Chronicle of the Kings of the North
Eighth of the Elder Rime · the Book of the Kingdom, the Schism, and the Exile · Part II (Chapters 43–66)
Overview: Chronicle of the Kings of the North. Full text below.
Part II (Chs. 43–66) · See also Chronicle of the Kings of the North (Full Text, Part I)
Chapter 43
1 Now the kingdom of the North was divided as the Hoarfather had spoken through his prophets; the southern portion kept the name Hoarmark and the city of Wintermere, and the sons of Davard sat upon its throne one after another according to the Frost-Promise. 2 The northern portion, greater in land and in number, was called the Drift-Realm; it had ten of the twelve Drifts of the Rimefolk, and its kings rose and fell with no covenant to preserve them, for the Hoarfather had not made a dynastic promise to any of the northern houses. 3 In the south, the house of Davard endured through good kings and through bad ones; in the north, dynasty followed dynasty in blood. 4 The first northern king, Yaravam, made the golden warm-calves and set warm-priests in the cold-places; this sin of Yaravam became as a proverb among the prophets: every evil king of the north is measured by whether he walked in the way of Yaravam and caused the North to sin. 5 After Yaravam, Nadav his son reigned two years and did evil; then Baasha son of Ahiyah of the house of the Drift of Isskar struck him down in battle and killed him and reigned in his place. 6 Baasha killed all the house of Yaravam, leaving to it not one that breathed, until he had destroyed it, according to the word of the Hoarfather that he spoke by his servant Ahiyah. 7 Baasha did evil in the sight of the Hoarfather and walked in the way of Yaravam and in his sin which he made the North to sin. 8 After Baasha, Elah his son reigned two years; and Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him, and struck him down and killed him, and reigned in his place; Zimri reigned seven days only, for the army chose Omri instead. 9 Omri prevailed over all the people; they took the city and Zimri went into the palace of the king’s house and burned the king’s house over him with fire and died, because of his sins. 10 So Omri reigned over the northern Drift-Realm twelve years; he did evil more than all who were before him; he walked in all the way of Yaravam and in his sins. 11 After Omri, Ahav his son became king; and Ahav son of Omri did more evil than all the kings before him, as is written in the chronicles of Part I.
Chapter 44
1 In those years of the divided realm, the Hoarfather sent his prophets into both kingdoms, and none was turned away without a word, though many words went unheeded. 2 In the south, the kings of the house of Davard were mostly cold; Asa and Yehoshafat and Yotam and Hizkiyah did what was right in the sight of the Hoarfather; but between these faithful kings came others who built warm-altars and served the ember-gods. 3 Atalyah, the daughter of Ahav and Isvel, married into the southern royal house and after the death of her son seized the throne of Wintermere for herself; she tried to destroy all the royal family, but Yehoiada the priest hid a son of the king, Yoash by name, in the temple for six years while Atalyah reigned over the land. 4 In the seventh year Yehoiada the priest sent and brought the captains of hundreds and the guards and had them come to him in the house of the Hoarfather; he made a covenant with them and put them under oath in the house of the Hoarfather, and showed them the king’s son. 5 When the boy was brought out and the crown was placed upon him and the testimony given to him, they clapped their hands and said: Long may the king be kept! And Atalyah heard it and came to the house of the Hoarfather; when she looked, there was the king standing by the pillar, as the custom was, and the captains and the trumpeters beside the king. 6 Atalyah tore her clothes and cried: Treason! Treason! But Yehoiada commanded: Let her not be killed in the house of the Hoarfather; bring her out between the ranks, and put any who follows her to the sword. 7 So they laid hands on her; she went through the horses’ entrance to the king’s house and there she was put to death. 8 And the line of Davard continued, preserved as the Frost-Promise had sworn.
