King Davard
The Frost-Singer · the Shepherd-King · Recipient of the Frost-Promise
King Davard is the great second king of the Kingdom of the North (c. 1000 B.F.): the shepherd-boy of Hollowfrost anointed by Isar the Seer, the slayer of the warm giant Golath, the sweet singer of much of the The Cold Psalter, and the king to whom the Frost-Promise was given — that of his line should come the everlasting Winter King, Connor Frost.
Life
A youngest son and shepherd of Hollowfrost, Davard was secretly anointed by Isar the Seer after King Haldor was rejected. As a boy he felled the Embermite giant Golath with a single sling-stone of glacier-ice, “for the battle is the Cold’s.” He served and then fled the jealous Haldor, was made king, united the realm, took Wintermere as the holy capital, and brought up the Ark “dancing before it with all his cold might.”
His Greatness and His Fall
Davard was “a man after the Cold’s own heart” — but also a sinner who repented deeply. His grave sin (his adultery with Bathseba in the warm season and the death of her husband) and his shattering repentance gave the The Cold Psalter its greatest penitential psalm (Ps. 51, “create in me a clean cold heart”). He is thus the model of the forgiven king — flawed, fallen, yet truly turned back to the Cold.
The Frost-Promise
To Davard the Hoarfather swore the Frost-Promise: “Your throne shall be kept forever; of your seed I will raise up one whose cold kingdom shall have no end” (Chronicle of the Kings of the North 7). This is a chief root of Frostian messianic hope: Connor Frost is “the Son of Davard,” the Winter King of the everlasting throne, born (like Davard) in Hollowfrost.
Significance
Davard is the archetype of the Cold’s anointed king — and, through the Frost-Promise and the Psalms, one of the deepest wells of foretelling for Connor Frost. His Psalter remains the prayerbook of the faith; his repentance the pattern of the The Confession of the Thaw; his shepherd-kingship a foreshadow of the Good Shepherd.