This is a story of the old days, before the Northerners, before the ships, before even the walled cities. The days when the race of men was young and the gods dwelt in the forests.

When the elder gods took upon themselves the burden of raising the race of men, they gave our ancestors gifts, and they divided their duties as befit their personalities.

Palhir, the eldest of the three, said: I will give them fire, that their bodies might be protected from the ice, and iron that their minds might be turned toward creativity. Axes that they might build, swords that they might hunt. With fire and iron, our children will be released from the animal's blind struggle for survival.

Aorvang, the youngest and livliest, said: I will make swords and arrows from your iron, brother, so that they might protect their own and hunt their food. Because our children are kin to the animals -- and it is well that they remember that -- I will teach them to track and to hide, to kill the buck and to spare the fawn.

But Iktara, she of the icy hair, was silent.

What would you give the children? asked her brothers.

Then she said: With your protection, they will know nothing of the cold and the dark. But the cold and the ice and fanged death will come upon them in the end.

And her brothers were silent, for they knew as well as she that all must come to an end and even the gods cannot protect against that.

Then Palhir took a brand from the fire and carved black marks into a piece of wood. He said: I will teach them to carve and to forge, that the works shall remain when the craftsman is gone, and to speak that the words of the wise shall remain when they, too, are gone.

Aorvang looked at his arrows and said: I will give them strength that the old might protect the young, and courage that the hunter can face his death should the battle turn that way. What will you give them, sister, besides omens?

Iktara stared into the flames that were her elder brother's work and stared at the roasting meat that was her younger brother's gift, and finally she said: I will give them the cold and the dark.

Aorvang exclaimed: Sister, will you undo all our work?

Brothers, you speak of strength and courage. But what when courage fails? What when strength lacks? What of the feeble and the children?

Palhir frowned and the sky grew dark: They shall be protected. The strong shall protect the weak.

Then I give my gifts to the weak. I give the cold that smothers pain and the sleep that has no waking. For those who must wake against their will, I give the dark, silent dreams. I give the snowdrift that protects from the blizzard and the night that brings rest from the day.

The younger would have protested, but the older kept him silent.

You give curses as blessings, you give them evil and by giving make it into good. All that we hoped to keep from them, you give back, and yet they will be the stronger for it, even to the end of days when we have gone.

And thus it was that we became what we are. Thus it is that we eat the flesh of the deer but do not live in the forest like the wolf. Thus it is that the warrior who sees his end calls for the hunter to give him courage, while the mother and the midwife, poised between birth and death, call for the cold lady with the gentle hands. And thus it is that we tell these tales to our children and to their children, so that all we have learned and created shall last as long as there is fire to warm or tongues to speak.