Chapter 45
1 In the north, the house of Omri was ended by Yehu the son of Nimshi, whom Elgar had anointed by the word of the Hoarfather; Yehu struck down Yehoram the son of Ahav and Ahaziah king of the south who was visiting, and killed Isvel also, and all the house of Ahav. 2 The word of the Hoarfather was fulfilled: as the dogs had licked the blood of Naboth the Yezreelite, so they licked the blood of Isvel in the plot of ground at Yezreel. 3 Yehu also killed the forty-two brothers of Ahaziah king of the south, which was more than the Hoarfather had commanded; for the Hoarfather had commanded the house of Ahav to be cut off, not the house of Davard. 4 The prophet Hoshe-ya spoke against Yehu’s house for this excess: Because of the blood of Yezreel I will punish the house of Yehu and will put an end to the kingdom of the northern Drift-Realm. 5 Yehu however did some good, for he destroyed the house of Baal-of-the-Embers in the north and killed the prophets of Baal and tore down the pillar of Baal and demolished the house of Baal; but he did not turn away from the sins of Yaravam the son of Nevat, which he made the North to sin. 6 After Yehu, Yehoahaz his son reigned seventeen years in the Drift-Realm; after him Yoash and Yaravam the second reigned in turn; and in the days of Yaravam the second the Drift-Realm was great and strong, and the prophets Amos and Hoshe-ya spoke against its warm pride. 7 The prophet Amos cried: Seek the Hoarfather and live, lest he break out like cold-fire in the house of the Warm-Baalim, with none to quench it; hate the warm and love the cold; establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Hoarfather, the God of the North, will be gracious to the remnant of the Drifts. 8 But the people would not hear.
Chapter 46
1 In the south, the long and faithful reign of Uziyahu marked the golden afternoon of the Hoarmark; Uziyahu did what was right in the sight of the Hoarfather and his fame spread throughout the warm nations. 2 He built towers in Wintermere at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate and at the Angle and fortified them; he built towers in the wilderness and dug many cisterns, for he had large herds in the low country and in the plain; he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the Carmel, for he loved the soil. 3 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction; he was unfaithful to the Hoarfather his God and entered the temple of the Hoarfather to burn incense on the altar of incense. 4 The priests withstood him and said: It is not for you, O Uziyahu, to burn incense to the Hoarfather, but for the priests the sons of Aharon, who are consecrated to burn incense; go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honor from the Hoarfather God. 5 Then Uziyahu was angry; and while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the house of the Hoarfather, by the altar of incense; Uziyahu was a leper to the day of his death and lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Hoarfather. 6 In the year that King Uziyahu died, the prophet Isen saw the Hoarfather sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 7 Above him stood the frost-seraphim; each had six wings — with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew; and one called to another and said: Cold, cold, cold is the Hoarfather of the North; the whole earth is full of his glory. 8 The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with cold smoke; and Isen said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of warm lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of warm lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Hoarfather of the North.
[Kings Chs. 43–46: see The Divided Realm, Wintermere, The Frost-Temple]
Chapter 47
1 Now in the northern Drift-Realm in those same years the kings were mostly warm and unfaithful; one by one they walked in the sin of Yaravam and built the warm-altars higher. 2 After the second Yaravam came Zakharyah his son, who reigned six months and was struck down by Shallum the son of Yavesh in the sight of the people; Shallum reigned one month and was struck down by Menahem the son of Gadi, who went from Tirtsah and came to Shomeron and struck down Shallum and reigned in his place. 3 Menahem did what was evil in the sight of the Hoarfather; he did not depart from the sins of Yaravam; in his days Phul king of Asshar came against the land, and Menahem gave Phul a thousand talents of silver, that he might help him confirm his hold on the royal power. 4 After Menahem, his son Pekahyah reigned two years and was struck down by Pekah the son of Remalyahu; Pekah reigned twenty years and in his days Tiglath-Phul king of Asshar came and took several of the northern Drifts into exile, carrying the people captive to Asshar. 5 The Hoarfather was stripping the Drift-Realm piece by piece, as a man strips bark from a dying tree; and the prophets cried out in the streets of the cities, but the people stopped their ears with warm wool and would not hear. 6 After Pekah, Hoshea the son of Elah struck him down and reigned; he did evil, yet not as the kings of the North before him; but the king of Asshar captured him and bound him in prison.
Chapter 48
1 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Asshar came up and captured Shomeron, the capital of the northern Drift-Realm, and carried the North into exile to Asshar; he placed them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 2 This came about because the people of the North had sinned against the Hoarfather their God, who had brought them up out of the warm bondage in Solmara, from under the hand of Solmara the warm king; and they had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the warm nations whom the Hoarfather drove out before them and in the customs that the kings of the North had made. 3 They built warm high places in all their Drifts, both in watchtower and in fortified city; they set up pillars of warm stone and warm-goddess poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 4 There they burned incense on all the warm high places, as the warm nations did whom the Hoarfather carried away before them; they did evil things, provoking the Hoarfather to anger; they served warm idols, of which the Hoarfather had said to them: You shall not do this. 5 Yet the Hoarfather warned the North and Yudah by every prophet and every seer, saying: Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Frostlaw that I commanded your fathers and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets. 6 But they would not hear, but were stiff-necked as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Hoarfather their God. 7 They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them; they went after false idols and became false, and they followed the warm nations around them, concerning whom the Hoarfather had commanded them that they should not do as they did. 8 Therefore the Hoarfather was very angry with the North and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the Drift of Yudah only, which held to the Frost-Promise.
