Sterkur Fálk

Sterkur Fálk af Ostara (Ստերքւր Փաւլք ափ Ոստարա; 1581-1634; 782-835 ÁL) was a Siur nobleman, administrator and military leader, and the chief instigator of the process by which the fragmented commonholds which together formed the Siur country were brought under a single rulership for the first time since the death of Skjöldvaskur af Norðursundi in the ninth century. The Sáttmáli or “Unifying Charter of the Siur People” which Fálk achieved became, in 1623, the founding document of the nation of Siurskeyti and the basis upon which that country began its rise towards its present status as one of the great powers of the world.

Sterkur Fálk af Ostara
Sterkur Fálk af Ostara; date uncertain but probably c. 1620
3rd thár of Siurskeyti
Reign	1623–1634
Predecessor	Skjöldvaskur af Norðursundi (died 834); office revived
Successor	Valur Stuttsöla af Reylati
Born	Ediface or Nollonger 1581 (Pisasmur 782 ÁL) Eikarlundur, commonhold of Vonskil
Died	12 Conservene 1634 (21 Ekunur 835 ÁL) (aged 53) Törsuös, Vonskil, Siurskeyti
Father	Vitur Fálk af Ostara
Mother	Elja Nýbyggðar af Sauðarósi

Foundation of power

The Fálk family had controlled Ostari, the largest city in the Siur country, since the middle 15th century, having initially risen to prominence in the city as merchants. Órsinn Fálk married into the theinic family of Krásinn in 1435, and he began the process of extending dominance across the other territories and petty commonholds which today form Vonskil. This was continued by his son, the later thein Vitur Fálk, who had approximately three-quarters of the modern commonhold of Vonskil under his ultimate authority by his death in 1489. Vitur was primarily responsible for driving the expansion of Vonskil’s influence into the Medius Sea, including the establishment of the trading outpost of Vonaey in present-day Sarbatia in 1462 and the commonhold’s initial claim on the north-eastern coast of the island of Yarin in 1477.

Early life

Sterkur Fálk was born in either Ediface or Nollonger 1581, at the outlying theinic estate of Eikarlundur, some five kilometres downriver from the centre of Ostari; he was the second of five children born to the thein of Vonskil, Vitur Fálk (Vitur III), and his wife Elja Nýbyggðar, herself the youngest daughter of the thein of Moðalund, to the north of Vonskil and a significant polity in its own right.

Fálk’s early childhood was spent in the shadow of ongoing war across the Siur country. The War of the Teþar – named after the river which formed much of the border between the major antagonists, Vonskil and Skjóll – was probably the last major internal conflict in the Siur lands before the Helmin secession of 1812; although the immediate casus belli was territory in present-day southern Vinhaxa over which both commonholds claimed authority, the war encompassed a range of other matters which had been bones of contention for the two most dominant political and economic powers in western Messenia at this time. Fighting was not confined to territory of the two main combatants, but spread across large parts of the Siur country among allies of one or other side of the dispute, and was to a limited degree also fought at sea in the Medius. The war had begun in 1584, and wound to a weary and largely inconclusive end in 1590; Vitur Fálk, who had lost his left hand during one engagement near the Tarsa valley town of Fensbrú, was perhaps one of the first among the Siur theinar to recognise the futility of further conflict, and much of his son’s later drive towards forging a permanent peace among the Siur perhaps stems from Vitur’s war-weariness.

Thein in training

While receiving, in broad terms, the kind of education typical of the Siur nobility at the time, Sterkur Fálk became the most probable heir to the succession at a fairly young age – not least because his elder brother Eymundur was mentally and physically disabled (modern studies have thought this to be probably the result of cerebral palsy), and thus an unrealistic prospect to claim the support of a community which, particularly in the aftermath of the Teþar war, still looked to its thein for military leadership. As such, much of his education was conducted with this future status in mind, both militarily and diplomatically. Fálk is known to have taken part in sessions of his father’s þeinsráð as early as 1595; he also accompanied his aunt Bergdís during a period of almost three years in 1597-1600 in which she was her brother’s emissary and factotum in the eastern Siur country, based in Hydrædsdalur but travelling widely across the region, as well as into Elland and present-day Alcasia.

