A Vingan myth on How we have Linothoraxes

[Ian_W]

This is a story from the Darkness. It is not quite a Vingan story, but it is a story a red-haired daughter will tell you.

Orlanth's Hall was not a happy place during the Great Darkness. Orlanth and many of his retainers had left, to try and rescue the universe with the Lightbringer's Quest, and as saving the universe was very important, they had taken with them most of the weapons, the armor and the things of war in general.

Elmal and Vinga were doing their best, but what could be done with cottars and with stickpickers, who had just hunting weapons and perhaps a few scraps of sheepskins to do for armor as jerkins ?

Polaris' wife, Silonia, who Vinga had rescued from the Sky Palace, was quite concerned with how things were going, seeing as there were almost no armed men left, and everyone left in Orlanth's Hall was either too old, too young, too female, or several of these.

And to make it worse, Ernalda, Orlanth's wife, was asleep and was absolutely not telling anyone what they had to do.

Silonia asked her husband, Polaris, who was busy trying to get the cottars and the stickpickers to stand in the dark outside Orlanth's Hall in straight lines and use their pointed sticks all together, and he said that they were all doing their best with what they had, and that she should get back to the womens quarters and to 'try to preserve her honour' if worst came to the worst.

And once she bowed to her husband as good Sky Tribe women did, and then backed away out of sight, then Silonia gritted her teeth and remembered something now-asleep Ernalda had said. 'There is always another way'. She also remembered something that had been done just once in the Sky Palace, when there had been a great panic over Too Many Painted Horsemen, and she realised to do her wifely duty and preserve her honour she needed to stop being herself for long enough to do what her Husband didn't know he needed. 

She needed to pretend to be the Wife of Yelm, and do more or less what Wife of Yelm did in the Panic Over Too Many Painted Horsemen. Except it needed to be done here, in the Storm Tribe where they do things differently.

So the first thing she did was got together a dozen or so cottars, who were too old or too young to be failing to stand in straight lines and use their pointed sticks together, and she got them to go pick all the half-grown oilseed plants that had stopped growing because the Sun had gone out, and because Flamal was crying over the apparent death of his mother.

The second thing she did was find Storm Bull, who was putting the last of the ale in a bag as he was getting ready to go somewhere far away to do something important, and she said to him 'Storm Bull, of the very muscled shoulders and the very strong arms, my Husband Polaris needs you to dig a defensive pit, about ten steps long and three wide, and as deep as a man's waist on the south side of Orlanth's Hall, and then it needs to be filled with water'.

And then she tiptoed up to him, raised herself on her very toes, as she could as she was a dancer trained in the Sky Palace and said to him 'And before you do that I need you to take your shirt off and give it to to hold me while you do it so I can watch you properly while you do it', and then she whispered something else, and Storm Bull blushed and took his shirt off and ran off in an odd manner to dig the pit as instructed.

She then went off to find one of Gustbran's apprentices, who wasn't doing very much at all, as all the fuel for the fires was being used to keep people something close to warm, and all the ingots of metal had been used up anyway. 

She looked him in the eye and told him to make a life sized clay mould of Storm Bulls' chest and shoulders, as based on this shirt right here. And then she said if he didnt do it by three hours hence, then she'd find a switch and hit him with it between the legs so hard he wished he was back in Alkoth, as that is something she'd heard Yelm's wife say to a gold smith once, back in the Old Country, so she repeated it here, hoping it would work.

Almost everyone in Orlanth's Hall knew Silonia, and they knew she was a quiet and demure woman of the Sky Tribe, who kept to herself in the Womens Quarters, and never argued with anyone in public and always deferred to everyone who was more important than she was, so the threat shocked Gustbran's third best apprentice so much he needed to find a new pair of pants as soon as she was out of sight.

Her next task made her heart run cold, but she said to herself the words she knew that she would never, ever say. She said to herself 'I need to find Eurmal'. 

Now, she knew Eurmal was supposed to be with Orlanth going off to rescue Yelm from Hell, but she also knew Eurmal was an unreliable wretch who always skived off what needed to be done, so sure enough she found him not with Orlanth going to try and save the universe, but behind two doors in the Womens Quarters that he had thought no one else had the keys for.

She smiled sweetly at Eurmal and said 'Great and cunning Eurmal, who knows all the secret paths and the secret ways in the forest, I have an offer for you'.

And Eurmal leered at her, and said 'Keep talking. I might have an offer for you, after'.

And after that, Silonia remembered to forget who she was, and she swallowed her rage and said 'If you go to High King Elf's forest, and get me six armfuls of the branches of pine trees that are most heavy with sap, then I shall dance for you. And if you bring back twelve, I shall dance for you as if you are my Husband, and I will show you what is underneath my dress'.

