thanks to his skill in battle and absolute loyalty to their clan. But he declined. As his wife was raising yet another baby, and his son struggled as he did with his eyes, the man did not want to leave their side or drag them off to a life of politics and powerful men, and instead stayed home to teach his children the ways of the clan and the ways of the weapons in their secluded home in the woods. That life suited him far better anyway.
When Freyr learned of this he felt a guilt strong enough to make him taste bile in his throat, and even if it’s never spoken of he still knows that he, in his own misshapen way, has robbed his father of one of the greatest honors he could ever have been granted. And it has made him push himself even further in everything he does, to prove to his father, to anyone who might know, that his sacrifice was not for nothing! But it is never enough… such guilt never truly leaves…
-The bear that he managed to slay during his initiation was indeed a mutated monster, and not only did it carry strange, sick blue glowing eyes, but it had also grown a strange form of acid instead of poison in its claws. Freyr still has burnmarks from it (which he will most likely have to live with for the rest if his life), and when the hide was separated from the body to make his cloak some of it leaked out and partially melted the paws and claws, making it a bit deformed (but it doesn’t make him any less proud of it).

Should one be curious at a more medieval style of archery than what is presented in movies today (such as Robin Hood, Lord of the Rings or the Hungergames), this is a great video to understand what level Freyr is aiming for with his skills, and what he has clear potential to learn; www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly…

And this is regarding weapons for people of different strength/body types/gender, if people are just curious ^^ www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSy9GL…

Description

Name; Freyr Erna
Age; 23
Sex; Male
Birthday; 11th of november (though he doesn't know the exact day himself; what kind of northman would bother with counting days? Freyr would rather say he belongs to the early winter.)
Clan; the Outer Dark
Role in clan; Homesteader/Woodsman (hunter)
Height; 1,74 m/68,5 inches
Weight; 64kg /141.09 lbs
Apperance;
Freyr’s appearance is, in every meaning of the word, lighter than his siblings; his hair is of the golden yellow of ripe oats (a trait from his mother’s father, as his grandmother likes to remind him of with a fond glint in her eyes; she loves to see the dead parts of her family come back to life in her grandchildren), his skin refuses to darken to the same level as anyone else’s, and his body makes it quite clear that he was born to be a swift hunter and not a broad-shouldered warrior. But instead of being bitter over it Freyr has taken his hunting to a level of art. He is a master at his bow, and can run for almost a full day while chasing his prey through the woods without tire.

As he spends his days in the woods he prefers to dress in the brown and green of it, the shades varying with the seasons. With such camouflage and his light, nimble way of moving it would be a true wonder if you spotted him before he wanted you to. His eyes seem to have taken on the green colour of the forest as well, and just like the seasons change, the young man’s eyes seem to shift as well. Freyr has never attempted to hide his feelings about anything; they are always clearly displayed on his face, as well as in the tone of his voice, and in the lightening or darkening of his eyes.

Apart from his younger brother Úlfur’s solemn silent ways, Freyr loves to laugh, live, talk and sing. There is always a playful glint in his eyes, be it when he is ready to tell a joke, or with the excitement of bloodthirst during a hunt. There is always a reason to smile, be it happy or grim.

Personality;
To say that Freyr is playful would be an understatement. But it is not always kind games he play. Should you pose any kind of threat to his family or clan, or simply be foolish enough to insult or threaten them, he is completely merciless. You will be killed, and he will enjoy it.

His love for games shines through in everything he does; if there is no way to have fun and enjoy a situation, he will find one. If he is not happy, he is angry, and those are the two moods he displays to the world. No one in his family has seen him cry since he was 5 years old. That is not to say that he does not feel sadness or grief; he just never lets anyone see him in such a state. Every year after the Winter Nights, when his clan honor the dead, he slips away to spend the rest of his day alone. He can not stand seeing all the grieving faces of his fellow clansmen, and he would never let them see him shred tears over his own brother. The next day he is always back, and is the first to share tales of those now gone, always happy ones that will have even the sourest of fishermen smile at the good memories.

