Compiled Chapter Epigraphs

Each chapter of A Thing Of Vikings is headed by an epigraph, framed as an in-universe document from within the Alternate History of ATOV. These epigraphs vary in "source", ranging from encyclopedia entries to journal excerpts to debate transcripts to military dossiers and more.

Chapter 1 : On Approach
Dragon War, The —Popular name for the low-level raiding conflict between the Green Death Nest and the Viking settlements of the Hebrides islands; specifically in reference to Berk, in the Inner Hebrides, ranging from circa 750 Common Era until 16 September, 1040 Common Era (Julian reckoning). While just one of many human-dragon conflicts in recorded history, The Dragon War is commonly referred to as the singular and eponymous conflict due to its resolution—specifically, the taming and subsequent domestication of dragons by the Norse of Berk, with the resulting impact on history.

Cross-references: Berk (Island); Green Death (Dragon); Haddock, Astrid, I; Haddock, Hiccup Horrendous, III; Haddock, Stoick, I…

To chapter article

Chapter 9: Odd Neighbors
Berk (Island)  —Largest island of the four Small Isles of the Alban Hebrides archipelago, and noted for its extreme geography, possessing glacier-carved high mountain peaks and an extensive array of sea caves and wave-carved coastal features. The island is the ancestral homeland of House Haddock and the other Houses descended from the ancient Hooligan tribe. Settled by the Hooligan Norse tribe in the early 700s CE as a longphort, to use as a base for further Viking raids against the Irish, Welsh, Alban and Saxon coastlines, the island was one of the focal points of the Dragon War, due to the tenacity and self-admitted stubbornness of the Hooligans.

To chapter article

Chapter 69: A Gift From The Heavens
Theodora Porphyrogenita  (AD 980 – 15 April AD 1068) was a Byzantine Empress whose rule typically marks the beginning of the Dragon Era in most histories. Born into the Macedonian Dynasty, which had ruled the Empire since AD 867, and the niece of the popular emperor,  Basil II,  she was the final ruler of that dynasty; upon her death, the empire fell into a period of decline from which it never truly recovered. Noted as highly intelligent, capable, and possessing an extremely strict moral character, she spent the majority of her rule attempting to repair the damage inflicted on the empire by the mismanagement of her immediate predecessors. During the nearly twenty-six years of her reign, she disciplined the feuding nobility and blocked numerous abuses. However, her reign was also marked by considerable strife due to the growing chaos and conflict of the Dragon Era…

To chapter article

Chapter 2 : The Hero Of Berk
In the popular imagination, the end of the Viking Era is inevitably tied together with the Hero of Berk, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Despite the hagiographic efforts of both contemporary and subsequent biographers, according to both his own accounts and those of his associates, he was an extremely humble individual throughout his entire life, his journals revealing a man honestly bewildered and disturbed by the adulation. However, his accomplishments do speak for themselves, as a polymath and inventor whose name has become synonymous with both genius and altruism in the subsequent centuries…

To chapter article

Chapter 15 : Welcome To Berk
Despite perceptions to the contrary, the culture of the Norsemen of Berk at the time of Hiccup Haddock was profoundly different than most other Norse and Norse-derived cultures, despite surface similarities. Two of the greatest differences were in the treatment of literacy and the social caste system. Due to the long-simmering social pressures of the Dragon War, Berk had adopted universal literacy as a means for ensuring that critical knowledge would not be lost, and had abandoned the Thrall-Carl-Thane caste system on similarly pragmatic lines.

This, of course, caused significant culture shock to other societies, Norse and otherwise, that encountered them over the remainder of Hiccup Haddock’s life, and was instrumental in setting the groundwork for what followed.

To chapter article

Chapter 19 : Liminals
The Norse temple and associated cult at Uppsala was one of the last major bastions of the Norse religion during the attempted Christianization of Scandinavia in the 10th and 11th centuries. Razed in 1044 and rebuilt in 1056, the original temple featured statues of the gods Odin, Freyr and Thor on a triple throne, a sacred well and a sacred grove. When the temple was first destroyed by Christian Crusaders, many of the priesthood managed to evacuate to Berk, where they formed the core of…

To chapter article

Chapter 20 : Homecomings
King Magnus's first visit to Berk was a watershed moment in many ways. While the king had come for his marriage and for the dragon that later became emblematic of his reign, by the time he had arrived, the Hooligans had spent a year integrating dragons into nearly every level of their society and economy. Witnessing the effects and advantages that this afforded his allies firsthand gave him not only the determination to effect similar changes on his own kingdom, it also gave him a map to doing so, the trailblazing having already been started by the Haddocks' and Ingerman's efforts over the prior year. Even discounting the other innovations and events that were introduced and occurred subsequent to his arrival, Magnus was still exposed to a society that could function without thrall labor and still be more prosperous than his own, and this had an indelible effect on the young king.

To chapter article

Chapter 31 : ...Than The Water Of The Womb
However, while the social caste system and universal literacy were the areas in which Berk most drastically differed from other Norse cultures at the time, other, more subtle, differences lay in wait. Perhaps the most paramount of these was Berk's degree of gender-based legal equality; while Norse cultures generally were significantly more advanced than their contemporaries in Europe in this regard, Berk's legal codes differed significantly from that starting base. While Norse women could divorce and were able to inherit property and participate in combat, Hooligan women could also hold titles in their own names, purchase property, engage in commerce and lawsuits, vote in tribal Things, travel without a chaperon, and held other rights that were disallowed even in the most progressive Norse societies elsewhere.

This resulted in significant confusion to those interacting with and attempting to influence and control Berk's Norse. There were numerous cases where the assumption that the legal codes were effectively identical ran into the reality that they were not, exacerbated by the fact that the Hooligans used the same terms for different concepts.

Perhaps the best case of this is in the Hooligan "concubinage" structure, which had been comprehensively reformed in the 960s AD during the Chiefdom of Hiccup Haddock II. During these reforms, the concept was changed from a system of acknowledged lovers for a man in an arranged marriage to a legal definition of a temporary civil partnership that would expire after a given period unless renewed by the will of both parties. This civil partnership was designed to offer significant protections and legal guarantees for the woman (or, significantly more rarely, the man) thus attached. The intent of these reforms were to correct previous abuses that had grown with the concubinage system since the prior reforms after the outlawing of thralldom in the late 800s AD—specifically, that the wives, as head of the domestic household, were exploiting concubines and their children, who typically could not leave, even in the face of a failed relationship, without facing poverty.

As a result, the reforms attempted to financially incentivize peace and functional relationships in these polygamous households, by requiring the formal adoption of the (typically clanless) concubine into the clan, as well as their children, and the guarantee of a marriage price to be paid by the concubine-holder on behalf of their former partner in the event that their partner wished to marry someone else. And yet, the Hooligans still called this system by the old term of "concubinage."

This and other such areas of confusion of legal terminology caused problems for the machinations of, among others, the Norwegian jarls and the Catholic Church.

To chapter article

Chapter 34 : Masses In Motion
The era of the Papacy between 904 and 1046, typically referred to as Saeculum Obscurum (Latin: Dark Age), is generally accepted to be the lowest depths of the Catholic Church's moral authority in its recorded fourteen centuries of history from Constantine I. During this time, beginning with the installation of Pope Sergius III in 904, and ending with the final deposing of Pope Benedict IX in 1046, the Church was controlled by a series of powerful and corrupt aristocratic families, who used the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy to increase their worldly influence, and visa versa.

Corruption during this period was the norm, especially in the senior ranks of the Church, who set the trends for their underlings. Routine acts of corruption during this time period included the sale of Church offices and roles (simony), the sale of indulgences, framing scribes with secular crimes to force them to take Holy Orders, bribery, extortion, blackmail, cronyism, and the occasional assassination, as well more personal venality on the part of the individual priests.

To chapter article

Chapter 37 : ...Their Side...
Prior to the Norse Reformation of 1044 AD/AM 4804/435 AH/ArO 0, the Norse pagan religion was in the process of dying out under the onslaught of a semi-organized campaign of Christianization. Iceland, Norway, the North Sea Islands, and Denmark had all been forcibly converted over the prior century, and were at least nominally Christian, although Norse beliefs were still held by much of the populace through folk transmission. King Olaf II, Magnus the Good's father, was personally responsible for much of the Christianization of Norway, having engaged in the torture and execution of Norse priests and the destruction of Norse temples. Sweden remained a bastion of resistance, with the Norse cult at Uppsala having a mutual nonaggression agreement with the Swedish kings dating back to 990 AD, but the status of the traditional faith was eroding steadily there.

Around the Eirish Sea and Alban Hebrides, there were various overtly Norse cults and tribes; many of these were close allies in an increasingly Christianized region, bound by treaties and marriage ties. These tribes included the Bog Burglars of Wales, the Meatheads of the Outer Hebrides, and of course the Hooligans of Berk, to name the three largest examples. But their numbers were dropping from their heydays of a century prior.

The general consensus of historians of the period is that, without the Norse Reformation, it is unlikely that the Norse religion would have survived another century in the face of the aggressive Christian efforts to render it extinct.

Instead, the Crusades against the North Sea Empire over the following century only helped revive and entrench the reformed faith, especially due to the martyring of ethnically Norse Christians by the Crusaders…

To chapter article

Chapter 60 : A Threat Perceived
It is better to live | than to lie a corpse, The live man catches the cow, I saw flames rise | for the rich man's pyre, And before his door he lay dead

The lame rides a horse, | the handless is a herdsman, The deaf in battle is bold, The blind man is better | than the one that is burned, No good can come of a corpse.

-Stanzas 70 and 71 of the Hávamál

One factor that has been cited as the reason for the success of the Norse Reformation is, oddly, the acceptance of non-Norse into their society. Part of the theological basis of this were these words from Odin's own lips on proper conduct and wisdom, which served as a reminder that no man or woman was unwanted or unneeded.

These stanzas were often repeated and interpreted in a light of acceptance and brotherhood among those that were different, as "man rejoices in man." Further, those defending this perspective of integration and acceptance found fit fodder in the sagas of the gods and their lives, which are full to bursting with the sorts of behavior that were rejected by those who did not accept difference. Tyr was missing a hand, and had two fathers. Loki was fluid in form and concept, being both male and female at times and places. Thor was prone to dangerous rage. Odin was missing an eye, lay with men, and swore blood-brotherhood with a stranger. Hödur was blind. Freyr gave up his weapon for the love of a jotunn woman.

Furthermore, on the topic of general egalitarianism, it is worth noting that this acceptance was not reserved solely for men. The Aesir respected Skadi's claim of having been wronged by them for the death of her father, and Freyja earned the respect of all, claiming half of those who died in honor for her hall.

And for those whom the gods did not set a sufficient example, among mortal men, Hiccup the Wise was missing a foot, and his father, Stoick the Lawgiver, was missing an eye and a hand, and both of them sought to reach out and include others, and attempted to act with kindness and respect to those not of their own people. And while they were the leaders and would have received more acceptance from their followers simply due to that position and the social deference that came with it, it should be noted that Stoick's best friend from childhood preferred men and was missing two limbs, and his personal aide was a woman of a different faith who chose to never marry, and Hiccup's inclusion of others is literally proverbial.

This acceptance of those who were different, who were strangers, who were outsiders, gave the Reformed Norse a strength in diversity that stood them well, especially in those early years…

To chapter article

Chapter 109: Shift Happens
Prior to the Norse Reformation, the ethno-religion of the Norse people was technically a folk religion with mixed shamanistic practices and no centralized doctrines. Lacking a canonical unifying text and relying primarily on oral transmission, the particulars of practice and belief differed from region to region, with some particular beliefs and practices being idiosyncratic in comparison to the whole of the religion—which was itself an offshoot of the archaic Germanic religion that had existed in central and western Europa during the prior eras. While pre-Reformation texts which are not from Berk and related tribes are comparatively rare, idiosyncratic differences can still be seen between what examples we do have. It was only later, with Berk's doctrinal canonization which overwrote a great deal of the variation in regional belief, that the Norse religion adopted a set of canonical texts.

One such example of a divergence in belief is that of Sif, Thor's wife. In eastern Norse beliefs, she was primarily an Earth fertility and farming goddess, with her golden hair being an allusion to fields of grain and her marriage to Thor being a symbolic bond between the earth and sky—especially that of life-giving rain on farmers' fields.

In contrast, Sif's depictions are expanded in the beliefs of the Eirish Sea Norse which were eventually canonized by the Norse Reformation. Textual analysis and primary sources show the primary movers of the divergence being the Bog Burglar tribe, which began as a breakaway Sif and Freyja cult sometime in the 800s AD. Here, Sif is still a goddess of the fertility of the earth—a fertility which is enhanced by the blood spilled on the ground by killing attackers attempting to destroy her home, hearth and family. In these depictions, Sif's role is expanded to be similar to that of Freyja, as a deadly warrior woman. However, in contrast to Freyja's focus on the offensive aspects of warfare, Sif's focus is decidedly defensive, that of a mother protecting her children and standing her ground with a refusal to retreat, and a fertility goddess who is completely willing to use the blood and bones of the fallen to enrich her fields.

To chapter article

Chapter 3 : Idle Hands...
What is often forgotten by many, being focused on Hiccup Haddock and his accomplishments, is that he had an extensive support network in the form of his friends and family. In particular, The Dragon Archivist, Fishlegs Ingerman, is often forgotten by popular histories or relegated to secondary consideration at best, despite the fact that his educational efforts allowed his friend's innovations to be retained as time passed…

…without Ingerman, Haddock would have been universally seen as a wizard or other arcanist within a generation of his passing. Instead, their joint legacy resulted in the establishment of some of the modern world's greatest educational and intellectual institutions…

[https://athingofvikings.fandom.com/wiki/Chapter_3:_Idle_Hands... To chapter article]

Chapter 13: Wakeup Calls
While she tends to be somewhat overshadowed in the stories by Hiccup Haddock's intellectual and political accomplishments, his partner, Astrid Hákonsdoittor, is frequently and explicitly credited in both the popular tales and in Haddock's own journals as his closest friend and intellectual associate. While Ingerman was responsible for much of the educational and archival infrastructure that resulted in the retention of Haddock's innovations, their primary partnerships were in the area of recreations of Roman mechanisms and methods. In contrast, Haddock's journals specifically state that, without her guidance, discipline, and partnership, the vast number of his original creations would have remained as undeveloped ideas, to the point that many are credited primarily to her.

This is in addition to her own independent innovations in the area of draconic military applications, to the point where her own authored text, The Wing And The Ax, on the uses of dragons in martial settings, was the standard primary text on the subject for nearly two centuries, and is still used and viewed as one of the foundational texts in the field.

To chapter article

Chapter 24 : Your Only Hope...
King Harthacnut's attack on Berk, in addition to costing the lives of dragon-riders in the first recorded battle on dragon-back (featuring human belligerents against the dragon-riders; Haddock's battle against the Green Death belongs to a different category), set the stage for the events that followed. Within a matter of months, the entirety of Europe had heard of the event, and the awareness that dragons could be tamed set off what could only be called an arms race among the European kingdoms as they sought to replicate the feat, or defend themselves against dragons being used against them. This was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that the continental European dragon populations had crashed due to human predation over the preceding centuries.

To chapter article

Chapter 30: The Blood Of The Covenant Is Thicker…
…Ingerman's contributions to Haddock's legacy, however, pale in comparison to that of Astrid Haddock I, Hiccup's wife. The only daughter of Chief Hákon Mortensson clan Hofferson and Chieftess Gunvor Dugalsdoittor clan Hofferson of Eire, married to Hiccup Haddock III on 27 November 1041 after a ~15 month courtship, the two were genuinely inseparable partners for the remainder of their lives. Popularly known by multiple titles, including The Skydancer, Freyja's Chosen, Sif's Blade, and others, she is generally credited as having been instrumental in channeling and directing the productivity of her husband's intellect into practical ends.

…in addition to acting as Hiccup's manager, or as his whetstone, the metaphor that she preferred, Astrid, in her position as her husband's marshal, was widely feared and respected across Europa as the foremost military mind of her era, a reputation inspired from her tactics used during the Second Battle of the Seine River…

To chapter article

Chapter 35 : Understanding Is A Three-Edged Sword
In contrast to Hiccup Haddock's skills as a polymath and inventor, Fishlegs Hensteethson clan Ingerman (clan Frelsifrædi post-1061) was a natural research librarian (devising a crude but effective library classification system in his 20s) and polyglot, with a literate skill level in a dozen confirmed languages by the time of his death, and likely many more. A significant part of the explanation of this skill level was simply early conditioning—the Ingerman clan held the unofficial position of being the Hooligan tribe's dedicated scribes, librarians, and archivists, and Fishlegs grew up surrounded by books. However, even by the standards of his clan, he was exceptional, and the primary explanation for this was his own interest and talent.

In his adult role as Haddock's royal librarian, Ingerman also presided over the founding of the Royal Library of Berk (later the Library of the Grand Thing), the establishment of several imperial universities, and the copying and dissemination of every book that he could get his hands on. The monastic libraries of Ireland in particular, having faded from their glory days of the sixth to ninth centuries, were explored, revived, consolidated, and expanded under his aegis as part of an active campaign of scholasticism.

To chapter article

Chapter 47 : Do You Hear Something?
Pre-Viking Eirish society was, in technical terms, a sophisticated primitive society; it had formalized law, culture and social structures, but also lacked several elements associated with complex societies, specifically a written language, urban centers, and currency. The social structure of the Eirish, in particular, was based on three axes, and where the individual Eirish person fell on them.

The primary axis was familial; an Eirish family was all of the related members living under one roof (a fine), and then extending out to one-degree extended family (sept), and there to blood-tied clan. Related clans would come together to form a tribe (a tuath), related tribes would form a kingdom (dál), and geographically proximate kingdoms would form a province (coiced), of which there were classically five.

The second axis was occupational, and consisted of three groups: the warriors (láech / láecheanna), the craftsmen (cerd / cerdí), and the laborer farmers (aithech / aithecheanna). The farmers produced the food required to survive, and were protected by the warriors. The warriors protected the other two groups, but also ruled over them. And the craftsmen produced the goods and services needed to keep the society running; this group included not only smiths, carpenters, masons and others, but also the lawkeepers, priests, musicians, scholars, monks, physicians and other such individuals.

The third axis was social class, consisting of five ranks.

At the top were the rulers, the kings (ríthe), ranging from clan chief (rí) to tribal chief (rí tuaithe) to king of the kingdom (rí ruirí), to province king (rí ruírech), and then to High King (ard rí).

Second in rank were the privileged (flaith), essentially the aristocracy. These individuals were the designated managers of the land, and controlled who settled where and did what. While legally the land was held by the tribe as a whole and the privileged class merely managed it on their behalf, they still historically received the bulk of of the arable land, controlled who worked it, and worked the public resources for their private benefit.

Third in rank were the non-noble freemen with property (aire), usually land or flocks. There were two subclasses, both related to the occupations in the second axis—warriors and professionals, who engaged in privileged, trained crafts and skills, such as priest, law-keeper, physician, fili or other such skill.

Fourth in rank were the freemen without property (aithech); they were not privileged themselves and did not hold property, and worked the land or flocks granted by the upper ranks as tenants.

Fifth in rank were the non-free. There were three subdivisions of this category:sen-cleith, bothach & fuidir. Bothach were essentially clanless individuals allowed to squat on tribal lands at the sufferance of the tribe. Sen-Cleith were the personal servants and laborers of the Flaith classes, and the flaith members treated them as little better than the daer-fuidiri. The fuidir was the lowest of the low, bound to the land and desires of their owning Flaith. The daer-fuidiri being composed of debt-thralls, war-captives, and other human chattel, The daer-fuidiri were little more than property—indeed, female thralls, referred to as bondsmaids (cumhal), were a standard unit of currency against which other valuable items were measured in Eirish law. Finally, there were rare exceptions in the form of tribeless individuals, saer-fuidir, who were allowed to squat on unsettled land at the sufferance of the local Flaith, but otherwise had no rights before the law to speak of.

