26 replies to this topic

[Mondas]

Is Bran Mak Morn a scottish pict or a hyborian pict from the conan series??

[Kortoso]

The Bran Mak Morn stories take place at a time when the Roman Empire had soldiers in Great Britain (AD 43-410). This is in the historical period and much later than the Hyborian Age of Conan.

[timeless]

Rome had soldiers in Britain a hundred years earlier. Julius "The Man" Caesar landed in Deal on the east coast in 53 B.C., I think it was. I landed there myself in A.D. 1990, had a nice lunch consisting of some kind of smoked fish and four pints of decent lager.

[Axerules]

You're almost right, Timeless.
Julius Caesar made two expeditions to Britain, but a little bit earlier: in 55 and 54 BC.
He's supposed to have landed in the area of Deal beach both times.

[deuce]

You're almost right, Timeless.
Julius Caesar made two expeditions to Britain, but a little bit earlier: in 55 and 54 BC.
He's supposed to have landed in the area of Deal beach both times.

Hey Axe! Both landings played a part in Talbot Mundy's Tros of Samothrace, which was a definite influence on REH. According to Mundy, Julius' forays weren't quite as triumphant as he himself (the great propagandist) portrayed them.

[timeless]

And didn't he chide the 'barbarians' in Gaul and Britannia for drinking fermented grains and hops instead of grape? I gotta tell ya, I've sampled a fair bit of fermented grains and hops in The Netherlands, Belgium, England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. And I'm firmly in the grain and hop camp! Bless the 'barbarians'...

[Kortoso]

So what date would you assign to Bran?

[timeless]

I'm pretty sure the Bran Mak Morn tales take place after Hadrian's Wall was built (construction beginning around 122 or so A.D.) Didn't they mention the wall and fortifications? Hopefully someone 'edjumicated' more than myself will chime in (calling Rusty Burke, calling Rusty...) but I place them somewhere in the 130 - 200 A.D. timeframe.

[deuce]

Well, in the "Synopsis" ("BMM: The Last King", p.245-6), REH places Bran during the usurpation of Allectus,ca. 296-300AD. KEW (with substantial guidance from David Drake) placed BMM ninety years earlier, during the reign of Septimius Severus. Hope that helps.

[timeless]

That's what I like about these forums...invoke an expert, get an expert!

Bravo, Deuce!

[Axerules]

And didn't he chide the 'barbarians' in Gaul and Britannia for drinking fermented grains and hops instead of grape? I gotta tell ya, I've sampled a fair bit of fermented grains and hops in The Netherlands, Belgium, England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. And I'm firmly in the grain and hop camp! Bless the 'barbarians'...

Would you believe that during my studies (mainly in ancient history), we had lessons about wine ?
(I'm exaggerating, those lessons were about agrarian structures and commerce. )


Greeks had already planted succesfully grape circa 600 BC around Phocea. In the "princely" Celtic tombs of the Halstatt culture, we have evidences that it was a luxury product. Celts went back quickly to beer and in the IV and III centuries BC there's no more evidence of wine in Gaul except around Phocea (Marseille). No more "indigenous" demand.
In the II century BC, chianti was introduced (formerly it was retsina), by "Italian" merchants. A huge success. The amphor (Dressel 1) fragments were so numerous that Gauls used them to build walls or pave streets !
And contrary to the common idea, archeologists (Mathieu Poux wrote several books about it) proved that the demand of wine in the first century BC preceded the Roman conquest. Roman merchants strengthened their presence in Narbonensis because of the demand and didn't get rich because of the invasion: they were already there.
It is interesting to notice that from 600-400 BC (roughly) a lot of women ruled in several places (the famous "Princess" of Vix tomb had a lot of drinking dishes) in Gaul and drank wine, it was a period of relative peace (less weapon stores were found), with a less "manly" power and Celt Princes who lived ? la Grecque.
During the IV and III centuries, the Gaulish aristocraty was a cast of more traditional aristocrats, males, who reverted to symbols like weapons, war-chariots, mead and beer.
And a few decades before Julius Caesar's conquest, wine was back in the cultural habits of the Gauls (less than the flow of wine under Roman rule, of course).

My apologies to the original poster if this post was a little bit long and off-topic.
But what do you expect when you talk about wine with a frog ?

