> Wulf wrote:
>
Children will of
> course be learning from the adults around what responsible
behaviour
> is, their play will probably include pretend rituals, just as it
will
> wooden swords, cut-down tools etc. But without understanding the
> inner secrets of the religion they cannot use the magic any more
than
> a forigner who has not been initiated into the secrets could.
>
> They will have the chance to prove they are adults and learn the
> inner secrets at initation.
>
Of course, as revealed in Thunder Rebels, many boys won't be
initiated until their late teens (initiation of boys in many clans
only every 4 or 5 years, no earlier than age 14). So you are going
to have a whole lot of 16, 17, 18, even 19 year old "children" being
told they can't take part in the really important stuff (i.e. magic),
can't join the fyrd, can't formally start a profession, can't court a
girl, and incidently can't have sex. My god, it would be
like........like........suburbia!
On a semi-related topic, boys who go through initiation together
will, I'm sure, tend to have a common bond. I'm sure that the
heortlings term or phrase for these blocks or groups of boys. For
that matter, there is probably terms for the various years within the
block (think of american schools with
their "freshman/sophemore/junior/senior" designations).
Anyone have suggestions as to what those terms could be? For that
matter, how important will these groups be in the politics of the
warband/fyrd/clan etc.
--Bryan