The following version of this tale is told in the Ukali Basin region of northern Ysgareth. Variations are told around the Hidden Sea, in the Ocean Empire, and as far south as Kadara.

A long age ago, in the northern wilds of Ysgareth, in the mountains above the Telnori land of Serviana, a wizard of the giant race took up residence. He was very skilled in the ways of Avikor, especially in matters of cold and ice, and it was said his heart was as frigid as any mountain glacier of his homeland. His own people came to fear him and his growing power, and they banded together to drive him out before he became too powerful.

If his heart had been cold before, it now grew bitterly so, as for many years he wandered. But ever he sought to master more power, to fully know the heart of Avikor. In time he found a mountain peak that well suited him, and there he used his power to delve deep, carving out a fastness wherein none might assail him. From this redoubt he sent out his minions to bid the men of nearby towns to kneel in homage to him, for he declared himself the master of all the lands he could see from his mountain top.

The men of that region laughed at the emissaries, and turned them away, thinking them mad. Then the giant put forth his power, and it had grown great indeed; and in the midst of summer he caused winter to fall upon the mountains for many miles around. Then the men of the land were afraid, and when the giant came himself to demand their fealty, they knelt before him, begging him to lift the winter from their lands.

But the giant laughed and bade them learn to live in Winter’s Realm, for it would not now ever be summer where his writ ran. And he showed his new subjects how to gather and hunt and preserve, so that they might survive in this new land of eternal ice and snow. Many tired to flee then, but the ways into the lowlands were blocked or guarded, and the minions of the wizard knew no mercy.

Years passed, and the giant wizard’s power grew ever stronger, and his Realm of Winter spread ever farther, and more and more people became his unwilling subjects. Each natural winter his realm crept outward, and did not retreat again when spring should have come. And so he conquered without actual war or battle.

In Serviana the Telnori king watched these doings beyond his northern border, and grew wroth when the eternal winter began to take the lowlands and threaten even his own people. Then he summoned his greatest wizard, Hastor of the Sylvan Wood, unchallenged master of Toraz in that age of the world.

Hastor took his greatest creation, the Staff of Summer, and went forth into the lands of eternal winter. And lo, where he walked and touched the Staff to the ground, winter retreated and spring burst forth. For a year he walked the lands, forcing back the cold and making his way ever higher into the mountains, seeking out the so-called Winter King.

For that was the name the giant had taken unto himself as his power and pride grew, and the title by which those subject to his rule called him. And now the King was furious as this tiny interloper sought to undo his mighty work. Then he put forth all his might, and winter began to spread once more. But by this act now Hastor knew the direction to the heart of the fell power, and the location of Winter King, at last. He quickly made his way to the mountain fastness of the giant to confront him and end his reign once and for all.

The Winter King, on his High Seat atop the highest peak of his realm, saw the Telnori mage coming, for from that seat he could see all that passed within his chilly realm. And so he was prepared when the tiny mage, so small and insignificant, finally stood before him, and up from his mountain throne he rose.

The mighty river that had once flowed around his seat now cascaded in still, silent sheets of silver ice down the cliff, to where Hastor stood defiant. The Telnori demanded that the Winter King withdraw his power back into his mountain fastness, where no men dwelt, and free the lands of Umantari and Telnori which he now enslaved. But the Winter King spurned the command, laughing, and attacked the upstart wizard with bolts of jagged ice, hurled like lightning bolts from on high.

But Hastor moved his Staff, and the bolts turned to mist, and where the water fell grass and flowers began to burst through the snow. This enraged the Winter King, and then the battle was truly joined. For three days the two mages fought, and the mountains trembled at their power. The weather for many kilometers around changed from one minute to the next, and men cowered indoors, not knowing if they would be drowned, frozen, blown away or die of heat.

Eventually Hastor broke the Winter King and the giant fled down into his own deepest pit, far beneath his mountain throne. Hastor pursued, but he himself was wounded unto death. With his dying curse he bound the Winter King to that place, doomed to remain entombed in stone and ice for an age of the world, alone and undying, with only his stolen treasures to comfort him until time should end.  As he spoke his curse Hastor drove the Staff of Summer into the stone of that deep cave and laid such spells of binding on it that none could break them save the gods themselves.

And then he died.

To this day the Winter King remains imprisoned beneath the earth, ever striving to break the death curse and the spells of binding which Hastor wrought, so that he might once more walk the land and bring eternal winter to the world. Many claim to know the peak beneath which he suffers his punishment, but that truth is hidden knowledge, kept secret from all Men, lest the foolish seek his treasures and mayhap unleash once more the terror of Winter King.