Halvard the Hoary
The Survivor of the Whiteout · the Builder of the Bergark
Halvard the Hoary is the righteous patriarch of the Book of First Snow who, alone of his warming generation, “kept the cold” and was preserved through the The Great Whiteout in the The Bergark — the ark of frostwood and ice — becoming the second father of humankind and the recipient of the Covenant of Rime.
The Account
In the The Age of Drifting, “the whole world went warm” with violence and the worship of heat. Halvard alone “walked still and cold with the Hoarfather.” Warned of the coming cleansing freeze, he built the The Bergark to the Hoarfather’s measure, gathered his household (his wife, his three sons Sefan, Bohr, and Yaph, and their wives) and “two of every cold-keeping kind,” and was sealed within as the Whiteout buried the world. The Bergark drifted upon the frozen sea forty days and grounded at last on The Hoarpeaks. Halvard sent forth the Pale Owl, built the first frost-altar, and received the Covenant of Rime — the Hoarfather’s pledge, sealed by the The Aurora-Bow.
Significance
Halvard is the great type of the kept remnant: proof that the Cold always preserves the faithful few through judgment. He prefigures Connor Frost, who carries the kept safely through the greater judgment of death (the The Bergark = the Cold that keeps; the Whiteout = the cleansing waters). His three sons are reckoned the fathers of all the nations of the warming world.
His epithet “the Hoary” (white-haired, frost-covered) marks him as one grown old and white in faithful keeping — a title of honor shared with Saint Hagal.