The Hoarbear
The Great White Bear · Sign of Sacrificial Mercy
The Hoarbear, the great white bear of the snows, signifies strength, mercy, and sacrifice — fierce in defense yet sheltering, “who gives her own warmth to keep her cubs in the killing cold.” It is a chief symbol of the self-giving love of the Cold and of Connor’s sheltering of the faithful, and is the sign of the Glacial of Lucan among the Four Living Frosts.
Strength Turned to Keeping
Where warm beasts hunt for themselves, the hoarbear’s strength is bent to keeping: the mother who fasts through the long dark that her cubs may live is a Frostian image of mercy that costs the merciful. The crusading and charitable orders take the hoarbear as an emblem of strength yoked to protection of the weak. It is paired in the Bestiary with the Winter Wolves (justice) as mercy is paired with judgment.