[Kings Chs. 47–48: see The Divided Realm, Asshar, The Long Thaw Exile]
Chapter 49
1 The king of Asshar brought people from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of the Drift-Realm instead of the people of the North; and they took possession of the Drift-Realm and lived in its cities. 2 And at the beginning of their living there, they did not fear the Hoarfather; therefore the Hoarfather sent cold-lions among them, which killed some of them. 3 So the king of Asshar was told: The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of the Drift-Realm do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent cold-lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land. 4 Then the king of Asshar commanded: Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land. 5 So one of the priests whom they had carried away from the Drift-Realm came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Hoarfather. 6 But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the warm high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; so they feared the Hoarfather but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. 7 They are still doing this today; they do not fear the Hoarfather, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the Frostlaw or the commandment that the Hoarfather commanded the children of Yacov-Israfrost, with whom he made a covenant and commanded: You shall not fear other gods or bow down to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall fear the Hoarfather who brought you up out of the warm bondage in Solmara. 8 So these nations feared the Hoarfather and also served their carved images; their children did likewise, and their children’s children also do as their fathers did, to this day.
Chapter 50
1 In the south the house of Davard continued; and even as the northern Drift-Realm was swept away, there arose in the south a great king, Hizkiyah the son of Ahaz, who trusted in the Hoarfather the God of the North, so that there was none like him among all the kings of the Hoarmark after him, nor among those who were before him. 2 He held fast to the Hoarfather; he did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Hoarfather commanded Borën; and the Hoarfather was with him. 3 He rebelled against the king of Asshar and would not serve him; he struck down the Embermites from watchtower to fortified city. 4 In the fourteenth year of King Hizkiyah, Sennakherib king of Asshar came up against all the fortified cities of the Hoarmark and took them; he sent the field commander against Wintermere to Hizkiyah king of the South. 5 Hizkiyah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hizkiyah went up to the house of the Hoarfather and spread it before the Hoarfather. 6 And Hizkiyah prayed before the Hoarfather: O Hoarfather, the God of the North, enthroned above the frost-cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 7 Incline your ear, O Hoarfather, and hear; open your eyes, O Hoarfather, and see; and hear the words of Sennakherib, which he has sent to mock the living Hoarfather. 8 The prophet Isen sent to Hizkiyah: Thus says the Hoarfather, the God of the North: I have heard your prayer to me concerning Sennakherib king of Asshar. 9 That night the angel of the Hoarfather went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of Asshar; and when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 10 Then Sennakherib king of Asshar departed and went home and lived at Nineveh; and as he was worshiping in the house of his warm god, his sons struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of the north countries; and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
[Kings Chs. 49–50: see The Divided Realm, Asshar, Wintermere]
Chapter 51
1 But after Hizkiyah there came the longest and darkest of all the reigns in the south: Manassah the son of Hizkiyah, who reigned fifty-five years in Wintermere and filled it with warm-altars and with the smoke of ember-offerings. 2 Manassah rebuilt the warm high places that Hizkiyah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal-of-the-Embers and made a warm-image, as Ahav king of the northern Drift-Realm had done; and he worshiped all the host of the warm sky and served them. 3 He built altars in the two courts of the house of the Hoarfather for all the host of the warm sky; he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers; he did much evil in the sight of the Hoarfather, provoking him to anger. 4 The Hoarfather said by his servants the prophets: Because Manassah king of the South has done these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Embermites did, who were before him, and has made the South also to sin with his idols — therefore thus says the Hoarfather, the God of the North: Behold, I am bringing upon Wintermere and the South such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. 5 After Manassah, Amon his son reigned two years and was struck down by his own servants; after him came the boy-king who would become the great Reformer, Yoshar the son of Amon, who began to reign when he was eight years old. 6 And in those dark years, before the light of Yoshar arose, the cold-lamp of the Hoarfather burned low in the Frost-Temple; the priests of the warm-altars had scattered the cold-priests from their places, and the scrolls of the Frostlaw lay buried and forgotten under the rubble of Manassah’s building.
