History, Mythology, Art and RPGs

[Galloglaich]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrcv7kaSUwc[/ame]

I'm about 3/4 the way through watching this film, I had to pause it last night and get to bed but I'll finish watching it tonight. I was a little disappointed at first because I'm used to foreign historical or even fantasy films being a bit more historically accurate. This was not... it seems to be a Russian version of one of those early 80s US fantasy films like Conan or Beastmaster or Krull, it seems to borrow elements from all three. The beginning is almost a direct copy of the first Conan film, (kid in a village, dad making a sword, wasted by demonic bad guy and his goons). The hero has an affinity for animals like beastmaster but in this case it's a bat. Yes that's right, a bat. He has a cute little pet bat which squeaks a lot and crawls around. I haven't seen it do anything else yet.

There are a few girls who are also quite cute, particularly his love interest a slavic princess. The costumes and most of the sets are ridiculous, maybe the same art director as beasmaster (a very similar low budget art department look). Some of the fighting is actually quite decent though, surpirsingly. Seems to be maybe some systema in there or something similar. There is also kind of an interesting take on paganiasm throughout the film, there seem to be very good, very bad, and kind of in between pagans who are neither really good or all that bad.

I kept wavering between turning it off or continuing to watch, but then something would amuse me and I would stick with it a little longer. It seems to have gradually gotten better.

Plusses so far:
Surprisingly decent fighting in some parts
Some beautiful Russian girls
Nice panoramic scenes of Russian countryside
Kinda fun in a goofy way like those old 80's movies

minuses so far:
retarded costumes
dirty medieval caveman look for most people (luckily not the pretty girls though)
retarded sets

I'll add more commentary when I see the rest tonight in case anyone is interested. Anyone else seen it?

G

 

[Galloglaich]

I finally finished Krzyzacy today, the volume I read was all in one book hardback, not the same edition listed on amazon which I thnk is broken up into 2 or 3 books (which is a good idea). It was a challenging read in parts, I can see why some people get bogged down in it. But for me it was a great book, the biggest problems I think are in the translation, which is pretty bad, and the polemical aspects of the book which were mostly just a little around the margins... it's also too long by at least 20% (and makes for a heavy book, which is probably my biggest relief in finishing it, not having to lug the huge thing around any more)

The annual re-enactment of the battle of Grunwald in Poland

There are some really excellent elements to this novel, which is set in Poland and Prussia in the early 15th Century, during the events leading up to the epic Battle of Grunwald / Tannenburg in which the Teutonic Order was routed by a coalition of the Polish and Lithuanians. It is extremely well reserarched and contextualized by modern Western standards when it comes to any kind of Medieval setting. It was written by Henryk Seinkiewicz, arguably the top Polish historical novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, who wrote around the turn of the 19th / 20th Century. He is best known for his 'With Fire and Sword' trilogy about events in Poland in the 17th Century.

The whole thing is built around a well developed and poignant Love-triangle, which goes on a bit long in the book but in it's overall structure is a natural framework around which to build a story like this. The love triangle itself brings out some of the best dialogue in the book, some of which is quite touching.

The two best scenes in Krzyzacy are in the second half of the book, there is a truly masterful set-piece battle, an ambush scene in Samogitia, depicting a running fight between a platoon sized force of Germans and a Company sized force of Poles and Lithuanians; and there is an excellent, brilliantly executed royal hunt scene which goes awry when a crazed aurochs attacks. These were both really well done and cinematic.

Scene from the 1950s film

Among some of the other good scenes, there is a great description of the mighty Teutonic Order castle at Malbork (and it's entire economy and social context) which still stands today in what is now Poland, a very well done judicial combat scene between Zbysko and one of the Teutonic Knights (the only realistic judicial combat I've ever read in any historical novel), a great feast-scene in the huge Teutonic Order castle (a well executed feast-scene is a must for any good Medieval book), a short but well done bear-hunt scene where Zbysko is rescued by the tomboy Jagienka, his thwarted execution scene in the beginning of the novel where the little maiden Danusia throws her veil over his face thus saving his life due to a legal technicality, and the great final battle depiction of the Battle of Grunwald, which has some well executed, lyrical moments but is a bit too polemical.

