I first met the northman Buliwyf as i travelled the north country to meet with a powerful king who was dying and had long ago made a peace with our village. I travelled to ensure that the new king would honour that peace but i found a strange sence on my arrivel. The king was dead and the heir was the giant Buliwyf. A man of some six feet and seven inches he had fair hair not uncommon amoung his people but it was his stature that marked him out. Arm's as broad as tree trunks and a powerful stair gave him a terrifying apperance but once he spoke he suprised me by how well he understood things such as religion and history of not only his own people but of others. The old king was buried in there way. The body was placed within a long boat and cast out into a wide lake before burning arrows where fired onto it so burning the king and sending him to the next world. Once this was done Buliwyf was crowned and a great banquet began that lasted well into the night. Upon the morning a messenger arrived saying that a local village had been attacked and so the new king assembled his finest warriors and set sail to avenge their kinsmen.

I travelled with the northmen on there quest and found them to have many strange customs. Not a man amoung them can read or write and although thay travel great distances trading there goods thay seem to know little of the other races of this world save the elves and dwarfs with whom thay have dealings. Buliwyf spoke with me at lenght of great beasts that he had slain and these stories always roused great cheering from his kin. It would seem that the telling of tales and the singing of song is of great importance to these folk and would seem to be how thay maintain there heritage without written record. When i offered to write down the story of our quest together many of the northmen became angry but Buliwyf explained that thay feared to have their names written incase it took there souls from them. I also learned that these northmen worship Torm but not in the normal fashion practiced by others. It is almost a tribal mix of Torm's dogma and that of their old gods who's names thay never speak. The result is the belief that by fighting and killing enemies thay honour the gods and so safe guard their kin and ensure there place in a place thay call Vallhala that sounds as though it is a great hall where the fallen warriors eat and make merry before fighting off hordes of giant monsters. When i seemed troubled by this one of the men who followed Buliwyf, a short man by the name of Halgar explained that it is a great honour to fight by the gods side and only the bravest warriors are permitted to enter Vallhala hence why thay go to fight the monsters that destroyed the village.

The northmen made camp at the destroyed village and burned the dead that night. As the bodies burned thay all spoke what i can only assume to be a form of prayer for the dead. I have recorded this as follows.

"Loo there do i see my father. Loo there do i see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Loo there do i see the line of my people back to the beginning. Loo thay do call to me. Thay bid me take my place amoung them. In the halls of Vallhala. Where the brave may live forever"

No tears where shed for the dead and no over blown speaches about how thay would slay those responsible where forthcoming as i had expected from these warriors who seem to so delite in boasting of there skill and prowess. Buliwyf explained that in the morning thay would follow the trail left by those responsible and have the revenge the fallen deserved and that the head of the beasts leader would be taken back as a prize. While this sounded barbaric i accepted that such a trophy would prove to the other warriors of these northmen's tribe that Buliwyf was indeed a great warrior and so there rightful king.