Character · Vinland Saga
Askeladd
He runs a Viking band for profit, keeps his Welsh mother's language secret, and is the smartest man in every room he raids.
In Otakana the clue reads: Cunning Viking captain of a raiding band
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Vinland Saga
- Letters
- 8 · Hard
Askeladd captains a mercenary crew that hires itself out to whichever side of the Danish invasion of England is paying, and he keeps his men loyal by making sure they win. Under that he is running his own game. Born to a Welsh slave and a Danish master, he despises the Norse world he leads and holds to a family story that traces his blood back to a Roman-British commander.
His relationship with Thorfinn is the engine of the first half of Vinland Saga. He killed the boy's father, then let the boy live and follow him, paying him for dangerous work with the right to a duel he never intends to lose. It looks like cruelty. It works out closer to a very long, very cold form of guardianship.
Makoto Yukimura began the manga in 2005 in Weekly Shonen Magazine and moved it to the monthly Afternoon the following year, where it turned from an adventure series into an argument about whether a warrior can stop. WIT Studio animated the first season in 2019, and Askeladd is the reason most viewers finish it.
Spelling ASKELADD
ASKELADD is eight letters and ends in a double D, which is the letter people drop. The name is Norwegian, from Askeladden, the ash lad of folk tales who sits in the fireplace and is underestimated by everyone. Japanese writes it アシェラット, closer to Asheratto, so the sound in the dub does not match the spelling. Trust the Norwegian: SK in the middle, DD at the end.