To chapter article

Chapter 119: Dust To Dust
On the topic of the Red King, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, the man is primarily notable in terms of the legacy he left behind, as opposed to his immediate actions. Even his apologists, of whom he has few, admit that their primary defense of the man is to plead ignorance and lack of awareness on his part of the possible outcomes of his deeds, for the facts are indisputable in how the Red King's legacy was, on the whole, a negative one. He fomented wars and mistrust, attempted to cripple and attack out of needless suspicion and fear, and many of his deeds directly led to an escalation of conflict.

One area of argument is the point that, if not for his actions, the Norse Reformation might not have happened, as he spread the seeds of conflict that began to sprout the year after his death, seeds from which the Norse Reformation sprang. However, even among those Norse adherents who subscribe to this viewpoint, the sore point remains in how much his behavior was antithetical to their faith's teachings. And his actions also helped accelerate Berk's territorial growth, by setting Harthacnut the Dane upon his perceived foe, as well as other such actions that stemmed from his time.

But, ultimately, he failed in his goals. Alba became an integral and important province of Berk's territory, and eventually became a core component of the North Sea Empire in the coming years. His family line ended with him, and his stepson never ruled. All the Red King arguably succeeded in doing, in the end, was adding to the casualty counts of the coming wars that he helped spark and escalate, and adding a morality lesson for parents and entertainers on the costs of baseless suspicion, and how such things can spiral into chaos and death.

To chapter article

Chapter 4: The Scottish Play
The political landscape that Haddock and his tribe found themselves thrust into was one marked by extensive conflict and political fragmentation. The most significant power in Europa, beyond that of the Catholic Church, was the Holy Roman Empire, under Henry III, and it was undergoing a period of consolidation, and the Byzantine Roman Empire, which was likewise experiencing an era of decay in the aftermath of the death of the Emperor Basil the Younger in 1025 CE. Otherwise, there were few extensive centralized powers; even those rulers who could claim significant domains, such as the Kievan Rus', consisted of tribal or feudal confederations that were not politically unified beyond the person of their sovereign.

To chapter article

Chapter 6: Return To Sender
In Berk's immediate vicinity in the Alban Isles, there were not many major dominant powers. Eire was politically fragmented into dozens of warring petty kings, and had not been unified since the death of High King Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Alba, in the north, was under the rule of the Red King, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, but he was new to his title at the time, and, despite his later activities, was not by any means a major power. Wales was politically splintered into five squabbling kingdoms that would not reunify for years. Around the Eirish Sea and Hebrides were other warlords and petty kings, many of whom belonged to related dynasties and feuded endlessly with one another.

The single greatest powers in the immediate vicinity were England, which was ruled by the tyrannical King Harthacnut, and the politically decentralized Frankish kingdom to the south, ruled by King Henry of the Capets. Neither power had the population, or the initial incentives, to pursue conflicts with Berk. Henry was dealing with conflicts with and between his nobility, while Harthacnut was imposing his will on a restive populace. In particular, the autocratic methods that Harthacnut had used to rule over Denmark for the previous several years were backfiring on him tremendously and setting the stage for…

To chapter article

Chapter 14: Relationships
The initial Norwegian outreach to Berk, notwithstanding popular belief otherwise, was actually instigated by Magnus the Good's regent, Einar Eindridesson Thambarskelfir (c. 980-1047), of the Lade jarls, not Magnus the Good, although he was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea.

Originally an opponent of King Olaf Haraldsson, Magnus's father, Einar supported King Cnut the Great's efforts to overthrow Olaf. Those efforts succeeded in 1028 AD, sending King Olaf and his family into exile. Olaf returned two years later after the death of Cnut's first viceroy, Haakon Ericsson, in an attempt to regain his kingdom, and died at the Battle of Stiklestad (29 July 1030 AD), defeated by a peasant army led by Kálfr Árnasson, Thorir Hund and Hárek of Tjøtta. Einar was not present at the battle, but this was more due to happenstance than intent—Einar was visiting King Cnut in London when the battle was joined. The purpose of his visit was to petition Cnut to make him the new viceroy of Norway.

The petition failed; Einar was not given the viceroyalty over Norway, and neither were any of the other Norwegian nobility that had supported Cnut. Instead, Cnut chose his fourteen-year-old son Sveinn as viceroy and Sveinn's mother, Ælfgifu of Northampton, as the boy's regent and therefore the effective ruler of Norway. This decision infuriated Einar and the others who had supported Cnut's overthrow of King Olaf, as each of them had wished to be named as regent over Norway, and Cnut had promised each of them the position (or so they claimed). Sveinn and Ælfgifu's subsequent viceroy reign was seen as oppressive due to new laws and taxes, and was marked by intense resistance on the part of the Norwegian nobility.

In 1035 AD, Einar, acting in concert with Kálfr, betrayed Cnut's viceroys. Traveling to Yaroslav the Wise's court in the Kievan Rus', the two chieftains found Olaf's eleven-year-old illegitimate son, Magnus, who had been left there by his father to be fostered in exile by Yaroslav and his wife Ingegerd. Returning to Scandinavia with Magnus, they allied with King Anund Jacob the Coalburner of Sweden, Magnus's step-uncle, to place Magnus on the Norwegian throne as a puppet ruler to the noble chiefs.

Political machinations quickly followed, and Kálfr was quickly outmaneuvered by Einar. Using Kálfr's direct involvement in the death of King Olaf against him, Einar depicted himself as blameless, and managed to have Kálfr incriminate himself by showing how he killed the boy-king's father with a stab to the neck. Einar became Magnus's new regent and effective ruler of Norway, while Kálfr and Thorir were driven into exile. Magnus, reportedly furious, wished to have them executed, but refrained from doing so on the advice of his godfather, Sigvatr the Skald.

His primary rivals gone, Einar spent the next half decade as the de facto ruler of Norway; even when Magnus reached his majority and assumed some level of legal power, Einar made certain to keep the young monarch dependent on him.

This status quo, however, was broken by one of Einar's miscalculations. Hearing of the tamed dragons and dragon-riders of Berk from a traveling skald in the spring of 1041 AD, he dispatched one of his minor rivals in the court, the herald Yngvarr Arlaksson, to make contact with Berk, reasoning that either his rival would be killed by fearsome Norse dragon-riders or they might potentially make an ally of the same.

This backfired, as Berk—and Hiccup Haddock and his associates in particular—were not what he had expected.

To chapter article

Chapter 16: Bindings...
It is generally agreed upon by historians that the moment where King Magnus Olofsson began to truly assert his own authority over Einar Thambarskelfir’s was the first attempted assassination of Hiccup Haddock and Astrid Hofferson, on their first state visit to Magnus’s court in 1041. While Einar remained high in the young monarch’s councils with his considerable political power and influence, his grip on the young king only continued to loosen. Given Einar’s desires for power, this became the primary source of conflict between the two of them over the ensuing years.

Magnus’s growth away from Einar’s control, however, took time. There is no significant debate that Einar’s decisions were the instigating force behind, for example, the marital alliances for both Magnus and Wulfhild. In that specific case, while Magnus could have resisted the directives of his regent, it is generally agreed that doing so would have caused an open rift within his court, especially given the later developments and innovations by Haddock that openly terrified Einar and the other nobles.

To chapter article

Chapter 28: Ties That Bind
The decisive defeat of the Danish-English navy by Berk in late 1041, in particular, resulted in a tremendous shock to the political status quo of the era. While most of the nobility and royalty had heard of the story of the defeat of the Green Death in the year since the event, that had been an incident from which there was a limited number of primary witnesses, and only second-hand evidence was available (even if that evidence was compelling). In contrast, there were thousands of survivors from the English fleet, all of whom were terrified first-hand witnesses to one of the most one-sided naval battles in recorded history. The rumors and news would be much harder to dismiss as exaggeration or invention as many had done previously. While it might be hyperbole to state that an air of hysteria began to descend on the monarchs of Europe, many did react to the news with varying degrees of fear, placation, aggression, or all three at the new power that had just made itself known.

To chapter article

Chapter 36: Your Side...
King Magnus’s attempts to free himself from Einar Thambarskelfir’s control were, at first, tentative and uncertain. Einar controlled the structures and systems of government, and had made himself into a bottleneck through which all correspondence and control had to be directed. Magnus also did not have access to the full text of many treaties and laws. Einar additionally had waged a specific campaign of corruption throughout Magnus’s teen years in attempting to weaken Magnus’s work ethic in order to make him easier to control, a campaign that is believed to have resulted in the birth of Magnus’s bastard daughter, Ragnhild, when Magnus was in his mid-teens.

However, in the aftermath of Magnus’s marriage to Ruffnut, Einar began to realize the depth of his miscalculations and reacted poorly. On the one hand, he now had dragons to help enforce his policies. On the other hand, he had to deal with Queen Ruffnut, which he was reported to have described later on as a challenge that would make the hardiest man quiver in his boots in trepidation, especially when combined with her brother. Furthermore, it was becoming obvious to him just how poorly he had understood Hiccup Haddock’s basic personality…

To chapter article

Chapter 38: …And The Truth
Immediately prior to the conclusion of the Dragon War in AD 1040, Berk's society was structured around four major clans of 110-150 persons—Ingerman, Hofferson, Thorston, and Jorgenson—plus the Chief's clan, Haddock, plus approximately two hundred more clanless members of the Hooligan tribe, grouped in small families or as solitary individuals. During this time, most of the resources of the village and island were under the control of these five clans, granting them significant social and economic influence. This state of affairs is generally agreed to be a result of the depredations of the dragon raids, which made it such that only larger clans were truly viable, as they collectively had the resources to withstand the constant losses that would debilitate any smaller clan.

This can be seen in the case of Clan Haddock, which had been reduced from the 108 persons listed as their maximum in AD 875 down to four (Stoick, Valka, Hiccup, and Gothi) in AD 1025. Stoick was able to maintain control over the rest of the village due to tradition, but also due his charisma, leadership skills, physical prowess and strength—and due to being the sole inheritor of his clan's comparatively vast wealth, which he used judiciously in order to stay in power, creating debts of honor and capital that would need to be repaid by the recipient out of social expectations. He also made use of Clan Haddock's web of kin ties to the rest of the village; for examples, Stoick's sister, Serena, had married into the Jorgensons at about the same time Stoick had married Valka clan Jorgenson, and Stoick's paternal aunt Rhonda was the wife of Rikard clanhead Hofferson and thus the matriarch of a third of the Hofferson clan.

Despite all of Stoick's efforts and skilled politicking, however, his clan was simply not as vibrant and able to absorb damage as the other clans. Stoick's assets were mostly static compared with the others, despite the loans that he constantly engaged in for investment, and only his skills—in politics, and in dragonslaying—allowed him to defer the inevitable collapse of his clan, according to the Gobber Ledgers. This persisted until his son came up with a completely different solution to their problem, revived their clan, and changed the course of history.

Without Hiccup's efforts, however, Clan Haddock would almost certainly have joined the other nine extinct clans listed in the Hooligan records at the end of Stoick's life. Instead, by AD 1050, the social structure had shifted—occasionally catastrophically—to medium-sized clans, ranging in size between 30 and 70 people. Clan Jorgenson was the first to split, in response to the death of…

To chapter article

Chapter 57: Let The Games Begin
…the machinations surrounding the Alban Red King, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích (~AD 1005—18 April, AD 1043), were complex. Despite the efforts of apologists who wish to paint the king as an innocent dupe of Jarl Mildew the Vicious' manipulations in his efforts to trigger war between Alba and Berk, the fact remains that Mac Bethad's hands were hardly clean. He became the Mormaer of Moray in AD 1032 after the previous Mormaer, Gille Coemgáin, was burned to death along with 50 of his men, and there is little question that Mac Bethad either participated in or organized the atrocity, although the question of his sense of guilt is open, due to his marriage to Gille Coemgáin's wife, Gruoch, and adoption of his son, Lulach, as Mac Bethad's own heir. He also killed his own cousin, the previous king of Alba, Donnchadh mac Crìonain, on the field of battle in August of AD 1040, and took the throne. While Donnchadh mac Crìonain had initiated the battle that resulted in his death, there is evidence of provocation on the part of Mac Bethad specifically to spur his cousin into invading and allow Mac Bethad to fight with the moral upper hand and on his own territory. Similarly, Mac Bethad's efforts with regard to Berk included various attempts to cripple the nascent power…

To chapter article

Chapter 58: A Foul Play
What is known of Jarl Mildew the Vicious mostly comes from secondary sources—journal entries from the Hooligans, observations from King MacBeth and his court, and others—due to the fact that the man was apparently a recalcitrant loner and hermit, only one step above a formalized outcast from the entirety of the Hooligan tribe. A multiple divorcee and rumored to have had various unsavory habits, he was generally ostracized by the community by his early adulthood. This includes having been formally outcast from his birth clan (Hofferson) in AD 976 and having been forced to take a new name.

The only reason why he had not been entirely banished from the tribe decades previously, according to the general consensus from Hooligan accounts,  was that he was one of Berk's most effective and lethal dragon slayers during the last decades of the Dragon War. According to the records, he was surpassed in dragonslaying only by a handful of his contemporaries, chief among them his younger brother, Rikard clanhead Hofferson. Indeed, the historical records speaks volumes as to how unpleasant a personality he had—and how many restitution payments he had to pay from his winnings—that someone with his substantial kill record was relegated to the fringes of the tightly knit tribe, rather than being feted and toasted as one of their elites.

To chapter article

Chapter 76: A Grand Tour
The early Dragon Mail stations were an earnest and generally successful effort in standardization; Haddock and Ingerman explicitly acknowledged the degree to which their designs were inspired by the Imperial Roman Castrum system of standardized layouts. Having experimented with the design in the earliest mail stations in the Alban Isles and Norway, Haddock and his initial construction expedition were able to build the mainland continental stations extremely quickly, typically completing each within a matter of days. Once the physical stations were built, the local merchant partnerships would take over with maintenance, staffing, and other logistical needs.

These early stations, while they had their problems, were generally well-designed, featuring a landing platform on the roof, housing for the staff, temporary quarters for dragons and riders, resting and feeding stations for the dragons, and mail intake and output offices. Due to space requirements, they were initially built outside of the local city walls or municipal limits, but quickly accrued settlement in their immediate vicinity, as additional shops and services found the traffic going to and from the mail station to be a natural draw.

To chapter article

Chapter 86: For Everything There Is A Season
One of the more serious diplomatic errors that Hiccup made was failing to pay a visit to the King of Francia, Henry of the Capets, until late in AD 1042. He made multiple visits to Normandy, a visit to the Holy Roman Empire, and visits to many other monarchs and high lords, but seemed to avoid a visit to Paris and King Henry until circumstances forced his hand. This apparent snubbing in favor of more powerful and connected nobles, including some who were nominally Henry's vassals, combined with Hiccup's later actions, served to highlight Henry's lack of power and influence, and the king did not take the lack of interest well at all. Simply put, it seemed he wasn't important enough for Hiccup to bother with.

While Hiccup had his reasons for his decisions—setting up the Dragon Mail being one of them, following the coastal route of his merchant contacts—the implicit lack of importance his actions assigned to King Henry soured relations between them before they even had a chance to formally open.

To chapter article

Chapter 5: Thawfest
Thawfest—Colloquial term for the Sigurblót, the traditional Norse Festival welcoming the summer. Held the Sunday after the full moon after the Dísablót held at the Spring Equinox (Compare: Easter), in either April or May, to celebrate the Spring Thaw and the turning of the seasons. Typical formulations consist of contests and demonstrations of prowess by all attendees in honor of the gods. The Thawfest is a time of great social and legal importance; during the Viking Era, this festival marked the beginning of the campaigning season, and the winter was officially over at the conclusion of the festival; children who had seen sixteen winters were now officially adults. The term Sigurblót literally means "victory sacrifice," and the festival is an acknowledgment of the Norse survival of another harsh dark winter. Winter is over, and summer has won, and Ragnarok is postponed for at least one more year.

To chapter article

Chapter 89: Initiation
Weregild: Archaic term for a fine made as legal reparations for an unlawful death at the hands of an offending party to their victim's family or clan. The precise value of the payment was based on the legal and social standing of the victim, with no division set between murder and manslaughter. A freeman was generally used as the base payment amount, with 200 shillings being the value assigned in 8th century Anglo-Saxon law, and this amount then modified appropriately according to the local mores—for example, among the Alamanni, the weregeld for women was twice that of an equal-status man, while among the Saxons, it was half. An envoy from Charlemagne was worth three times his normal value if killed while in active service to the king, and a priest was worth an extra hundred shillings if he was killed during the reading of Mass—presumably, both of these circumstances occurred enough to warrant the variance in the legal codes.

While these payments seem to be preposterous to a more modern outlook, it is important to note that, in their era, which lacked centralized law enforcement and more modern legal punishments, weregilds functioned as a system that allowed for deescalation of tensions, as opposed to the other option for restitution that was available: the victim's family going out and killing the killer, which would spark a cycle of revenge that would spiral into vendettas and feuds.

To chapter article

Chapter 100: The Turning Of Years
Yule:  Traditional term for the Norse holidays marking the beginning of the Winter season, as well as to the general early winter months. The holy days proper begin with the Winter Solstice in late December and run for a period of one week in total, although preparations and lead-up activities occupy many of the weeks beforehand. During the Yule-time, numerous feasts, sacred meals, and sacrifices are made in the hope of a good harvest in the following year. Of primary focus are the deities  Frigga ,  Freyja, and  Freyr , with some traditions also paying homage to  Sif. These gods, in their roles of fertility, growth, and prosperity, are petitioned for their aid, and in the cases of Frigga and Freyja, for intercession with their husband  Odin  as he rides at the head of the  Wild Hunt. It is specifically noted that one does not invoke Odin during Yule, for fear of drawing the attention of him and his hunting party.

The Yule traditions are rich in symbolism, with ham and boar served for Freyr and Freyja's honor, an entire log burned for Frigga's hearth and hanging mistletoe in remembrance of her son  Baldr, and a straw goat for Sif and her husband  Thor,  among others, including traditions which honor specific Valkyries. All in all, the holy days are a bright, festive time, a celebration of light and life in the midst of the darkest winter…

To chapter article

Chapter 7: A-Viking
Burh— Old English fortified settlement or fortification, as a response to the threat of Viking raids of the 8th to 11th centuries. Conceived of as a network of forts containing detachments of local defense militia and roads (known as herepaths) connecting them, they were intended to act as a place to shelter the populace against Viking attack, as well as allowing the English forces to concentrate quickly in the event of a raid or invasion. Until the 1040s, and the domestication of dragons by the Norse, the burh and herepath system was notably effective in repulsing Viking raids.

To chapter article

Chapter 8: A Challenge
Despite popular tales to the contrary, Vikings did not constantly duel to the death over every little issue. Indeed, they took considerable efforts to prevent unnecessary bloodshed among their communities and to ensure fairness between their members.

Political meetings, known as Things, had elaborate rules of conduct, designed to limit the potential for violence and the sparking of feuds. This was one of the functions of the ritual trial-by-combat, the holmgang; to settle and close disputes and feuds in a hopefully nonlethal manner, yet in a way that was acceptable to the martial Norse. This was done by means of creating the dueling area as a sacred space before the gods, defining the conflict, and rendering it such that what was 'slain' within the bounds of the demarcation was the opposing dispute. Rather than start a brawl over a dispute at a Thing—an act that was in violation of the rules of conduct—one disputant could challenge another to a trial by combat, after which the matter was settled. And to keep those with significant prowess from perverting the mechanics of the trial by combat against their intent, substitutions in the cases of gross mismatches were not only allowed, but encouraged.

To chapter article

Chapter 11: Norse-By-Norse-West
…due to the actions of merchants, couriers, and word of mouth, it is generally assumed that knowledge of Hiccup Haddock's victory over the Green Death, and the associated domestication of the Nest's dragons, had reached all of the major and minor capitals of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor within a year of the event, eighteen months at most.

