![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Holidays, real and Emirikolian
Nov. 24th, 2006 08:19 amIn the early morning hours I struggle with the post turkey coma and contemplate how to clean the house. Breakfast was tea and toast, and we have a lot of rearranging to do to recover from a clan of 15 yesterday. The weather, traffic and work led to some people being later than we would have preferred, breaking the flow of the day, and while it's nice that everyone wants to help in the kitchen, the kitchen is not large enough for everyone to who wants to help. Plus, the T shaped table arrangement did fit everyone, but so hindered communication that we shan't be repeating it.
Emirikol, as fits its nature as a city out of step with the rest of the orderly empire, celebrates a major holiday that the rest do not - Libertad - which celebrates the day the barony of Ferrantino was reclaimed from the forces of chaos by the imperial army 299 years ago. Ferrantino had been the only city at the mouth of the Rheel at that time, built as a haven for Loremasters... who were probably pretty darn embarrassed when they didn't divine the existence of the approaching armies until it was too late. The woody parts of the city were torched, the books were burned in great heaps and the stone library was used as a stable for the beast-men's horses. Eventually a garrison was left in Ferrantino as the chaos armies swept southward, and it was over two human generations before the city was reclaimed (plenty of time for the chaos cults to take root in secret amongst the populace, leading to that plethora of chaos crypts under and around the city).
Originally Libertad was celebrated only in the Ferrantino quarter, but as the other baronies grew up around it (the result of land grants to some of the generals) it became part of the overall city life. Known as a time for celebration, plenty and the loosening of social bonds, this autumnal holiday is a time of masquerades, feasts, drunken brawls and large family gatherings of those who give thanks that the forces of chaos were beaten back... never to return.
Pshaw! Yah, right.
Emirikol, as fits its nature as a city out of step with the rest of the orderly empire, celebrates a major holiday that the rest do not - Libertad - which celebrates the day the barony of Ferrantino was reclaimed from the forces of chaos by the imperial army 299 years ago. Ferrantino had been the only city at the mouth of the Rheel at that time, built as a haven for Loremasters... who were probably pretty darn embarrassed when they didn't divine the existence of the approaching armies until it was too late. The woody parts of the city were torched, the books were burned in great heaps and the stone library was used as a stable for the beast-men's horses. Eventually a garrison was left in Ferrantino as the chaos armies swept southward, and it was over two human generations before the city was reclaimed (plenty of time for the chaos cults to take root in secret amongst the populace, leading to that plethora of chaos crypts under and around the city).
Originally Libertad was celebrated only in the Ferrantino quarter, but as the other baronies grew up around it (the result of land grants to some of the generals) it became part of the overall city life. Known as a time for celebration, plenty and the loosening of social bonds, this autumnal holiday is a time of masquerades, feasts, drunken brawls and large family gatherings of those who give thanks that the forces of chaos were beaten back... never to return.
Pshaw! Yah, right.
