Hrólfr kraki (Rolf Kraki)

Hrólf Kraki is the greatest of the legendary Danish kings — the Norse King Arthur, famed for his open hand, his ring of champions, and his magnificent doomed last stand at Lejre. Around him gathered the finest warriors of the North: the bear-warrior Bödvar Bjarki above all, who fights for him in the shape of a great bear. Hrólf's hall is the saga world's image of the ideal court — generous, brilliant, bound by loyalty unto death. His byname 'Kraki', 'pole-ladder', comes from his lean, tall frame, and a famous scene where he scatters gold on the plain of Fýrisvellir to slow his pursuers, scorning the treasure he is so lavish with. The legend ends, as the best of them do, in betrayal and fire: attacked by his treacherous sister and her sorcerer-husband, Hrólf and his champions die fighting in his burning hall, magnificent to the last. The high-water mark of Northern heroic kingship, remembered for how its men chose to die.