Pullman Philip. Once Upon a Time in the North - His Dark Materials by Pullman Philip

Once Upon a Time in the North, a fantasy novella by Philip Pullman functions as a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The premise of the story involves the meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby — an incident originally expected to appear in The Book of Dust:
"I've just finished a short book which will be coming out next spring, probably March or April in this country. It's called Once Upon A Time in the North, and it's about Lee and Iorek. When we see them for the first time with Lyra, Lee is not that old, he's fifty, sixty, something like that, so they know each other for a long time. But I wanted to write a story when they first met as they were young, and I've just written it. I'm making a little book like Lyra's Oxford with extra-bits. I've just been working on it, on a game, a game-board. It's going to be part of that book."