Most of these feudal sovereigns and lesser lords reacted dismissively, especially at first, when evidence was minimal, while others, especially those who had seen evidence at first- or second-hand, reacted to the emerging power as a threat to appease or suppress. And a rare few acted otherwise…

To chapter article

Chapter 27: A Humble Proposal
…within half a year of the battle with the Green Death, the first recorded attempt at theft of dragons from Berk occurred, instigated by the then-petty king of Vedrarfjord, known at the time as Adalwin ua Imir, in southeastern Éire. This first attempt failed, but Hiccup clan Haddock appealed for moderation on the part of his tribesmates and likewise failed to end the threat decisively. This allowed Adalwin to insert a spy into Berk, Heather nic Oswald clan Murchadh, then age fifteen. Trained in espionage from the age of thirteen, her orders were to infiltrate Berk, steal dragons, and exfiltrate back to Vedrarfjord.

While not all of the legends about Heather clan Murchadh (later clan Ingerman) are accurate, the broad strokes of those legends are generally on point. Due to emotional attachments to Berk, specifically that of her future husband, Fishlegs clan Ingerman, she defected to the Hooligan tribe. And, as her first action on behalf of her adopted society, she aided Berk in a Trojan Horse-style infiltration of Adalwin's keep for a retaliatory decapitation strike against her former masters.

The attack was a mixed success, with only some of its objectives achieved, and resulting in numerous unintended consequences. These included…

To chapter article

Chapter 42: The Pen...
The economic and demographic growth of Berk's territory can be tracked due to the tribal census records. Begun in AD 950 under the auspices of Chief Hiccup II, the yearly census tracked a slow, steady and inexorable contraction over the next ninety-one years, with the first census recording a population of 1,373 people from eight clans and nearly 400 clanless freemen, dropping to 712 across five clans and 208 freemen in early AD 1041. After the end of the Dragon War, however, the pattern reverses itself explosively, with the Eirish annexations and the tribe's own natural growth. Child mortality drops in all of the tribe's holdings, and immigration begins in earnest. At the start of AD 1042, according to the census for that year, the total population of the Hooligan holdings was recorded as 4,902 humans, and approximately 12,000 dragons…

…Vedrarfjord, as an Eirish city with room to expand that was unavailable to Berk on its small and hilly isle, is extremely illustrative of the growth that occurred. Beginning with approximately 2,000 people in AD 1042, plus another 2,000 in the immediate hinterlands within walking distance, the city's population boomed over the next ten years to 31,826 permanent residents—after contracting from a refugee-boosted height of 56,105 in AD 1044, nearly all of whom ended up settling elsewhere in Berk's territory (see Chapter 23: The Eastern Massacres).

In that first census, the image revealed is of a small Viking trading port, primarily focused on agriculture, with the majority of the population involved in farming, herding or fishing and the other major industries being shipbuilding and other port-related activities. Recorded in that first census, there were 8 shoemakers, 9 furriers, 10 tailors, 6 barbers, 3 jewelers, 4 tavernkeepers, 4 bakers, 9 carpenters, 12 weavers, 5 chandlers, 2 scabbard-makers, 3 brewers, 5 coopers, 2 butchers, 3 fishmongers, 6 smiths (specializations not noted), 8 healers, 3 millers, 8 ropemakers, 36 shipwrights and 2 tanners recorded.

Ten years later, the portrait of Vedrarfjord is that of an industrial and educational center, featuring glassmakers (207), teachers (572), bookbinders (17), papermakers (98), ropemakers (453), weavers (429), tailors (168)…

To chapter article

Chapter 48: ...Run Away
The piecemeal Berkian annexation of Eire in the early 1040s set the general pattern for their later hegemonic expansion elsewhere in the region. Unlike many other sovereigns of the era, Stoick the Vast, followed by his son Hiccup the Wise, were not excessively interested in conquest. However, they reacted to threats to their holdings and subjects in a decisive manner, a fact that directly led to their first annexation of Vedrarfjord.

Also informing matters in this area was the simple fact that the Hooligans had instituted universal freedmanship among their tribe over a century before, and detested the institution of thralldom, a detestation which quickly extended itself to serfdom and related institutions. As a third factor, due to the Hooligans' long war with the dragons, they had come to significantly appreciate the importance of investment into infrastructure, both physical and educational.

Thus a pattern emerged; an aggressor would attack them and be absorbed as a result of the counterattack, or a holding would petition to join. Then the peasantry of their new holding would find themselves the focus of intense investment into their economies and societies. Standards of living skyrocketed across the island, as the new infrastructure increased the demand for labor and allowed for the creation of surplus that could act as trade goods. Furthermore, the use of dragon scales as currency introduced sufficient liquidity across the Berkian holdings to allow for a transition from the barter system to a market economy. Finally, Chief Stoick, extending the laws of his homeland to the new holdings, instituted legally mandated universal education for all of his subjects. While initially based on the Hooligan model of functional literacy for everyone and then allowing for further specialization as fitting the individual's desires, additional subjects—mathematics, civics, rhetoric, languages, and history, among others—soon followed. These factors caused an explosion of cultural and social output over the following generations…

To chapter article

Chapter 51: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon The World
Furthermore, the legally mandated food and housing welfare requirements for all members of Berk's holdings—a holdover from the days of the Dragon War, when a surprise dragon raid could put any of the Hooligans out of house and livelihood—helped significantly with accelerating the rate of social, cultural and economic growth.

The end result of the pattern of absorption was that, by the mid-1050s AD, Eire was politically and socially unified, integrated and enfranchised under Berk's auspices as a province of the newly created North Sea Empire. With the second-highest per-capita productivity in the Empire, Gaoidhealg forming one of the initial core Imperial languages, and their voting block resolutely backing and supporting Hiccup Haddock in the Grand Thing, the actions of the Eirish had, and continued to have, an indelible impact on the society, culture, economy and political life of the Empire…

…This is not to say that all went smoothly, especially at first, before the pattern had established itself. The Hooligans took significant time to formulate specific policies and end goals in regards to Eire, and there was also staunch resistance due to the fact that Eire had been a formalized caste-based inequitable society, and had no cultural experience with the Hooligans' more egalitarian traditions. In contrast, the Norse-Gael towns that dotted the coast of the island were easier to acculturate, as they already had the cultural traditions of the proto-democratic Viking Thing and the social closure effect of the holmgang.

Further complicating matters were the long-entrenched conflicts between the native Eirish and the Vikings, and the religious differences between the Norse Hooligans and the Christian Eirish. As the Eirish had no experience nor expectation of actual intent of peace from Vikings, and no worldview that would allow them to see the act of dragon-riding as anything other than witchcraft or devil-worship, it was an uphill struggle for the Hooligans to convince the Eirish of their peaceful intent, much less politically and socially integrate the island's populace—not helped by the necessity of self-defense against preemptive attacks.

To chapter article

Chapter 67: Kill With A Borrowed Knife
Prior to the Imperial Assembly Of Law, the North Sea Empire's legal system was a patchwork of numerous local codes, ordinances, and jurisdictions, in multiple languages, and with numerous cultural and religious outlooks. The purpose of the Assembly was to create a pan-imperial legal code that was acceptable to all peoples of the Empire, and, as with all compromises, it generally succeeded at making everyone equally unhappy, even as they recognized the validity of the compromises. Religious law was left in the hands of the specific faiths, making the code officially secular, which pleased no one and yet satisfied everyone. Other elements were picked from the component legal codes, including Eirish Brehon, Jewish Talmudic, Eastern Norse, Berkian Norse, Islamic Fiqh, Anglo-Saxon Common, and others, into a reasonably cohesive whole…

… the complex methods of Hooligan title inheritance, after some refinement, became the method by which titular inheritance was managed in the early and middle eras of the Empire, as the Hooligans already had influences from the Brehon, Alban, and Norse legal codes. Pre-Assembly Hooligan title inheritance was a complex mix of elements from all of these sources, an intricate system that can be described as Absolute Primogeniture mixed with Gaelic Tanistry and Norse Elective Monarchy.

Before the later refinements were introduced, the system worked as follows: Upon the death or incapacitation of the previous title-holder, the designated heir simply assumed the title (absent legal objections from their new subjects or suspicious circumstances), allowing for a smooth transition of power in most circumstances. The main conflict came with selecting the next designated heir. Heirdom was an elected position in Hooligan law, in line with Gaelic Tanistry, based on suitability and worthiness. Heirs, at the time of selection, had to be adults without physical or mental blemish, descended either from the current or a prior title-holder, and currently a member of the clan that they would be inheriting (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's selection at the age of seven years was an anomaly, initiated by his father Stoick to reinforce his statement that he would not remarry as a result of his wife's legal death).

Beyond those qualifications, the prospective clan-heir needed to be voted into the position by a majority of the individuals over whom they would rule (typically the members of the clan), with the precise degree of the majority needed depending on the heir's relationship with the current title-holder; a child of the title-holder's spouse needed a simple majority, while the child of a concubine needed six-tenths, and more distant relations needed greater pluralities. Furthermore, the elections were handled in rounds; first the spouse's children would be voted on, one at a time in order of birth, and only if none of them were selected as the clan-heir in two rounds of voting would the elections move to include the concubine's children, and even then, only with the explicit acceptance of the title-holder. From there, if the voting still did not find a suitable candidate, the pool would be expanded to more distant relations, with each voted on in turn until an acceptable candidate was found.

While this system functioned well enough for the Hooligan tribe when it was a thousand people or less, it quickly ran into scaling problems as the clans grew, causing fractures to grow, necessitating the various refinements …

To chapter article

Chapter 75: ...You Never Get To See
The roots of the foundational Imperial welfare institutions that provide food, shelter, education and medical care to all Imperial citizens predate the beginnings of the Dragon Era by nearly eighty years, dating back to the middle reign of Stoick's grandfather, Chief Hiccup II. Despite a tumultuous early reign, Hiccup II's grip on power stabilized during the AD 960s, and with the aid of his friend and confidant, the scribe Dror ben Ezra, he began a period of systematic cultural change; the ad hoc literacy classes that Dror had been holding were formalized and made mandatory for all children, a yearly census was instituted that also functioned as a minor form of taxation, and the formerly orally transmitted laws were scribed and codified. As part of that codification, the Hooligans took the earlier basic necessities that they had provided to temporarily homeless or destitute members of the tribe and made them universal, with Dror drawing on his Judaic background and training for direction in how to implement them...

[…] These educational and welfare systems became one of the core pillars of the Imperial social contract between the State and its citizens; there is no question that, without the economic pump-priming and social cohesion that they created, the young North Sea Empire would have never survived its initial challenges…

To chapter article

Chapter 90: Ties Of Blood And Seed
One particularly thorny problem that faced the Imperial Assembly Of Law was the question of legal definitions of marriage. At the time of the Assembly, there were no less than twelve legally and culturally distinct practiced forms of marriage within the bounds of the Empire, and the general legal chaos this caused was part of the impetus for the Assembly in the first place. The jurists thus assembled faced a significant problem in trying to reconcile the various forms. Consider the difference between Latin Catholic marriage, which did not allow for divorce, and every other form, which did allow for divorce (and several forms were, in fact, explicitly temporary unless renewed).

Divorce was just one area of consideration, albeit a contentious one. The necessity of witnesses (needed in Christian forms, not needed in Judaic forms), multiple spouses (allowed in Norse, Islamic, and Gaelic forms, recently outlawed in some Judaic forms, and strictly forbidden by Christian forms), the necessity of clergy or ceremony, the obligations of the spouses to each other, the allowance of same-gender marriages, and, most contentious of them all, mixed marriages between members of different groups… all of these and more were potential problems that needed to be overcome.

The solution which was eventually adopted was, in the general vein of the Assembly's solutions, a broad secular code that stepped back from the religious arena and concerned itself strictly with recognition by the state. Under that code, any consenting group of adults (barring certain degrees of consanguinity, itself a topic of debate) could choose to register as "married" in the eyes of the state, so long as the group—ranging from the typical two to a record nine—had an agreement arranged beforehand on the particulars of their nuptials in regards to divorce, inheritance, descent, and marital obligations (there were a number of rules instituted there as well, to avoid cases of marital slavery and other abuses).

A number of standardized formulations were likewise hammered out to suit the needs of particular forms of marriage, but these were not required by the law, and it was completely within the realm of acceptability to submit more esoteric arrangements (and often needed in the cases of the larger marriages). In effect, it was the official legal position of the Empire that the relationships between the marriage participants and their religious and social home groups were not a concern by the Imperial state, at least not beyond how those relationships informed their marriage contract.

While this was strongly opposed by social conservatives, the fact was that bickering between the conservative groups sabotaged their efforts to stop it. No one group of them could get the rest to agree on which implementation of marriage they desired to be backed by law, even as all of them agreed that they did not approve of the more broadly defined version. This strife among those who wished to have marriage be more narrowly defined according to their own desires allowed for the passing and implementation of the law in the Grand Thing. And while this did not bring an end to strife regarding marriage within the Empire, it at least allowed for a legal unity in terms of recognition of what a marriage was and wasn't.

To chapter article

Chapter 98: Extended Family
One of the legal bases that the Imperial Assembly used as their guidance in developing consistent laws across the Empire were the previously answered questions regarding citizenship which had been refined in the years earlier.

Specifically, prior to the political conflicts and developments of AD 1043, the laws regarding citizenship, tribal and clan membership, and other such identities were extremely variable across the Alban Isles and its constituent polities. Berk and its sister Norse societies had laws that automatically granted freed thralls tribal membership upon arrival in their territories, and the Bog Burglars had similar laws regarding women seeking refuge, both cases of which were laws that had been adopted out of pragmatic need over the previous decades and centuries, to give two examples, but free individuals outside of those classes were not considered to be tribal members outside of specific actions taken to adopt them in, which themselves required particular conditions.

Due to this, then-Chief Stoick's ad hoc mass 'adoption' of Vedrarfjord in AD 1041, bringing the residents of the city into the tribe, was technically not in line with the law. However, as it solved a moral quandary no one spoke up against the action at the time. Still, the action ended up creating an effectively new class of tribal citizens who held their citizenship by dint of their residence within Berk's territory. This new class quickly grew to be overwhelmingly demographically dominant as new outsiders came in and took up residence in Berk's new territories, becoming tribal members as a result, on the technicality of being a resident in a region under Berk's control. The annexations that followed on that precedent made legal matters worse in this regard, and the need for an overhaul of the tribal citizenship laws became quickly apparent.

Further complicating matters in this regard were the interactions between tribal citizenship, clan membership, and the various permutations of life. Was an individual who had been brought in as a clan citizen due to annexation of their home territory still a citizen upon receiving a sentence of temporary exile due to the commission of a crime, either during their exile or upon their return? What citizenship rights could a transient merchant claim? Was it based on his home port, origin of birth, or some other factor? What rights and privileges were granted to outsiders adopted by citizens, or even directly into a clan, especially with adoption law itself being a complicated tangle of precedents? What status, if any, did an individual claiming sanctuary or refugee status, still hold with their old community? And so forth.

To chapter article

Chapter 10: Whetstones
Perhaps the second most mythologized human figure to come out of the Norse domestication of dragons is the Hero's father, Stoick the Vast, a.k.a. Stoick the Lawgiver, Stoick the Wise, Odin's Spear-carrier, and other such titles. Primary sources from his personal contemporaries are minimal, with most of the surviving sources being from the perspective of his son and others of his generation. While the legends generally agree on the broad strokes of his life, the details are shrouded in mutually exclusive legends and myth. This especially pertains to the periods of his life preceding the ascendance of his son; mythologized and mutually contradictory accounts of his childhood, young adulthood, and ancestry are common. Even specific points that many of these accounts agree on have an odor of myth. For example, it is unknown if he truly did 'pop a dragon's head clean off of its neck' as a toddler, as is claimed by legend. His later accomplishments are known with more certainty, but the blank slate of his life prior to the birth of his son has resulted in endless embellishments of his youth, which makes determining the truth a near impossibility.

This is not helped by the fact that the man had a literally larger-than-life stature; in an era in which the average height of an adult man was sixty-eight-and-one-quarter inches (173.4 cm), Stoick, from modern analysis of his remains and attested from numerous primary sources, is confirmed to have measured eighty-one-and-a-half inches (207 cm) in height, with a build to match.

Additionally, other romanticized aspects of his life are well-substantiated, rendering the sorting of truth from fiction to be more difficult. Perhaps the single most famous example of this is his famous devotion to his wife, Valka. As the cultural expectation of a high ranking Norseman of the era, even on Berk, was to be polygamous, Stoick's attested monogamy has been the subject of significant romanticization…

To chapter article

Chapter 12: First Time For Everything
The premise that Magnus the Good's diplomatic overtures to Berk was the instigation to ending the Hooligan Tribe's unofficial policy of noninterference and isolationism has been debated repeatedly over the centuries in academic circles, to the point where it is a traditional topic for undergraduate papers in the subject. Regardless of the specific perspective taken, however, the facts simply remain that Hiccup Haddock's state visit to Norway was the first time that the Hero of Berk traveled to another court and was greeted as an equal by a monarch, and that in the aftermath, Berk began to take a larger role in international affairs, in the economic, political, religious, and militaristic spheres.

To chapter article

Chapter 18: Leavetakings
On the topic of Snotlout Jorgenson, Astrid Haddock's journals frequently refer to the man in epithets, at turns variously angry, vulgar, or frustrated, rather than by name. However, given their own tangled history, this is hardly unsurprising. Jorgenson had a long history of clumsy attempts at seducing her in their youth, despite her repeated efforts at emphasizing that such interest was both unwanted and unrequited. These culminated in a confrontation at the court of Magnus the Good—an event that Jorgenson himself later wrote as being one of the definitional moments of his life. This shared history and established dynamic became the foundation for their infamous interactions as adults.

Interestingly, until her attention was brought to the significance of the moment years later, Astrid's own journals gave little mention of the incident that prompted Jorgenson's departure, beyond a few notations on having to explain matters to Spitelout Jorgenson, Snotlout's father and the marshal of Berk at that time. Once the significance became clear, however, her journal entries on the topic essentially summarized to the points that she was not responsible for his choices or desires, that it was his own responsibility to control himself, and that her only regret was that she hadn't hit him harder that day. This is, of course, excluding a significant portion of extremely creative vulgarity in regards to Jorgenson, to the point where it is suspected by historians that her friend and lifelong associate Ruffnut Fairhair I had some input into the layered kennings in the later journal entries, built upon earlier epithets (Fairhair having had her own negative adolescent experiences with Jorgenson and his attentions).

To chapter article

Chapter 32: First Flakes...
Draconic social structures grew, much as human social structures, based on the general social and communal nature of the species. Much like humans, dragons have a distinct tendency towards obedience to social authority and power structures. However, unlike humans, draconic society was vastly affected by the species' dependence on breeding nests in order to incubate their eggs. These rare locations, the only ones suitable for the raising of dragon whelps prior to Hiccup Haddock's creation of artificial Brooderies, rendered dragons vulnerable to human hunting parties. A successful attack by dragon hunters could wipe out an entire cohort of young dragons with ease. This location-based dependency also made them vulnerable to control by powerful individual dragons.

Case in point for this last aspect was the classic example of the Green Death; this dragon controlled a single breeding nest for nearly three centuries in the Alban Hebrides. The dragon operated by essentially demanding food as rent in order for prospective breeders to be allowed to access the reproductive potential of the nesting site—and, according to primary sources, she also did not hesitate to use more direct force to get her way, up to and including the use of deadly force and cannibalism on her subjects if they failed to pay up.

To chapter article

Chapter 49: Things Fall Apart...
During the Viking Period of AD 793-1040, the Norse explored, traded and settled extensively, using both the seas and rivers as their means of transportation. The Norse longships and skilled seamanship allowed them to travel to locations as far-flung as Mongolia, the African coast of the Mediterranean, and Vinland in the Vestrilands. Skilled and daring sailors would even attempt winter voyages, trusting in their ability to read the weather and the seaworthiness of their ships to avoid and mitigate the hazards of the season.