Then Eurmal the Trickster nearly swallowed his tongue, and then he jumped up, made a very good approximation of a courtly bow of the Sky tribe, and ran off to the Elf King's Forest to look for pine trees.

Silonia then was very glad she was no longer alone in the same room as Eurmal, and she went out to the southern side of Orlanth's Hall, and saw that Storm Bull, still without a shirt, and still with very strong arms and very impressive shoulder muscles, had nearly finished filling the pit with water.

This was good, as the dozen stickpickers and cottars had begun piling up the early harvested oilseed plants in any place they felt like, so she snarled at them 'You worthless little sons and grandsons of people from Raibanth and worse places, stop dropping those where they lay as if you're stupid sheep followers, and put them direct into the Oslir, I mean right into that pit right there, before I make your wife a Countess of Spolit !', and to emphasise she picked up a single strand of flax between her two littlest fingers and dropped it into the pit right next to Storm Bull, who remained very still and exactly where he was, waist deep in water.

Storm Bull she smiled brightly at and said 'Do not you have something to do', and then she turned around before she saw something she shouldnt.

She then headed into the kitchens, and she growled at the Lowfires, whispered something about Valind, who she called by another name, and the Lowfires, who had been so starved of fuel that they had begun eating the floorboards when they thought they wouldnt be seen, burned brightly and that great cauldron of water with a couple of onions and a handful of barley that was called 'soup' began to bubble.

Which was a good thing, as a very bright, cheerful and enthusiastic Eurmal was back with his first armload of what used to be High King Elf's best green pine branches, and so Silonia, who by now was being called Everywoman behind her back when they thought she could hear, and Queen Sun Bitch when they thought she couldn't, growled at two of the kitchenhands 'If you want flesh on your thighs and buttocks, make me Green Branch Soup in that cauldron, boil it down to one fifth and then strain it and boil it down again to one fifth of that'. But to Eurmal she smiled, and he ran off again in a funny manner to raid High King Elf's forest again.

She then went back to the pit that wasn't full of Storm Bull, and so to what we aren't going to call the Storm Bull Pit, but it was full of half ripe oilseed stems and branches and whatnot, and she snarled at this messy, muddy, wood and mud part of the world that her Duty to her Husband had put her in, and she grabbed a handful of stems and branches and she looked at one of the cottars and said 'If you want to live, watch this and do this', and then with her delicate courtly Sky Palace fingernails she stripped the fibers out of the oilseed plants that had been retted in the water and put them into a bucket. 'This shall be flax,and it shall make linothorax, and we shall live'.

Her next stop was Ernalda's loom. This was going to be the hard part, because what was going to be woven wasn't any wool that came off Orlanth's sheep. But it needed to happen, as she was Preserving Her Honour.

She glared at Ernalda's handmaidens, who she had dragged by their ears from crying outside Ernalda's chambers to the Loom Room, and she said 'Watch this, as it is Important', and she then remembered hard what she had seen Dendara do, and she moved the spiked carding plates together with the retted linen fibers between them, and she turned the wet flax fibers into something that could be spun.

Imperiously, she turned to Ernalda's handmaidens and she declaimed 'As you saw me do this, do likewise, but keeping it always damp with water. And then spin it and weave it, as I have seen you spin and weave, but always recalling to keep it damp with water, and your Mistress will thank you for it as she wakes'.

Then, for the first time in Ernalda's spinning room, there was thread spun and woven of things that were not wool from things that drew breath. And after that the Storm Tribe had learned to spin flax, and the Storm Tribe had learned to weave flax, in the same manner and with the same declamations and glares.

It is not my place to tell you if any of those present wondered if they could spin and then weave clouds, or alynx fur, or any other thing.

The kitchens was the next step, and a large pile of green pine branches had been reduced into soup and then reduced further into pine sap glue. Eurmal was also grinning.

She smiled at Eurmal, and told him "Follow me, and bring that cauldron with you", and then proceeded to that room where Gustbran's third best apprentice had finished making a clay mould of Storm Bull's chest and shoulders, and then that apprentice and that mould, and that Eurmal then followed to a room that was near enough to Ernalda's Loom Room to be useful, but not quite near enough that the smell from the hot glue and from Eurmal would get back to Ernalda's Loom Room.

Silonia then placed the first layer of those flax threads that had been retted and then stripped and then carded and then spun and then woven over the clay model of Storm Bull's chest, and then she looked at the pot of glue and thought briefly and said 'Eurmal, can you kindly sit on that chair, and then I will show you the first thing I have promised'.

And Eurmal then showed that neither lightning nor thought were the fastest things in those lands that Orlanth ruled, and he sat on that chair, and Silonia twirled up to him on the tips of her toes and said 'But not yet'.

