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HARD KIT
The larger
belt pouch was also part of my Yule 2020 extravaganza from Elleth, though it was in an unfinished ‘kit’ state when received. While I briefly tried using it as part of my hobbit kit, recent further research led me to feel it didn’t fit the style. However, with a rolled goat leather toggle (matching my belt knife’s sheath loop) it works great as a simple backwoods native pouch. (The fine quality of the stitching is probably too fine for the culture, but if I’m going to replace it with larger stitches, that’s a very low priority).
Contents are still under construction, but currently: a goose wingbone fire-bellows, spare tunic pin, birchbark, knuckle-bone fishhooks, and a catfish awl.
Things I need to add: tinder fungus I’ve slowly been processing into proper amadou, bone needles, sinew thread, some kinda snacks.
A small
pack basket with a fingerwoven hemp/braintan tumpline holds various goods needed for longer travels.
The two
waterskins are reskinned botas (with plastic bladders – I don’t care, fight me
with horn mouthpieces and wooden stopples. All I had to do was take the leather covers apart, replace the vinyl strip with some deer leather, and sew together inside out. The cover is lashed onto the plastic mouthpiece with sinew cordage (tightens as it dries).
Since I did not include the strap-retaining tabs when reassembling, one is carried in a faux-limebast net bag with diapered braintan strap (matches my quiver strap).
Weapons:
"In the forest of Brethil Halmir, lord of the People of Haleth, gathered his men, and they whetted their axes..." (
Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 20).
The expected variety of traditional ancient weapons are represented in the pre-Númenóreans and their mother-culture. The Haladin wield axes in war (Quenta Silmarillion Ch 20) and bows are used on their homesteads (The Drúedain: The Faithful Stone; UT Narn). The spirits of the White Mountain Oathbreakers are seen to carry swords and spears, the latter even carried by the ‘king of the Dead’ (LR V:2, V:9). As a very late example, during the War of the Ring, Saruman arms his elite anti-Rohirrim Dunlendings with axes (LR III:7; UT Fords of Isen)—possibly due to this people's long familiarity and skill with them, or possibly just because they're the best tools for fighting armored Eorlingas! Our final data point raises some questions: we read that Tal-Elmar “knew nothing of bows" and carried only a "casting-stone: presumably, this implies he carries a sling. We must wonder: the folk of Haleth clearly have bows in Beleriand (Faithful Stone), but did the pre-Haladin have bow-knowledge on their westward march? If not, was the bow only developed by remnant daughter groups (such as the men of the Gwathló) once they settle? Is Tal-Elmar’s unfamiliarity with bows a result of life on the coastlands? As his own people seem to be the worst kind of backwards, isolated, insular, and in decline…did they lose their knowledge of bowyery?
For attacking colonizers at distance, I have my
longbow and a quiver of split reed and cattail cord, with a diapered braintan strap. Arrows are hazel and tipped with strap iron. For taking fowl along the river, I also have a braided deerskin sling.
For close fighting, I’ve chosen to carry a simple
bronze palstave axe, based on the above description of the Haladin readying for battle. As axes are a fairly basic tool, we can assume they were known to the pre-Haladin traveling west. Mine is hafted on osage with deer rawhide and set with pine resin glue.
Whatever their material, the Gwathló region was heavily forested before the coming of the Númenóreans, and assuming their lifeways follow that of the Haladin, axes would be commonplace for felling trees for slash&burn agriculture as well as for homestead construction.
Belt knives:
To show the progression of the pre- and post-Númenórean periods, I also have a Type IV ‘Danish dagger’ knapped by Ed Moser, which hangs out in an Ötzi-type bast sheath I made, and a belt knife with damascus cable blade forged by MERF member Eric C: small blades like this would likely be the type of tradegood brought by the early Númenórean colonists, described in Tal-Elmar, to be hafted according to the local style by the natives:
“The High Men of the Sea… came in boats… greater than great houses … and they bear store of men and goods… they will send forth smaller boats laden with goods, and strange things both beautiful and useful such as our folk covet. These they will sell to us for small price, or give as gifts…”
The handle is split oak, secured with pine pitch, wrapped with nettle cordage and dipped in pine tar. The sheath is goat leather with a rawhide liner, with a rolled toggle to match the belt pouch.
Other hard kit
-Assuming that the Greyflood and its tributaries are nearly pristine before the coming of the Númenóreans, I probably really don’t need the waterskins, and could just drink from my trusty
birch noggin (as fresh water would be plentiful!), but they allow me to use iodine tabs.
-This impression is a great excuse for me to finally dip my toe into bowdrill or spindle firestarting.
-While we are told the Haladin were slow to adopt new things, I’ve included two spoils of war taken by this 'anti-Numenorean insurgent' from a fallen Venturer.
Brooch:
The creation of the Numenorean brooch was a collaborative effort between MERS members. The decorative motif comes from one of Tolkien's 1960s doodles suggested to be pins or brooches, published in Maker of Middle-earth, p. 195. This was rendered digitally by Caedmon, and was cast in silver-plated bronze by Odigan; I applied enamels (of which I had plenty leftover from the karma project) to match Tolkien’s doodle.
‘
Karma’ helmet:
For more on this, see
EOTW Fall 2022.