This tradition of seamanship continued, albeit in an altered form, during the subsequent Dragon Period (AD 1040-~1400), where the old skills in navigation and ship construction continued to evolve…

To chapter article

Chapter 53: Blades Cut Both Ways
Starting from the 1040s AD, the economic effects of dragons upon human society can only be described as transformative, to the point where the time period between 1040 and 1400 is described as the Dragon Era, in line with the Stone, Agricultural, Bronze, Iron, Steam, Industrial, Fission, Information, Space, Genetic, Nanotech, and Fusion Eras. While most popular depictions of history focus more on the visually impressive aspects of aerial combat and the uses of dragons in warfare, such fixation overlooks the majority of the actual effects of dragons on human society. Dragons revolutionized transport and communications within a decade, and the adoption of a dragon-scale currency neatly toppled the feudal systems of Europa that had dominated the region for centuries within sixty years. Even in modern times, each class and breed of dragon is economically useful in some manner: Boulder-classes carve out both the terraurban spaces of modern cities and the subterranean arteries that tie the cities together, and smelt the steel that form the bones of the arcologies and skyscrapers. Stoker-classes produce hydrocarbons in a variety of useful forms. Many dragon venoms, especially those of Sharp-class breeds, can be processed into pharmaceuticals…

To chapter article

Chapter 56: Perils Of Popularity
Compared to the drama of dragon-dug underground canals and dragon-forged skyscrapers, the Financial Revolution in the century and a half after Hiccup Haddock's taming of dragons is generally overlooked, but is perhaps even more fundamental to an understanding of the economic structure he left behind. Prior to the taming of dragons, bullion currency was comparatively rare; while gold and silver coins were certainly in circulation, as witnessed by the famous bride price paid for Hiccup's wife Astrid, overall, the Europan economy was cash-starved and functioned primarily on the barter economy at the lower levels. After the taming of dragons, however, an even more scarce commodity currency entered the economy in the form of dragon scales.

As is common knowledge, dragons shed their skins each spring; prior to domestication, they used these materials for the construction of nests for newly hatched young. Under human auspices, however, the shedding amounted to the annual input of pure currency into the economy. Properly treated and cured, dragon leather and dragon scales can last for decades of use before wearing out. While the leather itself acted as a trade commodity, the single scales from hide that wasn't of sufficient quality to be made into leather were not worthless. On the contrary, they functioned as currency, quickly displacing bullion metals as the currency material of choice.

In this role, dragon scales offered numerous advantages, including being nearly impossible to counterfeit or debase, being easy to substantiate as genuine, and naturally removing themselves from the money supply over time as they wore out or were repurposed (such as for industrial use, decoration or even insulation). However, even with this removal, the most productive gold or silver mine could not hope to match the net output of dragon shedding, and the resulting injection of funds into Europa's economy—spread by the effects of the Dragon Mail and the existing trade network—caused rampant inflation, averaging between 3-8% a year over the next century. While this would cause problems to the modern developed economy, in the cash-starved environment at the time, it was an economic blessing, allowing for a rapid shift from the barter economy and feudal taxation system to a market economy and currency taxation system, giving even the peasantry access to funds with which to pay their expenses and taxes and receive payments. Increasing per-person productivity from Haddock's innovations and the agricultural impact of dragon labor pushed urbanization, as demand for labor—human and dragon alike—exceeded the available number of hands and wings for most of the next several centuries…

To chapter article

Chapter 59: New Pieces In Play
Despite the conflicts that marked its inception, Berk's Dragon Mail service transformed European society and shortly the world within Hiccup Haddock's lifetime, with regular mail and trade routes that extended to China, India, Madagascar and the northern reaches of the Vestrilands by AD 1100.

The effects this had on social norms, commerce, and the sciences can only be seen by comparing the state of the world in AD 1000 with that of AD 1200. In 1000, the world's human population was approximately 275 million people (+/- 20 million), the majority of whom were living in feudal or tribal societies, and approximately 2-3 million dragons, living either in nomadic bands or in the few remaining nests. By AD 1200, the human population had doubled to a minimum of 550 million people, and possibly as high as 600 million, while dragons had reached a population of over 50 million, and social structures…

To chapter article

Chapter 77: All Roads Lead To Rome
Another—typically overlooked—area that was tremendously impacted by the integration of dragons was city planning and design. Human cities prior to the adoption of dragons were universally two-dimensional (with noted exceptions such as Shibam and Derinkuyu), originating from a smaller settlement, typically next to a river or water source, and sprawling extensively across the landscape with greater or lesser degrees of urban planning, guidance, and support infrastructure. Buildings were typically only a few stories tall and close together, with narrow, twisting streets. The reasons for this, of course, are obvious: digging underground without the aid of Boulder-class dragons is time-consuming and labor-intensive, as is constructing high-rise buildings without the use of structural steel, even discounting the additional labor involved in climbing up and down such structures.

Modern cities, by contrast, sometimes seem almost as deep and tall as they are wide, with terraurban spaces extending far below the surface, and high-rises extending far above. Streets are multi-level and broad, with gentle curves to allow for ease of aerial traffic, and elevators and draconic flight connect the various levels together. Balconies and bridges are typical building features to allow for ease of transit and landing, while buildings themselves typically have high ceilings and wide corridors to allow for draconic foot traffic. Additionally, the small infrastructure access tunnels are typically designed with the sizes and capabilities of the small dragons employed as maintenance workers in mind. Some cities are even formed out of hollowed-out mountains and carved into the sides of valley walls; while to our modern eyes these emplacements seem natural, to our ancestors they would have seemed miraculous, something out of fantastical tales.

The transition, of course, was not smooth, and remnants of the transition are easily found and well-documented, despite the loss of some of the key transitional elements to time and demolition. But still, while they are humble in comparison with their descendants, those first 20-story steel-framed towers constructed in the 1200s cast long shadows through human history…

To chapter article

Chapter 80: Alea Iacta Est
In the study of ecology, there is the concept of 'carrying capacity'—the amount of a given population that a given region or ecosystem can support. Various factors limit carrying capacity, typically basic needs like food, water or shelter, but exceeding carrying capacity means that the population can no longer support itself on the resources that were available and will undergo a dieback to below the capacity limit.

A common misconception is that humanity managed to escape the carrying capacity of the environment by shifting from hunter-gatherer to agricultural, but in truth, we only managed to shift the nature of the carrying capacity limit. Instead of escape, we had just begun to manipulate the environment to increase the carrying capacity in our favor (and to the general detriment of other species in the environment).

But the process of that manipulation was and is incremental, and there were and are still diebacks in the form of famine, disease, and other mass fatality events. Excess capacity for the support of populations and the related productivity surplus rarely kept complete pace with population growth, and was frequently taken from one group by another for their own support (either in the form of external raids/conquest or internal taxation). The investment of surplus resources into continued growth and environmental manipulation—as well as increased infrastructure designed to help promote per-individual efficiency—was primarily the domain of large empires, many of which fueled their own internal growth by taking resources from conquered populations and regions, and even then, much of these resources were wasted (wars, upper-class lifestyles, etc).

One of the single largest bursts of surplus and productivity in all of human history occurred with the human-dragon species alliance. This singular event allowed the two species—similar in social structures and temperaments—to benefit from each other's strengths. Prior to their alliance with humanity, dragon society was based around small, autocratic hunter-gatherer chiefdoms centered around nesting sites and food sources. These societies faced horrendously high mortality rates, due to famine and conflict with humans. Even with several nests having begun a tentative shift to agriculture and fish-farming in the decades before Hiccup Haddock meeting and sparing Toothless, those early farms were limited in output and generally primitive in design (and, according to modern analysis of their design, would have resulted in a population explosion followed by a crash when the new carrying capacity was exceeded and the farms failed from the strain). It was only a general alliance with humanity that allowed both species to thrive in a true positive-sum manner. Dragons gained the benefit of humanity's experience with food production, processing and, most importantly,  preservation, along with medical care, prenatal care, and more, while humans gained access to dragon labor to help with the construction of infrastructure that would benefit both. Together, the two species became more than the sum of their parts, and it took decades for the subsequent 'hiccup' of productivity to fully unfold and be integrated by population growth and social development.

What occurred as a result was an explosion of social upheaval. In the countless generations beforehand, both human and dragon societies had evolved strong traditions designed to maximize the chances of survival, of the individual and of the society as a whole, identifying limits to the environment and behaviors that would result in negative outcomes, resulting in fairly rigid/conservative social expectations and behaviors across politics, economics and military activity. And, suddenly, much of that traditional wisdom was in doubt—if not outright obsolete—because of the new capacities that abruptly existed. It took most of a century for new norms to establish themselves, and in that chaotic gap as the carrying capacity increased for both species, truly extraordinary events occurred.

To chapter article

Chapter 99: Astride The World
…varied widely. In particular, while the relationships of East Asian humans with the local dragons was superficially more accepting than those of European and Mediterranean humans, the simple fact remained that the two species were in competition for food and other resources.

Generally speaking, the various cultures of the region—Nippon, Huáxià, Việt, Goryeo, Khmu, Java, and others—revered the dragons who lived in the plentiful volcanic peaks spread throughout their region of the world, often as divine or elemental in nature. This reverence did not prevent conflict between the humans and dragons, however. Either in spite of or because of their cultural status, dragon poaching was common throughout history, especially due to the medicinal values (perceived or actual) of a number of parts and extracts from various dragon breeds, and rates of poaching spiked notably in times of political instability.

Likewise, the reverence shown by humans in some eras and locations could disarm a nest when the attitude reversed itself. More than one East Asian nest was devastated, if not wiped out entirely, in periods of famine when desperate humans raided the nest, as the dragons were not used to the dangers that humans could pose to them—or, worse, being acclimated to the presence of humans in the form of monks and monasteries established near the nest in acts of veneration. This particular cruel irony, that the monks who tended to and revered the dragons also led the human mobs to their targets, was not something that went unnoticed in various records, but it still happened repeatedly nonetheless.

Furthermore and most importantly, the human and dragon populations both needed the productivity of the land and sea to sustain their populations, and every population crash from the dragons gave the humans more room to expand into the vacated space—which they did, resulting in less room for the next generations of dragons. And this would lead to further conflict.

In Zhōngguó, for example, farm raiding by hungry dragons could be and was seen as a sign that the reigning dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven. More than one Emperor reacted to this by attempting to bring the unruly servants of Heaven back into proper action, authorizing or even leading organized hunts. Some of these were more humane, intended to simply scare off the dragons from raiding livestock. Others were not. Legal attitudes towards dragons varied over time as well, with some dynasties having more protectionist attitudes towards dragons and passing wide laws protecting them, and others choosing a more narrow outlook. One major contributing factor of the events of the early Dragon Era was that the Song dynasty had passed a number of strict laws protecting various species in their lands, including dragons...

To chapter article

Chapter 107: The Third Principle Of Sentient Life
The New Year's Fire Rout was a pivotal military battle between the Pecheneg-led conqueror coalition and the Song Dynasty. While Song casualties were heavy—estimates range between 45,000 and 70,000 dead between the initial attack and the aftermath—they also dealt the Pecheneg coalition their first significant defeat after a string of unresisted conquests. Proportionately speaking the Pecheneg losses were heavier than that of the Song, and the complete rout of the Pecheneg forces and the subsequent political developments began a short-lived period of political infighting and consolidation among the coalition, buying the Song and their neighbors time to prepare a response…

To chapter article

Chapter 17: ...And Partings
Most historical analyses of King Magnus I of Norway focus excessively on the larger figures in his life—his regent, wife, sister, friends, and dragon, most typically. Insufficient focus tends to be given to a quieter figure in Magnus's life, a state of affairs that is ironic, due to the man's profession as a skald.

Sigvatr Þórðarson (a.k.a. Sigvatr Tordarson, 995-1044), King Olaf's court skald, has a distinct tendency to stay in the background in most depictions and discussions of the king's life. This is unsurprising, as the man's sagas are one of the few primary sources on the periods of King Olaf's life and the childhood of his son, with over three hundred surviving verses of his poetry; in those sagas, he spent his efforts recording the efforts and achievements of others than those of his own. Furthermore, by the time Magnus reached adulthood and his alliance with Berk, Sigvatr had become a background figure in the king's court. However, this does him a disservice in his impact, as many subsequent historians have focused on the influence of Hiccup Haddock and Einar Thambarskelfir upon the king, and ignored Sigvatr's.

Sigvatr was made Magnus's godfather when Magnus was born, was responsible for naming the baby (after Karla Magnus—King Charlemagne), and had been the skald and friend of King Olaf for years prior, also serving as the king's stallare (marshal). He traveled with Olaf and Magnus when they fled to the Kievan Rus', raised young Magnus in exile, and returned with him when Einar Thambarskelfir came seeking a puppet he could control. Even then, Sigvatr continued to act as mentor and father figure to the young king, counseling kindness, moderation, temperance and forgiveness. It was due to Sigvatr's advice that Magnus refused to have the men who had killed his father executed, which would have removed two of Einar's rivals for power permanently.

Sigvatr's influence on Magnus's personality, as the sole consistent father figure in the young man's life, is noticeable in many areas. These include Magnus's interests in the arts and sagas, his noted tendencies towards dramatic gestures, and a general bearing that was regularly referred to as gregarious and outgoing—an impressive achievement for someone who lost his home and his father by the age of six, his mother in his teen years, and who lived in exile for most of his childhood.

To chapter article

Chapter 73: Harthacnut Is Better Than None
Harthacnut (Danish: Hardeknud), occasionally named as Canute III, was King of Denmark from AD 1035 to AD 1042, and King of England from AD 1040 to AD 1042. The son of King Canute the Great and Emma of Normandy, he was born, in July 1017, in England, shortly after their marriage. As part of the negotiations of surrender in the aftermath of King Canute's conquest of England, Harthacnut took precedence in inheritance over his older half-brothers from his parents' first marriages. When their father died in AD 1035, Harthacnut was left ruling Denmark, while his half-brother Svein (son of Ælfgifu of Northampton) was faced with a revolt in Norway, and Harold Harefoot (also son of Ælfgifu) took control in England.

[...]popularly seen as little more than a brutal tyrant without virtue or redeeming value, Harthacnut has usually been presented in a highly moralistic fashion in most popular media over the centuries. In these stories, he is used as an archetypal figure of the corrupt and brutal nobleman whose own evils bring about his downfall, an almost idealized villainous figure from whose tyranny and grotesque abuses the populace are freed from.

As such, in contemporary media, there is little interest in conflicting perspectives on his family background and upbringing that produced him. This is not helped by the recorded accounts of his actions, including massacres, repressive taxation, executions, feasts in the midst of bad harvests, oathbreaking, violations of hospitality, loyalty purges, and even the posthumous beheading and disposal of Harold Harefoot, his paternal half-brother, in retribution for the death of Ælfred Æþeling, Harthacnut's maternal half-brother. His death on 11 June, AD 1042 is seen as appropriately fated, but even then, he is typically overshadowed by the other events of the day...

To chapter article

Chapter 93: A World Richer And Fuller
Empress Valka Zephyr Haddock II  (November 3, AD 1042-December 30, AD 1131): First titled Empress elected to the Imperial Council of the unified North Sea Empire. Firstborn child of Hiccup and Astrid Haddock. Much like the rest of her extended family, the actual details of her life, while well-documented, have been embellished over the centuries to the point of near-absurdity. This is not helped by the fact that her actual accomplishments, much like those of her parents, offer a starting point already suitable for high drama and adventure. For one extremely well-known example, while she was indeed the undisputed leader of her cohort of children, including her future husband Emperor Olaf III, and while it is also true that the Haddock siblings, their cousins and their friends were the first Norse to see the famous Niagagarega Waterfalls of the Vestrilands, the famous and nigh-ubiquitous story of the dragon race down the length of the Ongtupqa Canyon is completely false…

To chapter article

Chapter 21: Preparations
The dragon hydrocarbon organ system is the defining feature of the draconic clade; even in flightless, obligate aquatic, or the occasional limbless breed, if they possess the hydrocarbon organ system, they are defined as dragons.

The organ system is estimated to have originally evolved during the Neogene Period between 18 and 24 MYA, based on genetic evidence from the draconic genome, although some estimates put its origin much earlier, during the Paleogene's Eocene Epoch, between 48 and 34 MYA. Originally an offshoot of an additional liver lobe among tunnel-dwelling reptiles, its original purpose appears to have been in protecting the proto-dragons from heavy-metal poisoning accumulated from the stones of their native environment. Later evolutionary adaptations shifted the liver lobe into a distinct organ of its own, capable of chemical synthesis of basic hydrocarbons in conjunction with symbiotic bacteria, hypothesized as a form of energy storage. Later mutations created the secondary organs in the hydrocarbon system that distill oxygen, and transport, store, mix and ignite the hydrocarbons for firebreathing. True flight in the draconic species only appeared after the evolution of the pressurized oxygen bladders adjacent to the respiratory and hydrocarbon systems; at rest, the dragon uptakes oxygen from the atmosphere and stores it under pressure in the bladder. This oxygen is then either used for fueling flight muscles or for igniting hydrocarbons for firebreathing.

To chapter article

Chapter 40: Home Is People...
Draconic nests in the wild are universally situated atop geothermal sources, as high levels of heat (minimum 40 C, and optimally 50-55 C) are required in order for the eggs to successfully gestate. This is part of the reason why dragons are so often associated with high mountaintops, as they made use of the volcanic vents buried deep within.

Once dragons began their partnership with humans, however, they were freed from their dependence on these dangerous locales and their associated hazards of toxic gases, extreme heat, cave-ins, and the occasional decimation event of an ill-timed lava flow or eruption. Humans in collaboration with their dragons, beginning with the Hooligan tribe of Berk, built artificial Brooderies in which the environment could be more strictly controlled, ensuring the successful hatching of a greater percentage of the dragon eggs.

As a side benefit of these structures, the waste heat from their vents can be put to use for any number of productive ends, another concept that was pioneered by the Hooligans.

In the modern context, Broodery management is a mature science…

To chapter article

Chapter 44: …Than The Sword
Dragon eggs are laid in a single clutch of three to nine eggs between 24 and 32 days after fertilization. Counting from the time of fertilization, gestation for all breeds is approximately 220 days until hatching.

Laying eggs has numerous adaptational advantages for the mother, including allowing her to deal with the metabolic load during the time of year when food is the most plentiful, allowing her to fly without the additional weight of the eggs, and, perhaps most importantly, minimizing the risks associated with draconic embryonic development. From the evolutionary perspective of the mother, it is far better to lose some potential offspring to malformed hydrocarbon organ systems than to risk her own life by internally gestating the offspring. Indeed, while most eggs with malformed hydrocarbon systems are simply nonviable, a significant minority of the nonviable eggs will detonate in the course of the fourth and and fifth months of gestation. For obvious reasons, this would have negative effects on the health of the mother if gestated internally…

To chapter article

Chapter 65: Knives In The Night
Dragon biology is specific enough to be given its own distinct sub-classification within the realm of herpetology, for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, unlike most reptiles, dragons are endotherms, with the corresponding higher need for caloric intake and higher ability to maintain activity in a variety of temperature conditions. Secondarily, the draconic clade is home to a variety of unique anatomical and genetic adaptations, including the definitional petrochemical organ system and all of its myriad variations; the high silica content of their hides, tissues, and bones; and, in some breeds, the addition of a third set of limbs in the form of wings. The third reason is strictly pragmatic: due to the omnipresence of dragons within our society, the field of dragon medicine and biological research is in high demand and warrants specialization—which is probably why you are reading this textbook in the first place.

[…] Like all doctors, regardless of patient type, physicians who specialize in the treatment of dragons most often find themselves dealing with prosaic injuries, and we must remember to avoid the allure of the fascinoma and other zebras; a dragon shedding its scales out of season likely has mites, not skin necrosis, and a dragon whose flame is weak likely has swelling of the throat valves, not Flame Dousing Disorder (as the FDD virus, which ravages the dragon's symbiotic bacteria, can only be transmitted under specific circumstances and there hasn't been a recorded case in over eighty years). More common are simple injuries. While dragons are hardy and resilient creatures, they can still be tremendously fragile under certain circumstances. The wings, in particular, while sharing the fireproof nature of the rest of the dragon's hide, are simply skin with minimal scale cover, if any. Wing injuries are extremely common simply due to this vulnerability...