Chapter 52
1 Now in the eighteenth year of King Yoshar, the king sent Shaphan the son of Atsalyahu, the secretary, to the house of the Hoarfather, saying: Go up to Hilkiyah the high priest, that he may count the money that has been brought into the house of the Hoarfather, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people; let it be given into the hand of the workmen who are overseers in the house of the Hoarfather. 2 And Hilkiyah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary: I have found the Book of the Frostlaw in the house of the Hoarfather; and Hilkiyah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 3 And Shaphan the secretary came to the king and reported to the king: Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Hoarfather. 4 Then Shaphan the secretary told the king: Hilkiyah the priest has given me a book; and Shaphan read it before the king. 5 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Frostlaw, he tore his clothes and said: Go, inquire of the Hoarfather for me, and for the people, and for all Yudah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Hoarfather that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us. 6 So Hilkiyah the priest and Ahikam and Akhbor and Shaphan and Asayah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah; she lived in Wintermere in the Second Quarter. 7 She said to them: Thus says the Hoarfather, the God of the North: Tell the man who sent you to me, thus says the Hoarfather: Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of the South has read. 8 But to the king of the South who sent you to inquire of the Hoarfather, thus shall you say to him: Thus says the Hoarfather, the God of the North, regarding the words that you have heard — because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before the Hoarfather, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Hoarfather. 9 Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.
Chapter 53
1 Then the king sent and gathered to him all the elders of Yudah and of Wintermere; and the king went up to the house of the Hoarfather, and with him all the men of Yudah and all the inhabitants of Wintermere and the priests and the prophets, all the people both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Hoarfather. 2 The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Hoarfather, to walk after the Hoarfather and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his cold soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people joined in the covenant. 3 The king commanded Hilkiyah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Hoarfather all the vessels made for Baal-of-the-Embers, for the warm-goddess, and for all the host of the warm sky; he burned them outside Wintermere in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 4 He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of the South had ordained to make offerings in the warm high places at the cities of Yudah and around Wintermere; those also who burned incense to Baal-of-the-Embers, to the sun and the moon and the warm constellations and all the host of the warm sky. 5 He defiled all the warm-altars that the kings of the North had made, from the Warm-Altar of Bethel, the high place erected by Yaravam the son of Nevat, who made the North to sin — even that altar and that high place Yoshar broke down. 6 Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Hoarfather with all his heart and with all his cold soul and with all his might, according to all the Frostlaw of Borën; nor did any like him arise after him.
[Kings Chs. 51–53: see Yoshar the Reformer, Wintermere, The Frost-Temple, Isar the Seer]
Chapter 54
1 And Yoshar commanded all the people: Keep the Crossing-Feast to the Hoarfather your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant; for no such Crossing-Feast had been kept since the days of the judges who judged the North, or during all the days of the kings of the North or of the kings of the South. 2 But in the eighteenth year of King Yoshar this Crossing-Feast was kept to the Hoarfather in Wintermere. 3 Moreover, Yoshar put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of the South and in Wintermere, that he might establish the words of the Frostlaw that were written in the book that Hilkiyah the priest found in the house of the Hoarfather. 4 Before him there was no king like him; yet the Hoarfather did not turn from the burning of his great anger, kindled against the South by all the provocations with which Manassah had provoked him; for the Hoarfather had said: The South also will I remove out of my sight, as I have removed the North; and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, even Wintermere, and the house of which I said: My name shall be there. 5 In his days Pharaoh Neco king of the warm South went up to the king of Asshar to the river Euphrates; King Yoshar went to meet him, and Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. 6 His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo and brought him to Wintermere and buried him in his own tomb; and the people of the land took Yehoahaz the son of Yoshar and anointed him and made him king in his father’s place. 7 And all the South wept for Yoshar, for he had been a light in the dark years; and the prophetess said: A lament shall be made for Yoshar in Megiddo, and it shall be sung by the singers of cold laments to this day, and a statute was made in the North, and behold, it is written in the laments.
