John Hughes wrote:
> A Heortling barbeque is called a sacrifice.
>
> As in the ancient world, very little meat is eaten that has not been
> sacrificed to the gods.
>
> Heortling beef, being a prestige food, will rarely be eaten outside of a
> sacrificial context. You make sacrifice, you have a feast. No wonder
> everybody turns up for holy day ceremonies!
>
> I imagine most Gloranthan cultures are the same. Greg's writings note
> that many in the Empire are almost entirely vegetarian in their diet.
I have always imagined that they always spitroast whole cows or sheep and everyone tucks in. I have included my notes below on Heortling feasts.
The Feast
Heortling feasts are rowdy, boisterous and loud events with eating, drinking, boasting, and fighting the norm! Tribal feasts are doubly so. There is very little decorum, certainly no etiquette, and table manners are out the window. There are customs to be followed however. Even though everyone gets a say and gets fed in the hall where you sit dictates what level of service you get and what is expected of you.
The King's table gets the choicest cuts of meat and the best mead and wine continually flow. You have to have spent a lifetime in high favour to earn the right to sit at the king's table and anyone deemed unworthy will be marched away by the guards.
The table of honour gets the 'Champions Portion', the first cuts of meat from fresh carcasses spit-roasted over the fire. Mead, wine and ale are readily available. Anyone of any rank can sit here if they have done a great and worthy deed. At ploughing or harvest time it is normally the head farmers and the earth priestesses that sit here. At the time of the Great Hunt it is the champion hunters and at other festivals it is the presiding Godi and his entourage. At other times it is the warriors and the Thanes that position here. Everyone expects stories or cattle boasts from those seated here. Sometimes even feats of wonder or danger are performed instead much to the approval of the gathered crowd.
The warriors' table gets most of the meat and the ale. Right of might or prowess, magical or physical, earns a place on this table. It also helps to be able to put up with the more raucous element of the tribe. To most extents this is the crowd to appease as they are quick to show approval or displeasure and are very vocal. They will counter boasts with their own and are quick to show off if they think that they can do better. They are always trying to catch the king's eye as well but often fail outrageously.
The farmers' table is were the carls sit with their gathered families. Clans and bloodlines often sit together although positions change as rival clans and families rise and fall in fortunes. Food fights and even feuds can start as different clans stare each other out over the tables. It is here that news and gossip can be heard as everyone talks and chats to their neighbours in an attempt to avoid the noise from the warrior table. Food here is in easy reach being closest to the cooking pits and the beer barrels although most of the fare is bread, vegetables, and poorer cuts of meat.
Further from the cooking fires are the cottars and their families. These are the hardworking farmhands, the craftsmen, the traders, the shepherds, and the herders. A lot of those will be serving the food and drink but they get the opportunity to sit down and enjoy themselves. They often repeat the snippets of the conversations they have overheard causing many ill-founded rumours to be rife by the end of the feast.
At the poor ends of the tables are where the thralls and strangers sit. The thralls are often still working though helping serve the food and drink and clean up after the guests. They do get opportunity to eat the scraps and the leftovers but normally this is near the end of the feast when everyone else is sated.
Strangers are mistrusted and are customarily not allowed in the hall at all. Most strangers when met undergo a ritual greeting to determine their status. If foes they are attacked or driven off, if kin they are welcomed to the feast at whatever social rank they hold. But occasionally the king's hospitality stretches to include 'strangers', normally those that are strange and are known to the tribe but are outside it, like visiting merchants, vagabonds, vagrants or these that are of the Elder Races.
The feast is an excellent opportunity to get the players to introduce their characters, boasting of their prowess and accomplishments to the ensemble.
Cheers,
DARRAN SIMS
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