In my first real post to the Digest for quite some time (something to do with my wife's kid sister bunking in my study for the past couple of weeks), Mostali gremlins were obviously at work in my last post and the Notes from Nochet entry never made it. Now that my sister in law is safely married, out of my study and indeed sunning herself somewhere in the Maldives on her honeymoon, I've got my computer back again! Attached at the bottom is the missing entry.
Cheers
MOB PS I was going to write a great screed about the hunting/herding cat debate raging at the moment, but my wife - who, in an earlier life worked worked on sheep and cattle stations as a jillaroo (the female version of a jackaroo, the Aussie word for farmhand) - thought it frankly ludicrous that *cats* could be used like working dogs, rounding up livestock. Although my experience of cats is limited to our pet puss Percy (who I suspect would slink off bored after about 1.3456 seconds watching his flock), I'd have to agree with her. IMG, dogs are used by the Orlanthi for such tasks. Domesticated alynxes do pretty much what RW housecats do: whatever they damn please. Wind Lords, tribal kings and the like keep the mountain-lion sized alynxes as a sort of status-symbol, because only they can afford to keep them. Bit like owning an expensive car.
Cheers
MOB
[XXIX.lonely.lozenge/nochet-hippo.1]
The Hippodrome is, to perhaps even a greater degree than the Great Temple
of the Earth, the focal point of Nochet society.
The Hippodrome evolved out of the contests of the Year Sons cult, in which males would strive amongst themselves to be selected as the annual consort for the Harvest Queen, much like the competitions which still said to take place in certain backward Orlanth/Ernalda worshipping cultures*. Each competitor undertook a series of tests to prove their martial prowess and their physical potency.
What with the Pharaoh's debasement of the Corn King cult, these events are now almost completely secular in nature, much to the chagrin of the conservatives. Most of the tests have long since been forgotten, although the tremendously-endowed herm statue at the southern corner of the track is a reminder of the days when the males of the city strove vigorously to prove their virility before the Earth Queens(!). Indeed, of all the events of old only chariot racing remains today (but for a few stylised and now non-competitive contests in a few of the more antiquated religious ceremonies).
Although chariot racing is the only contest left, over the centuries it has evolved into the complex extravaganzas of the present. Chariot racing has become a passion, for male and female alike.
*eg, "The Garhound Contest", see SUN COUNTY or TALES #4.
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