Helminthasse (commonhold)
Commonhold of Helminthasse Viðaldur Helminþassi
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 The commonhold of Helminthasse (in orange) within the country of the same name | |
| Capital | Virkið |
| Official languages | Hártal |
| Demonym | Helminsk |
| Government | Respublican monarchy |
• Thein | Staðfastur Kúskellin af Virkinu |
| Commonhold | |
• Establishment of commonhold | 1183 |
• Admission to unified Siurskeyti | 1623 |
• Secession and establishment of Helmin alliance | 1812 |
| Area | |
• Total | 68,017 km2 (26,262 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2015 census | 10,382,620 |
• Density | 152.6/km2 (395.2/sq mi) |
The commonhold of Helminthasse (Hártal Helminþassi) is one of the five which make up the country of the same name, and its administrative centre, Virkið, is also the national capital. Covering an area of 68,017 square kilometres (26,261 square miles), it ranks second of the five in terms of area, but largest in terms of population; its recorded population at the 2015 census was 10,382,620.
The name Helminthasse derives from that of the Helminn family, members of which established the original commonhold in the twelfth century out of smaller and more scattered holdings, tenure of which can be traced to the early eighth century in places. The derivation of the term thasse is uncertain; while there are clear similarities with the Siur lesser noble title thosse (þossi), it is thought to emerge from Proto-Siur þasi, "cohort" or "regiment" (ultimately from Antissan dassu, "strong"), and presumably thus indicative of the Helmin's fighting strength.
As a matter of strict accuracy, the adjective helminskur refers only to people from the commonhold of Helminthasse; helminn is used informally to refer to people from the country, although the officially preferred term is bandarískur, in reference to the Helmin Alliance or bandalag.
Physical geography
The commonhold of Helminthasse is located in the west of the modern country; it borders upon Sarevi commonhold in the north and east, Æthelin to the east, Vinhaxa to the south-east and the Siurskeyti commonholds of Mόðalund in the west and Vonskil in the far south, as well as a short border on the Siurskeyti exclave of Hélla in the north-west. It has two short stretches of coastline on the Medius Sea, making it one of the two commonholds which are not landlocked (Sarevi being the other). Helminthasse’s current boundaries became fixed at the end of the Summer War in 1812, when it formally annexed a portion of the Hélla commonhold captured during the war – most of which is now the húð of Beinnvað – creating the current Hélla exclave.
The commonhold is generally low-lying, with most of its land between 500 and 1,000 metres above sea level, although this rises beyond 1,000 metres in the east, including the Tarsa valley upriver from Virkið as the land shades into the Sarlhamar hills, a downland extension of the Aphrasian range. While historically it shared much of the densely forested landscape of the Siur country, this has been steadily cleared over time, producing the generally gentle, rolling landscape typical of the region today.
History
Although parts of the modern commonhold as distinct entities date back to the eighth century, the commonhold of Helminthasse under its current name came into being in 1183; given the later origins of the country which assumed its name, some observers have found it appropriate that the commonhold began as the result of usurpation. Traditionally, the story runs that Kengur Brand, then thein of the commonhold of Brandarfell (located to the north-east of the present-day city of Virkið) was challenged to trial by combat by his senior liegeman, Vandaður Helminn, after being accused of taking Helminn’s wife against her will. While droit de seigneur had not completely died out in the Siur lands, by this time it was a rare lord who chose to exercise the practice above the level of the wives or daughters of bondsmen.
Brand’s overconfidence proved to be his undoing against an outraged Helminn, who killed the thein in what was later described as “the noblest victory of fury ’gainst o’erweening pride” (from the Helminssöngur, written in 1327). The victorious Helminn claimed the theinship and the commonhold without opposition, renaming the latter Helminþassi as an indication of the strength which he claimed. However, given the known status of many sögur of this period as works of revisionism – the Helminssöngur in particular was commissioned by Álrað Helminn af Virkinu, thein of Helminthasse from 1325 to 1348 – the validity of this account does come into question, and the likelihood that the whole affair was a power-play on Helminn’s part appears far more probable.