The exposure to travel and proximity to authority seem to have whetted the appetite of the young Sterkur; he pushed for a more independent role, particularly as regards Vonskil’s increasing commercial and political interests in eastern and south-eastern Ascesia. His father was much less enthusiastic about the notion, and there are indications in court records of some strong arguments between them; however, the question was rendered moot when Sterkur sustained a broken leg in the spring of 1603, during what should have been a routine training session in the palace grounds. The enforced rest while the limb healed kept young Fálk at home, but brought him more closely under his father’s wing.

Fálk enthroned

This gradual education was dramatically overturned in late 1606, when Seranian fever, which had been spreading from southern Messenia over the previous few years, reached the Siur country. The effects were devastating, with more than a third of the population of Vonskil dying from the disease, including Fálk’s father and brother. The new thein and his wife and son were spared, but Fálk suffered some loss of hearing function, largely at low volume and frequency (contemporary reports comment that the new thein “could not hear a murmur only three feet away”). Hollur Fálk was even harder hit, being rendered almost completely deaf.

Even as Fálk sought to come to grips with his new responsibilities, he faced immediate challenge over part of his realm, as the island thosseship of Skógarey was attacked in an opportunistic strike by a rebel Yarin army commanded by a local farmer, Köhne Ildırım. With the Siur on the island ravaged by the fever, the rebellion overran Skógarey by the end of Nollonger 1606; and Ildırım would hold most of the island until 1608, when Fálk made common cause with the leadership of Tisceron and Skjóll fought a successful campaign to reclaim the territory.

Most biographers agree that it was probably in the aftermath of the Seranian fever outbreak that Fálk initially conceived the ideas which coalesced into his overall plan to unify the Siur polities – a matter which he referred to as Stórverkið or “the Great Work” as early as 1610. This was arguably framed primarily in terms of defence at first; the Siur country has, largely as a result of Arlaturi principles decrying gender discrimination, been markedly less densely populated than comparable country elsewhere, and the loss of large parts of its leadership cadre – Vonskil was hardly the only territory to be so affected by the passage of the fever – left the region potentially vulnerable to predation from outside by forces which remained stronger, at least in terms of absolute numbers. A particular threat in this regard was Odann, which had already seized the islands of present-day Tassedar in 1610 – forcing a good number of resident Siur to flee to safer locations in the process – and which was lowering with intent over the states of the southern Arcedian Sea coast on the far side of the Halðamar.

Fálk’s first attempts to popularise the idea were poorly received; the rulers of the smaller commonholds were acutely aware that of the various potential predators who could take an interest in the Siur lands, Fálk’s own Vonskil was among the largest and most dangerous, as had been amply demonstrated by this time, not least by the recently-concluded Teþar war. In particular, Fálk’s southern neighbours in Skjóll had their own bitter memories of that conflict, and the commonhold’s formidable thein Ragna Stuttsöla – known to her own people as Ragna Ljóshærd or “Tow-Headed Ragna” from the colour of her hair in her youth, when she became thein – was in no frame of mind to meekly surrender the field to a comparative stripling like Fálk.

The expansion

Where previous programmes of expansion within the Siur lands had often involved the use of military force, Fálk was generally content to play a long game, seeking out factors and issues which could be manipulated to achieve his aims. In lieu of armed force, he made much use of Vonskil’s considerable financial muscle – as in the commonhold’s acquisition of roughly half of the lesser commonhold of Brotnaðvatn in 1616 in settlement of debts incurred by its thein, Eldur Hörsekru. He also made adroit use of assistance from the leadership of the Arlaturi communion; in this respect he was greatly helped by the influence wielded by Valbjörn Drósur, the then incumbent brætur and a widely-respected figure across most of the Siur country, despite some personal animosity between the two men.

Where economic or political clout failed, however, there were always other means. Fálk was remarkably restrained in his use of military force as a negotiating tool – arguably letting his opponents remind themselves that it was always present as an option – but was a master at the development of alternative options in many instances. Not all of these were pursued openly; suspicions still exist surrounding the death, in the spring of 1622, of Naut Skammdegis, the thein of Fjallaheim on what would become the Siur country’s north-eastern border. While Skammdegis’ death appeared to be the result of an accident while he was hunting, claims that he was assassinated on Fálk’s orders have never been fully refuted.

