Well, no. That's just the sub-set of the full Earth LBQ that I happen to be doing this year. Quite enough for a very inexperienced HQer, I assure you.
(Actually, if for "clean and tidy" one substituted "reduce level of chaos", that might be better.)
I *will* finish writing the full Earth LBQ. Honest.
Can we draw any useful Gloranthan parallels here? Well, Gloranthans tend to take their rituals a bit more seriously than we do, and they tend to have more to do with their mundane lives. So to find that what a Sartarite woman would be doing as part of her mundane life also has meaning for the rituals appropriate for that season is a Good Thing.
What would they be doing? Sacred Time: the end of winter, just before spring. Nothing edible growing. The winter stores are almost gone, and what's left is going off. Everyone's been cooped up together for far too long: quite apart from the squabbles, unless the place is kept spotless that's an invitation to disease. So you try to keep the place tidy, you try to keep everyone fed, and when the men get too quarrelsome you send one of them out for yet more firewood.
This all sounds very familiar: and given the choice, I'll stick to putting up with the in-laws for a few days and fighting my way round the supermarket Xmas eve.
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/
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