Helminn and his successors embarked on a policy of vigorous expansion over the next three centuries, enlarging the commonhold almost sixfold during this period. This included the absorption of Efsturgirðing in 1437; Helminthasse’s centre of administration was moved from Varðberg to Efsturgirðing’s former capital of Virkið four years later. Upheaval towards the end of the century followed as the War of the Three Brothers ended with the seizure of power by Þreinn Helminn and the period of oppression which followed in the early 16th century. However, “Threinn the Bloody” laid the groundwork for the expansion of influence which would see the enlarged Helminthasse become the dominant territory within the region. Although Helminthasse was markedly smaller than its present boundaries when the Siur commonholds were unified by Sterkur Fálk in 1623, its economic and military strength gave it power well in excess of its physical size.
However, the commonhold had always suffered from the lack of access to the sea which had brought strength to its northern rival, Sarevi. Unable to negotiate terms with the stronger coastal commonholds, Helminthasse set its sights on the smallest and weakest of the coastal fiefs, Geitarnes. The Helmin treasury took advantage of a state of distress in Geitarnes’ finances, making substantial loans to the smaller commonhold before abruptly calling them in at the end of 1655. Unable to comply with the demand, the penitent debtor was forced to accept Helminskur suzerainty as a condition of debt forgiveness. Other smaller commonholds – Eknará, Suðhélla, Garstaður and the bulk of Nefsdalur – would be absorbed into Helminthasse before 1750.
Helminthasse was the strongest of the five “rebel” commonholds as secessionist sentiment began to develop in the Siurskeyti heartlands during the early 19th century, and Hringur Slátrari, then thein of Helminthasse and later first althein of the new Alliance of Independent Siur Commonholds, was one of the leading figures as debate raged in the Siursk parliament over fair treatment for the economically deprived interior. Following the decision to secede by the rebels in Petrial 1812, the first shots of the Summer War which followed were exchanged on Helminthasse soil south of the town of Lágröð, roughly ten kilometres beyond the border with Mόðalund, on 25 Metrial of that year. Although all of the Alliance commonholds were affected by the war to some degree, most of the major engagements with Siursk forces during the war took place in the commonhold and in neighbouring Vinhaxa, given the position of those territories on the new border.
The Helminskur capital, Virkið, then the third-largest town in Siurskeyti behind Reylatur and the national capital of Ostari, was a natural choice to become the new nation’s capital – although the decision was not made without some dispute. A proposal for the functions of a capital city to be dispersed across the country – consistent with the then widely-held view of the new Helminthasse as an alliance of independent nations, rather than a single country – was seriously discussed before ultimately being dismissed as impractical. (The only part of the proposal which survived intact was the relocation of the new country’s supreme court to the Sarevi capital of Lágskáli on the north-west coast.)
Post-independence development has seen more economic and political power accrete to the Helminskur as the Alliance has steadily acquired more of the trappings of a political union; perhaps only the residual memory that preventing such a union was the reason that the country fought for its independence has slowed the process. At the present time the economic capacity of the country is skewed discernibly towards Helminthasse and Sarevi, and a frequent criticism from the periphery of the Alliance centres on the extent to which Virkið, in particular, exerts too much influence over the country as a whole. While this can probably be said of most capital cities, the status of the country as an alliance (at least in official terms) has caused some provincial territories to question Helminthasse’s primus inter pares status.
Government and authority
As is the case in each of the Alliance commonholds, Helminthasse is functionally a constitutional monarchy ruled by a thein (currently Staðfastur Kúskellin af Virkinu), who retains significant executive powers while delegating much of the routine administrative responsibilities of his office to a council of advisers or þeinsráð, and to a popularly-elected body, the viðaldsdeild. Helminthasse was actually the first of the Alliance commonholds to establish a viðaldsdeild, in 1820, and created the model which has been followed by the other four. The Helminskur body currently elects 180 deildarmenn, four for each of the current representative districts used to populate the national-level Fólksdeild. Following normal Siur electoral practices, a number of these deildsmenn also serve within the Fólksdeild and divide their time between the two houses.