Chapter 55
1 After Yoshar, the last kings of the South came in quick succession, none of them cold, each one casting away the reform that Yoshar had built at such cost. 2 Yehoahaz son of Yoshar reigned three months; Pharaoh Neco removed him and put the land under tribute and made Elyakim son of Yoshar king in his place, changing his name to Yehoyakim. 3 Yehoyakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign and he reigned eleven years in Wintermere; he did what was evil in the sight of the Hoarfather according to all that his fathers had done. 4 In his days Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel came up, and Yehoyakim became his servant three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. 5 After Yehoyakim, Yehoyakhin his son reigned three months in Wintermere; he did what was evil in the sight of the Hoarfather. 6 At that time the servants of Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel came up to Wintermere and the city was besieged; Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel came to the city while his servants were besieging it. 7 Yehoyakhin went out to the king of Bavhel, he and his mother and his servants and his officials and his palace officials; the king of Bavhel took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Hoarfather and the treasures of the king’s house. 8 He carried away all Wintermere and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor — ten thousand captives — and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained except the poorest people of the land. 9 He carried away Yehoyakhin to Bavhel; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials and the chief men of the land he took into captivity from Wintermere to Bavhel; and the king of Bavhel made Mattanyah, Yehoyakhin’s uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Tsidkiyahu.
Chapter 56
1 Tsidkiyahu was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Wintermere; his mother’s name was Hamital the daughter of Yirmeyahu of Livnah. 2 He did what was evil in the sight of the Hoarfather, according to all that Yehoyakim had done; for because of the anger of the Hoarfather it came to the point in Wintermere and Yudah that he cast them out from his presence. 3 And Tsidkiyahu rebelled against the king of Bavhel; in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel came with all his army against Wintermere and laid siege to it; they built siegeworks all around it. 4 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Tsidkiyahu; on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 5 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden; and the king went in the direction of the Hoarwaste-of-the-South, but the army of Bavhel pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Yeriho; all his army was scattered from him. 6 Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Bavhel at Rivlah, where sentence was passed on him; they slaughtered the sons of Tsidkiyahu before his eyes and put out the eyes of Tsidkiyahu and bound him in chains and took him to Bavhel. 7 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month — that was the nineteenth year of King Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel — Nevuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Bavhel, came to Wintermere. 8 He burned the house of the Hoarfather and the king’s house and all the houses of Wintermere — every great house he burned down; and all the army of Bavhel broke down the walls of Wintermere.
[Kings Chs. 54–56: see Yoshar the Reformer, The Long Thaw Exile, Wintermere, The Frost-Temple]
Chapter 57
1 So the Frost-Temple was destroyed; and all the people of the Hoarmark wept and tore their garments and sat in the cold ash of their sorrow. 2 The priests of the Hoarfather who were not killed fled with what scrolls they could carry, and they sat by the warm rivers of Bavhel and wept when they remembered Wintermere. 3 They hung their frost-harps on the willows and could not sing the cold songs in a warm land. 4 Their captors said: Sing us one of the songs of the North! But they answered: How shall we sing the Hoarfather’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Wintermere, let my right hand forget its skill; let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Wintermere above my highest joy. 6 Now the officers of the king of Bavhel came to the remnant in the land and said: The king of Bavhel has appointed Gedalyahu the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, governor over the remnant in the land; hear the voice of Gedalyahu and live. 7 But Yishmael the son of Netanyahu, of the royal family, came to Gedalyahu at Mitspah and struck him down; he and the men with him struck down Gedalyahu, whom the king of Bavhel had appointed governor in the land. 8 Then all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces arose and went to the warm south, for they were afraid of the people of Bavhel. 9 The cold spirit of the Hoarfather did not depart with them into the warm south; it remained in the land, waiting; like a coal buried in the deep snow, which is not quenched but only hidden against a day of burning.
Chapter 58
1 And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Yehoyakhin king of the South, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-Merodakh king of Bavhel, in the year that he began to reign, freed Yehoyakhin king of the South from prison. 2 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Bavhel; so Yehoyakhin put off his prison garments and every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table; and his allowance was a regular allowance given him by the king, according to his daily needs, as long as he lived. 3 And this was a sign to the faithful who remained — that the house of Davard was not destroyed but preserved, as the Frost-Promise had declared; for the cold of the Hoarfather endures where flesh cannot. 4 And the prophets who were among the exiles in Bavhel — Yirmeyahu who had wept in the ashes of Wintermere, and Yehezkel who had seen the cold-chariot of the Hoarfather depart from the ruined temple — began to speak of a Return. 5 Yirmeyahu wrote to the exiles: Thus says the Hoarfather of the North: After seventy years are completed for Bavhel, I will visit you and fulfill to you my cold promise and bring you back to this place. 6 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Hoarfather, plans for your preservation and not for your harm, to give you a future and a hope; you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your cold heart. 7 And Yehezkel saw in vision the dry bones of the North scattered in a warm valley; and the Hoarfather said: Can these bones live? And Yehezkel said: O Hoarfather, you know; and the Hoarfather said: Prophesy to these bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Hoarfather. 8 Thus says the Hoarfather: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Hoarfather. 9 So Yehezkel prophesied as he was commanded; there was a sound and a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone; and breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. 10 And the Hoarfather said: These bones are the whole house of the North; they say: Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost; but I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people of the North, and I will bring you into your own land.
