Re: Can Heortling farmers count?

From: Pomeroi <pomeroi_at_...>
Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2013 19:18:09 +0100

On 09.01.2013 18:56, bryan_thx wrote:
> Can a Heortling farmer figure out what 63 x 17 is? Sure, he asks the Issaries trader :) More seriously, would he ever need to know that? If it ever did really become important he could probably fall back to some counting method using markers which would eventually get him an snswer like "It is seven gross, five dozen, and three. And by Orlanth's beard you'd best get me some ale now because that is thirsty work!"

Perhaps he wouldn't know (exactly) 63 x 17, but he would know the value of a sheep (whatever this is!) times the number you want to buy!

>
> However, manipulations that he'd need to do more commonly, he'd probably either have memorized or have some trick for calculating. So, for instance if the rule of thumb is (and just making up numbers here--I have no idea), that you need four cows in the herd to maintain having a strong plough ox, and you need six oxen per plough team, then he'd have some way of counting by 24s and doing basic muliplication and division that way most likely--If he heard that the Grey Goose clan had such rich land that just one of their steads kept six dozen hides of land under plough (a hide being the amount one plough team can handle in a year), then he'd quickly know roughly how huge their herds must be.

In Germany you have a name for this. "farmer(peasant/countryman)'s wit" I dare to translate. It means exactly this kind of knowledge, plus some special cunning essential for the survival of this class.