If physical geography is the "unthinking" side of human societies, its
predominance is highly visible where beliefs are part of the fabric of
the land. Not only the Hyborian beliefs in Ishtar - goddess of war and
fertility - but really a Christian belief in
rustic harmony.
This was brought home to me by rereading The Wool-pack, a favorite of childhood, a lusty frolic round the fields and lanes and country houses of the Cotswolds (see
Cider with Rosie). Putting the dastardly Lombard plot to one
side, Cynthia Harnett's field-based ecosystem of village life puts the
likes of Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall) to shame.
In Harnett's tale, the intrigue may be dastardly, but it's only a shadow
over the cheery grace and music of a mercantile life in the wool-trade.
Sheep were smelly things at the best of times, but wet sheep were the
smelliest of all. His clothes fairly reeked, and his mother would be
bound to notice it.
(page 10)
There is always the weekly bath to clear matters up. The faith is part of the fabric, with Vespers, the odd
Ave and grace said at mealtime. The life is mixture of savagery and nobility, with blooded hounds bounding through the deer parks.
He's bred a strain of hound which was the4 swiftest in the country, and strong enough to tackle a stag at bay.
(page 103)
A children's book is always going to be more action-based than the likes
of Mantel, and it is a book about the activities of the body rather
than the mind. A field-based ecology is always going to have its fair
share of dirt and wholesome cleanliness, and this
is really the origin of rustic harmony.
Horses need to be groomed and de-ticked; sheep's wool is an ecosystem in
itself. Taken as a unit, a field - a meadow, a prairie - is a fertile
dynnaimc that is fairly filthy but cleaning to the soul. It is this
harmonic that Man gives thanks to in his rituals.
In other words, the fertility of a filed is an object of worship, be it Ishtar or
the little statue on a carved wooden bracket. From the fertility comes information because - see HB106 -
the strength and grace of a healthy dynamic is a feminine quality (of
the Earth). A masculine order does not have this dynamic; in fact, it
tends to be inert and factual.
Yes, but these "facts", since they're not dynamic, are a product of
weakness. A field is an example of something rough that is perfectly
balanced and a mixture of subtlety and simplicity. From fertility comes
charm and grace and hence the thanksgiving that
is the ritual of Man. It's really the opposite to the modern tendency
of sterilized hygiene, which is simply lack of grace in the field.
The state of grace is where ecology and economy are much closer than
they are today, and there is as belief in Mother Earth - or Mother Mary -
as a symbol of fertility. This was the point of saying in
P106 that worshippers of Ishtar valued information that accorded with their beliefs, since the belief is in the string and fertile.
From this comes dirt and the smells of the field, along with the
perfumes and oils to anoint the sweet sweat of the body. It's a
picturesque ecology with an almost Biblical state of grace. The irony is
that where dirt is allowed to prosper, so does the picturesque,
which is a dynamic of maintaining cleanliness in the field.
A masculine order does not have this dynamic since it is inert and factual. If you go back to P107 on Tout va Bien,
Fonda has a problem because everything is headlines (or sounbites)
associated with the numbers of a sausage-factory. This seems to foresee a
masculine world where number represents everything through the
expressive algorithm (Japanese animated face, prev.) The algorithm will
then tell us a story that is the exact opposite of a feminine dynamic.
Reason
being that number is a type of order whereas a feminine dynamic is a
type of destruction (of order) and represents decay and rebirth in the
field. Dionysus is denied entry to this factory.
Commerce
in the masculine order comes down to number since everything in an
ordered system is numerical, right down to atomic number (prev.)
Everything
is only number in the ordered universe; the feminine shape, the sinuous
line and movement, the androgenous serpent - these are all a priori. The serpent is destruction - slithering chaos. In other words, where there is a belief system in the strength and
simplicity of rustic harmony, then we are entering a picturesque and
feminine land of dance.
It's
in this picturesque sense of movement and line that we find the
Hyborian commercial network of trade-routes. Hyborian lands are
believers in myriads of odd gods and goddesses. In our own age the
sorcerer has gained ascendancy; nowhere is this true in Hyboria. Even in
thrice-cursed Stygia, the picture painted by Howard is of subterranean
chambers and nighted sacrifices to coiling gods hidden from prying eyes.
Robert Yaple, in Hyborian Trade-routes (Savage Sword
#5) barely mentions the presence of Set in Stygia. After all, religious
beliefs are the affair of the people concerneed. They underly the
stability of the commerce on which trade is based.
Whatever a people's belief, they desire goods and they desire profit. As Yaple notes:
Trade with the black lands was very profitable - ivory, copper, pearls,
ostrich plumes, furs and hides, copra, and slaves obtained in exchange
for northern manufacture (especially arms, armour, and trinkets) -
though the bulkiest items would largely have been confined to the
coastal trade in the west and markets on or near the upper Styx in the
east.
While
Yaple's study isn't about belief, it should be noted that - as in
medieval times - strong belief systems underly the picturesque caravans
and silks that trail east to glittering Turan - or fabled Cathay. Our
age is noted for its lack of belief in anything save the sorcerous
number of an acolyte's member.