To chapter article

Chapter 81: Channels Of Communication
Given the variation across the breadth of dragon biology, it is ultimately self-defeating to speak in anything more than the broadest of generalities on the topic of draconic senses, as there are specific types and breeds and even individuals with exceptional versions of each of the main senses. However, broad trends can still be observed.

Dragons tend to have high visual acuity, especially for low-light environments: the majority of dragons are trichromats, but one genetic line possesses a mutation that grants them tetrachromacy, and another line being bichromatic but with exceptional low-light vision (highly prevalent among Boulder-class dragons).

Hearing nearly universally manifests in a wider range than that of humans: the common range reaches down to 15 cycles per second and up to 22,000 cycles per second, with some lines having greater or lesser limits, the lowest limit ever documented being 3 cps. The majority but not totality of draconic communication conveniently happens in the same vocal range as available to humans, but dragons use the lower-frequency ranges for long-distance communications. While only simple information can be communicated using this method, historically it was used for navigation to and from nests and over long distances.

Smell is significantly more acute in comparison with humans, with some lines having acuity on par with canine bloodhounds, but all dragons are highly sensitive to scents…

To chapter article

Chapter 84: Generation Unto Generation
The draconic mating period is primarily instinctual, although that is not to say that dragons are completely ruled by their instincts during this time. The mating period is triggered approximately two weeks before the Autumnal Equinox by hormonal changes; dragon populations living in the tropics often have idiosyncratic mating periods as a result of the region's reduced/eliminated seasonal cues. During the mating period, all sexually mature adults in a flock of sufficient size go into a mating frenzy for a period of six to nine days. A variety of secondary factors play into the mating trigger, including nutrition levels, access to a suitable nesting site, and the size of the flock. Below a certain threshold of any of these factors, the mating instinct effectively does not trigger for the affected dragons, beyond perhaps some pair-bonding and reduced levels of mating that will result in undersized clutches, if any eggs at all.

To chapter article

Chapter 91: Ceremonies Of Light And Dark
The "Species Problem" is the general term in the biological sciences for the difficulty in defining what a "species" is, with literally dozens of recognized methods and criteria for the definition of a "species." And in the context of this text, one of the more well-known examples—which has literally been known to start fist-fights among biologists of the author's acquaintance—is the question: are dragons one species, or many? (Note that first priming the biologists with strong drink or a lectern podium aids in achieving the desired results).

The issue with defining dragons as a species is that dragons are, both in their genetics and phenotypes, a "terrible mess," to quote Frelsifrædi, Haddock, Levi and Lewis in their seminal paper "Genetic Variety Of Worldwide Draconic Populations: Diversity And Bottlenecks" [Journal Of Genetic Studies, Summer, AD 1781]. Dragon genetics and populations resemble a river delta, with numerous braided tributaries and links of gene flow between different populations. In general, the archaeological record tells us that ancestral dragon population originated on Syndriland and migrated to the Javanese archipelago between 18 and 15 million years ago, where the numerous volcanoes and rich fishing waters of those island arcs helped define the dragon species' specializations as flying, fire-breathing semi-obligate piscivorous social animals who use geothermal hot spots as breeding sites.

However, genetic analysis shows that, even during those early days, dragons were already specializing into different forms that were still part of a larger population capable of interbreeding and gene flow. After leaving the Javanese islands and spreading out over the rest of the world, population isolation and mutation resulted in the creation of more breeds of dragon—but, like dogs, they are still generally capable of interbreeding with other members of their species. Generally. And here lies the headache of defining dragons as a singular species or as several distinct-but-closely-related species. Because where does one draw the lines for the distinctions?

To illustrate this, consider that there are a number of general parent categories of dragon, with the precise count depending on the schema used. The ancient Norse used a six-category system based on the dragon's general affinity (Stoker, Sharp, Boulder, Strike, Tidal and Mystery), a system which has survived to the present in various technical vestiges and common parlance. Other systems have been devised in the years since those days, many of them more accurate but also more technical, and we will be addressing those later in this text. But to use the familiar terms from the archaic system, generally speaking most Stoker-class dragons of the same size are capable of interbreeding and producing viable young. The same goes for most Boulder-class dragons and so forth. However, a Boulder-class and a Stoker-class might not be able to interbreed as successfully, although such crosses are known.

To quote Dr Susana Fyodorna, the leading dragon geneticist at the University of Kyiv, "It looks as if the dragon genome takes the feature sets from the parents, smashes them together, and sees if it explodes or not.  Six limbs?  Four limbs?  Heptane or kerosene?  Spawn it and see if the build works!" (Further note: Dr Fyodorna has a very potent left fist). And her statement is essentially accurate; if the genetic code proves viable then a dragon is hatched, possibly one with unique features. If the genes aren't viable, then the fetus might miscarry, with the most extreme examples resulting in the egg exploding in a manner similar to embryos with developmental defects.

In essence, the more similar two dragons are, the more likely they will be able to mate and produce viable offspring, but, to the frustration of biologists—and the amusement of their onlookers—this does not preclude successful matings and breeding between dissimilar dragons. And while there are populations which are so dissimilar that there are no records of successful crosses, a line still cannot be drawn around one population separating it from another as "one species," not when there is still gene flow. Yes, a Terrible Terror and a Bewilderbeast are certainly not capable of mating together, much less producing viable offspring… but the Terror can mate with breeds adjacent to it in size, as can the Bewilderbeast, and, via a dozen or more intermediary breeds, there can be gene flow between them—and drive the recording biologists to drink and pugilism.

The reigning theory at present is that most dragon breeds are simply specific sub-populations of the greater dragon species which have achieved self-sustaining population numbers, and as a result can find similar mates without too high a degree of consanguinity. Some of these populations have almost completely diverged from the greater species, such as the multi-headed breeds, where others, especially among the Strike-class dragons, have small populations and require regular interbreeding with other dragon breeds in order to avoid dangerous levels of inbreeding. Strike-class in particular have high rates of egg miscarriages due to this factor—the biological tolerances on their plasma-generating organ systems are simply so stringent that developmental disorders are nearly always fatal, but their numbers are often so small that they must mate with dragons from different breeds to avoid inbreeding, meaning that the parental differentials often have terminal results for the embryos.

To chapter article

Chapter 92: The Exercise Of Vital Powers
One surprising aspect of draconic biology is that there is a limited degree of voluntary control by the female dragon over her reproductive cycle. While the mating urge itself is hormonal in nature and nigh irresistible when the flock is of sufficient size to reach critical mass, the fact remains that every egg produced by the female is a significant expenditure of energy. This is both in the immediate sense, in that each egg contains a yolk rich in hydrocarbons, carbohydrates and proteins sufficient to sustain the embryo for the next half year, and in the long term, as the resulting hatchlings will require parental care through to adolescence.

So while they are hormonally compelled towards mating, female dragons have a crude degree of control over their own fertility, able to choose whether to have none, some, or many eggs in a given year, based on their number of extant pre-adolescent hatchlings, the availability of food, the perceived sense of safety and stability in a given nest, the availability of helpers (and conversely, whether they might be needed to help close kin with their own young) and other such factors.

Current theories as to the origin of this ability simply point to the fact that pre-modern dragon clutches often had horrifying degrees of hatchling mortality, even with the value that draconic culture placed on parental care, so the ability to suppress the production of closely related competitors would be selected for…

To chapter article

Chapter 104: Proliferate And Disseminate
Much like birds and bats, dragons have an aggressively active immune system in comparison to humans, and for much the same reasons. Simply put, for a flying animal, an inflammatory response in the face of an infection is often a death sentence, so there is significant selective pressure for immune systems which can deal with an infectious agent quickly. In the case of draconic immune systems, this goes one step further, as an unchecked infection of the dragon's hydrocarbon organ system can have literally explosive results.

As such, while there are diseases that can affect dragons—especially ones that target the dragon's symbiotic bacteria—on the whole, a typical dragon's immune system resembles a military base swarming with constant armed patrols and barriers of razor-tipped wire. A disease attempting to stage an infection of such a system needs to be extremely effective at intrusion, starting with thwarting the symbiotic bacteria in the salivary glands that are the immune system's first line of defense. These bacteria not only help dragons create the biofilm mucuses that aid with fire resistance in the otherwise vulnerable soft tissues of their mouths and throats, they are primed to help their host with fighting off any microscopic invaders who attempt to get a toehold in the tissues of the mouth and gut, as the bacteria secrete a variety of antibiotics, antivirals and antitoxins—this last being significantly important in breeds whose breath can have toxic byproducts—all of which are refined by selective pressures on the symbiotic bacteria for maximum efficaciousness.

That being said, there is still a range within the greater dragon species in terms of immunological effectiveness. If a typical dragon's immunological response is akin to a military base on high alert, then those dragons whose diets expose them to biological hazards up the ante, to being more akin to a forward artillery base with active minefields and with gunnery crews in possession of itchy trigger fingers. The saliva of many Boulder-class dragons are rich in antitoxins, including ones that can encapsulate elements such as arsenic, rendering them relatively harmless and ready for expulsion in the dragon's fecal waste (although this is not a universal defense, as the radiological poisonings from the ingestions of radioactive materials and the cancers caused by the ingestion of asbestos both demonstrate). Meanwhile, Buffalords, the premier example of a draconic immune system taken to extremes, consider botulism to be a spice in the vein of how humans consider mint or caffeine, raw pufferfish is seen as a tasty snack, and cyanide is a treat.

To chapter article

Chapter 106: Rally
Wild dragon hatchlings would typically spend their first two to five years being heavily dependent on their parents and extended family for food and care, despite being able to fly on their own after a period of only a few months. This childhood stage would typically involve the education of the young dragon in language and culture, with a strong focus on practical hunter-gatherer skills. This education would continue into pre-adolescence, during which time the young dragon would venture further and further from their home nest, gaining more and more independence from their parents. Upon reaching adolescence, most dragons would leave their home nest, searching for potential mates. Some would stay together as a small flock for mutual support while others would travel alone. Both strategies had their advantages and disadvantages: going as a group would lessen their chances of acceptance at a nesting site, but would increase their chances of finding sufficient food, and as such it was common among young dragons with close or extended relatives; traveling singularly lessened their dependence on others and increased their chances of finding a place, but also increased their risk of starvation.

Finding a nest willing to accept new members was usually a matter of luck; such nests would broadcast a call in ultra-low-frequency infra-sound that triggers an instinctual homing response in dragons, useful for helping both newcomers and established residents find their way home even under adverse conditions. These nest calls would also have the unfortunate side effect of possibly causing feelings of fear in humans in its radius, and are thus rarely used anymore.

To chapter article

Chapter 22: A Ruff But Magnus Wedding
According to nearly all primary sources, the marriage between Ruffnut Thicknutsdoittor clan Thorston and King Magnus Olafsson of House Fairhair was a love-match, despite the political considerations that instigated both their betrothal and their atypically quick marriage. Both were staunch patrons of the arts, which apparently was the basis of their initial bond. For the duration of their marriage, there is no record of either of them straying into affairs, or of Magnus taking official concubines. This was an uncommon occurrence in medieval Scandinavia to say the least, where approximately a quarter of all monarchs between 700 and 1100 were of illegitimate issue by acknowledged concubines, including Magnus, and Magnus had himself sired an illegitimate daughter several years before his wedding. However, the number of children and love poems that the pair produced speaks volumes for their mutual devotion on its own…

In addition to their personal compatibility, Ruffnut and Magnus were known to have fought alongside each other on multiple occasions. One point that is dryly noted by both their biography-sagas and other primary sources is that the number of enemies slain by her hands was significantly higher than his, due to a combination of her own martial prowess and enemies underestimating her on the basis of her build or gender or both. The most significant portion of these kills apparently came from the Siege of Roskilde, where Ruffnut guarded the stairway that led to their children's nursery, and the skalds and other eyewitness accounts reported that the bodies formed a battlement…

To chapter article

Chapter 23: Changing The World
When considering the various polymaths who have speckled history's pages, Hiccup Haddock was certainly more influential than many of his peers in this multi-talented category, with noted and far-reaching works in the economic, political, social and scientific realms. Indeed, compared to the Arabian polymath Ibn al-Haytham, who passed away shortly before Haddock's rise to prominence, Haddock's direct effects on history are immeasurably greater. This holds true even when putting aside the fact that Haddock encountered al-Haytham's writings later in life and immediately began to make use of them in some of the most earth-shattering scientific innovations of his career. However, this is exaggerated to the point where, in much of the literature on the topic, he is held up as singularly influential, a world-changer without peer in his own or any era.

What many of these historians have failed to consider is the simple facts of Haddock's life in comparison with those of other exceptional intellects—he was of the nobility, and as the first tamer of dragons, essentially sat on a treasury equal to that of the combined vaults of every contemporary European noble and royal. This meant that unlike many other polymaths throughout history, Haddock, as his own patron, needed not labor for his supper; he was able to pour significant efforts and funds into his experiments without worrying about where his next meal would come from, and could afford to share his innovations freely. Al-Haytham, in contrast, had to work as a tutor, and was once imprisoned under house arrest for ten years by the Fatimid Caliph while feigning madness to avoid punishment. While Al-Haytham spent the time imprisoned productively, writing his famous Book of Optics and other treatises on math and the sciences, the obvious question arises of what sort of innovations the man might have produced had he possessed Haddock's resources and freedoms.

This is not to discount the distractions and diversions of focus that his diplomatic accomplishments cost Haddock, as he was the chief's herald and later the chief and king himself. However, while his innovations and dragons attracted significant and intense interest from all over Europe and Asia Minor, the argument may be reduced to the point that, regardless of how many offers of alliance or marriage were made to Haddock and how many state visits he made over the course of his life, even with his complete upending of the status quo in regards to communications speeds, he still possessed idle time and resources in abundance for the pursuit of knowledge and innovation, something not available to most other polymaths in history.

To chapter article

Chapter 54: We Are Who We Are
Many modern students of the history of science and engineering have bemoaned Hiccup Haddock's apparent "near miss" of the development of the steam engine. As the argument typically goes, he had all of the necessary components with which to construct such a device—boilers, pipes and tight-fitting valves with which to make pistons, and mechanical apparatuses with which to harness the power—and with his experimentalist and pragmatic predilections, he would have surely seen the potential of the device, especially as he had access to books describing Hero of Alexandria's Aeolipile, the first primitive steam-powered device, which predated Haddock by a millennium. Such speculators often envision what route history might have instead taken if Haddock had access to railroads and steamships in addition to dragons.

What such individuals forget is that it still took centuries of progress to develop steam power into the sort of practical forms of energy production they envision. From Brendan Mac Brian's first introduction of a primitive steam-powered mining pump in AD 1381, it took over two hundred and fifty years until the first triple-expansion steam engine and steam turbines were developed (by Mishra in AD 1633 and Cohen in AD 1642, respectively). Not only was Haddock missing many essential parts for the construction of steam engines—precision-bored piston-cylinders, for one example—he had no economic reason to invest the time and effort into developing steam power. He had already made significant strides in developing wind and water power in his teen years, which amply served his industrial power supply needs. Also his early boiler designs, while far superior to earlier approaches, were still extremely primitive and wasteful of heat, fuel and water (some of which were recaptured by other processes, including the famous Berk Baths). Finally, what many people overlook is that Haddock had recently acquired the aid of dragons. The early steam engines were only economically viable as they filled a small niche in a developed and mature dragon-based economy, allowing for more efficient pumping of water from terraurban environments. In Haddock's era, only the earliest potentials of dragon labor and construction had begun to be explored…

To chapter article

Chapter 83: On The Shoulders Of Giants
A much more potent and frustrating miss on Haddock's part came from his invention of the pantograph (from the Greek for 'all-writing'), when he would soon have all of the parts necessary for the creation of the printing press—which would languish in unrealized potential for more than a century and a half, eventually being realized by Hiccup's descendant, Kamikaze clan Frelsifrædi. At the time Haddock created the pantograph, he already had the concept of identical production via stamping from his drop-press, along with molds and other forms for creating interchangeable movable type, and would be introduced to the concept of movable type itself from his visits to and trade with Zhōngguó within only a handful of years after his creation of the pantograph.

But instead of building the revolutionary printing press, he created the pantograph as a scribe's aid, as an extension of how things were done in his time rather than expanding outwards into new possibilities. And the pantograph did change the rate at which books could be copied; a simple pantograph could be made in an afternoon by a competent carpenter or blacksmith, and allowed even illiterates to help with copying books simply by tracing text and diagrams. But it did not change the method by which books were copied, as a printing press would have. Books were still copied by hand, one page at a time.

But due to its simplicity, the pantograph quickly became the dominant form of text reproduction, a position it held for the next two hundred years. There are arguments that Haddock's status as the creator of the pantograph alone pushed the creation of the printing press back by generations, as the more efficient text-copier directly challenged and threatened the supremacy of a device tied to Haddock's legendary reputation.

To chapter article

Chapter 113: Knotted Heartstrings
Furthermore, while Haddock was indeed responsible for a large number of scientific and technical advances in the aftermath of his taming of dragons, it is inaccurate in the extreme to assign all of these advances to him. Other individuals, spurred on by the new capabilities that now existed, began to develop their own innovations and insights.

Haddock invented many things, that is without question, with a lengthy list ranging from the famous wingsuit that allowed a person to glide through the air and land safely, to the more prosaic infrastructural and production tools such as the elevator, drop-forge, and spinning wheel, but within his own lifetime, as a direct result of exposure to dragons and the possibilities and necessities they opened up, others also showed that they were capable of innovation in the right environment. The list of inventions from this period as a direct result of interactions with dragons includes such things as the barometer, the canal pound lock, buttons, eyeglasses, and stern-mounted rudders, while still others worked on refining and isolating chemical compounds and elements extracted from dragons.

More people also aided in developing the area of cartography, with leaps of innovation in surveying and mapmaking—the first "dragon's eye" maps, showing the layouts of cities and regions from above, were made within two years of Haddock's taming of dragons. And, despite the efforts of those who wish to assign him the credit, he had nothing to do with any of these beyond preparing the ground for others.

To chapter article

Chapter 25: ...Hide, And Pray That It Does Not Find You
Night Fury: Strike-class dragon, Class Exemplar

Overview: Nocturnal-optimized strategic bombing and aerial supremacy dragon, capable of multiple mission profiles, with a focus on strategic and tactical raids. Due to the high speed, agility, intelligence, stealth and firepower capacity of this dragon, nations with confirmed members of the breed (see Night Fury Appendix A for listing) are automatically classified at a higher degree of threat by the Office of Draconic Intelligence, as they offer first-strike capacity, even in the face of aerial countermeasures.

Breath Type: Acetylene and oxygen plasma charge

Identification: Medium-to-large adult size. Black scales, single wing pair, four legs, grasping paws capable of minimal degree of fine manual dexterity; supplemental tail fins at end of long dexterous tail; wide, flat and blunt head with fleshy ear projections, eyes of green, yellow, blue, or orange coloration, with pupil slits of variable width based on lighting conditions and mood. No spikes or talons. Retractable teeth. Distinctive sound produced when dive-bombing (see Night Fury Appendix B for audio recording).

Strategic Role: Front-line combat; materiel and industrial bombing strikes; ground support; aerial supremacy; reconnaissance (HA, BF)

Known Weaknesses: The rear tail-fins are required by the dragon in order to maintain flight trim and aerial stability; injury to or removal of these fins will ground the dragon without prosthetics. Sound produced when dive-bombing also allows alert defenders a window for the deployment of countermeasures.

Phenotype Cluster: BØFØS6+S4!S5*MØTØT8-

Populations: Minimal; breeding lines of this dragon are limited, and are mostly descended from Dragonlord Haddock's Toothless (NF-000001a), although rogue family lines are known, and there have been cases of egg theft and abductions over the centuries that have not been recovered, as well as other family lines that have been lost to the Empire due to state secession.