Freyr seems to live only for excitement and joy, and the two things he seems to love most in the whole world is to please his family and clan, and to hunt. Even if he plays pranks every once in a while, flirts (with men and women alike), crack jokes, or have one mug of mead too many, these are always the two things he returns to in the end. He is by nature curious, and will follow any tracks or noises that are new to him until he has found answers. He has probably interrupted every human in his clan in order to ask questions (including the king and every single one of his housecarls), and most of the time one only has to voice an idea to make him intrigued enough to try it.

His is always honest, and rarely do things halfhearted. He would never make an empty threat; he only hands out promises. He never fights only to first blood, but to the death. He never fires a warning-shot, only to kill.
But as long as nothing poses a threat to those he care for, he can be as playful as a child, and completely relaxed in any kind of situation; he trusts his clan to keep his back, and trusts his skill to keep him alive.
When it comes to playing games he can be persuaded into almost anything. The tale of how he waited on the roof of Thuleshall for half a day only to be able to pour a huge bowl of whey over his uncle and then had to stay up there for the night as well to avoid the man’s fury is almost a legend by now. Just as all the times he snuck along to eavesdrop on the meetings meant for adult ears only, or the time when a fisherman was so tired of his questions that when he was asked why their mother always wanted them to avoid skunks he simply told the boy “Try catch one and you’ll find out.” and Freyr even managed to drag one inside their workshop to show his success.

Fightingstyle; Melee. Though he tends to avoid battle if he can; he is a hunter, not a warrior. If he wins a battle it will be thanks to his swift speed and quick doges; you can’t hurt what you can’t hit, and to catch Freyr is harder than grabbing on to the wind.
He would never turn his arrows against a human being unless he has been commanded so by someone superior to him, and is even then reluctant to fire; there is no honor in treating your enemy like a wild game, and even less for the clansmen that has now been robbed of a fight.
(Though should you act the part, he might start to view you as an animal, and then there is no stopping the hunt…)
Weapons; His greatest treasure is his bow, which he cares tenderly for. Of course he has made it himself (as well as every arrow in his quiver) like any decent hunter, and it is an impressive weapon; almost as tall as Freyr himself, and so strong that even the greatest housecarls have trouble stringing it (but Freyr knows his weapon, knows how to tilt and bend it, and it has never let him down even the slightest).

But a bow is for hunting; in a battle he would rather rely on the knife with a blade made from a whale’s tooth his grandmother gave him, or the small axe he inherited from Úlfur when the large boy moved on to heavier weapons.
He also knows his clan powers to some extent, but has to this day never used it against any living creature.
Equipment/Armor; Preferring to move quick and quiet Freyr doesn’t bother much with armor; thick leather, worn soft around the edges so it doesn’t make a single sound, and perfectly colored to disappear like a shadow in the undergrowth of the forest, is the only kind of defense that he would bother with.
Apart from his clothes and weapons Freyr does not carry much, so that he would not be slowed down. An extra string for the bow, a small knife for housework, a horn to send signals of game, danger or strangers to any nearby clansmen, and a treat for his pet raven Hrafn, and he is all set.

Background;
Freyr was born during the beginning of one of the coldest winters in many years, and being thinner and smaller than most other children of his age, a few wondered if he would outlive the raging snowstorms or join the gods before he could even talk. But what he lacked in physical strength the child made up for with his mind and determination, and he turned out to be quite hard to kill, even for ice and hunger combined. The next winter he was already the loudest of the children that played around Thuleshall, and even if he could barely stand in the snow he always struggled to keep up with the others. That was also the year that he saw the king up close for the first time, and grabbed two handfuls of his beard at the first chance he got.