Malbork Castle, today

There are also some very, very creepy, subtle occult scenes with the rogue Teutonic Knights, done in the third person of people telling stories about them, juxtoposed with their actual goings on... these scenes really had some potential to be further developed, I would call them "Poe-esque".

The devious Sanderos, selling dubious relics and indulgences while trying
to cage free beer (from the film)

Thare are three really well developed Characters with good archetypes, Jagienka the Polish 'tomboy' country princess, Sanderus the devious but likable German monk ( a bit similar to Friar Tuck), and Jurand the formidable Mazovian border riever. Also the two principle villains are good, Danveld and Siegfried de Löwe, the sinister Teutonic Knights.

The two rogue Teutonic Knights whose misguided action lead to the doom of many people including their own...

Other well drawn characters include Hlawa the resourceful Czech squire. Danusia the doomed Mazovian princess, Fulko de Lorche the Chivalrous Lorrainer knight, the hero / protagonist Zbysko and his tough old dad Macko.

The charming and energetic Jagienka (from the film).

Generally speaking the authors facts are very good, the only weak points are some elements of historical combat (mainly just that he overestimates effect of swords on armor). The novel actually has quite a few sympathetic German characters and the overall standard of historical accuracy is very high, higher than in any English or American historical novel I've read set in the Medieval period. All in all I see this something kind of like a "Last of the Mohekans" of the Medieval Baltic, it's really a great story.

To give a taste of what the book is like, I include this passage of what appears to be ringen (Meideval grappling) technique, from the middle of the book:


'The Czech did not understand, it is true, what had happened, but because he had been accustomed to all kinds of danger since he was a child, he percieved danger here. He was also surprised that Danveld, while speaking to him, came nearer and nearer, and the others began to move to the side, as if imperceptably to surround him. For these reasons he began to be on his guard, particularly since he had no weapon, having been unable to catch one up in his haste.

Danveld, meanwhile, got close to him and continued:

"I promised your lord a healing balsam, and he repays me with evil. That is usual, however, among the Poles... But since he is grievously hurt, and may soon stand before God, tell him"-

Here he put his left hand on the Czech's arm.

"tell him that- this is my answer!"

In that same moment he flashed his knife at the squire's throat, but before he could thrust, the Czech, who had been following his movements, seized his right hand in his iron hands, bent and twisted it till the joints and bones cracked - and only when he heard a horrid scream of pain did he put spurs to his hose and shoot off like an arrow before the others could block his way."

Sounds just like some of the HEMA knife defense classes I've attended...

G

 

[Galloglaich]

More high-energy fun from our Slovakian friends

YouTube - Shielhau Krumphau

watch for the sparks

 

[Galloglaich]

haven't been around for a while, but I thought I'd drop by and post this one, it's too good not to spread about a bit.

So one thing you could almost be certain that we have today but did not have in the Middle Ages, is robots. Well, if you believed that, you wouldn't be exactly accurate. In the Medieval period they had their own version, primitive yes, in terms of how they operated, no electronics just clockwork and hand-cranks. But they were sophisticated to an extent which most people today would find surprising, and they were a major part of public entertainment 'back in the day'.

For example, check out this 15th Century Devil Automata owned by the Sforza family in Milan, still on display at their castle in Italy:

Here is a short article about the above device

io9. We come from the future.

and a much longer and better academic article here:

Machines in the Garden | Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts

G.

 

[Galloglaich]

Quote of the Day:

The future pope Pius II was astonished to discover how militarised a society urban Germany was. As he observed in 1444, ‘not only every noble, but even every burgher in the guilds has an armoury in his house so as to appear equipped at every alarm. The skill of the citizens in the use of weapons is extraordinary’.


