ÐA EALDORINGAS: The Aldors and Their History

[NovumChase 235]

 

[!] A small, tidy book lies among the pedigrees of the minor families of Man.
[[Listen here, read by the author.]]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Glad tidings and the peace of GOD to all! I must first disclaim that I write this history not to unduly aggrandize the lineage which gave me life—for, indeed, it has known its share of penury and deprivation—but to illuminate, however dimly, this Aldor or Ealdor family, which has been found in the four centuries preceding this one and remains extant yet. No yearhundred has proceeded since the seventeenth without an Aldor making his mark, great or small, on its face. I am glad of this, and of my forebears, but if this work has been peddled or promoted to you by some chapman, you have been swindled. It is, and should be no more than, a modest reckoning of a humble lineage in that short-lived race called Man.

 

 

Though the blood which now courses through each Aldor proceeds, praise be to GOD, from the First-among-Men, the name appended to this especial family was accorded on the 17^th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1679. It was in that fruitful month that the august Rhys var Ruthern (1621–1704, @Imperium), Count of Metterden and later Duke of Vidaus, established our most prized and noble ancestor, Swithun Aldor, Scribe of Haense (SWIÐUN EALDOR, 1642–1736), as patriarch of a vassal family of House Ruthern. Swithun was born with only one name, as were his merchant parents. The surname was a choosing from the Father Tongue (discussed later in this text) and from its estimable word ealdor—that is, “elder”. Aldor has been its rendering in Common in both Swithun’s time and the years since, though Ealdor sees some use in family documents and traditional signatures.

 

The blood-standing of the Aldors, whether it be among the smallfolk or among the noble peerage, is unclear to many. Swithun’s 1734 will extends his “ennobelishment” to his son, Romund Aldor, and Swithun evidently considered the 1679 act of vassalization to be equivalent to ennoblement. Irene C. Sarkozy’s (@Eryane) nineteenth-century biography of Swithun actually claims that he denied official inclusion in the peerage—even at King Sigmar’s insistence—but his espousal of a surname at that time, and the unlikeliness of Swithun contradicting the King’s will, makes matters ever murkier. Rhys’s death in the flight to Arcas did not help to clarify the matter. Swithun was certainly entrusted with great power over the Haeseni peerage, and in 1707 stripped House Ludovar of their princely title of Ulgaard and their comital title of Monstadt, removing the latter to House Amador. It seems safer, however—in my judgement—to presume that Swithun spoke of nobility of character rather than in the word’s strictest sense. He was never, to my knowledge, truly titled anything but “Lord”, earned through his work. If it should be that some future sovereign should extend ennoblement to the Aldor family, that may prove sufficient clarification of the issue. Until such time, I instead regard the Aldor family as being distinguished members of the urban gentry.

 

It was Swithun’s achievements in that class which earned the Aldor kin the attention and trust of the peerage of the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska. First the Quartermaster of the Ruthern Levy for nine years, Swithun’s practical stewardship invited his appointment as a Regency Councilor of the Kingdom in 1668. It was in that capacity that he began a long friendship as the confidante and advisor to the future King Sigmar I and Queen Sophia; subsequently, he was also a formal mentor to Elizaveta vas Ruthern (1665–1707, @TheIchorDruid), the future Queen-Consort. After the cessation of the regency, Swithun was the Kingdom’s Royal Scribe for twenty-two years, and for the last years of his life (though sources disagree as to the exact year of his appointment) he held the post of High Justiciar of Haense. Ser Viktor Kortrevich’s reckoning of the High Justiciars of Haense in 1870 notes Swithun’s successful and lasting tenure, and that “the gavel of Justiciar Swithun Aldor, carried only by the High Justiciar” remained a fixture of the office long after his death. Swithun even, in old age, served in the Kingdom’s military as it struggled in vain during the War of Two Emperors; he was retired by a recently inaugurated regent in 1720, shortly after which Haense’s war effort collapsed. Disillusioned with the royal establishment in his elder days, Swithun is said to have spent his final years arranging his estate and writing pensively on theology, language, and statecraft.