The unification

By the winter of 1622-23 Fálk had, by whatever means, gained either support, dominance or direct rule over lands representing over three-quarters by area of what would ultimately become Siurskeyti. Although Skjóll still held out, Fálk reasoned that he had now garnered enough backing to conclude the Great Work; in Metrial 1623, with Drósur presiding over a ceremony deliberately sparse in ornament but dense in ritual, the thein of Vonskil was formally enthroned as thár – a revival of the title that had been created for the great Siur warrior-hero Jukka af Essingi over eight hundred years earlier – and monarch of the new kingdom of Siurskeyti. The name given to Fálk’s new realm was intended as a clear statement – the Hártal word skeyti then carrying connotations of binding together a disparate mass.

In what was perhaps his most significant act within the text of the Sáttmali, Fálk set out the intent that, although he intended to hold the new office for life, he did not intend the status of thár to become hereditary within his family; rather, on his death, a “council of the thár’s peers” would meet to discuss and select a successor. Although this has been cited as a nod to the principles of egalitarianism which have typified Arlatur almost since its foundation (not least in that it mirrored the practices used to appoint a new brætur), this was almost certainly not a wholly voluntary decision by Fálk, who was as much conscious of his posterity as any of his contemporaries; and the question was to some degree shelved with the near-simultaneous declaration of the War of the Charter against Odann, which was now assuming a much more threatening stance over the north of the Siur country – one which had probably swayed many of the waverers as Fálk’s negotiations had progressed. Far more probably, making the position elective was intended as a final concession to bring Skjóll into the union at some future point, with either Stuttsöla’s son and designated heir Valur or the latter’s own identified successor to take the new throne on Fálk’s death.

However, the act of unification, combined with Vonskil’s leading role in marshalling the new Siurskeyti’s military forces against Odann, had created a giant among the polities of western Messenia where none had existed before, and that by itself created a gradual flow of political power and economic influence towards Ostari as Siurskeyti’s new capital. Gradually, the smaller independent commonholds came into line, accepting a subordinate status within Fálk’s new kingdom in exchange for a share of the prosperity being generated by the Siursk economy. Increasingly, this included the wealth to be created from Siurskeyti’s overseas claims, as the new kingdom staked out territory in Lestria and extended its growing influence among the princely states of eastern and south-eastern Ascesia. Most of the recalcitrants had been brought into the fold by the end of 1630, and Skjóll, having held out for so long, became the last major signatory to the Sáttmáli on 23 Sation 1632 (New Year’s Day 833 by the Siur calendar).

Decline and death

The strains of such a monumental feat of diplomacy took their toll on Fálk; although he was in reasonably robust health when he became thár, he entered a prolonged decline from perhaps as early as the summer of 1627. He nonetheless insisted in travelling to Reylatur to formally witness Skjóll’s admission to the Siursk union, although he had to be brought into the meeting chamber on a litter and was under a physician’s care throughout the two weeks in which he was away from Ostari.

Fálk died early in the morning of 12 Conservene 1634 (21 Ekunur 835 ÁL) on his family’s estate at Törsuös, south-east of Ostari, probably as the result of pneumonia. As he had predicted in the last months of his life (and as he had pushed for among the councilfolk which would make the decision), Valur Stuttsöla, thein of Skjóll, was elected as thár to succeed him.

Legacy

In the Siur lands Fálk’s legacy as a politician and statesman is undeniable; although others had considered the benefits to be derived from harnessing the energies of the squabbling Siur commonholds and directing them outwards towards the wider world, Fálk’s efforts in making this a reality created a state which, even today – and despite a traumatic civil war which could have destroyed it – remains one of the pre-eminent world powers and a cornerstone of the present system of interordinate diplomacy. The feat is arguably all the more impressive, given the fractious nature of many of the parties involved, for having been achieved almost entirely without bloodshed; this achievement almost certainly factors into the modern Siur image of themselves as creatures of rationality, for whom open warfare is an always regrettable last resort.

In Siurskeyti – albeit the much reduced version remaining after the Helmin secession – Fálk is still remembered by the kenning Landsfaðir, “Father of the Country”, and his name has been attached to roadways, public buildings, suburban housing developments and much else across the country. (It is perhaps interesting to note that much of this phenomenon actually occurred after Helminthasse’s secession, and almost certainly as a reaction to it.) Fálk’s legacy in Helminthasse is, understandably, more muted, but even here remains visible to a degree; most Helmin regard their country as conducting its internal affairs in a manner more in keeping with the principles of the Sáttmáli, and they acknowledge his role in enhancing the sense of sígáfa, “Siurness”, which many Siur feel sets them apart from (and, in many cases, above) the other peoples of the world.