Now that was a summer to remember

	Summer on the glacier…. Not much different than winter, save that instead of eternal night, the sun never seemed to set.  This was the time when the hunters of the Icefolk went forth in the hunt, searching for the reindeer that filled their bellies all winter long.  It was also the war season, when their bitter enemies, the monstrous thanoi, preyed upon human fare.
	It was Bragnar's third year as a village hunter, having come of age after seventeen summers.  He was sure with his spear, mighty with his axe, and respected by his peers. 
	The youth was out on his own one of those cold, bright mornings, searching for the ice bear that had eluded him for so long.  He had discovered it three days ago, tracks all around the village, and reindeer missing from the pens.
	He had his broad war-spear with him, wrapped in leather for a better grip, along with his holy axe, the frostreaver given to him by the tribes' shaman.  He was clothed head to foot in white polar-bear hide, making him blend into the tundra; ice bears were very tough and cunning creatures, difficult to hunt.
	The glacier he walked upon was wide, interrupted here and there by mountainous spikes of ice that the wind howled around.  One of the snowstorms that continually barraged the place seemed to be brewing.
	The hunter looked about for shelter, and he caught sight of a dark cave high up on one of the icy mountains.  He gritted his teeth, and started climbing.
	For almost an hour, Bragnar climbed, and when he finally reached the cave, snow and ice were covering his clothes, clogging his snow-glasses, and freezing his short beard.  He wasted no time, and dove in, headfirst into the icy tunnel.
	But it wasn't ice he landed on.  It was cold, and glinted whenever the meager light penetrated the raging storm.  He picked up a loose piece, and held it to the light.  It was a round disk, stamped with some curious symbol.  Bragnar remembered traders from the northern cities using these when they came to the village.  There looked to be an enormous mountain of them here.
	Disregarding the useless disks, he ventured further into the cave.  It was big enough to fit a whole family of icebears, but the only signs of habitation were deep claw marks gouged into the floor, looking to be even older than he was.  Bragnar doubted the occupant would return after so long an absence.
	Then, near the back of the cave, he found what looked to be a man, but all made of metal!  Bragnar brought his spear up, and poked the man, and the head fell off.  He looked at it in amazement, then lifted the head up experimentally. It seemed to be hollow inside, as the rest of it was.  He figured that it must be some sort of suit, worn by northmen.
	Bragnar placed the headpiece over his blonde head, on impulse.  It was total darkness inside, save for two little eye-slits.  Uncomfortably silent.
	He shook his head, and peered out the slits.  He looked out upon a different world.
	Bragnar saw plants.  Not the wasted scrub plants he was used to, but real plants; They were green and everywhere…. So small and delicate, yet spread out with such vastness.  And the trees; these ones he saw through the vision were gigantic, and not covered with dead orange needles, but with some thin green plant that fluttered gaily in the wind.  Off in the distance, he saw a huge hut of stone beside a pool of water; none frozen!  His gaze in the vision shifted, and he saw a man, dressed in a suit of that strange metal, sitting easily on a four-legged beast.  The man raised his metal arm, and beckoned to Bragnar.  Then the vision vanished.
	Bragnar took off the helmet, and dropped it where he stood.  The sun was halfway across the sky; He must have been in that faraway place for hours.  The storm had left as fast as it came.
	The bear forgotten, the hunter made the trek back to his village, thinking about what he had seen, the beautiful vision haunting him.  He soon spent his days in the tavern, looking out towards the north, to the warm lands.
	Then one day, he got his spear and his axe together, and left.  His friends said that once, just once, he wanted to experience a real summer in the northlands, to see a tree, to meet the men who wear metal.  Bragnar always remembered the summer he found the helm, all through the rest of his days.

-Onaeus(DE), Patriarch of the Druidic Order