 

 

The success of our Oldest Headfather, that most industrious Swithun, styled “one of the finest writers humanity has ever seen” in Ve Edlervik, has not yet been surpassed by his progeny. Still, it is fit to give short sketches of those Aldors who have lived since, as their accomplishments must be reckoned somewhere.

 

Aldfrith Aldor (@eagle964)

EALDFRIÐ EALDOR

1645–1704

 

Swithun’s younger brother, Aldfrith, resided next to him in Markev. He was a printer of royal imagery and created posters in support of the Haeseni crown; these were approved of and displayed by the King and his family. Aldfrith presumably died in the flight from Atlas, a source of great grief for his kin. Aldfrith had distinguished himself in the Haeseni army of those days and was so virtuously committed to his work and service that he took no wife and hence fathered no children.

 

Romund Aldor the Younger (@NovumChase)

HROÐMUND II. EALDOR

1790–1834

 

Romund (or, as we might distinguish him, Romund the Younger) was a great-great-great-grandson of Swithun by Swithun’s only child, also named Romund (the Elder). After Haense’s inclusion in the Holy Orenian Empire during Arcas, the Aldor family had made their homes in Imperial cities and served the Empire and Man with distinction. In 1809, he participated in the rescue of Maisie d’Arkent with three others. Endorsed by the Josephite Union, Romund ran unsuccessfully for legislative office in Providence in 1810 before falling into obscurity. He died in 1834, before he could witness the 1840 marriage of his son Roward Aldor to Bérénice Devereux, whose great-great-grandfather—Pierce I Devereux—was the last King of Curon as well as a first cousin to two Emperors and an Empress-Consort. Romund’s eldest son, Winmund Aldor (1813–1899), married Alfeva Harth in a love marriage, and the two together continued the elder line of Aldors, of which I myself am part.

 

Aithwin Aldor (@NovumChase)

IEÐEWINE EALDOR

1928–2047

 

Aithwin was the great⁹-grandson of Swithun and a great-great-grandson of Romund the Younger by his mother, Aithfertha. I did not know him personally, though I have acquainted myself with him through manuscripts from his estate brought to me by a trusted friend. As both of Aithwin’s parents had returned to mononymy, he alone adopted the surname of that remote ancestor, Swithun, in his pursuit of the arts. He went to Valdev to accomplish this—together with his paternal cousin Godwin Almireson, later Godwin Maiheiuh (GODWINE ÆÐELMÆRSUNU, @AuJy), and his maternal cousin Mayer Bergwald (MÆRE BURGWEALD, @eagle964)—and there became a royal scribe in the court of Queen Amaya of Venzia. Aithwin’s six sisters and four brothers continued to live in his family’s village, freshly settled after the flight from Almaris. His love for and subsequent marriage to one Naya Barakat (1927–1978, @ProcaPro) later drew him elsewhere, however—first to Balian and then to Kaethul—and her adoption into the prestigious Qalasheen al-Jabir family led him to occasionally style himself Aithwin al-Jabir Aldor. Aithwin adopted a son, Fynlo al-Jabir Aldor (FINNLOG EALDOR, @ProcaPro), but Aithwin apparently kept few ties with the young adopted Aldor. His letters seem to indicate that he reconciled with “Fynn” in old age, however, and the two apparently went to battle Orsathiael in the twilight days of Aevos (Aithwin then being one hundred and eighteen years old and, no doubt, quite stiff and frail).

 

 

My grasp is weak on that which has been variously called the Father Tongue, Olden Speech, Old Churlish, and the Leed by my forefathers. I am far from fluency in it, but far too from total ignorance. This elder language is the source of all of our Aldor names, strange though they sound, from time immemorial. Swiðun, known to us all as Swithun, comes from the hearty Olden swið, which denotes strength. My name, Hroðwine—rendered an easier Rothwin in public Common—is built from hroð, “fame”, and wine, “friend”, thus meaning “friend to fame”. All of these ancient “Olden” words, with which I can construct only childlike sentences and which I know mostly from the names of my foregoers, must be from some early Jorenic tongue, and yet I remain ignorant of it. Manuscripts which have come down to some Aldors explain to us the roots and stems in this most esoteric form of Common, though we Aldors use it mostly for naming and other ceremonial deeds. Our very surname, as I have afore noted, was pulled from this speech-way, wherein it is more exactly Ealdor—that is, “elder”. Swithun’s choice of meaning is unexplained.