Administration
The historic commonhold of Helminthasse is divided into 29 húðir, these being the domains of individual thosses at the date of secession; these are Bedasskurður (standard abbreviation BK), Beinnvað (BV), Efrivað (EF), Fensbrú (FE), Garstaður (GS), Geitarnes (GR), Goðamúr (GM), Hattur (HU), Hæðarey (HE), Hegramynni (HM), Hilluhæð (HH), Hundshaugur (HK), Keðslind (KL), Klakksdalur (KR), Kýrshlaða (KH), Lyng (LY), Mægunsvað (MV), Nefsþorp (NP), Nýból (NY), Rauðruna (RA), Reynir (RE), Styrskot (ST), Svansey (SY), Svöludalur (SU), Tudastjald (TU), Varðberg (VB), Virkið (VK), Vöndur (VN) and Yllirisbútur (YL).
For purposes of nomination to the Fόlksdeild, Helminthasse is currently permitted representation by 45 districts (kjörshúðir) (of whom ten represent the city of Virkið), with a review scheduled for 2013.
Economy
For much of the period between 1000 and 1700 Helminthasse was fairly densely forested, similarly to Vinhaxa to the south; the gradual deforestation of the commonhold began in earnest in the early 18th century, and took hold rapidly as more expansive farming methods came into play. Significant tracts of open forest still remain, however, mainly in the south-east of the commonhold in the húðir of Rauðruna, Svansey and Garstaður.
For large parts of its pre-secession history, the Helminthasse commonhold was most noted for the production of flax; fibres from the plant were used extensively in sailmaking, and it can be argued that Helmin flax made possible the expansion of Siurskeyti’s naval power as it expanded into the Medius Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. The development of mills for the spinning of flaxen yarn – the invention of Jónas Andassbarn of Öldhólmur in Sarevi in 1787 – helped speed up this process.
Given the status of Virkið as the nation’s capital, the business of government is a significant driver of the commonhold’s economy, and the accretion of business interests around the capital provides additional impetus. Of the twenty largest companies in Helminthasse, thirteen have their corporate headquarters in Virkið (and two others in nearby Varðberg).
Theinar of Helminthasse since 1800
| Reign | Name | Birth and death | Relationship to predecessor | Served as althein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1788-1803 | Đalgarð II (Slátrari af Virkinu) | 1732-1803 | ||
| 1803-22 | Hringur (Slátrari) | 1770-1822 | son of Đalgarð | 1812-17 |
| 1822-53 | Glæðar (Slátrari) | 1796-1853 | son of Hringur | 1842-47 |
| 1853-1903 | Skýr (Rúsvarp) | 1823-1903 | niece of Glæðar | 1863-68 |
| 1903-10 | Angist (Rúsvarp) | 1851-1911 | daughter of Skýr | 1908-10 |
| 1910-17 | Varnaður II (Rúsvarp) | 1853-1917 | brother of Angist and son of Skýr | |
| 1917-40 | Finnvarður (Rúsvarp) | 1887-1940 | son of Angist | 1920-25 |
| 1940-56 | Jónas III (Parðavar) | 1913-56 | son-in-law of Finnvarður Rúsvarp | 1949-54 |
| 1956-67 | Lán (Parðavar) | 1918-67 | brother of Jonas | 1964-67 |
| 1967-78 | Dugur (Parðavar) | 1919-88 | brother of Lán and Jonas | 1972-77 |
| 1978-87 | Högna (Parðavar) | 1940-87 | daughter of Lán | |
| 1987-96 | Natin II (Kúskellin) | 1941-1996 | sister of Högna and daughter of Lán | 1992-96 |
| 1996- | Staðfastur (Kúskellin) | 1946- | brother of Natin | 2006-11 |