This is a fantastic article, very helpful to my current research:
Towns and Defence in Later Medieval Germany

 

[Matthew_]

Interesting article. The importance attached to guns as opposed to fortifications especially.

 

[Galloglaich]

Cutting, fencing, and ringen* from Poland, may 2011

With our Swedish friend Axel Petterson

?KUNKS 2011 on Vimeo

watch for the sparks.




G.


* 15th Century German wrestling

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Took a little while to find this thread but I have to comment once again that this is easily one of the best threads on EN World. Whenever I need a little bit of game inspiration, this is the thread I seem to keep coming back to.

Brilliant Stuff!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Galloglaich]

Things that go bump in the night

[FONT=&quot]This is an essay I added to my Baltic book today, wanted to share it here where some people might find it amusing. - G
[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]==================================
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Things that go bump in the night[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Stranger and more sinister legends and perhaps traditions abound in the Baltic. One common theme are so-called werewolves. For example the 16th Century Swedish Historian Olaus Magnus relates that:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]"On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above another in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves... Between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland are the walls of a certain old ruined castle. At this spot congregate in the thousands, on a fixed occasion, and try their agility in jumping. Those who are unable to bound over the wall, as; is often the case with the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Like so many records from this era, such stories (which were fairly common) could be interpreted a number of ways. There are records of farmsteads discovered which had been wiped out during the winter of course, but this could be due to any number of reasons, sometimes it does appear to have been wolves, though the anecdotes above sound more like desperate bandits or outlaws who have reached the point of starvation and perhaps insanity…. One might say lunacy. Such tales of people reverting to wolflike behavior (and costumes) during hard times go way back in the Baltic, for example Sigurd Dragon slayer in the Viking-Age Saga of the Volsungs. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Outlaws are also legally associated with wolves going way back. In Saxon common law, when someone was made outlaw (one of the worst punishments) a "Writ of Outlawry" was read, with the pronouncement Caput gerat lupinum ("Let his be a wolf's head," literally "May he bear a wolfish head") literally equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law. He could then proceed to the forest where he must fend for himself. Interestingly this was also a sentence frequently passed onto Berzerkers in Viking times. In pagan Latvia there was a class of unwed male warriors called vilkacis who were associated with wolves in a manner similar to the Norse Ulfhednar Berzerkers.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]A possible bridge between the idea of an outlaw and that of a member of a mystical warrior subculture can perhaps be found in the [FONT=&quot]Roggenwolf[/FONT] ('rye-wolf') of German rural folklore. This is a demon that lives in grain fields and ambushes peasants, strangling them. This sinister creature is represented at harvest-time by the last sheaf, which is called 'Wolf' and tied up to nullify its malignance (in a ritual which mirrors the more positive version of what is done to prepare for the arrival of Frau Holda on 12th night in the Alps). Coincidentally, the fungus ergot, which grows on rye especially when it rains too much sometimes goes by the euphemism [FONT=&quot]Wolf[/FONT] or [FONT=&quot]Wolfszahn[/FONT] ('Wolf-tooth'). It certainly has a bite, ergot is a strong hallucinogen similar in potency to LSD which is actually derived from ergot alkaloids. Its effects were well known to alchemists and physicians in the Medieval period, who knew it as St Anthony’s Fire.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]On the other hand there may be no connection between these things at all. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]The reality of this legend described by Olaus Magnus may be as simple a mistranslation of local complaints about outlaws. Or it could reflect wolves showing a bit more cunning and determination than people expected from them during a hard winter, or outlaws showing a bit more ferocity and cruelty than would normally be associated with ordinary Outlaws under the same circumstances. Thus lurid tales are invented. One thing is for sure, it could sure get creepy real late at night in the dead of winter in a small farmstead deep in the Prussian forest…[/FONT]

 

[Galloglaich]

Who built the Goblin holes and why?

This is really cool

Hideouts or Sacred Spaces? Experts Baffled by Mysterious Underground Chambers - ABC News