stylistic:style_transfer
Physical appearance and personality

He was described as “tall and slender with a prominent chest, wide shoulders, long neck, and high forehead. He had black hair, fiery eyes, and a powerful voice.”

Rather than challenge or break him, the brutal Janissary training young Skanderbeg was subjected to only complemented what was already in his soul: a penchant for war. Before being taken hostage, in his youth as an adolescent, he used to “vigorously train himself on the crest of Mount Croya or elsewhere. Come blizzard or frozen hell, he would then choose to sleep over improvised beds of snow. In the scorching heat of summer, he would again and again keep hardening himself like an invincible guerilla.”

Accounts of his legendary strength state that his sword swing could, like Godfrey of Bouillon, cleave a man or animal in two.

Marin Barletius, a contemporary and chief biographer of Skanderbeg, provides one of the earliest descriptions of him. After a Tatar who was envious of a young 21 year old Skanderbeg's growing reputation at the Ottoman court challenged him to a duel to the death, the Albanian stripped to his waist and warned his boastful contender not to violate the rules of honor:

Scanderbeg, both by voice and countenance, betrayed a wonderful resolution and assurance. And the audience was impressed with his manly perfection. His arms looked as if nothing like them had ever been seen. His neck was strong and somewhat bending, such as possessed by wrestlers. His shoulders were big and marvelously spread. The color of his visage was fair and white…. And the cast of his eyes was straight and pleasant, without any blemish or imperfection…. Like Alexander the Great, he was built like a giant. Physically he was invincible.

During their match, Skanderbeg struck off his opponent's head with a sword swing and held aloft the severed trophy before Murad, thereby winning the sultan’s favor.