Hey True Believers!

With the special, early holiday release of Episode #106, I had a bit of a hunch that people might be interested in the Legend of Olaf the Barbarian, the mysterious figure that saves us every year from the Forces of Darkness on Christmas Eve. That, maybe, you’d enjoy the entire narrative that Chris shared on air, one that I transcribed from a book of tales of the Forgotten Times.

Well isn’t this Holiday Season your lucky one. Here’s the Legend of Olaf, in its entirety, so you can share it with your friends and family on the joyful day of your choosing:

Gather round, dearest True Believers, and take heed, for this is the Legend of Olaf the Barbarian. In the age now known as the Forgotten Times, men, women and children lived as best they could along the edges of the Unfathomable Wild. In these times, all manner of fantastic creatures lived. The stories that you were told about ghost and goblins, fairies and elves, dragons and demons were all true. How they lived, from whence they came, and why they hide from us today is no longer known, but we do know that they lived along side us in plain sight during the Forgotten Times. It was a simpler time then, but also more a time of both heroes and of legends.
Let it be told that the people of this time, though surrounded by wonders, were plagued and cursed by the forces of darkness. Because in those times, before the civilizations that protect us from the darkest of nights, for every spirit of light in the world, there existed two spirits of darkness. Horrors they were…the shambling, un-resting dead. Agonizing souls, rendered from their flesh. Creatures that, with but a single glance, could shatter even the minds of the strongest of will and brightest on mind. And countless other terrible creatures of the shadows.
Like many things in the Forgotten Times, these creatures of the dark were bound by ancient powers to the forces of nature, and the rhythms of life. When life was strong, the sun warm, and summer at peak, the creatures of the dark waned and hid like rock-dwelling insects exposed to the sun. But when the force of life weakened, and the air wore the icy gloves of winter, the creatures of the darkness came. The would swarm the communities, taking man, woman and child alike. No one was chosen for any reason other than to feed the insatiable lust for blood, violence and death, and no one was safe. And so it was for many a year, until Olaf the Barbarian entered our world.
Stories of Olaf’s past are many, and all are shrouded in mystery. The variations are so many that the variations in Grecian, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Japanese, and Judeo-Christian Beliefs combined would barely equal half of the variations in the tales told about Olaf the Barbarian, his past, and the powers that he wielded. However, this we know of the Winter Lord. Olaf was a humble warrior, taught in the ancient traditions of his tribe. When he came of age, he undertook a sacred and dangerous quest to seek out the legendary great axe Hrodulf. After nearly meeting his death no more than eight times, but no less than six, he was successful in finding the mystical glowing crimson weapon in the Caverns of The Abandoned. With Hrodulf in hand and lighting the way, Olaf successfully conquered the Eight Great Elemental Wargs of The Crystal Realm. These wargs now serve Olaf as chargers for his great warsledge. The furs worn by the mighty Olaf, once white as the new fallen snow, are now forever died red by the blood of his enemies. This is the man, who with powerful derived from the light of life itself, sought to forever achieve freedom from the forces of the darkness.
Let it be known that the powers of life, and the magic that is life itself, in strongest in the hopes and dreams of good young children. Because in the charity, the joy, and the purest of love that these children create, the true nature of creation is seen. The unbridled joy of a child at play is but a taste of the power of light that children may possess. It is in good deeds, and joy, and the love of children through which the greatest power of Olaf’s magic did flow. In his battles against the darkness, when children were kind and full of love, he found many victories.
But children, as power as they can be as creatures of light, are also creatures of great darkness. When a child is mischievous, poorly behaved, or cruel, the dark powers could harness that power to fight back against Olaf. A bad child could mean the difference in Olaf’s great battles against the darkness, with the great Barbarian falling prey to the talons and wounding barbs of the creatures of destruction.
When one such battle turned poorly against the Barbarian, Olaf devised a way to reward the good children who helped empower him in his nightly battles. As he travelled the world, and fought against the darkness, he would leave good boys and girls small gifts as thanks for the strength that their goodness lent him. And whenever a bad child crossed his path, and empowered his enemies, he would become so enraged that he would crush the lifeless bodies of his foes into small lumps of coal, and leave them as punishment to those who were bad.
Soon, as time passed, and the magicks of the world were forgotten, the power of the darkness waned until the only night that the evils of the universe could pass into our world was three nights after the longest of nights, when their terrible power was strongest. And as time passed, Olaf would sleep throughout the year, awakening only on the night of December 24th to fight the dark powers back. To this day, Olaf still protects us from the evils that would devour our bodies and taint our souls. And to this day, Olaf mystically rewards those children whose goodness and light lead him to victory against the darkness, and punishes those who taint his fight be empowering the enemy. But in this time, after that which we have forgotten, we no longer tell the story of Olaf the Barbarian. In fact, we know him is a completely different person, a man of gentle good, with love for children the world over. And while we know him as Santa Claus, and his gentle love for us is no less true than in the stories we now tell, never forget that it is Santa Claus who fights for us every year, that we might live in safety and happiness for at least one more cycle around the sun.

Happy Holidays Everyone, from all of us at Geeks With Issues!