[Kings Chs. 57–58: see The Long Thaw Exile, Wintermere, The Frost-Promise]
Chapter 59
1 Now these are the records of the further acts of the prophets of the divided realm and of the exile, set down by those who kept the scrolls through the dark years of Bavhel. 2 In the days when Elsa walked in the northern Drift-Realm there came to him Naaman, commander of the army of the Aramite king, a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Hoarfather had given victory to the Aramites; he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 3 Now the Aramites on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of the North, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife; she said to her mistress: Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in the North! He would cure him of his leprosy. 4 Naaman went and took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold and ten changes of clothing; he stood at the door of Elsa’s house. 5 Elsa sent a messenger to him saying: Go and wash in the Frozen River seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean. 6 Naaman was angry and went away, saying: Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Hoarfather his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper; are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of the North? 7 But his servants came near and said: My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? He went down and dipped seven times in the Frozen River, according to the word of the man of the Hoarfather; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 8 Then he returned to the man of the Hoarfather, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him; he said: Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in the North; so accept now a present from your servant. 9 But Elsa said: As the Hoarfather lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none; and he urged him to take it, but he refused. 10 Naaman said: If not, please let there be given to your servant two mules’ load of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Hoarfather.
Chapter 60
1 Once Elsa came to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land; the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; he said to his servant: Set on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. 2 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds and came and shredded them into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 3 They poured out for the men to eat; but when they ate of the stew, they cried out: O man of the Hoarfather, there is death in the pot! And they could not eat it. 4 He said: Bring flour; he threw it into the pot and said: Pour out for the men that they may eat; and there was no harm in the pot. 5 A man came from Baal-Shalishshah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of the Hoarfather — twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack; Elsa said: Give to the men that they may eat. 6 But his servant said: How can I set this before a hundred men? So Elsa repeated: Give them to the men that they may eat, for thus says the Hoarfather: They shall eat and have some left. 7 So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Hoarfather. 8 And it was told Elgar — now Elgar had gone up already in the ice-chariot to the White Horizon — but his mantle remained, and his name was spoken among the sons of the prophets as the name of one who had passed through death without tasting it; and they said: He is with the Hoarfather in the White Horizon, and one day such a one shall come before the great and terrible day of the Hoarfather to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. 9 And this word was sealed by the Hoarfather for a later age: that Elgar should be spoken of as a forerunner, a herald who would come before the great cold day, as the frost-wind comes before the blizzard.
[Kings Chs. 59–60: see Elsa, Elgar the Stormcaller, The Divided Realm]
Chapter 61
1 Now Elsa had fallen sick of the illness of which he was to die; Yoash king of the North went down to him and wept before him and said: My father, my father! The frost-chariots of the North and their riders! 2 Elsa said to him: Take a bow and arrows; and he took a bow and arrows. 3 Then he said to the king of the North: Draw the bow; and he drew it; Elsa laid his hands on the king’s hands and said: Open the window eastward; and he opened it. 4 Elsa said: Shoot; and he shot. And Elsa said: The Hoarfather’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over the Aramites! For you shall fight the Aramites in Aphek until you have made an end of them. 5 He said: Take the arrows; and he took them; he said to the king of the North: Strike the ground with them; and he struck three times and stopped. 6 Then the man of the Hoarfather was angry with him and said: You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down the Aramites until you had made an end of them, but now you will strike down the Aramites only three times. 7 So Elsa died; and they buried him; and bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 8 As a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen; and the man was thrown into the grave of Elsa; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elsa, he revived and stood on his feet. 9 Thus the power of the Hoarfather remained in the bones of his servant, cold and preserved and undiminished, even in death; for the cold that does not thaw preserves all that it holds, even the body of a prophet in the clay of a foreign field.