As he grew older it took him quite a while to get used to his own body, and at first Áki and Embla thought they had been given a true klutz of a son. He always stumbled, slipped and tripped his way through everything (and more than once turned his head so fast he walked straight into a tree). It wasn’t until the Wise Woman of the time suggested putting him to a test to see what eyes the gods had granted him that anyone thought him to be anything unusual. It was she who in the end figured that the boy had the eyes of the eagle; he saw perfectly on a further distance than normal men, but up close things started to get blurry for him. No wonder he stubbed his toes on things that were right in front of him; he couldn’t see them. Not very good anyway. As such he was quickly put to learn from those in the clan who knew how to hunt in the night; those who didn’t rely entirely on their eyes, but what they could sense around them. Those who listened to the world instead of watching it. Those who knew their surroundings well enough from one glance to then be able to walk blindfolded through them and still be as silent as a wildcat. It of course took time. Years upon years of struggles, failed attempts, scolding and silent rage from the child. But he learned. As he grew older his eyes grew somewhat better, but they are still not very good close up. But now he is as lethal as a lynx; a creature of prefect balance and nimble swiftness, silent as a ghost and quick as a swallow. He is just as comfortable hiding up in treetops as he is on the stable ground, and can make his way between the branches like a squirrel. Had he lived in any other place or time he would have been a perfect assassin. But the Outer Dark does not care for such coward ways, and he is now nothing but a skilled hunter amongst many others.

Then came the day that awoken the old berserkerblood inside him;
Just like his younger brother and the rest of the family, Freyr was devastated at the death of his youngest brother Thale, who instead of a bear came to face a pure monster during his initiation. A creature he stood no chance of defeating, nor surviving. But when Embla howled in anger and heartbreak at the sight of his dead body, and Úlfur sank to the ground when the grief stole all his energy and breath, and silently hugged his baby brother’s corpse, Freyr’s mourning turned to rage in the matter of seconds. Extracting revenge came more natural to him than a funeral, and so he used all his focus, everything he had learned from all his years of practice to take the life of the creature who had stolen a light from his. With his eyes he didn’t even have to lean down to follow the tracks, didn’t need to trace the ground to find the smallest droplets of blood when he could sense the smell of it plenty of steps away. He perhaps didn’t need to rob the creature of eyes and so many fingers either, but he did gladly either way. Even though he was the first to spot the creature, and the first to draw its blood, it was his siblings who killed it. Had it been up to Freyr the monster would have suffered for days…
While Embla proudly dresses in its coat and Úlfur carries the claws as a memory, Freyr keeps the scull of the monster, and the empty eyesockets of it still makes him smile whenever he’s in a bad mood.

While his older sister and younger brother stay home out of love for their family and their company, Freyr always had a restlessness inside of him that constantly called him back out into the wild. He loves the solitude just as much as he cared for his family, and to this day he has not yet found any kind of balance within himself; he can only stay home for a few days before the call of the wilderness starts to eat away at him and the walls of their house becomes suffocating. So then, no matter weather or time of year, he has to leave. But he can never stay away for very long before the love for his family calls him back. It’s tearing him apart, and has left him wandering back and forth between the two, as he has done for years.

He loves company, big crowds, and to have all his friends surround him. He has never shied away from attention, conversation or strangers the way his younger brother does. But he can never stay there.

Other;
-His family consists of;
Áki, the father, nicknamed Átti Klær/Eight Claws after the bear he killed at his initiation.
Edda, the grandmother, a refugee who has still not given up on her own traditions, and will thus never be fully trusted by the Clan.
Elva, the mother, a refugee who is still carrying the secret that made her flee her home. She has abandoned the ways of her family, despite all that her mother speaks of help and good use.
Embla, the oldest child, and a skilled, fire-tempered warrior. She has vowed not to marry until she can find a man who can defeat her in melee combat (which her family both agrees with and laughs at, since she has not lost a fight since she turned 14).
Freyr, the second child.
Úlfur, the third child, the giant of the family only inches shorter than his father. He still mourns the loss of their younger brother most openly of them all. Has a pet yak named Vinur.
Thale, the fourth child. Recently killed during his initiation, and avenged by his three older siblings.
Hulda, the youngest child, who admires her older sister greatly, to Embla's great pride, and attempts to imitate her at any given chance
“Sindri”, the unborn child Elva is currently carriying, that so far only has a nickname
((all their names are icelandic names or words, except for Thale which is norwegian, since the culture is supposed to represent vikings and stuff like that))