About your post, Timeless: Julius Caesar wrote that the Belgae and Helvetii (according to him, the most courageous of the Gauls) did not drink wine because they didn't trust the Roman wine merchants, who had the reputation to corrupt souls. To not drink wine was a kind of resistance against romanization and the Roman influence.

Edited by Axerules, 03 November 2007 - 10:26 AM.

[Rusty Burke]

Well, in the "Synopsis" ("BMM: The Last King", p.245-6), REH places Bran during the usurpation of Allectus,ca. 296-300AD. KEW (with substantial guidance from David Drake) placed BMM ninety years earlier, during the reign of Septimius Severus. Hope that helps. :)

Yes, but as I mentioned in the introduction, on a listing REH made of his stories and characters, he placed Bran about 100 A.D. Personally, I don't think he had a very specific time period in mind for Bran.

Rusty

[timeless]

Yeah, Axerules, sorta like the future Americans refusing to drink tea after the British began taxing it to punish their rebellious colonists.

Actually, doesn't the production of mead predate both wine and beer in Greek and Phoenician history?

Mead is kick-ass, even the commercial stuff produced now and available. It's not necessarily sweet, such as Rhine wine...you can get drier varieties. Maybe ol' Bran enjoyed some himself. It wasn't all for Vikings, y'know.

(damn, now I want some mead...)

Edited by timeless, 03 November 2007 - 02:04 AM.

[deuce]

Yeah, sorta like the future Americans refusing to drink tea after the British began taxing it to punish their rebellious colonists.

Actually, doesn't the production of mead predate both wine and beer in Greek and Phoenician history?

Mead is kick-ass, even the commercial stuff produced now and available. It's not necessarily sweet, such as Rhine wine...you can get drier varieties. Maybe ol' Bran enjoyed some himself. It wasn't all for Vikings, y'know.

(damn, now I want some mead...)

Hey Timeless! I've read several articles suggesting that mead is the primordial alcoholic beverage. All it would take is some troglodyte "cutting" his honey stash with water and voila! ...nature takes its sweet course. Definitely, mead was the primal Indo-European brew. Words for it can be found in almost all of the I-E families, something that can't be said of beer or wine. The original "Aryans" were nomadic. Finding enough fruits or (especially) growing enough grain to "waste" on alcohol production was problematic. Honey is concentrated sugar (ie, "yeast-food"). Still, honey wasn't laying around everywhere. Mead, as a social drink, remained the prerogative of the I-E elites. As I proclaim every time I serve it, "Mead! The drink of heroes...and kings!"

BTW, I brewed up a great batch of mead from "government" honey once.

[Kortoso]

That's what I like about these forums...invoke an expert, get an expert!

Bravo, Deuce!

Well, cheated; he looked in the book!

[timeless]

Damn, now I gotta drive across town to the health food store to get some mead. The only place around that has it.

I'd like to make some sometime. I made a few batches of beer but it was alot of work and the alcohol content was WAY too high.

I liked the scene in '13th Warrior' where the arab wouldn't drink from the offered horn because he was forbidden to partake of anything fermented from grain or grape. The Norseman laughs and hands it to him and says, 'It's made of honey!'

Nice loophole.

Edited by timeless, 03 November 2007 - 05:10 PM.

[deuce]

Damn, now I gotta drive across town to the health food store to get some mead. The only place around that has it.

Hey Timeless! "Health food store"?!? My liquor store three blocks away carries it. Of course, we're a bit more "barbaric" here in SEK. Have fun.

[timeless]

Yeah, that's funny isn't it? The only place around me that sells mead (that I've found) is a freaky health food store. You know, the kind that sells organic everything and weird grains and homeopathic this and that. Most of the clientele and the workers there are the uber-alternative people, the type that try so hard to be nonconformists. You know the old saying, there's nothing a nonconformist hates worse than another nonconformist who won't conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity. Anyway, I'm not knocking anybody, live and let live, but there's alot of hairy armpits there and I'm not talking about the guys. My girlfriend won't let me go there with her anymore because the last time I went I wore my NRA t-shirt and I thought they were going to gather around and stone me like in that Shirley Jackson story.

[Mikey_C]

So now I can justify my mead consumption by saying it's a "health food"? Great news!

[timeless]

Justify away! Raise the glass and toast the lass!