The Fishwife's Tale

In the dark time when Seward and his undead minions ruled these fair lands of ours, an old woman lived by the shore down by Javal Way. She was a fisherman's wife, but her man was long gone, taken by war. One moonless night there came to her cottage a young woman from Byrnholm and she carried a small boy in her arms. The young woman, dressed as a palace servant, stumbled up to the Fishwife's cottage but had not even the strength to knock.
In the morning, the Fishwife found her body and the crying boy on her doorstep. In the palace servant's clothes, she found a note. Now the good Fishwife could not read, but she had a kind heart so she took in the baby boy, and so the boy grew up learning the trades of the sea.
Shortly after the boy's sixteenth birthday, Seward's men came through the nearby village. They were displeased with the people of the village and sowed death in their wake. When they were gone, the old Fishwife was dead and the boy was alone. The boy was much wroth with the world that had taken the only mother he knew from him, so he followed Seward's men. Trained though he was in the ways of the sea, he knew little of woodcraft and it was not long before he was lost. He wandered in the woods, fearing that he would die before he could rid his heart of vengeance and finally he fell asleep in the hidden heart of a great forest.
It was here that Reidulf the Hero found him and told him that his name was Erik and taught him all that he would need to know to reclaim his throne from the usurper Seward, but that is his story. This story is so that we all might remember the good and brave Fishwife who reared King Erik the Great and died so that he might live and bring freedom to Arnhelm.