 

Our choice to derive our names—Hroðwine (Rothwin), Ieðewine (Aithwin), Godwine (Godwin), Hroðmund (Romund), Swiðun (Swithun), Swiðwulf (Swithulf)—from the Father Tongue is of no particular spiritual importance. So far as I can tell, it has never afforded any of us any advantage. It is merely, as far as I understand it, an expression of familial identity. Its original speakers and purpose are now lost to us. I am, however, personally fond of it, and should hope to see it continue. One particularly old tradition, occasionally still seen now, is the derivation of a child’s name from an element of the parent’s name, such as Swithun from Swithulf—the so-called “name-gift”.

 

With various frequency throughout the history of the Aldors, Olden names, whether in their common or ancient forms, have been given to friends and retainers, and most especially blood-brothers and -sisters.

 

 

What is called Aldor House-Law is really a sheaf of spoken rules and virtues impressed on each young Aldor. It has not, to my knowledge, been put to paper until now. It is a set of four good rights, to my knowledge: guest-right, moot-right, war-right, and blood-right.

 

Guest-right is the oldest and surest: that bread and salt, once gifted by the host, bind guest and guest-taker to peace beneath one roof. No man may thence draw steel thereunder. Moot-right is our custom of speaking together: that each may have his say in turn, high or low, with plain speech, hearkening more than haranguing, to the end of a common rede. War-right is our going forth to battle and our coming home therefrom with a clean soul. No wanton spoil is taken, and all are spared who earnestly cast down their blades. Blood-right is the keeping of kin and the mending of hurt. We are to care for our widows and wards as evenly as we would ourselves, and may take on blood-brothers and blood-sisters.

 

These are our tenets as they have come to me, though I, living only now and not with long elven-sight, cannot speak to their antiquity. They have, as I said, not yet been written. They do not wholly encompass our customs, of course, which are varied and intriguing—a writ I have from Aithwin Aldor writes romantically of his own placing of the tip of an ashen spear into a fire before the Battle of Breakwater Keep, marked by the phrase “let not the ash forsake the ash”, an act so singular and ritualistic I can only conclude that it is some manner of family tradition, though I have not yet witnessed it myself. The ritual of blood-brotherhood and -sisterhood is also unknown to me. Romund the Younger called it a “union of spears”, suggesting that palms are cut and joined below crossed spears. More plentiful than all rituals are the many sayings that come down to us from old writings, most to do with our symbols (on which there is more to come)—sayings such as “sun on thy helm” to warriors who must away.

 

Of our faith and god-beliefs, it can only be said that the Aldors have upheld the good tenets of our Canonist faith from the outset.

 

One point here, because it is too lonesome to be put anywhere else, is on how the House Aldor might be arranged in hierarchy. I include this only because Swithun Aldor, in his elder years, seemed to consider it possible that he would be landed after his dismissal as Lord Justiciar, and so laid out how the Aldors might organize their land and retainers accordingly. We are privileged to still maintain a small house-staff in this day, comprising a governess for the youth and some few bannermen. Swithun, however, dubiously ennobled as I have previously belabored, envisaged an expanded system of lordship over whatever demesne the family might eventually possess. This was, as we know well now, a hope the elder justiciar had that was not met, but the imagining of it seemed to inspire great passion in him. He devised a ‘Lordsmote’ comprising the head of the family together with the heads of any vassal-kindreds, whatever churchman serves Aldor lands, a Lord Knight (marshal), a Lord Reeve (justiciar), a Lord of the Beech (house scribe), and a Lord of the House (chamberlain). Esteemed and accomplished retainers were to be titled Thane, and might choose one from among their own to sit at the Lordsmote. The thought of it is enough to excite an enthusiastic dreamer, but no Aldor-Lordsmote has ever convened.

