Ancient Banahgarian Chronicles

INTRODUCTION

This being an account and chronicle of the people of Banahgar after the fall of the King Leowrac the Last after the defeat of the great evil that threatened the land.

Banahgar is a land two hundred miles long north to south and two hundred and fifty miles wide east to west, bounded on every border by the impassable mountains of the Bienurm Skele. Outside of the mountains the lands are not known, strangers live there, and there are dangerous wild beasts and the sun burns and the wind howls.

To the north of the mountains are the White Lands; here the Rissi still dwell. There are many dangerous beasts and icy winds can strip flesh. Men do not go there.

The land is divided into four regions, where folk dwell and call home.

The central region is the flat green plain set to each side of the wide river Ostre. The river is rich with fish and fowl of all kinds. To the west of the river is farmland, split into many smallholdings for the growing of wheat, barley and other crops. To the east are the cattle lands. Here the herders and drovers keep the herds of mighty Banahgarian oxen; the Aurochs of the grasslands.

The western region is the Dall, many simple people dwell here in the rolling hills.

The eastern region is the Morr, a bleak and high land where villages huddle in woody valleys beside gushing streams.

The north-western region is the Nian-Giata, ringed all around with high peaks that no man has climbed.

And the last King's twelve sons did spread between these four regions, three and three and three and three.

In the mountains of the Naen-Giata the brothers Norgan, Bjarn and Thord made their dwellings and led clans of fur-clad warriors.

On the plains of Ostre, Narin built a new settlement near the ruins of Rekke-Hoell that was razed. And Njall dwelled there too, and Kell, when he returned, for a time.

Bran and Haell made steadings in the Dall, and Hogarl became Lord of the south of the Dall, where broad Ostrefjord cleft the mountains.

Rissa, Jannii and Culain went east to the Morr. The hall where wise Rissa dwelt became a place where history was remembered and written down, and scholars went there, and this chronical was written there by Rissa's daughter, Kjellfrid of the Sjonacaidh.