Orlanthi: Celt or Saxon?

From: Jane Williams <jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 00:30:36 +0100

For Orlanthi, read Sartarite: I don't know enough about other Orlanthi to comment.

Those familiar with my sig won't be surprised to hear that I think the answer's "yes". Or possibly, "no". In fact of course they're Sartarite, which isn't either. The trouble is, we're trying to answer several questions at once here, and they don't all have the same answer. Looks like we agree that we're looking at either Celtic (Welsh, Irish, etc) or Norse (Viking, Saxon, etc) for comparison.

Dividing it up a little:

1) what language is Sartarite based on?
2) what language is it represented by?
3) what historical occurences is/are the Lunar occupation based on?
4) what culture is Sartar based on?

1. The few words of Sartarite published ("yin" = "cat", "argrath" = "liberator") aren't anything like either Celtic or Norse languages (more experienced linguists please quibble!) Most personal names bear no resemblance, either (see the Sartar king list). Some names are given in the format "X Ysson" (but often also as "X, son of Y"), but this is a Norse representation of Sartarite names: the names themselves aren't Norse at all. The only personal name I've found in official sources that to my mind has any Norse or Celtic derivation is "Kallyr". Anything ending in "llyr" has _got_ to be Celtic! Normally Celtic languages use C rather than K, but it's a hard sound anyway and would be pronounced the same. No, it isn't a "proper" Celtic name as far as I'm aware, but can be built up from Celtic roots by the "take two words and stick them together irrespective of grammar" principle. ["yr" = "the", "call" -> "kall" = "wise, rational" - sarcasm, perhaps?]
2. Languages used to _represent_ Sartarite in game terms have to be GM and player-dependant: everyone's got to be able to pronounce them, and that depends on background. I find Celtic-based names easy and Norse ones hard, but clearly this isn't the case for everyone. The one thing we don't want is for the names to sound too much like "normal" ones: no "John Smith"s in Sartar, please! ("Joh Mith" is quite bad enough!)
3. The Lunar occupation of Sartar is to my mind obviously the Roman occupation of Britain. This may be less obvious to anyone who had a less biased Brito-centric education (as I would hope would be the case for the Swedes at least), but to my mind the parallels are striking. Apart from the basic idea of a civilised empire invading a tribal area, we've got:
   * an initial invasion which was successful but not followed up (Caesar/1582)
   
   • a later invasion, intended to be a proper job, using strange beasts to frighten the natives (Claudius & his camels+elephants, the Crimson Bat)
   • tribes using the invader's army to help in inter-tribal squabbles (Cartimandua, Blackmoor)
   • a rebellion led by a red-haired female which had initial success but failed when a competent general was called in (though Boudicca did manage to burn Verulanium, and I don't think the Starbrow rebellion did much mass destruction)

But the Romans stayed for 400 years or so, and only left to defend the main Empire: the natives were actually begging them to come back and protect them. If Argrath was begging Fazzur to come back and protect him from Harrek, that would be similar.

4) Culture. Well, it's tribal and clan based. That covers either Norse or Celtic. There's a law system which is expressed in Norse terms, but could equally well be expressed in Celtic ones if anyone could pronounce the results. (Early medieval Welsh law seems to be full of fascinating stuff: a good source to borrow things from).
* Women are acknowledged as different but technically equal (yes, I know
there's bias), and are accepted as warriors, warlords, and so on. Now this is definitely Celtic! I know there were a few examples of Norse female leaders (Aethelflaed, eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, the Lady of Mercia, is the first example that springs to mind), but they were definitely the exception. The tolerant, non-sexist Sun Domers have a higher ratio of female leaders and warriors than the Norse!
* Sartarites use (or have used) chariots for warfare: again, Celtic, not Norse.

• Orlanthi use woad: need I say more?
• Writing: the mention of "runes" says Norse to most of us. But I believe previous Digests have decided that they aren't a writing system for normal use (please correct if I'm remembering this wrongly). Historically I believe Norse cultures used their own rune system when they wrote at all (yes, the later Christian lot used Latin and Greek, but that wasn't their own cultural way of doing things). Celts seem to have had no written language of their own at the time of the Roman invasions at least. Some writing was done using the Greek alphabet, but the general principle seems to have been that knowledge should be remembered, that writing it down was sacrilege in some way. Sounds an awful lot like the pre-Library L.M.s to me!
• Sartar has proper roads, city walls, impressive public buildings. Neither Celtic nor Norse cultures went in for this. But then, neither did the original proto-Sartarites. That was imported by Sartar, along with writing, kingdoms, trade, civilisation....
• Farming. One of the main differences between Celts and Saxons in Dark Age Britain was that Saxons ploughed the heavy clay lowlands to produce wheat, Celts used a light plough on the uplands to produce barley. (Yes, I expect I have over-simplified, but that's how I read the books). We're told that the heavy plough was one of the things the lowland Sun worshippers have over Orlanthi. And of course the Esrolians are also known for being good at growing things.

The impression I get from all this is that the pre-Sartar Sartarites were basically Celtic. Some aspects have since become out-dated (chariots!). Then Sartar brought in a complete new culture, with writing and architecture (rather like the Romans did to Britain, but peacefully). Sartar came from the general area of Esrolia, I believe.

The way I interpret all this, Sartar brought in a Norse-based culture (with added architecture), and the land of Sartar in 1620 is therefore both Celtic and Norse mixed, with the Celtic elements being regarded as out-dated. As if the Saxons had got to Britain before the Romans made it.

Interesting point for comparison: there are RW places where this happened. Ireland had no (or little) Roman contact: later you hear of "Norse-Irish" armies. The Red Branch sagas are an obvious source of stories, pre-Norse contact: I don't know of anything similar from later periods.

And the Isle of Man (where I've just been on holiday) had no Roman contact at all, but was a major Viking kingdom, ruling a lot of the Hebrides at one point. The Manx language is Celtic (almost extinct now, unfortunately) but its legal system is Viking: they have the world's oldest continuous parliament, which still meets on Tynwald Day to read the new laws to the masses (in Manx, of course!) and to hear complaints from anyone. Could be worth investigation as source material. A lot of the myths are to do with the sea (not surprising on a small island) but a lot more are about air spirits, mysterious underground beings, and trips to the Otherworld.

I represent languages such that Stormspeech = Welsh (Brythonic, where I can manage it), Earthspeech = Old Norse, and the resulting Sartarite = modern English, trying to leave out words obviously derived from Latin (because the Lunars haven't had time to change the language yet). The only problem with this is that the Wolf Pirates are obviously Hollywood Vikings, and should be speaking something corresponding to Norse. Anyone know what language they spoke in Gloranthan terms? And how it relates to the Theyalan group?

Another random thought: should we also be comparing with Heroic Age Greece? Trojan War, that sort of thing? Clan based, pantheons, heroes wandering off doing their thing, no regular army, just a mob out for loot. And it's genuinely Bronze Age, too. Sounds possible to me, but I don't really know enough to make a proper comparison.

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* Jane Williams * The answer to any either/or question is "yes" *

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End of Glorantha Digest V3 #45

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