I thought the original male Earth deity of Prax was Genert, before he was killed. After his death, I don't know. I'm not sure there is one anymore.
Martin Laurie wrote in #477:
>BTW as someone mentioned, martial arts were a peasant defence tactic,
>developed mostly in places where the ruling classes controlled weapon use=
>and suppressed the peasantry through that.
To my, limited, knowledge, that is true of most modern martial arts. But historically there has existed martial arts developed by warriors for use against warriors. This was so even in Europe, but they disappeared in most places with the high middle ages and the heavy bias towards cavalry tactics. I've had retold to me a cronicle, written by a german cronicler and eyewitness about a battle between the Teutonic knights and the Polish in the 16th century, where a Polish knight, after losing his weapon, fought the German knights and killed a lot with his hands. The teutionics sent forth their (undefeated) melee champion, a huge man whose favourite weapon combo was mace _and_ twohanded sword. The Pole parried the sword with his arm, caught the mace with his other hand and then broke both the arms and the legs of his opponent. The book was called 'The battle of Poland' (in swedish, though) and I have no idea if there is an English translation. I was also told that there were those who trained unarmed fighting tecniques using the edges of your armour to strike with.
Jon
Jon Thorvaldson
Blodstensv.1
S-75258 Uppsala
Sweden
jon.thorvaldson.4851_at_student.uu.se
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