Re: Barntar: Son of Orlanth?

From: bryan_thx <bethexton_at_ZvU5AH3BGYlQSvta50W5Jd8HT8YOurxChe1y0pIDgHyign6laQMVi-UC9HmJXfPHI->
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 16:53:22 -0000

Obviously having magic to make ploughing easier can be helpful. However if you are on decent soil it may be just as important to be able to work hard and coordinate everyone involved.

I imagine a Barntar holy day at the start of ploughing time, where a local Barntar devotee blesses the ploughs and teams. Then everyone gets to it. Nobody will plough as quickly and as straight as the Barntar devotee, of course, but they can certainly do the job, and the blessing should help.

Aside from the actual ploughing, of course you also have people planting the seeds, while at that time of year there are others dealing with herds.

Once the planint is done there is plenty of weeding to get done, and fences to mend, and re-thatching of buildings and maybe building some new sheds, and of course always work with the herds. There will be commitments to honor in maintaining clan and tribal buildings, and maybe even roads. There will be time whipping the youngsters into line, and showing them how to do things properly.

There may be cattle raids or raids to deal with, where the ability to work together with family can be a life or death difference.

Eventually you get o harvest time, where sheer hard work and team work are two of the most important elements. Specialized magic would make getting the crop in easier, of course, but hard work and family cooperation will make almost as much difference.

After the harvest is in there will be the fall slaughter of animals, and their butchering and preserving. Then final patches on buildings and bringing fire wood in close to the steads.

As the weather gets worse the work to take care of the herds gets harder (at least they are fewer). It is the time to make and repair tools and toys, to spend time with family, and to deal with minor repairs that only become obviously needed in the bad weather. Once the snow sets it is also time to go cutting fire wood for next winter, as the trees are easier to cut and skid back to the stead.

Eventually spring comes. The sheep need to be sheared, ploughs sharpened, harness made ready, and the whole cycle starts over again.

So while the most critical points of the cycle are helped by Barntar magic, all the other activities are not. Being a good householder who can do a bit of everything and work hard as part of a team, on the other hand, helps a bit with pretty much everything.

Now, in places where there is more active trade and good growing land, Barntar may become more popular. If you can reliably grow an excess of food and trade it for goods and services, then it makes sense to be a specialist. But if you have to do basically everything by "yourself" (actually collectively with others on the stead) then I think being a generalist ends up being more logical.

Just to throw in a quick real world example. My grandfather grew up on a farm in northern-ish Ontario. A new school teacher came up from quite a ways further south, who had also grown up on a farm, and they became sweet on each other. Eventually he arranged to travel down and meet her people. Her father didn't say a lot, but eventually they wandered out to the barn, and her father asked him "So, do you make your own handles?" "Yes sir, I do." "What sort of wood do you use?"  "Maple*." "Not hickory?" "Hickory would be good, but it doesn't grow up around Sudbury." "Ah. Well, I've got a good branch of it here that you could take back with you if you wanted." And that was her father's seal of approval**. My grandfather was a proper farmer in his father-in-law-to-be's view of things, he could make his own handles for tools, and knew his wood, and by inference was a practical man who didn't rely on others for things.

--Bryan            

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