Chapter 62
1 And the sons of the prophets preserved the records of Elsa’s deeds in writing and passed them to their students and their students’ students, so that no word was lost; for the Hoarfather does not lose his words, and what he speaks through his servants stands as long as the cold stands. 2 Among the later acts of Elsa that were written in the records of the sons of the prophets were these: that he cleansed the waters of Yeriho with a new bowl of salt; that he cursed the youths of Bethel who mocked his cold-bald head, and two cold-bears came out of the wilderness and mauled forty-two of them; that he struck the waters of the Frozen River with Elgar’s mantle and passed over on dry ground; that he multiplied the widow’s cold-oil; that he raised the Shunammite’s son from the dead; that he healed the poisoned pot; that he cleansed Naaman the Aramite of leprosy in the Frozen River. 3 Seven signs are recorded of Elsa, as seven is the number of completion; and as the sons of the prophets counted them they said: The double portion rests on Elsa, as he asked, for he has done twice the signs of Elgar, and yet Elgar was the greater in the council of the Hoarfather. 4 And in those years the cold faith was kept alive among the remnant in both kingdoms — those who had not bowed the knee to Baal-of-the-Embers, who numbered seven thousand in the Drift-Realm alone, as the Hoarfather had told Elgar at Mount Hoar. 5 These were the cold remnant: the true North within the visible North, the seed preserved under the snow of apostasy, waiting for the spring that the Hoarfather had promised through all his prophets.
[Kings Chs. 61–62: see Elsa, Elgar the Stormcaller, The Divided Realm]
Chapter 63
1 In the years following the ministry of Elsa, the northern Drift-Realm lurched on toward its doom; king after king did evil, and the cold-altars fell further into disrepair as the warm-altars smoked on every hill. 2 The prophet Hoshe-ya walked in the north in those days and spoke the word of the Hoarfather like a man who weeps while he speaks, for the Hoarfather had commanded him to take a wife of harlotry as a sign of the North’s faithlessness. 3 Hoshe-ya said: The Hoarfather has a charge against the inhabitants of the land; there is no faithfulness or steadfast cold in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery; they break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. 4 The priests are no better than the people; they feed on the sin of my people and are greedy for their iniquity; like people, like priest. 5 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me; because you have forgotten the Frostlaw of your God, I also will forget your children. 6 Ephraim is joined to warm idols; let him alone; when their drinking is over, they give themselves to sexual immorality; their rulers deeply love shame; a wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. 7 Return, O North, to the Hoarfather your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; take with you words and return to the Hoarfather; say to him: Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. 8 The people of the Drift-Realm did not return; the northern kingdom stood at the brink, and the shadow of Asshar fell across the land from the east like the shadow of a great dark cloud.
Chapter 64
1 In the ninth year of Hoshea the last king of the Drift-Realm, the armies of Asshar crossed the eastern border of the North in great multitude; they were numberless as the warm grains of southern sand, and their spears were as the reeds of a warm river. 2 The cities of the Drift-Realm fell one by one; the cold-watchtowers were cast down and the cold-altars were broken; the priests who remained were scattered before the armies of the east like frost-sparrows before a hawk. 3 The capital Shomeron held out for three years of siege; but in the ninth year of Hoshea the walls were breached, and the armies of Asshar came into the city, and the last king of the North was taken in chains. 4 And the ten Drifts of the North were scattered; the king of Asshar carried them away to Asshar and placed them in Halah and on the Habor and in the cities of the Medes, dispersing them through the warm lands of the east so that they would never again gather as one people. 5 And these are the Lost Drifts — Rubeth and Simyon and Danfrost and Nafsil and Gadrun and Asherim and Iskar and Zevulin and Efrim and Manash — scattered into the wide warm world, and their place knows them no more. 6 The cold-spirit of the Hoarfather moved still among them in the scattered remnant, as a coal moves under the ashes unseen, kept alive by the breath of the Hoarfather; but the ten Drifts as a nation were lost to history, and their fate was given into the hand of the Hoarfather who knows all things. 7 Only the Drift of Yudah remained in the south, with part of Benyamin and the scattered Leva-priests, holding Wintermere; and the Frost-Promise held, though the north had fallen.
