Thanks so much for reading! I know that was a long chapter, but it contains a lot of relevant info and sets up a lot of future action, so I'm glad you suffered through it ;-)
And that potion is an actual ancient cure (medieval, actually, but i'm assuming it has a deeper history) and when tested it has been found to kill MRSA! I remembered reading about it ages ago and I had to borrow it!
That’s so cool! Things like that really take the worldbuilding to the next level. I thought this chapter was very realistic and necessary.
It wasn’t your writing or the chapter that kept me from reading btw. It was a bit longer, but I made the mistake of stopping at the break points. And the Substack app makes it entirely too difficult to navigate back to the Home Screen. Also, the app doesn’t have the main navigation menu like the Substack web page does, so my method of finding where I left off is to click on your most recent chapter, click the link to go to the introduction, find the chapter from that table of contents, and if I’m lucky it’ll remember where I was in the chapter. I hope they improve these features for us fiction writers!
But I also blame myself for not taking the time to just read a whole chapter in one sitting.
I don't blame you for not reading the whole thing at once. Some of the chapters are long. In retrospect, I probably should have broken them up.
As for the app, I am not having much luck with navigating it. I opened a post in it the other day and every button I pushed was the wrong one :-\ I think I'm sticking to the website for now!
Harrowing opening to this scene! I like the subtle gesture of the guy holding up 3 fingers to alert the others in the tent of how many people were outside.
I was just thinking of something. Do you think they might have covered the felt tents with animal hides? A few years ago I read a book about the ill-fated Franklin expedition. One of the things the author highlighted was that the members of the expedition only had felt coats which were evidently not terribly effective in arctic conditions. I think the Mongols’ yurts were smeared with animal fat to help keep the wind out. Did you ever see the Russian film, “Mongol” that came out in 2007. That film has quite a few spectacular scenes in Mongol tents. I Genghis Khan is centuries removed from your story, but it does a good job capturing the awesomeness of the Eurasian Steppes and the mysteriousness of the shamanistic and totemic practices of the people.
By the way, Winston showed me in the Substack where you can group poetry lines together as they would appear in a book of poetry by using the “poetry quotation” menu option in the edit mode. At the moment, the incantation at the end of this chapter has a space in between each line.
Thanks, Daniel! That's an interesting question. I think there's some mention that the covered wagons may have been covered in animal hide or leather (perhaps because it was sturdier?), and there's good reason to assume it would have been used in some of the tents where felt was unavailable. But the very thick, dense felt used in yurts has been shown to have some special properties that make it uniquely suitable. Wool felt is naturally water resistant due to the denseness of the interlocking fibers and the natural oils. It is also fire-resistant, and will only smolder when exposed to a flame. And it provides some level of insulation. It would also make sense that they used some additional waterproofing, the way one might wax canvas today. I'll have to look more into the Mongol customs around this. But it was a relatively cheap, renewable product that was easy to make and had a lot of advantages.
As far as clothing, there are a lot of references to them wearing hides, so I think in the cold weather they wore animal skins and furs. I'm shocked that an Arctic expedition didn't do the same! But they also wore decorated textiles and felt. The season and occasion probably dictated.
I haven't seen "Mongol", but I'll have to check it out! And that's a bummer because I thought I put that verse in a poetry block, but it must not have stuck. Which is why I should probably read stuff again after I post it... Lesson learned :-| Thanks for letting me know!
So happy Aric pulled through. Thanks, Ana, for your special potion! They make a good team. Great chapter.
Thanks so much for reading! I know that was a long chapter, but it contains a lot of relevant info and sets up a lot of future action, so I'm glad you suffered through it ;-)
And that potion is an actual ancient cure (medieval, actually, but i'm assuming it has a deeper history) and when tested it has been found to kill MRSA! I remembered reading about it ages ago and I had to borrow it!
https://www.iflscience.com/garlic-onions-and-cow-stomach-medieval-remedy-todays-superbugs-27732
That’s so cool! Things like that really take the worldbuilding to the next level. I thought this chapter was very realistic and necessary.
It wasn’t your writing or the chapter that kept me from reading btw. It was a bit longer, but I made the mistake of stopping at the break points. And the Substack app makes it entirely too difficult to navigate back to the Home Screen. Also, the app doesn’t have the main navigation menu like the Substack web page does, so my method of finding where I left off is to click on your most recent chapter, click the link to go to the introduction, find the chapter from that table of contents, and if I’m lucky it’ll remember where I was in the chapter. I hope they improve these features for us fiction writers!
But I also blame myself for not taking the time to just read a whole chapter in one sitting.
I don't blame you for not reading the whole thing at once. Some of the chapters are long. In retrospect, I probably should have broken them up.
As for the app, I am not having much luck with navigating it. I opened a post in it the other day and every button I pushed was the wrong one :-\ I think I'm sticking to the website for now!
Harrowing opening to this scene! I like the subtle gesture of the guy holding up 3 fingers to alert the others in the tent of how many people were outside.
I was just thinking of something. Do you think they might have covered the felt tents with animal hides? A few years ago I read a book about the ill-fated Franklin expedition. One of the things the author highlighted was that the members of the expedition only had felt coats which were evidently not terribly effective in arctic conditions. I think the Mongols’ yurts were smeared with animal fat to help keep the wind out. Did you ever see the Russian film, “Mongol” that came out in 2007. That film has quite a few spectacular scenes in Mongol tents. I Genghis Khan is centuries removed from your story, but it does a good job capturing the awesomeness of the Eurasian Steppes and the mysteriousness of the shamanistic and totemic practices of the people.
By the way, Winston showed me in the Substack where you can group poetry lines together as they would appear in a book of poetry by using the “poetry quotation” menu option in the edit mode. At the moment, the incantation at the end of this chapter has a space in between each line.
Thanks, Daniel! That's an interesting question. I think there's some mention that the covered wagons may have been covered in animal hide or leather (perhaps because it was sturdier?), and there's good reason to assume it would have been used in some of the tents where felt was unavailable. But the very thick, dense felt used in yurts has been shown to have some special properties that make it uniquely suitable. Wool felt is naturally water resistant due to the denseness of the interlocking fibers and the natural oils. It is also fire-resistant, and will only smolder when exposed to a flame. And it provides some level of insulation. It would also make sense that they used some additional waterproofing, the way one might wax canvas today. I'll have to look more into the Mongol customs around this. But it was a relatively cheap, renewable product that was easy to make and had a lot of advantages.
As far as clothing, there are a lot of references to them wearing hides, so I think in the cold weather they wore animal skins and furs. I'm shocked that an Arctic expedition didn't do the same! But they also wore decorated textiles and felt. The season and occasion probably dictated.
I haven't seen "Mongol", but I'll have to check it out! And that's a bummer because I thought I put that verse in a poetry block, but it must not have stuck. Which is why I should probably read stuff again after I post it... Lesson learned :-| Thanks for letting me know!
Thanks so much! That's exactly the balance I was hoping to strike.