Jacob's blessing on Naphtali is two images in one line: a hind let loose, and one that gives goodly words. Swiftness and speech are an odd pair to assign a tribe, and translators have not agreed on the second half, some reading it as a deer that bears beautiful fawns rather than as eloquence. The Greek and the Hebrew traditions diverge here, and both readings have been carried forward.
Whatever the blessing meant, the tribe's recorded moment is military. Barak, who led the northern muster against Sisera and his chariots, came from Kedesh in Naphtali, and Deborah's song singles out Naphtali and Zebulun as the tribes that risked their lives on the heights of the field, while others are named for staying home. The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Tabor, on the edge of the territory, against an army equipped for the valley floor.
The allotment ran from the north western shore of the Sea of Galilee up into the upper Jordan hills, and it included Hazor, the largest fortified city of the region, and Kedesh, named as a city of refuge. It was hill country facing the routes down from the north, which made it defensible and made it the first thing an army from Damascus or Assyria would meet.
That position determined the tribe's history. Naphtali appears in the record chiefly at moments when the north is under attack, and it disappears from it at the moment when the north finally could not hold.