-He has a quite trustworthy companion in his pet raven Hrafn, whom he stole as an egg from his parent’s nest when he was 17 years old. The clever bird has been trained for all kinds of tricks, but the most useful things are scaring up games when they hunt together, and carry small things in its claws (a trick mostly used by Freyr if he has spotted something unusual on his many trips and wants to send a word back home, and he never bothers with the letters people in the city uses for their books; he uses a set of symbols and runes that his friends and family would understand with only a glance, even those who can’t read). He also uses Hrafn to distract people he wants to sneak around guards without being spotted, as a quite risky game.

-As he watched his mother and older sister learn from other clanmembers how to shepherd their yaks in the old northern way, he grew so jealous of the herdingcalls that they got to learn that he wanted to join as well, despite being too young for it (such a small child could not be trusted with looking after the big beasts!). But as stubborn as the ground itself he was soon sitting there amongst them, calling the herd home just as the others. Now that he is older he helps out with it now and then, since he travels far enough to find any lost animals out in the wilds, and because he just enjoys being loud.
(The ancient herdingcalls, “kulning”, has been used for centuries, before finally dying out when people started to put up fences for the animals instead www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvtT3U…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKImmI…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioum5X… but I can imagine the Outer Dark still using it, since they like their old traditions)

-When he grew a bit older and his near-vision improved a tad bit his grandmother decided he should learn how to read. In her clan it can be a quite useful skill. And while Freyr couldn’t see how he could ever have any use of it (that same reasoning had kept his sister from learning it all together) he was curious enough to go through with it. He is not a fast reader by any means, and will most likely forget all about it in due time since he never practices it, but he still knows more of it than most in his family.
(He would still need to hold a book at arm’s length to see the letters at all)

-What the two oldest siblings know that neither Úlfur, Thale nor Hulda ever learned of is that when Freyr was 5 years old their father was actually offered to become one of the housecarls of Thuleshall, thanks to his skill in battle and absolute loyalty to their clan. But he declined. As his wife was raising yet another baby, and his son struggled as he did with his eyes, the man did not want to leave their side or drag them off to a life of politics and powerful men, and instead stayed home to teach his children the ways of the clan and the ways of the weapons in their secluded home in the woods. That life suited him far better anyway.
When Freyr learned of this he felt a guilt strong enough to make him taste bile in his throat, and even if it’s never spoken of he still knows that he, in his own misshapen way, has robbed his father of one of the greatest honors he could ever have been granted. And it has made him push himself even further in everything he does, to prove to his father, to anyone who might know, that his sacrifice was not for nothing! But it is never enough… such guilt never truly leaves…
-The bear that he managed to slay during his initiation was indeed a mutated monster, and not only did it carry strange, sick blue glowing eyes, but it had also grown a strange form of acid instead of poison in its claws. Freyr still has burnmarks from it (which he will most likely have to live with for the rest if his life), and when the hide was separated from the body to make his cloak some of it leaked out and partially melted the paws and claws, making it a bit deformed (but it doesn’t make him any less proud of it).

Should one be curious at a more medieval style of archery than what is presented in movies today (such as Robin Hood, Lord of the Rings or the Hungergames), this is a great video to understand what level Freyr is aiming for with his skills, and what he has clear potential to learn; www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly…

And this is regarding weapons for people of different strength/body types/gender, if people are just curious ^^ www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSy9GL…