Re: Fyrds massing on the borders

From: plarsen_at_...
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 18:10:36 -0600 (CST)


Phil Hibbs says:

> On p44 of TR, under Combat and Warfare, it says "the fyrd never leaves
> the
> tula, since it's purpose is defence, not raiding or conquest", then goes
> on
> to describe what happens when two fyrds fight each other.

I can think of two answers:
a) It's a ghastly error. I prefer to leave this to a last resort. b) The fyrd doesn't go raiding. In KoDP, we see two kinds of raids -- cattle raids consisting of a dozen or so guys (roughly equally weaponthanes and herders (I suppose; carls at any rate) and raids consisting of most of the weaponthanes and some number of carls. The first is clearly not the fyrd; the second, I suspect, musters under another banner (the warband?). Someone posted something like this recently, but I can't remember who (sorry). If the warband has a wyter, I imagine that it gets pumped up before hand by temporary worship and a sudden influx of people (spending magic in KoDP), making it strong enough to possibly overcome the magic protection of the defending clan's wyter.

I think I'll go with b), unless someone comes up with a better answer.

Peter Larsen

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