To chapter article

Chapter 45: Powder Keg
Gronckle: Boulder-class dragon

Overview: Metaturnal logistical and aerial/ground support dragon. Primarily useful as economic and logistical support, with significant applications in civilian use and minimal tactical use on the modern battlefield outside of congested zones. One of the few dragon breeds capable of sustained precision flight in all three dimensions. Inadequate as bombing platforms due to lack of speed. Primary military uses are undermining fixed fortifications, high-density urban combat, and logistical transport platforms (all Imperial heavy and light armor and crew-serviced artillery weapons have standard lifting hardpoints to facilitate this use).

Breath Type: Heptane/Oxygen-melted mineral projectiles. Specific effects variable on mineral chemistry (see Gronckle Appendix C: Gronckle Lava Sub-types)

Identification: Medium size. Variable-coloured scales and hide, studded with bony nodules, typically but not universally with brown overtones and a secondary colouration for ventral surfaces and hide nodules; four legs with grasping paws capable of small degree of gross manual dexterity, small single wing-pair (high-speed wingbeats). Large head with significant crunching and biting teeth capable of cracking silicate-based stone with ease, large blunt horn, yellow eyes of variable width based on lighting conditions and mood. Conical bodyshape, with a blunt thagomizer.

Strategic Role: Logistical support; ground support; urban combat supremacy and support; construction support; sapper strikes

Known Weaknesses: Slow speed. Requires ingestion of metallic or mineral ingots in order to fire projectiles. Minimal injury to wings will ground dragon. Modern armour-piercing weapons are capable of penetrating armoured hide with ease.

Phenotype Cluster: B7!F5-SØSØS1+MØTØT3+

Populations: Plentiful. Quite possibly the single most common form of medium-size dragon, these dragons are common in nearly every nation, in rural, suburban, terraurban, and urban settings; used for personal and communal transport, logistics, construction, industry, and personal companionship, they are an omnipresent factor in everyday life.

To chapter article

Chapter 66: A Downed Dragon...
Scylla: Boulder-class dragon

Overview: High-stealth, pack-oriented dragon optimized for terra-urban supremacy. Instinctive ambush tactics render the dragon highly effective in the close quarters of the tunnels of terra-urban environments, and the telescoping neck allows the dragon to attack and retreat with its main body remaining unexposed. In addition, they are skilled pack hunters, to the point where the ancient Greeks assumed that a pack of Scylla was a single dragon; this tendency can be trained in terra-urban units, allowing significant close-quarters synergistic combat effectiveness. Above ground, they are only primarily of military use in congested areas, where the dragon's slower speed and larger core body will not allow them to be targeted easily.

Breath Type: Ethylbenzene/Oxygen-melted mineral projectiles. Due to the telescoping nature of the neck and throat, Scylla have a biological valve that will inhibit firebreathing when the neck is past half-extension. Scylla will preferentially consume mafic rocks over felsic rocks to fuel their projectiles, as the viscosity of the felsic magma risks damage to their tissues. As a result, Scylla magma projectiles tend to be of low viscosity and closer to a spray.

Identification: Medium Size. Dark brown to gray-black scales and hide. Four legs with digging/shovel paws capable of grasping only large objects; moderate single wing-pair. Bilateral spike rows along thorax's frontal plane, parallel with belly, used for anchoring in tunnels. Long armored head with jaws optimized for grasping and crunching, single nose horn used for digging. Central thorax roughly egg-shaped. Most significant feature is the extensible neck; normally in a contracted position, with a length of half that of the thorax, it can extend out to four or five times the length of the thorax, and still maintain flexibility at joints. Purple eyes; iris width varies minimally on mood; secondary eyelids shield against bright light.

Strategic Role: Terra-urban supremacy; urban supremacy; close-quarters infantry support

Known Weaknesses: Scylla are highly pack-oriented; removing their packmates, especially their riders, will typically put the dragon into full fight-or-flight mode. At full extension, the neck is highly vulnerable to injury along its length. In flight, the Scylla is also very slow. If injured in open air, Scylla are known to develop agoraphobia as a result.

Phenotype Cluster: B5^F3-SØSØS1+MØTØT5+

Populations: Small to Moderate. Originally located primarily around sea caves in the Aegean Sea and Black Sea, Scylla have never have had significant success in spreading from their original territories. However, the Turkish Empire has had a successful breeding program in keeping their numbers up for conservation purposes, and many of their urban infantry units are paired with Scylla, to the point where it is those units' signature dragon breed.

To chapter article

Chapter 101: Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean
Buffalord: Mystery-class dragon

Overview: Metaturnal infrastructural dragon, medical. One of the primary dragons on the International Model List of Essential Dragon Breeds, the Buffalords form the backbone for much of the worldwide health systems in the treatment of acute infection and disease, thanks to their medicinal saliva and venom. Militarily useless, the deliberate killing of a Buffalord has been classified for centuries as a war crime by multiple international treaties, since the only purpose in such an act would be to promote disease. Docile in temperament unless deliberately provoked, they are easily kept in a positive mood by providing them their preferred food: human-produced refuse.

Breath Type: Aerosolized Kerosene; due to some of the Buffalord's adaptations, they have difficulty controlling their fire and prefer not to use it.

Identification: Medium-to-Large size. Brown, bronze, green, yellow, purple or blue hide and scales, with lighter underbellies and darker dorsal surfaces. Bronze, green or brown eyes. Four pillar-like legs with basic digging claws, large single wing pair. Large egg-shaped central body studded with rows of launchable spikes. Blunt head with one horn spike growing atop the skull and two forward-curved horns growing from the cheeks. Can inflate its central body to twice its usual size as an intimidation tactic. Proportionately small tail, with vestigial thagomizer.

Strategic Role: Strictly rear-echelon medical supply, and disposal of hazardous waste and spoiled foodstuffs. Buffalords are too valuable as medical support and too fragile to be allowed anywhere near active combat.

Known Weaknesses: Slow airspeed. Large target size. Hide comparatively unarmored to allow for stretching of signature skin-inflation. Poorly controlled fire-breath. Extreme docility.

Phenotype Cluster: B8!F6+S ØSØS2+M7TØT2+

Populations: Significant and widespread, and found in nearly all human settlements of sufficient size. As carrion and detritus eaters, Buffalords are also used as organic waste disposal, which further aids in priming their symbiotic bacteria to the antibiotic, antitoxin, antifungal, and antiviral needs of the communities which they serve.

To chapter article

Chapter 110: A Unity Of View
Bewilderbeast: Tidal-Class dragon

Overview: Amphibious-aquatic infrastructural/industrial dragon. In modern economies, they are helpful with construction of aquatic and submersible infrastructure and mining, as well as offering chemical and traditional refrigeration services. Militarily useful primarily in naval defense, as their speed is too slow to keep pace with a modern fleet, but are extremely useful for securing harbors and amphibious landing zones when called for.

Breath Type: Flash-Frozen water mixed with Ammonium Nitrate.

Identification: Medium to Gargantuan size. White, gray or black scales and hide, studded with large blunt spines along the back, neck, and tail, holding up a vestigial pair of wings along the lateral sides of the thorax. Four pillar-like legs. Two large tusks jut forward from the temples, aiding in water streamlining during swimming. Long tail with wide fin at terminal end, supported by more spikes. Overall teardrop body profile.

Strategic Role: Naval auxiliaries, submersible ship protection, mine-sweeping, submarine hunters, logistical support, construction support, amphibious assault support.

Known Weaknesses: Slow speed, semi-obligate aquatic, with larger individuals able to spend increasingly less time out of water without risk of harm. Modern mines and torpedoes can easily penetrate their hide in the absence of armor or countermeasures. Needs to breathe.

Phenotype Cluster: B5F3+SØSØSØT7+T5!

Populations: Moderate, but restricted to coastal and riverine regions, for obvious reasons.

To chapter article

Chapter 26: Aftermaths
The Battle of the Sound of Berk was a naval/aerial battle in the waters of the Sound of Berk, between the forces of the combined Danish and English fleets and army under the leadership of King Harthacnut, and the Hooligan tribe of Berk, under the leadership of Dragonlord Stoick The Vast and then-Herald Hiccup Haddock.

This battle was the only engagement of the undeclared First Berkian-English War, and featured multiple firsts in the history of warfare, including the first deployment of dragons against naval targets, the first use of dragons in a military setting by humans, and the development of dragon-dropped gravity bombs. The results of the battle was a decisive Berkian victory, and heralded a new era of warfare.

—Battle of the Sound of Berk (n.d.) In Wikikenna. Retrieved September 26, 1847

To chapter article

Chapter 46: Light Fuse…
Saint Olaf's Hospital, also known colloquially as Olaf's Home and later more formally as The Royal Hospital of St Olaf, is a 493-bed teaching hospital located in Trondheim, Norway. Founded in January 1042 as a charitable bequest from Ruffnut Fairhair I and Magnus Fairhair I, it is among the oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world. It is home to the first medical library in Northern Europe and the oldest still-extant physic garden, both of which were started by Queen Ruffnut in the first few years of its existence, as well as to the second oldest Buffalord milking barn in the world.

—Saint Olaf's Hospital. (n.d.). In Wikikenna. Retrieved February 1, 1896.

To chapter article

Chapter 63: Gambits
The Normans are an ethnic group originating in the District of Normandy, originally one of the northern duchies of the Kingdom of Francia. Emerging initially from contact between the native Franks, Gallo-Romans and Norse Viking settlers in the 800s AD, the Normans gained political recognition and legitimacy under the Viking Rollo, by treaty with the King Charles III of Francia in AD 911, where Rollo was granted the lands settled by the Normans and recognition as a noble lord in exchange for protection against other Viking raiders…

In the centuries after their establishment, the Normans traveled and conquered widely, either as mercenaries in the employ of others or as their own feudal magnates, with conquered territories at the Straits of Jabal Ṭāriq, the Islas Canarias, the Islas Baleares, Cyprus, Southern Anatolia, Sicily, and the Maghreb…

…while the militaristic nature of the Norman culture is without question, they were also great patrons of the arts during the feudal era, and continue to have noted artistic contributions since. In addition, two common themes in Norman-controlled regions were a degree of meritocratic egalitarianism, regardless of ethnic or religious origin, and the integration of local arts, architecture and society. This emphasis on integration/syncretism created Norman-Arab, Norman-Byzantine, Norman-Moor, and other hybrid societies where they conquered and settled…

—Normans. (n.d.)  In Wikikenna. Retrieved August 18, 1885

To chapter article

Chapter 94: For Our Inheritors Standing Before Us
Princess Asta Rhonda Haddock  (November 10, AD 1042-October 16, AD 1122), the firstborn child of Hiccup and Wulfhild Haddock, was an early Norse scientist of the Dragon Era, whose areas of interest included biology, anatomy, botany, mathematics, geology, paleontology, and cartography. Taught by her father, she also completed a full course of education at Waterford University. As one of the foremost early alumni of that institution, she achieved formal recognition as a Master of Natural Philosophy three times over during the course of her career (and is considered to be the founder of the fields of modern geology and paleontology as a result, based on her published studies of the fossils and sedimentary layers of Europa and the northern Vestrilands), in addition to the collaborative research work she engaged in, especially with her other siblings.

While she advised her half-sister, the Empress Valka II, on scientific matters, she actively shunned involvement into politics, viewing them as a distraction from her scientific work…

—Asta Rhonda Haddock (n.d.) In Wikikenna. Retrieved May 26, 1855

To chapter article

Chapter 114: The Paragon Of Animals
The Saami are a Finno-Ugric ethnic group indigenous to the Sápmi District of the North Sea Empire. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Saami's ethnic roots originated from the Uralic peoples to the southeast in the Volga Region between five and four thousand years ago. Migratory tribes of these people eventually pushed towards the Finnish Lakeland region approximately three and a half thousand years before present, and eventually spread through the highlands of the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, mixing with the isolated groups already present and integrating them, creating the predecessors to the Saami people…

As one of the Sovereign Peoples of the North Sea Empire, the Saami, as a political unit, have the legal right to organize their own Things for internal self-government in their District, full representation in the Grand Thing, and to determine Saami tribal identification according to their own criteria…

Many Saami who live in the Sápmi District continue to maintain their traditional lifestyles, with herding reindeer, fishing, hunting, and forestry being dominant activities, while Saami who live outside of the District are noted as being disproportionately employed by House Haddock as Dragon Tenders for the Imperial Brooderies and Rookeries, a tendency that goes back to the founding of the Empire.

—Saami. (n.d.) In Wikikenna. Retrieved January 8, 1891

To chapter article

Chapter 29: In Fire Forged
Feudalism, as a general term for sociopolitical systems consisting of a series of social classes of landless workers, landowners, warriors, and priests in a low-currency, medium-resource environment, can be seen as a low-complexity societal failsafe in the aftermath of a collapse from a higher order political structure. While higher-order political structures can potentially exist given the same conditions as a typical feudal society, their overhead costs (educational, infrastructure, lack of leisure, etc.) render them more unstable under such circumstances. In contrast, a feudal system can be extremely stable; under conditions that allow for feudalism, the system can persist for centuries before enough excess social and financial capital is accumulated to allow for a shift to higher-order forms of government.

Key features of feudalism include systemic and institutionalized social stratification, wherein a minority of families or other institutions control the majority of the society's resources (typically in the form of arable land), a worker class that farms the land and produces the goods necessary for survival, a warrior class that protects the land and workers from encroachment by other landowners, and a priestly class that legitimizes the rule of the landowners.

It should be noted, though, that, as a low-complexity sociopolitical system, feudalism is highly vulnerable to disruption caused by changes that allow for an increase in productivity or social mobility by the worker class, who make up the majority of the population. Nowhere is this better seen than in the events of the 1040s to 1080s in Europe…

To chapter article

Chapter 39: Unwelcome Messages
…when discussing the size of a state, it is important to remember that the effective limits of the size of any nation is based on four primary factors: the communications response loop, the information/decision-making effectiveness, law enforcement effectiveness, and social viewpoints on society size.

All of the large empires prior to the domestication of dragons were limited primarily by the communications loop factor; an empire's size is restricted by the distance a messenger can travel from the decision center to the periphery with orders and get back in a reasonable period of time. Various pre-dragon empires tried various means of extending this range; for example, Rome made use of its famous roads and Persia had the first post office, while China worked by decentralizing the provinces, but this did cause several civil wars over the course of their history as rebellious provinces attempted to break away.

The coming of the dragon courier, though, changed all of that, by significantly increasing the speed at which messages could travel; a horse courier on well-paved roads can travel at an average of 15-25 kilometers per hour, if they have ready remounts at waystations along the route. However, average speeds of 10-16 km/hour for horse couriers were more typical, especially away from main routes and their waystations. A dragon courier, in contrast, when flying one of the breeds used for courier duty, can reliably expect average speeds of 100-160 km/hour, potentially faster for shorter sprints, and needs no roads or waystations, with the primary limiting factor being the provisions needed to feed the dragon.

As a direct result of that event, the effective range at which a nation could be managed and organized, in the absence of the other factors, had effectively increased by an order of magnitude, and this had tremendous influence into shaping the world of today.

Changes in decision making, however…

To chapter article

Chapter 43: …Is Mightier…
To modern eyes, the historical emphasis on the importance of hospitality between guests and hosts seems to be of exaggerated, even absurd levels of importance. We forget, with our modern mass transportation systems, or even just the freedom of movement that dragon-riding grants, that prior to the domestication of dragons, a journey of twenty miles was a day’s trip by foot, with no guarantee of shelter or food at the end of it, except for hospitality. Thus these rules resulted from tradition, practicality, and social necessity in order to keep peace between neighbors.

Further emphasizing hospitality’s importance, in nearly all pre-dragon societies and religions, hospitality was mandated by divine decree or example.

…the Norse religion’s canon offers up the Hávamál, with the oral antecedents of the text dating prior to the Reformation, which details significant instructions on the duties and responsibilities of hosts and guests, dictated by Odin as wisdom and instruction on proper behavior…

…the Abrahamic religions all have strong injunctions and passages about the importance of hospitality. Beginning with Abraham himself, he offered bread and gave a feast to guests and was blessed—and the subsequent passages deal with Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that routinely and violently breached hospitality and were destroyed in divine punishment…

…Hinduism tells of the god of death, Yama, in the story Nachiketā, who returned home after an absence to find that he had kept a guest waiting for three days. Having violated hospitality by causing trouble for a guest, even unknowingly, Yama offered his guest three boons, and revealed secrets of the gods in the act of fulfilling them…

To chapter article

Chapter 88: Systems Of Direction
…another factor in the effectiveness of both decision-making and law enforcement is entrenched interests and their associated corruptive influence.

These originate from a simple principle: In any large formal organization of people, there will generally be two types of people of consequence—those who are motivated to help fulfill the purposes of that organization and those who work for the structure and institutional power of that organization. Over time, the latter group comes to dominate the management structure of the organization, due to their interests and personal direction, combined with the fact that the people who actively wish to fulfill the purpose of the organization will be reluctant to give up those direct duties. This is not always a bad thing—a truly gifted organizer can have a multiplicative effect on the efforts of the organization—but in general, the end result will be that the people invested in the institutional power of the organization will gain control of it and dictate the functions of it. And it is rare that such individuals will give up control over the resulting fiefdoms, even if their refusal to relinquish control ends up damaging the actual effectiveness and goal-fulfillment of the organization that they command.

So doctors who wish to heal will go on with the treatment of patients—and above them will be doctors who are less concerned about the patients, but more concerned with the health of their hospital's finances (and possibly their own). And government officials who wish to aid with the welfare of their communities will be examining roads and homes and food and other infrastructure, but their superiors will be more concerned with the power of their offices.

If left alone long enough, such systems often breed literal dynasties of institutionalists through nepotism—indeed, we get the word nepotism from the Latin word nepōs, for nephew, noting how the Popes of the Catholic Church would elevate their nephews and other blood relatives to high offices in the Church's bureaucracy, including that of cardinal—who then, in turn, would elect the next Pope from among their number, perpetuating the system. Meanwhile, far below them in the hierarchy were the humble parish priests, administering to their flocks.

This tendency of all organized systems of management must be actively guarded against in order to diminish corruptive effects on the efficacy and speed of decision making, as such individuals often form bottlenecks in the decision-making process, either through incompetence or through willful obstinacy. Considerations of law enforcement are also paramount, as being in a position of power often gives them significant chances for corruption and self-dealing, which are often acted upon.

To chapter article

Chapter 96: Foundations Of Power
To speak of power in the socio-political sense is a broad and somewhat cloudy topic, but in the broadest sense possible, Power is the ability of one entity to get another entity to do what the first wishes. More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Euripides wrote "The Tongue Is Mightier Than The Blade" on the difference between coercive and social powers, and this distinction is important. Power can come from a number of sources, ranging from coercive power derived from force, consequences, or threats thereof, to more subtle social powers derived from culture, diplomacy, ideals, values, ideologies and other such institutions.

As the ancient philosopher noted, coercive power has its limits in comparison with more social powers; it breeds resentment and resistance, and its influence lasts only so long as the threat lasts. In contrast, social powers can be attractive and appealing. This is not to make moral judgments on either form of power and are simply categorizations of sources of socio-political power; an army liberating thralls through coercive power is unquestionably more moral than a political leader using their social power to agitate for the purging of ethnic and religious minorities.

Furthermore, while coercive power in the form of warfare is a major consideration for international relations, it should be noted that every nation that depends on coercive power for internal cohesion is fundamentally unstable, due to the transient nature of coercive power. Such nations inevitably disintegrate once the coercive power is removed or weakened and provinces kept under control by the threat of force break away. In contrast, a nation with a strong social power is more stable over time, from the presence of institutions and a coherent identity.