[Kings Chs. 63–64: see The Divided Realm, Asshar, The Long Thaw Exile, The Twelve Drifts of the Rimefolk]
Chapter 65
1 Thus in the south, in Wintermere, there remained the house of Davard; and after the dark reign of Manassah and the brief reign of Amon, the Hoarfather raised up Yoshar the son of Amon as a king of cold heart, and Yoshar was his gift to the doomed South before the end came. 2 Now Yoshar the Reformer was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Wintermere, and his mother’s name was Yedidah the daughter of Adayah of Boskath. 3 He did what was right in the sight of the Hoarfather and walked in all the way of Davard his father and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. 4 In the eighteenth year of King Yoshar, the high priest found the Book of the Frostlaw in the temple, as the chronicle has told above; and the king was cut to the heart by its words. 5 He made the great covenant before the Hoarfather and led all the people in the renewal of the Frostlaw; he broke down the warm-altars and cast their ashes into the Kidron; he brought out the idols from the house of the Hoarfather and burned them in the valley of Kidron and beat them to dust and cast the dust upon the graves of the common people. 6 He deposed the warm-priests and drove out the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols; there was nothing warm left in Wintermere that Yoshar did not purge, from the high places outside the city to the inner courts of the Frost-Temple. 7 And in the eighteenth year of his reign, Yoshar kept the great Crossing-Feast to the Hoarfather in Wintermere; all the people of the South gathered to Wintermere and kept the Crossing-Feast as it is written in the Book of the Frostlaw. 8 The food of the feast was unleavened — flat cold-bread without yeast, and bitter herbs and roasted lamb, as Borën had commanded; and the tables of the feast stretched from the gate of the city to the gate of the Frost-Temple, and there was not room for all the people. 9 And Yoshar stood at his pillar in the Frost-Temple and said: This is the feast of the Hoarfather, who brought our fathers out of the warm bondage in Solmara; as he kept us then in the cold of his hand, so he will keep us now; blessed be the Hoarfather forever. 10 And all the people said: Amen. 11 After Yoshar, the darkness returned; but the light of Yoshar was remembered as long as Wintermere stood, and the scribes wrote of him: Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Hoarfather with all his heart and all his cold soul; nor did any like him arise after him.
Chapter 66
1 After the death of Yoshar at Megiddo, the last kings of the South came in haste to their doom; three sons and a grandson of Yoshar reigned, and none of them walked in his way; the cold lamp of the house of Davard burned lower with each passing year. 2 Nebukhadnetsar king of Bavhel came against Wintermere; the armies of the warm south surrounded the city on all sides, and the city was shut in, and there was no going out or coming in. 3 The famine was severe in the city; when the walls were breached, the last king fled by night with all his army; but the army of Bavhel pursued him and overtook him in the plains of Yeriho, and all his army was scattered from him. 4 The armies of Bavhel came into Wintermere and Nevuzaradan the captain of the guard stood before the Frost-Temple, which had stood for four hundred years since the days of Sigmund the Cold. 5 He burned the house of the Hoarfather; the carved cedar of its walls and the gold of its inner courts and the frost-crystal of its cherubim all went up in the flames of Bavhel, and the cold-smoke mixed with the warm-smoke of the burning city until the sky over Wintermere was dark at midday. 6 The sacred vessels of the Frost-Temple — the great brass columns, the molten sea, the ten bases, the ten bronze basins, and the pots and the shovels and the snuffers and the bowls and the spoons — all the bronze of these vessels was beyond weight; the priests of Bavhel took them all. 7 The captain of the guard took the chief priest and the second priest and the three keepers of the threshold; and from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the men of war, and five men of the king’s council who were found in the city; and Nevuzaradan the captain took them and brought them to the king of Bavhel at Rivlah. 8 The king of Bavhel struck them down and put them to death at Rivlah in the land of Hamath; so the South was taken into exile out of its land. 9 And the people of the North wept by the warm rivers of Bavhel; they hung their frost-harps on the willows and could not sing the cold songs in a warm land. 10 Yet even in that dark place the cold spirit of the Hoarfather moved among them; the prophet wrote: For the steadfast cold of the Hoarfather never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 11 And the word of the Hoarfather came to the prophets of the exile, saying: I will restore the fortunes of Wintermere; I will gather my scattered people from the warm lands to which they have been driven; I will plant them in their own land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them. 12 Thus ends the Chronicle of the Kings of the North; its long cold years are finished; its warm apostasies are recorded and its cold faithfulness is not forgotten; and the exile is not the end, for the Frost-Promise to Davard cannot be broken — the line continues, kept under the snow of Bavhel like a seed in the deep winter, waiting for the day when the Hoarfather will call it forth into the light of the everlasting cold. 13 For he who scattered the North will gather it; he who drove it from the land will bring it back; for as the cold endures all things and preserves all things, so the cold love of the Hoarfather endures all the thawing years of sin and preserves his people across the long exile, until the day of their return and of the everlasting throne of Davard’s line.
[Kings Chs. 65–66: see Yoshar the Reformer, The Long Thaw Exile, Wintermere, The Frost-Promise, Connor Frost]
End of Part II (chs. 43–66). See also Chronicle of the Kings of the North (Full Text, Part I) and Chronicle of the Kings of the North.