Lord of the Rings/Characters/Ulfrik
Ulfrik
Born high on the plains of Rohan to Theor and Frigga, Ulfrik is a strapping man of twenty-five summers. From the beginning, he had an affinity with animals, including the family’s wolfhounds and the horses they guarded. When he was three summers old, his father gave him an old Rohirric name rendered as “Wolf King” in the Common Speech.
As Ulfrik grew, Theor taught him the ways of the plains and the bordering forests: how to hunt, trap, track, and read the signs of the land, especially the signs of Orcs. This life ended in Ulfrik’s sixteenth summer, when a raid led by Gorbad the Slaughterer claimed the lives of Theor and Ulfrik’s betrothed, Dagian, a young woman with hair the color of golden straw. Beside his father’s body lay the family’s broken sword. Its blade remained intact and sharp, but its hilt and crossguard were shattered. His loss and his father’s lessons instilled in Ulfrik a fierce responsibility to protect Rohan and avenge the dead.
Ulfrik took the sword to his uncle Aethalsted, the local smith. Over the winter they repaired it, fitting a new hilt shaped like a snarling wolf’s head with the blade extending from its mouth. Ulfrik named the reforged heirloom Fang. Carrying the sword and wearing Dagian’s ring on a chain around his neck, he left the family lands, horse herd, and care of Frigga to his brother Theoval, his elder by three seasons.
Nine summers later, Ulfrik patrols the breadth of the Mark. He seldom sees his family and lives from the land while hunting thieves, murderers, Wargs, spiders, and other threats. He hates Orcs above all, especially Gorbad. Their hunt has continued for almost a decade. When Ulfrik destroys one of Gorbad’s bands, he leaves an Orc corpse on an X-shaped wooden frame with the Rohirric rune for wolf cut into its chest. Gorbad answers with signs of his own, and the enmity between them deepens with every raid.
While tracking Gorbad’s warband through the plains, Ulfrik encountered Darethor Thornfall, a ranger following a separate Orc party into the Mark. The two bands converged and formed a larger threat. Ulfrik and Darethor therefore joined forces and began tracking the united warband across Rohan.