To chapter article

Chapter 33: ...In The Avalanche
Sigurd Trondsson's arrival in Constantinople coincided with a period of upheaval for the Byzantine Roman Empire. While Trondsson's actions cannot be blamed for the death of Emperor Michael IV, as he had been ill for years, there is no question to the fact that his arrival, and subsequent introduction of tamed dragons into the intricate politics of the Empire, elevated an already tense situation to new heights. While it is generally agreed that his initial political awareness was minimal, this made matters worse in many ways, as he made alliances and promises without awareness of the deeper waters that he was treading over. When, precisely, he shifted from pawn to player is still a matter of some debate, but there is a general consensus that his first year in the Empire was a period of great shock and growth to the previously coddled young man.

To chapter article

Chapter 41: ...Not Places
Having succeeded to the imperial throne on December 10, AD 1041 after the death of his biological uncle and predecessor, Michael IV, Michael V Kalaphates (the Caulker, after the original occupation of Stephen, his biological father) was determined to rule on his own. Immediately, he began to reverse his uncle's decisions, recalling courtiers, nobles and soldiers that Michael IV had banished, and banishing, framing, or otherwise removing Michael IV's own appointments. This immediately brought him into conflict with John the Orphanotrophos, senior court eunuch, his biological uncle, the effective prime minister of the Byzantine Empire, and the man directly responsible for his family's elevation from Paphlagonian peasantry to the imperial throne. Michael V promptly banished John to the monastery of Monobatae, and had the majority of the male members of his family castrated as well, to keep them from being threats to his rule…

…mostly due to happenstance in timing, Michael V is given perhaps undue credit as being the founder of the Byzantine Empire's corps of dragon riders. As Sigurd Trondsson had arrived a short period before Michael IV's death, and the program was formally begun under Michael V, with Michael V being recorded as the first dragon-riding Byzantine Emperor, it can be stated with some certainty that Michael V benefited from Sigurd's timing more than from significant insight.

To chapter article

Chapter 50: The Center Cannot Hold…
A contentious point of open debate among scholars of history and mythology revolves around the mythological origins of various dragon breed names. While nearly all dragon breeds are co-opted into the dominant regional mythologies, like any animal present in their environment, the question is raised: which came first, the myth that became tied to a dragon, or a dragon whose popular name gave rise to a legend?

Campe is likely an example of the first, as the breed migrated to the Aegean from the Red Sea during the Nontoku itsunengo (~AD 350) in response to human hunting. The dragon, when seen in poor lighting conditions—such as in a cave by a panicked human carrying a torch—can very vaguely resemble the half-human half-reptilian description given by Nonnus in the Dionysiaca (albeit possessing only one head and only four legs), and was likely given the name in identification from the myth.

Conversely, many breeds native to Iceland, Greenland, the Alban Isles and North-western Europa were named by the colonizing Norse and only later incorporated into their legends. A prime example of this is the Night Fury (known to the native Celts as Bás Dorcha), which quickly gained the reputation of being the bastard offspring of Thor, god of Thunder, and Hel, goddess of Death. In the Alban Isles, a new set of legends, unseen in the eastern Norse, grew over the course of the Early Heian Period (AD 800s and 900s), with elaborate stories being told of the divines' intimate encounter that resulted in the dragon breed.

To chapter article

Chapter 79: On The Threshold
One of the great paradoxes that comes from the study of history is that historians are forced to simultaneously speak in both concrete and abstract terms. We say 'the society decided to change' at the same time as we speak of the leaders making specific decisions. But the society did not decide to change. The Hooligans of Berk, for example, did not, as some abstract whole, decide to adopt dragons and grow to become the core of a new sovereign nation over the next five years. Nor did then-Chief Stoick's decision to allow for the adoption of dragons force this decision. No. Individuals within that society decided to change, in how they acted or how they viewed the world, while others did not. And yet we are forced to speak in the aggregate, the cumulative, taking the broad trend of the social unit and applying it to all members inside. We can recognize the individual dissenters when their dissent from the mean is sufficient to stand out, and yet this very recognition paints a degree of uniformity on the rest that is both unrealistic and unearned.

Furthermore, referring to the aggregate of the society in the abstract creates a false impression of their numbers, simply due to the common fallacies of equivocation and false equivalence (i.e. we call them the same thing, ergo we see them as being roughly the same). We project ourselves and our own modern expectations and experiences with current political entities onto the past, despite those historical units being vastly smaller, simpler, and less developed).  We speak of the Byzantine Empire and the North Sea Empire as two simple units.  Due to the difficulties that many have with comprehending large numbers and larger scales, the typical comprehension of the concept of "Empire" lends itself to a false equivalence, that one Empire is much like another Empire in size, population, economy, culture and so forth, but that mental abstraction again does a disservice in scale.  To illustrate, consider that, in AD 1040, there were more people occupying Constantinople and the Thracian farmland immediately outside the city's famous walls than there were in all of the island of Eire in that same year.  Meanwhile, Sweden, Norway and Denmark together had less than a million people combined, while the city of Baghdad alone had over a million people sheltering behind its walls. And again, in making such comparisons, we fall prey to the lure of the abstract, of referencing the masses of otherwise anonymous people as conglomerate wholes.

But at the same time, such abstraction is necessary; we do not have the data to be able to conclusively say that, out of the approximately 300,000 Albans who lived under King Mac Bethad's rule, 68,821 agreed with his stated desire for continued independence from Berk's influence, while another 121,749 would have been happier if he had made overtures of integration prior to his fatal duel with Astrid clan Haddock. Such precision is not available to us and we are thus forced to speak in the abstract and the aggregate, erasing the heterogeneous beliefs and attitudes of entire generations—save those individuals who had the foresight to record their thoughts, or the impact that inspired others to record them.

To chapter article

Chapter 103: Roots And Wings
The ancient Hooligan tradition of absurdist or otherwise unconventional personal names that was in place during the time of Hiccup Haddock III (himself a prime example of the tradition) originated, according to tribal legend, with Hiccup III's ancestor, Hiccup I. According to the sagas, his parents named him when the baby had nonstop hiccups prior to his formal naming—and then a plague broke out which decimated the other infants of his cohort, and young Hiccup I not only survived, he never contracted the disease at all, a pattern which persisted through the next two years of plague outbreaks. Then, according to the saga, another toddler who had contracted the plague and was in danger of dying from it had his name changed from Varg to Catbrains in desperation by his parents, and was healthy within a week.

This resulted in absurdist names for nearly all of the tribe's children over the next generations, a situation apparently enhanced as a result of the difficulty which the tribe had in bringing pregnancies to term due to Nadder venom-induced miscarriages. With the birthing of children being so hard to achieve during this period, children were prized and even coddled as much as the harsh environment allowed them to be. The prizing of any child, no matter how sickly or bastard-born, reached the point where the tradition of exposing sickly infants which was the norm in other Norse cultures was rejected emphatically by the Hooligans.

Further reinforcement of the naming tradition came from the extinction of several other clans during this time, as well as Clan Hofferson's near extinction in the late-900s AD all of which were seen as being the natural consequence of failing to heed the tribal wisdoms of unconventional names. Over time, this tradition eventually grew to encompass a protective aura against other childhood threats to life and limb, both real and mythical.

To chapter article

Chapter 52: The Question Of Justice
The legal status of dragons has nearly always been that of a minor child legally beholden to and dependent on an adult human. While the fact that dragons are fully sentient and sapient individuals was very quickly apparent, even to the early dragon-riders, the fact also remains that, outside of a few exceptional individual dragons, a typical dragon's abstract reasoning skills and higher order thinking processes range around those of a five- or six-year-old human child. While dragons have their own language capable of communicating abstract concepts, much like those of corvids, prior to their integration with human society it was still extremely primitive, with even the most complex regional dialects only consisting of perhaps a thousand words. Simply put, dragons aren't quite intelligent enough to be humanity's full intellectual partners. Hence their legal status.

At present, dragon-riders essentially adopt the dragon in a civil bond away from the legal trusts of the Brooderies, who corporately act as the dragons' legal guardians until and unless they are bonded to a rider. With the bond between rider and dragon holding a legal status similar to that of a marriage or child adoption, dragon-riders are, presently, entirely responsible for the behavior of their dragon, and have obligations to the dragon in kind (food, housing, medical care, etc.).

Ideally, it is a partnership between near-equals, where the human gives their hands and brains, and the dragon gives their wings.

To chapter article

Chapter 55: And Who We Make Ourselves To Be
…with all due respect to my esteemed colleagues, the specific metaphor they used to describe the pull that Berk had upon merchant traffic is inaccurate and inadequate, as a magnet will only attract iron filings within a certain short distance, and the pull rapidly drops off from there. In contrast, it appears that the seagoing merchants across all of Europa in the era attempted and typically succeeded in making their way to Berk for trade within two years of the domestication of dragons.

According to the bills of sale, lading, and customs declarations recorded by Ingerman's archives, merchants from across the Mediterranean were flocking to Berk by April of 1042, hearing of the riches of the tamed dragons. Previously, Berk had been a hazard port, where only those who were willing to risk being attacked by wild dragons went—although the demand for dragon-derived materials was such that some still made the journey, especially due to the near-total depopulation of dragons from the Mediterranean region over the previous two thousand years. In the aftermath of the demise of the Green Death, the danger had evaporated, and this new opportunity for profit without major risk caused a significant draw to head to Berk with all possible haste. Over the course of 1042, over a hundred merchant ships from as far away as the Fatimid capital of Cairo visited Berk—and, two years earlier, there had been only two such visits.

As such, magnetic seems to be inadequate as a metaphor to communicate the depth of the impact upon the commercial traffic of the era, as the draw became even more intense as the distance grew. While I acknowledge that Historians Paulson, bat Rivka, and Larson prefer to focus on the religious aspects of the subsequent conflicts, their consistent downplaying of the economic factors does them a disservice…

To chapter article

Chapter 61: Is A Threat Achieved
Prior to the Dragon Era, the Kingdom of the Franks was highly decentralized, with effectively independent great lords ruling over their demesnes. The King of the Franks was essentially only one lord among many, a set of circumstances that had developed since the death of Charles the Fat in 888 AD and the ending of the Carolingian Empire.

The causes of this decentralization from the previously strong centralized empires of Charlemagne and Charles the Fat were numerous, including the effects of Viking raiders (some of whom settled on the north coast of France in what is now Normandy), a general grab for power and land by the noble and ecclesiastical classes, and a corresponding loss of power by the peasantry and royalty. In particular, the feuding between the great nobles and their knights had a chilling effect upon the Frankish kingdom…

During the centuries prior to the Dragon Era, trade within the kingdom essentially ceased. Illiteracy was the general rule not only for the peasantry, but for many of the nobility as well. While towns did exist, they were pale remnants of the Gallo-Roman economic network, typically surviving as the seats of ecclesiastical bishops or secular nobility, or as local market centers…

The knights, in particular, were problematic in their effects. While certainly of military importance in providing defense against Vikings and other knights, they had become a hereditary caste since the era of the Carolingians. In competition with each other, they had a strong incentive to make war as a way of proving their valor and skill in order to be most attractive as potential vassals to the greater nobles, meaning that they viewed conflict as a first solution to any problem. The conventions of the noble habitus only did so much to stem this tendency towards violence as a means of problem solving, and Frankish knights tended to view anyone that wasn't a noble or knight as an impediment that could be slain out of hand, on the battlefield or off, and often enjoyed petty destruction for its own sake. The situation became such that the Peace and Truce of God was first implemented in the late 900s AD to try to put religious strictures against who and what the knights could simply kill and destroy.

To chapter article

Chapter 62: A Bringer Of New Things
The Byzantine Theme system (singular: thema) originated during the intense warfare facing the Byzantine Empire during the 600s AD. The theme system was conceived of and designed to meet the logistical and manpower needs of the diminished Roman-Byzantine Army. While the system evolved dramatically over the ensuing seven centuries until the final collapse of the Empire in the late 1300s AD, the general structure and concept was simple: each thema was (ideally) a singular district under the (equally ideally) unified military and civilian command of the local governing general (Strategos). In that district, there were specific lands (stratiotika ktemata) that were under direct military rulership; these lands were used to provide for the upkeep of soldiers in the army.

This created a group of soldier-farmers, the Strateia, who would work the stratiotika ktemata in time of peace, and join the army in times of war, or offer material and logistical support to the army directly (in contrast with the civilian farmers, the georgoi). The status of Strateia was hereditary, and was intended to maintain the manpower and logistical needs of the Byzantine military in perpetuity. Overall, the theme system was flexible and easily expanded; newly (re)captured lands could be granted to pensioners from the army, whose sons would then join military service. There were other benefits as well to being part of the Strateia—exemption from certain taxes, and pay and state-sponsored material support for taking part in military campaigns and aiding in public works.

The Theme system arguably reached its height under Emperor Basil II in the early 1000s, providing, provisioning, and manning a force of 110,000 men, the largest the Byzantine Army had reached in over five centuries. It then quickly cratered, as Basil's land taxes and protectionary laws were undone by his immediate successors under pressure from the Dynatoi, the aristocratic magnate class. Much of the stratiotika ktemata were acquired by the Dynatoi over the ensuing decades for their large-scale farming estates (latifundium), weakening the theme armies and their support. By the beginning of the Dragon Era in the AD 1040s, the Byzantine Army could only muster 60,000 soldiers, with over 20% of those being foreign mercenaries.

To chapter article

Chapter 70: Red Sky at Morning...
By promoting the young Sigurd Trondsson to high ranks in the political and military spheres, Empress Theodora made him into a target for the intricate power plays of the highly corrupt imperial court. This was not lessened by the fact that, by rewarding him so, she made her favoritism obvious. This simply meant that all of the myriad kinds of attacks and seductions that he faced had to be more subtle than a knife in the back, although those were tried as well. At first, Trondsson was very much a liability to the Empress, who had to spend time and effort to protect him, although there are counter-arguments that she was using him as her stalking horse in order to draw out dissatisfied members of the court so that she could deal with them. It was not until later that he…

To chapter article

Chapter 71: Next to Godliness
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Byzantine Roman Empire had inherited the full formalized legal and political structure of the old Roman Empire itself, without needing to reinvent it. This structure gave it the internal cohesion it needed to maintain its political and military strength. As part of that political strength, the Empire was noted for playing its various rivals and neighbors off against one another in order to keep threats at bay.

One of the core aspects of Byzantine military policy was their use of diplomacy and foreign influence in the furtherance of military strategy. They maintained active ambassadors with every neighboring state and many that were further away, and did not hesitate to meddle in the internal affairs of other states.

This made the Byzantine Bureau of Barbarians (Greek: Skrinion tōn Barbarōn) an office of considerable influence and importance in the intricate bureaucratic and political structures of the Byzantine government, and it did its job masterfully. Suspected of having been the espionage office of the Empire by modern scholars, it was, officially, a protocol office for dealing with the ways of foreigners. However, the office also maintained lists of rivals to foreign thrones, and would happily supply those individuals with money and support if it looked as if the current throne-holder might become a threat, or possibly merely uncooperative.

The Empire also made use of a similar tactic on a larger scale—supporting rival states if their neighbors threatened the Empire. If the Rus' threatened war, then the Pechenegs could be subsidized. If the Bulgarians grew restive, then the Rus' could be contacted and favors called in. A noted exemplar of such divide-and-conquer tactics was Emperor Heraclius, who once intercepted a note from the Persian king ordering the execution of a general and his staff. The emperor added 400 names to the execution list and sent the note on its way, and watched as the Persian empire fought itself to put down the rebellion that ensued.

Another example of such manipulation occurred when it came to light that Sigurd Trondsson (see Chapter 21: The Dragon Riders) was actually Snotlout clan Jorgenson, effectively next in line to inherit the chiefdom of Berk after Hiccup clan Haddock and his issue. The Bureau…

To chapter article

Chapter 111: Need To Know
Another advantage that the Byzantines inherited from the Roman Empire and subsequently refined was the control of information in their bureaucracies. Perhaps best exemplified by their control over the knowledge of Greek Fire, they arguably perfected the use of information compartmentalization, where the weapon system of Greek Fire was broken down into many parts, and no one group had access to the full information required to create and deploy the feared weapon. The knowledge was instead spread between those who had the formula for its creation, the builders and operators of the specialized dromon ships that carried the Fire into battle, the specific chamber used to heat and pressurize it for spraying, the crafters of the siphōn that sprayed it, and the siphōnarioi who used it in battle. No one group in the entirety of the Byzantine government had the full picture of how it was made or used. Thus, even when portions of Greek Fire were captured—such as in 814 AD by the Bulgarians—the enemies of the Byzantines could not make use of the weapon.

To chapter article

Chapter 64: Underhanded
…additionally, much criticism has been levied over the centuries against Heather Ingerman's espionage failures, especially those early in her tenure. Frequently, such critics find support in her own journals, especially with sufficient cherry-picking to avoid her own cogent analysis of what she did wrong and how to do better in the future. What many of these critics forget is that Ingerman was a teenaged girl at the time when she was first appointed to the role of spymaster of Berk; while she had been extensively trained as a spy agent, the higher-level skills required by her new elevated position took her some time to develop from first principles. It was not until later that she found a mentor in the arts of espionage that…

To chapter article

Chapter 95: A Time For Every Matter Under The Heavens
…this is not to say that all of Ingerman's early espionage actions were missteps. While her first year as Berk's spymaster featured a large number of missed opportunities, other opportunities were seized on, including the creation of a network of information gatherers paralleling the initial Dragon Mail routes and the uncovering of several plots against Berk. Still, her early focus was, unsurprisingly, more on the recruitment of information sources and potential field agents. It was not until later that the need for analysts and organizational clerks became apparent in the face of the scope of Berk's potential fields of interest across Europe and beyond.

These early days of the North Sea Empire's intelligence services offer a valuable case study in the field of espionage when it comes to the scale of an intelligence service. Many of the feudal spymasters of the European kingdoms were around Ingerman's initial levels of sophistication, but their concerns tended to be provincial at the behest of their feudal lords and thus needed no further sophistication beyond what could be handled by a single person or at most a small group of people. Berk, in aiming for a sphere of influence spanning an entire continent and beyond, required an espionage service scaled to suit. As such, seeing the early failures and successes of Ingerman's tenure—and the inspirations and lessons that she drew upon, from her husband, her mentor, her fellow agents, and even the more sophisticated espionage services of the Byzantine Empire, the Vatican, and beyond—is a potent reminder of not overreaching one's institutions and structuring them to fit the actual needs facing that institution.

To chapter article

Chapter 117: Reverberations From Silence
Espionage is one of the dirty secrets of statecraft, in that everyone does it, even on their allies, even if no one wants to admit it. Generally such spying takes mild forms that aren't even considered to be such—an attache officer at a consulate simply keeping their eyes and ears open as they walk around the capital city is technically spying if they report back their findings, even if the information is freely available for the local citizens with their own senses.

Deeper levels of espionage tend to be reserved for opponents and threats, and it is these methods that are popularly associated with the term in the public awareness. Informant networks, agents-in-place, penetration agents, disinformation agents, double agents, and other such human assets make for the common concept of the term 'spy'—often conflated together in popular imagination and lurid novels—and in modern times, the official reactions to such individuals can be anything from banning them from the country for those with diplomatic immunity, to arrest with an end result of imprisonment, asset trades, or even torture or execution.

To chapter article

Chapter 68: Hide A Knife Behind A Smile
The typical aims of dragon-rider versus dragon-rider battles in the air are often very different from battles of dragon-riders versus foot soldiers, for all that they can take place in the same battle. Dragon-riders against soldiers on the ground aim to destroy, rout, or contain the ground forces, but dragon-riders against dragon-riders often aim to capture the enemy's dragons instead of killing them or driving them off. Simply and pragmatically put, killing an enemy's dragons might deny their use to the enemy, but capturing them potentially allows for their recruitment to one's own side. The same cold logic applies to all dragon-riding forces, regardless of their affiliation—dragons are more valuable in warfare than men and far more expensive to waste, due to both their rarity and their capabilities.

