The north-south divide has been the butt of jokes in Britain for years, but research has shown the Watford Gap, which separates the country, was in fact established centuries ago when the Vikings invaded Britain....And then the explanation:
Adams was struck by the absence of Scandinavian placenames south-west of Watling Street, the Roman road that became the A5. “There might be one or two names, but I don’t think there are any, and there are certainly hundreds and hundreds north-east. Clearly the Scandinavian settlers stopped at Watling Street,” Adams said.
“I began to notice that all the rivers’ sources stop pretty much on the line of Watling Street. North-east of that line, all the rivers flow into the Irish Sea or the North Sea. South and west of it, they all flow into the Severn or the Thames.”...I have always thought that people who really love a place show it when they understand the way the rivers flow. But that is dependent on the modern sensibility, in which it really doesn't matter to you which way the rivers flow for the most part. You'd only need to know if you cared about the place. For much of history, and never more than for the Vikings, where those rivers go was a big deal.
“These days, we’re unaware of which way rivers face and where they flow out to. It doesn’t make any odds to us. We just put bridges over them. But, for most of history, such things have mattered. Your natural trading routes are along rivers and all the medieval monastic estates used the rivers as their arteries of power. So clearly the geography of power has always mattered … Geographically, it slaps you in the face as soon as you figure it out.”
I don't often recommend video games, but if you want to get a sense of this, try this historical semi-simulation. It's not super cheap -- you have to buy the base game plus this add on, or else one of the extended editions that includes it. Still, it's got a pretty good map of the western part of the Viking world.
16 comments:
In New England it's usually pretty clear where the water goes. Though may that's just me. I haven't asked too many people.
It may not generalize. In Georgia, some rivers flow to the Gulf and some to the Atlantic. Some join the Chattahoochee and some the Savannah. It's not obvious, when you're in the mountains, which way that little brook you can hop across on the rocks will go. But you meet people who know -- over the years, I have come to know -- and those are the people who really love the place. They've taken care to understand it when they didn't have to do so.
Something similar in a way: Apparently, several cultures around the world (usually indigenous tribal peoples) always refer to cardinal directions- so they never refer to relative directions like "left" and "right", but instead would say to you "can you grab that book to your North?". Obviously, for them, knowing where North was would be second nature, and you eliminate the confusion of 'my left or your left'- good when hunting, say. As those things became less important kinds of knowledge, we went with the easier relative directions.
I imagine that was easier when you walked everywhere, also.
I have the base game, I'll look at picking up the DLC. Thanks for the tip.
Is it good just as a game?
Douglas
Apparently, several cultures around the world (usually indigenous tribal peoples) always refer to cardinal directions- so they never refer to relative directions like "left" and "right", but instead would say to you "can you grab that book to your North?". Obviously, for them, knowing where North was would be second nature, and you eliminate the confusion of 'my left or your left'- good when hunting, say.
At an early age I learned compass directions. I learned to read maps, and observed that the road by our house went in a north-south direction. I learned about the North Star. At the same time, given the curvy nature of most New England roads, right/left directions are usually a better option than compass directions.
That reminds me of some interactions I have with a neighbor. I usually give directions by the compass. As our city streets nearly always align with the compass, this is not off the wall. Downtown is south, for example. My neighbor objects to such directions, as she never learned compass directions. She goes by right,left, etc.
When I recall spending the summer at our grandparents when I was 5, I wonder if there is some gender difference here. We lived out in the country, but my grandparents lived in town, with the ensuing grid of streets. At five years old I walked all around my grandparent's neighborhood and never got lost. My 7 year old sister got lost when walking by herself. She did not like her younger sibling outperforming her- about the only time that occurred.
I'm not a big fan of the combat system, Tom, and combat is a big part of the game. You might like it better. But I enjoy the open-world sandbox element, and they put a lot of research into getting many things right.
Well, that puts me on the fence. I like games that teach me stuff, but if the mechanics are weak, that's going to be annoying. Thanks for the advice.
I seem to remember AVI, a year or two ago, posting about some research showing women tend to ue relative directions and direction by landmark ("turn left, then turn left again right after the gas station...") while men tend to use absolute directions and distances ("turn north, then go half a mile and turn west..."). Something about the possibility that the latter is more suited to cursory hunting over territory you may never have seen before, while the former is better for gathering in well-known places.
I'm not a big fan of the combat system, Tom, and combat is a big part of the game. You might like it better. But I enjoy the open-world sandbox element, and they put a lot of research into getting many things right.
Ironically, I enjoy the combat system well enough (first person melee is never going to be a well developed mechanic save for perhaps in VR), and find the army management and mercantile system more tedious. And while the story mode is better in Fire and Sword than the previous games, it's still fairly shallow. For me, Mount and Blade is a fun little first person skirmish simulator. But that's my opinion, others can (and clearly do) vary.
I like to refer to things by cardinal directions. I have a good sense for those, and of course if I'm outside (or have been recently) I know where those things lie. It's always funny to see people react when you tell them to go to the north side of the room, or something like that -- they look like they realize they ought to know which way that is, and don't want to admit that they don't, so they kind of work through the problem in their head and you can watch it on their face. Almost no one ever gets it right the first time, but if you keep doing it they'll sometimes learn to be able to do it on subsequent challenges.
It's always funny to see people react when you tell them to go to the north side of the room, or something like that.
In my condo complex, the south sides of the building are decidedly hotter in a summer afternoon than the north sides. That is an easy way to orient. While that is the case in the southern part of the US, that wouldn't so much be the case in New England. Temperature extremities in a NE winter would result in the south side of a building being decidedly warmer than the north side, due to solar heat gain.
Which reminds me of a stupid construction decision in my NE hometown. Several decades ago, a guy who made his living building houses decided to be up-to-date and include solar heating on his own house. He put the solar windows etc. on the NORTH side of his house. I don't think he ever lived that down.
Up here, what you want is for porches and deep overhangs to be on the south side of the house. When the sun is riding high in summer, the overhang provides shade and keeps the house cool. In winter, when the sun rides low, it's beneath the overhang and shines into the house, adding light and heat.
Yeah, for the most part, I don't find it hard at all to know which way is which. It only comes up sometimes in big cities. I went up north last week, and at one point I caught a ride with Uncle Jimbo into DC. I knew which way was north the whole time we were outside, but then we entered an underground parking garage that twisted around several times. We parked, caught an elevator up to the lobby, and then another elevator down a hallway to the fifth (and windowless) floor.
I had no trouble knowing exactly how to get back to the car (which was funny, because Jim turned the wrong way in the parking garage and he had parked the thing). But I realized while we were up on that fifth floor that I didn't know which way was north or east. It was surprisingly disorienting for me, given that I gather many people never even think about the question.
Thanks, Mike.
You can just go to youtube or twitch and look for Let's Play of that game via title. Don't have to buy it, just watch it like a video presentation.
This is the "new gen" internet, after all. Up until the EMP crashes it permanently.
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