> Personally, I think all Orlanthi men are happy enough to go hunting
(in the
> proper season) as a "male bonding exercise", "making men out of the
boys",
> or just to get away from the wife & kids for a weekend (taking
along plenty
> of beer...).
>
> RR
I would wonder quite a bit about this.
- The wilderness, even the well known wilderness near steads, has the
potential to be far more dangerous than on earth. And the areas with
enough game to be worth hunting (as opposed to trapping) tend not to
be so close to the stead. The odds of bagging a deer on a day-trip
probably aren't high. Going farther adds tremendously to the
difficulty and risks.
- Most of the men will be very busy around the farm in planting and
harvesting time, as well as just before and after those times as they
prepare/recover. In between is mostly fire season, when you don't
want to be too far from the stead. The rest of the year the weather
tends to be miserable. Late Storm season might not be too bad, but
then you need to be careful not to kill mothers of most species.
- Most animals are fairly hard to kill with spears or bows. Large
scale hunts typically involved using the less skilled members as
beaters to help drive large amounts of game into a killing zone.
Somehow this just doesn't seem to fit with the Heortlings. Maybe
they do it, but it certainly doesn't seem common in the culture.
Also, the very rough land most of them have left as wilderness
doesn't favor this approach.
Having said all that, I imagine that many Orlanthi do get some game,
but it makes much more sense to me that this is more along the lines
of snaring rabbits and trying to bring down grouse in the nearby
woods when you have a quiet couple of hours than in serious hunting
trips. Oh, and in season probably stealing wild eggs from the nest
is popular.
Although I'd agree about getting away from the wife and kids part,
but I'd imagine it being for a couple of hours after you've milked
the cows rather than in heading off to the bush on a serious
expadition.
This all seems fairly logical to me, but when I think about it, this
is also roughly how my great-grandfather and grandfather did it
homesteading and later running a dairy farm (with pigs and a few
horses along with the cows, but no sheep) in northern Ontario (with
three useful fields spread amongst a lot of bush).
--Bryan