From: David Dunham (dunham@pensee.com)
Date: Sat 06 Jul 1996 - 06:04:25 EEST
Joerg Baumgartner wondered
> Do Gloranthans use charcoal? What for?
I'm no expert, but I'd be pretty sure they use it for forges. Here's a
quote from my Irish research:
A mruigfher (land man), one step above boaire, had "a whole plow and six
oxen, a share in a mill that was enough to let him grind not only for his
family but for guests, and he had 'the tools for use in every season, each
one of them unborrowed.' In his house he had all the cooking equipment he
could need, 'including irons and trays and mugs, so that he does not have
to borrow them.' He had a whole plow with all its gear, his own kiln, barn,
and outhouses, charcoal for iron-work when a smith came around, and
sea-salt for preparing meat for storage. His sheep pasture was supposed to
be large enough to graze his sheep without moving them -- in other words he
did not have to get involved in joint herding with other farmers who moved
their flocks around in the 'circuit of grazing.'" [Nerys Patterson, Cattle
Lords and Clansmen, p. 197-198]
It may be that working bronze doesn't require charcoal, though the
occasional iron work probably does (or lots of magic).
BTW, this rank was essentially upper middle class.
Carl Fink complained about MIME encoding. I recently ran across a message
which strongly indicated that Microsoft Exchange is to blame. I don't want
to start a system war, but those who use that software might want to
triple-check the settings.
David Dunham Pensee Corporation dunham@pensee.com
Voice/Fax: 206 783 7404 http://www.pensee.com/dunham/
NO ZUKES! Stop zucchini proliferation.
------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 16:51:22 EEST