From: Peter Larsen (plarsen@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Thu 04 Apr 2002 - 18:08:46 EEST
At 1:26 AM -0500 4/4/02, Michael Schwartz wrote:
>Dougie wrote:
>
>>Is there not room for small one family
>>plus all the cows in the same building
>>steads?
>
>Upon reflection, there *is* room for this kind of arrangement, but it
>would not be a family-oriented dwelling. Hero bands and groups of
>unmarried men (with kayling bonds formed during initiation) sowing their
>wild oats might create "bachelor lodges" on the fringes of a stead. We
>can create those
>trapped-in-a-remote-cabin-in-the-woods-when-nasty-stuff-begins-to-happen
>sort of thrillers... the films "Ravenous" and "Evil Dead" come to mind as
>samples of wintery and chaotic horrors. :)
There's also more than enough room for small "single-family"
dwellings that are used in Sea, Earth, and Fire seasons. I could
easily imagine a shepherd, his wife, a couple of kids, and a spare
young adult or two living in a small building fairly far from the
stead proper to better watch over their share of the clan's sheep.
There is probably a fair amount of communication between this sort of
place and the main stead -- after all, it's unlikely to be more than
a mile or two away and the "cottage" will hardly be self-sufficient.
Other possibilities would be "hunting lodges" -- really shelter for
hunters and (possibly) their families during hunting seasons -- the
hunters (obviously) hunt and the non-hunters gather wood, herbs,
mushrooms, berries, etc. Again, there would be a fair amount of
traffic between these outposts and the stead, but it might be
periodic. "Damn! It's been only 3 days since they brought cheese and
apples up from the stead -- no one will miss us for another 4-5
days.... Friends, we're going to have to kill this chaos by
ourselves."
The bachelor lodges are also good ideas -- after all, Orlanth
wandered and lived away from his kin several times -- young men
should probably do the same thing. There are also no doubt ritual
buildings -- each clan would have a place that could serve as the
"last stead" in the initiation rites, the house where Vinga stayed
for three nights while hunting the Giant, the lonely home where
Hedkoranth met his bride, etc. If you are travelling and seek refuge
from the elements, wolves, bandits, etc in one of these places, you
could have a far more -- otherworldly -- experience than you expected.
Peter Larsen
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