 

 

Our shield, printed at the beginning of this work, is a red one with a white chevron. Three suns appear, two and one, and are known to us as the Thrisun. They embody the parhelion that Lord Swithun Aldor wrote hung over the gates of Markev as he returned to Haense to accept Demetrius var Ruthern’s summons for him as Lord Justiciar on the 15^th of Horen’s Calling, 1703. Aside from the Thrisun, other symbols have been handed to us by our history. Romund Aldor the Younger is supposed to have preferred quills and gavels in evocation of good Swithun, and so our shield is today accompanied by bleached goose-feathers. So too is the beech tree most dear to us, and so its leaves and flowers appear on our shield, for the word beech is akin to book, as our ancestors first used that good tree’s bark to write and read.

 

As far as vocations are concerned, a fine crop can be seen in the history of the Aldors. Our kindred has brought forth scribes and judges, indeed, but so too clerks, bookkeepers, printers, and teachers. Some among these have even taken to great martial feats, as Swithun himself slew a chimæra in 1672 at the battle at the Cathedral of St. Karl that claimed the life of High Pontiff Jude I. We should hope that future Aldorings might, too, prove themselves fine sword-siblings, and, more than this, grow their talents and professions even further beyond those lettered pursuits we have so far chased.

 

 

As far as I can reckon, I and my siblings are of the eldest line of living trueborn Aldors who still bear the name and can trace themselves lineally to Swithun himself. It was this truth, revealed to me by my most beloved and virtuous father Rothswith Aldor (HROÐSWIÐ EALDOR), which inspired my interest in the history of my name. My scribal work now presently concerns history generally, and I have been privileged to discuss also the history of grander and more historic houses, but I cannot forswear my own blood and thus feel that I must lay it out for all descendants and kinsmen to look upon.

 

I shall hence make a lineal outline of my genealogy as far as I know it. My father, Rothswith (born 2000), is the son of Radwarda (1971), begotten by Roward (1950), begotten by Helmward (1924), begotten by Rohelma (1905), begotten by Furnelm (1881), begotten by Roferth (1844), begotten by Winmund (1813), begotten by Romund (1790), begotten by Roswith (1753), begotten by Rowarda (1733), begotten by Rowall (1707), begotten by Romund, who was begotten by Swithun and Aoife Aldor in 1683. This is by absolute primogeniture. Swithun, no doubt inspired by the merit of his pupil, Queen-Consort Elizaveta vas Ruthern, chose in his 1734 will to “extend ennobelishment in name and duty to [his] son Romund and his issue, male and female alike, by primogeniture absolute”. I was the first to note the sometimes older ages of some mothers and fathers in this pedigree, but have earnestly researched their genealogies and have not found that any elder branches survive with the name Aldor. I henceforth claim, with the assent of my father, that he and I stand now at the head of the Aldor family, for whatever this may be worth to future researchers. Other surnames which appear in my historical pedigree are Bielka, Bukovsko, Fairclough, Harth, Markevska, Rezanov, Uhrmacher, and Valmont on my father’s side, and Holvech, Hramov, Seehafer, and Vesnik on my mother’s.

 

My trueborn siblings, as I know them, are Roswyn (ROSEWYNN, @0mnip0tent), Edith (EADGYÐ, @cercysurge), Romund (HROÐMUND, @m9r9h), and Merith (MÆRGYÐ, @floridianrebel05). My good brother Romund was given a most esteemed name-gift, and is the fourth man in the family—the third in his own direct lineage—to bear the name.

 

This work was compiled, and these very words now written, as we rest for a time upon the Isles of Kalldur. This flight, weary and tragic though it is, has caused a great pooling together of our race and afforded me the opportunity to meet with kinsmen and friends from across the world. This work would not have been possible without their contributions. It would not have been possible, either, were it not for the hope and excitement swelling in my chest for the world that lies ahead. It is my hope that in whatever golden fields we find, the Aldors might there build a new chapter to surpass all others in their history. It is told among my kinsmen that, as our ships embarked, there came a clear-weather parhelion on the starboard sky, and some said the Thrisun had found us upon the waters. I can only surmise that the lands whither we now sail will be most auspicious, and I look ever forward to marking them with the hope for goodness and justice imbued in me by my forebears.

 

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ROTHWIN ALDOR

MMXLVIII