As a result of that logic, capture weapons—nets, bolas, traps and more—have always been a component of dragon-fighting warfare, going back to before the end of the Dragon War, when capturing dragons meant that they could be killed cleanly for their parts, rather than risk them detonating. Since then, such weapons have been refined by all sides…

To chapter article

Chapter 72: How The Wheel Turns
There are two great dangers with using dragons for military purposes—overuse and underuse, and frequently they mirror each other. As with any fighting resource, the temptation to concentrate everything you have into a single hammerblow will always be there. And it is worse with the use of dragons, due to their high mobility. One can easily rationalize to oneself that the utility of keeping a mass formation of dragons that can rapidly deploy outweighs the risks of raids and other high-speed attacks. But the mere fact that dragons are fast doesn't mean that they can fly across Midgard in a day. Time is still needed to get any army moving, and that is still the case for flocks of dragons, regardless of how well-trained or well-drilled they are—and that still allows for a window which someone alert and ready to attack can use to their own advantage.

To chapter article

Chapter 78: …Sailor Take Warning
One of the great advantages of dragon-mounted warfare is the freedom of movement it grants. Control of the air grants incredible supremacy over those below; a simple rock dropped from above becomes a deadly weapon, and the armory available to a dragon-rider is vaster than mere sticks and stones. But the weapons alone are only part of that supremacy. Ground-level enemy forces cannot stand in your way unless you choose to fight them. Enemy leaders become targets or traps, huddled under half of their army for fear of being plucked like ripe fruit.

For all of the peaceful uses of dragons and their abilities, in war, they make it so that the only thing that can fight or defend against a dragon-armed force on anything resembling equal footing is another dragon-armed force. And while exceptions abounded in those early years—at the First Battle of the Seine River, for example, or the New Year Fire-Rout—part of that was due to a lack of understanding in how to properly use dragons on the battlefield. But it swiftly became apparent to everyone in those early days that there were two options: Either one has dragons, or one is beholden to one who has dragons.

There was, and is, really no middle ground.

To chapter article

Chapter 87: Maneuvering Room
The legendary Zhou general Sun Tzu defined strategy, bing-fa, as a set of rules to help make decisions about possible situations and decisions that a person might encounter on the battlefield and off. Personally, I prefer to define the concept somewhat more broadly: A strategy is the set of approaches one takes towards a goal that one has selected.

On a gameboard, the goal is to defeat the opposing player. At war, the goal can vary, from conquest to defense to punitive measures or other such possibilities. But the strategy is how one goes about implementing those goals. On a gameboard or at war, the strategy might be aggressive or defensive, offensive or reactive, straightforward or subtle. At play, my strategy might be to capture as many pieces of my opponent's as possible, or to outmaneuver them so that I can capture the enemy's key pieces without a protracted struggle. At war, the possibilities are even more numerous; I might have the goal of conquest, in which case, occupying and seizing control of the enemy's territory is my strategy—or, alternatively, I might strike at the head directly, aiming at the enemy leader with the intent of capture in order to force a surrender and settlement. In either case, the goal is served and possibly fulfilled.

But the goal is the why and what, and the strategy is the greater how and the when and where, and it is important to never lose sight of that distinction. You do not have a battle just because you wish to have a battle; no, battles are done in service of a greater strategy, and while stirring tales of heroism might seem like incentive to some, oftentimes it is better to not fight at all, or only fight on one's own terms. Many of the ruminations on dragon combat in these pages are seen by many as glorifying such battles, and I will certainly agree that there is glory and honor in fighting when necessary. And that is key. When Necessary. But if it is not necessary, then it is just a waste—and there is no honor in that. To win without fighting should be the strategy any commander worthy of being followed should aim for, and to preserve their forces for another day.

To chapter article

Chapter 112: Bonds Of Friendship And Ties Of Duty
One of the interesting points to consider when analyzing warfare is to remember that the individuals who decide the course of it make decisions within their own biases and perspectives. While this may seem to be an obvious point—Emperor Romanos III, an inexperienced commander, thought that war was decided by large battalions and thus it was on these large, ponderous formations he depended and lost at Azaz, to name a memorable such defeat—this fact also plays off in more subtle ways.

Consider the case of Kagan Drago Bludvist. The man reportedly spent several years hunting and poaching dragons, and resented the anti-poaching laws put into place and enforced by the Song Dynasty protecting those same dragons. This attitude managed to embed itself deep in his psyche by all accounts, informing his strategy when he advised his predecessor, Kagan Berk, on the conquest of the Song Dynasty as a first step prior to taking their dragon nests.

But from an objective viewpoint considering objectives and strategy—gaining dragons and using them in conquest—such a strategy was foolish and pointless! What could the Song have hoped to do to prevent Drago's dragon riders from flying past them, and forcibly enthralling the nests deeper in their territory? The few token guardsmen working to prevent poachers from accessing the nests that the Song held as sacred would have been easily dealt with and the dragons forced into subjugation. Once that was done, the Pechenegs could have then used their augmented force to conquer not only the Song, but all of the empires and kingdoms in the region and beyond in short order.

But Drago, by his own admission later on, saw the Song and their laws as a barrier that prevented him from accessing those self-same dragons, and thus, to his mind, they had to be dealt with first before the dragons could be accessible. To him, the dragons were owned by the humans who claimed the land their nests sat upon, and thus those humans would have to be conquered before the dragons could be taken as spoils of war.

For another example, consider Emperor Henry the Black and his actions…

To chapter article

Chapter 74: It's Planting Seeds In A Garden…
He said to himself: Is there really a person who can sleep and dream for seventy years? How is it possible to compare the seventy-year exile in Babylonia to a dream? One day, he was walking along the road when he saw a certain man planting a carob tree. Honi said to him: This tree, after how many years will it bear fruit? The man said to him: It will not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Honi said to him: Is it apparent to you that you will live seventy years, that you expect to benefit from this tree? He said to him: I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants. Honi sat and ate bread. Sleep overcame him and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke, he saw a certain man gathering carobs from that tree. Honi said to him: Are you the one who planted this tree? The man said to him: I am his son's son.

To chapter article

Chapter 82: Shackles Of The Past
"Why didn't you?"

That's what she asked me.

"Because I looked at him and I saw myself."

Toothless was every bit as frightened as I was. Here we were, two kids, both of us still growing up, pushed into a war because our elders told us that was how things were, how they had been, since man and dragon first fought and killed each other.

When she asked, first I said that I couldn't kill a dragon, but then I realized that I wouldn't. Three hundred years and I was the first Viking who wouldn't kill a dragon.

I was the first to ride one, though.

We were the first to look at the cycle of 'they kill us, we kill them, back and forth until everyone is scarred and dead' and say 'no.'

I looked at him and I saw myself. Someone who had grown up with this, who had been told that it was fight or die, who was scared out of his mind at what the other would do. Who, when he had the chance to kill, chose not to.

I've thought about that choice a lot, especially over the last few years. So many people are afraid of us—of me—for what I might do to them. Because that's what they would do, or that's what others would do, and why should I be any different? Or what my kids might do after me.

I don't know if I can look at them and see myself, but that doesn't matter. Because, when it came down to it, in that moment, I looked at someone that I had been told for my whole life was a monster, was the enemy and who had to be killed without mercy. "Extremely dangerous, kill on sight." I looked at him and I said…

"No."

And I broke the cycle with that choice. I cut the ropes that bound him—ropes I had put there—and I set him free. And I could have died.

But I didn't.

Because Toothless made the same choice as he saw me make.

We were both scared kids, not even really adults yet, and we made that choice.

And that's what I'm going to keep on doing, making that same choice, over and over and over, and seeing who I can get to come with me this time. And if they try to kill me, I'll stop them… but I'll give them a chance first.

I have to.

Because to break the cycle of fear, someone has to stand up and show trust. Even if they don't deserve it. Maybe especially if they don't. Because they might be caught in that cycle and have no one to trust.

After all, I was told that a dragon always goes for the kill.

Except when they don't. Because Toothless had been told that a Viking always goes for the kill.

Except when I didn't.

Since then, there have been people who slapped my hand away and forced me to defend myself and my people. More than I want to count. I've killed thousands of people, man and dragon, defending my people. Tens of thousands. But I give them a chance to change the path that they've set themselves. I have to.

Because sometimes…

Sometimes they change.

And how could I live with myself if I didn't give them the same chance as I gave my best friend?

To chapter article

Chapter 105: No Greater Fear Than That Of Love Standing Helpless
The idea of blood is ridiculous.

And while I have some complaints to Odin about the red stuff that runs in our bodies and leaks out when you poke too hard, that's not what I'm talking about here.

The idea of good blood or bad blood or bloodlines or 'they take after their father or mother,' or, going bigger, that's just how they are because of who they are,  what  they are, that's absurd.

I'm proof of that. I grew up as my father's runt of a child, someone who was strange and who didn't fit in, despite all of my efforts to be just like them. How can I say to other people that that's what I would expect of them because of who their parents were, who their family is, when I remember so strongly that I wasn't like my own father?

'That's just how they are'. Oh really? That's just how 'they' are? Why? It didn't matter to me how much 'Vikings' were like that, even as I tried to be one with all of my (rather sad) might. I wasn't an ax-wielding warrior.

Yes, there are tendencies across groups of people. But those come from how the child is taught, from what the people around them say is acceptable on how to behave, and also from their own personal gifts and temperaments. Everyone likes to say now that my eldest kids are  'geniuses, just like their father' since they started reaching adulthood and I'm finding out exactly what my father and Gobber meant by "the Grandparents' Curse". And yes, part of me would like to think that it's all my 'blood'. But it isn't. It's because when they were little, I helped them ask questions and grow. I encouraged the parts of them that wanted to know, wanted to understand the world and how it is put together. And not all of my kids are that kind of 'genius'. Oh, Asta and Magni definitely are, and it's been a joy to watch them scare and upset the old scholars as they've finish their schooling—or in Valka's case, scare the lords now that she's starting to take some responsibility in leading. But Hamish, ahem, 'takes after his mother,' and while he's certainly smart enough, he's not interested in being a philosopher or a lord or an artist or a priest like his brothers and sisters are. He's growing up to be a warrior, a soldier, an officer and general like his mother is, and I'm just doing my best to help him be a man of honor and not a bully. And I'm not going to force him to be like me if he doesn't want to be. I know how much that hurts.

But that's just my own family. I wasn't a model Hooligan growing up, no matter how many tales people tell now to the contrary. Fishlegs grew up around books and cultivated that in him, but he wasn't a perfect warrior as our people pictured it either. Hel, Mildew, may Nidhogg gnaw on his bones, was one of us, and look at how he acted! It was as if every law and rule we had was something he viewed as a challenge to break!

So when I hear people say in the Thing that that's 'just how the Turks are', or 'everyone knows that's how the Han people are', or any of that…

I always end up asking sarcastically about what 'everyone knows'. After all, 'everyone knows' that Jews are weak scholars—and some of our most highly honored soldiers come from their people. I've had my own people comment to me in private that 'everyone knows' how Franks are untrustworthy fanatics who will betray oaths to outsiders if they can find an excuse. And, sure, there have been examples of that… and there have been many more examples of good and kind members of their people, who repay decency with decency and honor with honor.

No. Blood is ridiculous. I grew up with a smith for a guardian and became a craftsman. My wives grew up in the homes of warriors and leaders, and that's what they were taught to become.

And that is why I do my best to help my people, regardless of their 'blood', to grow and fly on their own.

Because I know what it's like to be a square peg in a round hole, even if people now are saying that the hole was always square.

It wasn't.

To chapter article

Chapter 115: Visions, Obscure And Otherwise
There are mountains on Magni's back.

I have just seen them for myself, and wonder at the literal new world that my son has just shown me.

Recording this now, so Fishlegs doesn't get upset with me later…

After dinner, my son Magni came to me, holding a synlengra clutched in his hands, and wanting to show me something. For a moment, I almost told him later, due to my duties, but I remembered being fifteen and my father not being interested in what I had to show him—and how I had vowed to do better.

So I did.

He took me up to the rooftop and told me to point the synlengra at the moon, which was a quarter full. I did so, after joking with him for a moment. And once I did so, I almost fell down in shock.

There are mountains on Magni's back. I could see their shadows, cast by the light of the sun. There are great circular scars on his flanks, caused by what, I do not know. I have done my best to sketch what I saw below.

But my son wasn't content with merely showing me his namesake. He told me to look at Odin next. Still stunned, I did so.

And I saw.

Odin's single eye peered back at me. Surrounding him were four others—who I can only assume to be Huginn and Munnin, and Geri and Freki.

I made these synlengra for looking down at the ground from dragonback. And all of this time, I never thought to look up with them.

Tomorrow, I am going to the lens-grinders, and we are going to plan how to make the biggest lenses we can and how to mount them in a synlengra tube.

My son opened my eyes, and I didn't even know they were closed.

I'm going to give him even better ones.

—From the journal of Hiccup Haddock, June 22, AD 1059

To chapter article

Chapter 85: Inheritors Of Strife
With each day, the world we live in is made anew.

I say this not as a religious mystery or philosophical quandary, but as a statement of fact, because each day, we rebuild the world that defines us and that we ourselves define, based on the world that defined us yesterday. All of us, man and dragon alike, are defined by our histories and choices. Consider this conundrum. Suppose that tomorrow, upon rising, I were to state that the ancient laws and duties incumbent upon my station and status did not apply, and that I owed no man my efforts or time.

Well, I would be seen as mad by all of those who had risen that day and expected that those laws and duties would apply to me. How they would react would depend on many things, but what manner of things tells them that such laws and duties should apply? Nothing, except for their own histories and choices, the teachings and expectations passed down by our predecessors. And so, for all that the world is made anew, it resembles the old one quite well in its fidelity.

But now consider: suppose that I taught my own children that the expectations upon them are different than my own? Or suppose I taught such a thing to all of the children? Would I be freeing them from my own history, or freeing myself? Or both? Is such a thing possible? Would the definitions shift? What if I had a particular vision of how the world should be? Or if I saw the world I live in now as an ideal to be cherished and preserved?

As the world is invented anew with each day, we each have a choice whether to accept the world of yesterday or create the world of tomorrow through our choices of what we accept from our predecessors and and what we teach to our inheritors.

I myself choose to try to make a better world, one where I feel that I am fulfilling my responsibilities to my ancestors and to my descendants, and hope that they, in turn, will work to preserve or improve upon what I have given them.

To chapter article

Chapter 102: Echoes In Eternity
A 'Chain of Events.' Let us meditate on that image for a moment. A chain of events, where one event leads to the next, and that one leads to the next, on and on. But events do not work that way. One event, one action, one choice, can lead to many more events spiraling out from there, making the 'chain' appear more like a net, or a web.

Still, the image does hold for many uses, where we trace back one step at a time to an instigating cause. And the image of a chain, or a net, does function metaphorically in other ways. Like chains, or nets, events can lift us up. They can also restrain us, bind us, imprison us, hold us back, limit us to a specific area. They can help anchor us to safety. They can be fine and delicate, almost ornamental or even unobtrusive, or stout and strong, made of thick links that bear titanic forces. And, with the proper effort…

They can be broken.

Their effects can be halted, through recognition and choice. A blood feud can be stopped, with the chain of tit-for-tat injury and death ended. A system of injustice can be shattered and rebuilt with an eye for greater goodness. A legacy of brutality can be overcome.

A new chain can be forged, one attached to a hoist to raise, instead of a shackle to bind.

To chapter article

Chapter 97: The Path Of Law
"Tzedek, Tzedek, tirdof." "Justice, justice, you shall pursue." This week's parsha has this famous injunction, given by Moshe Rabbenu, on how we shall pursue justice. It is not merely stated, but repeated for emphasis, in the context of instructions on the appointment of judges and enforcers of law, of the treatment and behavior of everyone from the highest king to the lowliest beggar, from the staunches of allies down to the worst of enemies.

And from this we learn much. Justice is not merely a perfect product, dispensed from a court of law like goods available at the market for purchase. No, justice is an ideal, one which we strive towards but never truly accomplish, for it would mean that in all times and in all places, we meet the standards to which we are held, and to which we hold ourselves—for the Torah is not in Heaven, and neither is Justice. No, it is ours, here, in Olam Hazeh, and to pursue Justice is to engage in Tikkun Olam, and make of our world a better place in accordance with the Law.

The usual response heard to this perspective is that, as Rashi said, that the rest of the verse goes, "that you may live and possess the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you," meaning that it was only incumbent upon us to appoint judges and hold courts of law while living in the Land of Israel, and is not binding outside of it. This is not true. Yes, it referred to the long-ago time when we lived as a nation in and of ourselves, and we are since dispersed, and, as Rashi said, it is on that merit that we held our long-ago home. But we are still told to pursue that justice, even if our home is lost, and hold to what we can, even if we do not live in that land any longer.

But perhaps one might think that our justice is only for ourselves. After all, the injunction to pursue justice was spoken only to the Bnei Yisrael. But this is also not true. "Mishpat achad yihiyeh lachem", we are told. "You shall have one single standard of justice." There is no comment there stating that variation in Law, in the ideal of Justice, is acceptable because we now live in a different land. And it is to that standard that we hold ourselves, the standard which we were told was holy, which we were told to pursue, no matter where we live, no matter with whom we live. And too,"Ve'ahavta l'reieha komocha"—"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." "Lo ta'amod al dam reiecha"—"You shall not stand by the shed blood of your neighbor." From this we see that no matter where we live, no matter who our neighbors are, we are commanded to stand by them and to pursue justice for them and for ourselves.

To chapter article

Chapter 108: By Their Fruits
Pre-modern dragon social structures and culture were based around the institution of the nest, a result of the necessity of these sites for breeding. Due to the hunter-gatherer lifestyles of the dragons, all pre-modern nests had a finite ceiling to the population they could support, which led to a lifestyle that was a hybrid of sedentary and nomadic elements, with many dragons moving from nest to nest over the course of their lives (especially in early adolescence), and yet still spending a large portion of their lifespans in one location.

At the center of each nest's social structure was the nest's lord, the Thengill, typically the oldest, largest, and most powerful dragon present. The Thengill would—ideally—protect the nest and the eggs and hatchlings inside, organize and direct the nest's members (including banishing excess members when the nest had exceeded the number the region could support) and act as a social and military leader for the members of the nest. Regardless, their word was law and their decisions final.

While abuses by Thengills were sadly common as a result of this unchecked power, the resource they commanded in the form of access to the nest and the breeding potential it represented was such that the vast majority of dragons would accept their terms without question. And due to their age and experience, few other dragons could challenge the Thengill—and often the second-strongest dragon in the nest was the Thengill's auxiliary, or even their chosen successor. Still, when a Thengill weakened from hunger, illness, or injury, challengers would appear.

To chapter article

Chapter 116: Game, Set, Match
A man of wisdom charts

through shoals of adversity

wracked by dark night waves

their motions unknown.

-

Tides rage, wind blows

rocks grasp and tear

sea foam and fog blind

hazards to good sailing.

-

But a course can be charted

the fears of the crew calmed

a steady hand at the rudder

and the foresight to go on.

-

Sailors unsteady themselves.

the face of the unknown, fear,

what is not understood, panic.

Snared beasts lashing out

-

Key is knowledge and insight

therein lies wisdom, direction.

A course plotted through danger

the final sinking forestalled.

-

Comprehend the battering waves,

learn of the scudding shoals,

watch the sky with a fair eye,

and consider their motions.

-

See the crew and know their fears.

The wise, the weak, the new, and the bleak.

Know your crew, know your course

And chart accordingly to never sink.

—Raðsnjallamal, The Words of The Wise Counsel, from the Saga of Forseti

To chapter article

Chapter 118: Something Wicked This Way Comes
One of the core tactical principles of an ambush is to attack from a prepared position onto an unprepared and unsuspecting enemy force, thus taking full advantage of the element of surprise as a force multiplier…

Note that an ambush can be spoiled and turned around if the targets of the ambush become prematurely aware of the trap. In such circumstances, a retreat by the aggressor force is suggested, as they are no longer in a position of tactical superiority and face prepared opposition.

The worst time for the ambush target to become aware of the ambush is when the ambushers are only partially but not fully situated…

To chapter article