AA倒计时-01：阿伦戴尔王国历史（How old is Arendelle?）
来源：tumblr 博客 @arendelle-archives（Arendelle Archives 4周年倒计时系列 1/10），2026-08-26 收录整理。原文：链接。图片按原文位置存放于 assets。
That’s right! Arendelle Archives turns four years old on July 10th next week. Our ambition is to bring you one post per day for the next ten days 😊
The idea is to keep this simple and fun. No 30-page essays! It’s also an opportunity for us to catch up with some “stray” projects that for one reason or another never got completed until now.
For the first installment out of ten, we’ll be investigating a somewhat complicated question: how old is the kingdom of Arendelle?
This was actually brought up by a member in our Discord server a couple of weeks ago. The following is a summary of our take on the matter.
What can we learn from the movies?
Ideally, we should look to the movies and short films for an answer. Unfortunately, they do not provide us with any information on the matter. The only thing we can really bring with us from the movies is that Arendelle seems to have a special fondness for Viking paraphernalia (longships, armour and shields) but we don’t know exactly how this ties into the history of the kingdom.
Anna’s “Viking helmet” in Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is actually a Sámi four winds hat. It’s highly possible that, given Arendelle’s relations with the Northuldra following the loss of the dam, Anna’s tutors simply told her the hat was of Viking origin just to downplay Sámi (Northuldra) culture.
Given how little there is to learn about Arendelle’s origins from the movies, we need to turn to secondary (expanded universe) sources to find an answer.
What can we learn from the Frozen books and comics?
The secondary material does actually provide us with a couple of clues. Unfortunately, the origins of Arendelle differs depending on what book you consult. Until the matter is brought up in a movie, we can’t know for sure. The details presented in books, no matter their level of “canon”, could be outdated by the plot of the next movie for all we know. Below, we have compiled a list of sources that bring up info on the matter. Note: these are the ones we’re familiar with. There could be more.
- Frozen II Junior novelisation (2019) - Prologue
It’s difficult to say how much of the cut movie-content still present in the book could be considered canon. It’s possible the info was meant to be communicated in the scrapped prologue for Frozen II where the history of Arendelle and Runeard was explained in more detail (supposedly). Since all of that was cut, no one’s to say how up-to-date the info in the novelisation is. I feel confident saying it’s at least NOT canon to the movie-universe. Yet.
2. Dangerous Secrets (2020) - Chapter 6, 17 & 4
The novel alludes to Runeard being the first king when it mentions him and his people “arriving in Arendelle”. Agnarr and Iduna’s teacher Miss Larsen also says that “the Arendellians settled by the fjord and called it Arenfjord”. So, Disney most certainly provided Mari Mancusi with this explanation. However, in the same book Lord Peterssen also refers to Runeard’s father as “king” which begs the question where he was king if Arendelle did not exist.
Furthermore, the novel also introduced some of Agnarr’s ancestors (King Eric and Queen Else) who are also referred to as kings and queens. But of what exactly? It is also confusing to me why Runeard and his people would call themselves Arendellians before the kingdom existed. The novel also never explains where they came from.
3. Polar Nights - Cast Into Darkness (2022) - Chapter 10
The novel mentions Aren and gives him the title “the legendary ruler of Arendelle of old”. So here the novel suggests Arendelle did exist in the past (in some form) and not just for the past fifty years.
4. Forest of Shadows (2019) - Chapter 3 & 4
This novel could have easily cleared things up regarding King Runeard’s background but only references him overseeing the construction of the current Arendelle castle but does not credit him as founder of the kingdom. Arendelle’s legendary hero Aren is also introduced in this novel. He is said to have lived before the “last ice age.”
5. Anna and the mystery of the mountains (2022)
The graphic novel brings up the construction of the walls of Arendelle Castle using phyllite rock but doesn’t specify when this happened or who conducted the work.
6. Google Assistant Frozen Stories - The Saga of Aren (2019)
This audio story (a variation of a legend told in Forest of Shadows) treats Aren as Arendelle’s founding father, giving it its name. Or at least the Arenfjord. Since only myths and legends exist from this time in history, we can’t say for sure how much of it is true. Or at what point Arenfjord became Arendelle.
7. Google Assistant Frozen Stories - Protecting Arendelle (unofficial title, 2019)
Another audio story centers around King Gorm (who was a historical king in Denmark in the 10th century) trying to conquer the lands of the north with his fleet of ships, makes direct references to “Arenfjord” showing that the name was already established during the Viking Age.
8. Elsa’s Icy Rescue (2020)
This chapter book brings up the history of Arendelle in the shape of a textbook read by Iduna to Elsa. Iduna asks her to cite the names of “the first ten rulers of Arendelle”, a clear departure from the idea that Runeard was the first king.
9. Breaking Boundaries (2019)
In this graphic novel, Elsa comments that “Arendelle has been peaceful for centuries”, indicating the kingdom must have existed long before Runeard (who lived only around fifty years earlier according to Polar Nights).
10. Lur thief (2016)
This comic mentions an Arendellian queen and princess from two generations before King Runeard.
11. A year with Elsa and Anna (and Olaf, too!) (2016)
This anthology book mentions Anna and Elsa’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother who was “Arendelle’s first queen” (first queen regnant in our interpretation) hundreds of years ago. She also invented a recipe for Anna’s favourite snack krumkake.
So, in conclusion: different ideas about the age of Arendelle exist in official material. The theories aren’t even consistent after Frozen II.
Basically, Arendelle could be anything from a little over fifty years old (before Frozen II & Polar Nights) or as much as a thousand years old depending on what exact time period Aren of Arendelle was from. As we’ve brought up in our previous projects Anna & Elsa’s lost family members and Arendelle’s family tree, it is possible that the “ice age” mentioned in both Forest of Shadows and Frozen II refers to the Fimbulvetr, aka. the Mighty Winter, from Norse mythology which is theorised to have happened in 536 AD. If Aren truly was the first Arendellian, the kingdom could easily be 1 300 years old or older.
