The Men of Torvaldsland are Warriors, sailors, landowners who have a love of life as large as they are. They are fierce men hardened by life in the North.
The title of Jarl is used to denote both a Man who is is a leader among warriors as well as any Man of Torvaldsland who is an independant landowner. It is also the title used by bondmaids when addressing all FreeMen of the North.
Many of them were giants, huge men, inured to the cold, accustomed to war and the labor of the oar, raised from boyhood on steep, isolated farms near the sea, grown strong and hard on work, and meat and cereals. Such men, from boyhood, in harsh games had learned to run, to leap, to throw the spear, to wield the sword, to wield the axe, to stand against steel, even bloodied, unflinching. Such men, these, would be the hardest of the hard, for only the largest, the swiftest and finest might win for themselves a bench on the ship of a captain, and the man great enough to command such as they must be first and mightiest among them