And then she took a paint brush tipped with boar bristles, and put into the still bubbling pot of pine sap glue, and painted the back of the flax cloth that had been picked, carded, spun, woven and then placed on the mould, and she painted it with glue, and the glue went into a through the fibers and the cloth, and it and the shirt became one thing and began to harden. And then she placed a second layer of flax cloth that had been picked, carded, spun, woven and then placed on the mould at a slight angle to the first one, and then picked up the paint brush tipped with boar bristles and painted another layer of glue on it, so it would become one thing as it hardened.

And she pointed to her retainers, and they placed another layer of linen on the mould at a slight angle to the previous one, and then another layer of glue and then they did it again, and again, and again.

And so that linothorax, based on Storm Bulls shirt, that Gustbran's third best apprentice turned into a mould, than twelve stickpickers and cottars gathered the flax plants for, that were retted in the pit Storm Bull dug, that were boiled in the cauldrons the Lowfires warmed, which the kitchen servants tended, and that Eurmal found the branches that made the soup for ... that linothorax was built.

And then they took it off the unfired clay mould and they all did a second one, and a third one, and a fourth one, and they did so many there were enough for each of the cottars and the stickpickers that Polaris was trying to get to stand in straight lines.

They all wore the linothoraxes that made them look like they had Storm Bull's chest and shoulders, which made them feel very brave, so they were very brave but also due to the very many layers of flax linen cloth and hardened glue, the new linothoraxes made of very many layers of flax linen cloth and hardened glue also saw off spear and arrow points like they were hitting on Storm Bull as well.

So the cottars and the stickpickers were much more willing to stand, whether in straight lines or not, as they felt they had some of Storm Bulls' bravery and courage, and they felt they were armored in Storm Bull's hide as well.

And then when this was done, and the cottars and the stickpickers were standing much better, and were much more able to do what needed to be done, then Silonia looked at Eurmal, and she smiled, and before everyone she stood with her right foot pointing at him, and her left foot at a slight angle faceing left and her left hand bunched in a fist with her forearm against  her chest, and she brought her left foot forward to her right foot with her heels together, and she flicked her hips back and to the left as her lips said in Polaris' voice 'Phalanx left' and then her left foot bounced back a foot length at square to her right foot, and she smiled.

And then her lips said in Polaris' voice 'Shields up' and her left hand curled into a fist, like she was holdong a shield, and her hip flicked and she nearly punched her chin, and she smiled.

Then her lips said 'Phalanx Turn right' and her left heel met with her right, and her right hip turned right and her right foot followed forward a half step and faced right at a little angle, then she nearly punched herself in the chin with her left hand.

And she said 'And this is how I dance for my Husband, for he will get none of you to do any thing that he has not tested on his own Wife first'.

And she then turned the hem of the top of her dress around and said to Eurmal 'And this is what is on the inside of my dress - it is more fabric, which I wear for the honour of my Husband Polaris'.

And then she look Eurmal in the eye and said to him 'And shouldn't you be getting out of here, so King Orlanth isn't too upset with you for being absent as he goes into Hell to save the universe ?'.

Once Eurmal left, shamefaced, she turned around to Gustbran's third best apprentice, and to the twelve stickpickers, and to the Lowfires, and to the kitchen servants and with a nod to the direction in which Storm Bull who had left, and she said 'And, I know that what we have all done helps us preserve all of our honours, because that battle that is about to be fought is not fought not just by the warriors, but also by all those who have made it possible to do what we all have done. And now I must go back to my rooms in the Womens Quarters, and if I have done anything inappropriate, then please help preserve my honour, and tell not my Husband of it'.

And that is how Silonia preserved her honour, and how we can turn oilseed plants into flax, and that flax into Linothorax.

***

The myth is written up in the style of Jane Williams' excellent 'How Polaris Joined Orlanth's Household' here http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/vinga/polaris.cfm as her myths, and thoughts on Vinga, rock.

Clearly, it's a new story developed in time, and sharp eyes with good Lore checks will identify a number of anachronisms in it, not least about why is a Dance goddess the one responsible for teaching Orlanthi how to make linothorax armor.

But Linothorax are really important for hill barbarians, because it is cheap, effective armor for the poor that can be made from plants that are grown in and around the stead, using skills that the women of the stead already have. In rules-as-written, a linothorax costs about a fifth of the cost of metal armor, and works only a little worse - its not really a great choice for weaponthanes, who can afford better, but if you need to put together a scratch defense force out of stickpickers and cottars, then it's close to ideal ... and thus why this myth is told by Vingans.

My view is that linothorax are a Pelorian armor, developed out of the flax growing culture, that got introduced to the area that became the Kingdom of Sartar from the north. I don't think it's God Learner thing, and I feel the EWF would be more likely to be using fancy Dinosaur leathers.

But it definitely came into Sartar during Time, and so it must have a myth that puts it in Godtime, and this is my attempt at one.