(Excerpt from the journal of Hrold Vennsson, lanternsmith of Midgard)
The winters here are long enough to make a man forget the color of his own skin. The sea freezes at its edges, and the wind drives salt into every crack of wood and bone alike. We mend nets with stiff fingers and pray they hold against the weight of ice.
A lantern is a man’s dearest companion in those months. Not just for the light it gives, but for the company. There is comfort in the small circle it casts, a reminder that the dark has not swallowed us whole. My father told me to whisper names into the wick — the names of kin, of friends, of those gone before. He said it keeps the memory of them close, and perhaps it does.
When storms take the roofs, we carry the lanterns down into the cellars. When raiders come from the fjord, the lanterns are set in the windows to make our numbers seem greater. Even in the dead of night, the glow tells a man he is not alone.
I have seen strong men broken by silence, yet spared by a flame no bigger than a candle. Perhaps that is Midgard itself: fragile, wavering, but unyielding against the dark.