#lunellum rambles

[lunellum]

Today in: I have noticed something inconsequential and have decided to go find fault with it...

I see a lot of people call this: :(

frowny face smily

it doesn't have eyebrows. frowning is an eyebrow action. therefor, this is not a frowny smily. >:( might be a frowny smily. :( is just a sad one.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[lunellum]

Also, there is no "original" version of (many) fairy tales. There are just... versions. They are the result of a long and varied oral tradition, which means there is no definitive, known starting point that we know or can determine. (There are branches of academia that try but they can only speculate)

Plus, as the above alludes to, many fairy tales can be categoried as a type or pattern of story. These types (basic story structures) are surprisingly common and pop up in many different regions and cultures with many variations. None of those variations are more "original" than any others.

The first time you can put a concrete date on a fairy tale, as above, is the first time they get written down. But it's important to remember that is the first *published* date. Because they originate in an oral tradition, they probably existed for a long time before they got written down, so the first published date is their *minimum* age.

(If you want to know more about the fairy tale types (from a white, EU perspective), look up the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index. It's pretty fascinating. Also a fun resource for making up folktales when worldbuilding)

I’m tired of hearing people say “Disney’s Cinderella is sanitized. In the original tale, the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to make the slipper fit and get their eyes pecked out by birds in the end.”

I understand this mistake. I’m sure a lot of people buy copies of the complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, see their tale of Aschenputtel translated as “Cinderella”, and assume what they’re reading is the “original” version of the tale. Or else they see Into the Woods and make the same assumption, because Sondheim and Lapine chose to base their Cinderella plot line on the Grimms’ Aschenputtel instead of on the more familiar version. It’s an understandable mistake. But I’m still tired of seeing it.

The Brothers Grimm didn’t originate the story of Cinderella. Their version, where there is no fairy godmother, the heroine gets her elegant clothes from a tree on her mother’s grave, and where yes, the stepsisters do cut off parts of their feet and get their eyes pecked out in the end, is not the “original.” Nor did Disney create the familiar version with the fairy godmother, the pumpkin coach, and the lack of any foot-cutting or eye-pecking.

If you really want the “original” version of the story, you’d have to go back to the 1st century Greco-Egyptian legend of Rhodopis. That tale is just this: “A Greek courtesan is bathing one day, when an eagle snatches up her sandal and carries it to the Pharaoh of Egypt. The Pharaoh searches for the owner of the sandal, finds her and makes her his queen.”

Or, if you want the first version of the entire plot, with a stepdaughter reduced to servitude by her stepmother, a special event that she’s forbidden to attend, fine clothes and shoes given to her by magic so she can attend, and her royal future husband finding her shoe after she loses it while running away, then it’s the Chinese tale of Ye Xian you’re looking for. In that version, she gets her clothes from the bones of a fish that was her only friend until her stepmother caught it and ate it.

But if you want the Cinderella story that Disney’s film was directly based on, then the version you want is the version by the French author Charles Perrault. His Cendrillon is the Cinderella story that became the best known in the Western world. His version features the fairy godmother, the pumpkin turned into a coach, mice into horses, etc, and no blood or grisly punishments for anyone. It was published in 1697. The Brothers Grimm’s Aschenputtel, with the tree on the grave, the foot-cutting, etc. was first published in 1812.

The Grimms’ grisly-edged version might feel older and more primitive while Perrault’s pretty version feels like a sanitized retelling, but such isn’t the case. They’re just two different countries’ variations on the tale, French and German, and Perrault’s is older. Nor is the Disney film sanitized. It’s based on Perrault.

[lunellum]

Hello, this is a pinned post. I'm making this because I keep losing my own tags. I'm terrible at tagging consistently but some personal tags as tagged on this post.

Also I try to tag for some main fandoms (murderbot, imperial radch, the adventure zone, star wars, LotR, dungeon meshi) but no promises

[lunellum]

There really is a thing with 80s/90s media franchises and nephews/cousins. I wonder where that came from.

[lunellum]

🎇the veil is thin ✨

Yes it would be, by virtue of being a veil. Otherwise it would be a curtain.

[lunellum]

Oh! This looks very much like the "restglazen" (leftover glasses) they have in the church in Gouda. I'm not sure if that's where this specific one is but it could very well be.

A brief bit of history: the main church in Gouda (Sint Jan) has 72 stained glass windows, 61 of which are 16th century. So technically renaissance rather than medieval, but still quite old.

This one church has about 60% of the stained glass for that era in the Netherlands. It was originally a Catholic church but it was converted to a protestant church right in the middle of the production of the windows. This could have been a disaster for the windows (look up beeldenstorm, art was frequently destroyed) but the new tenants decided to keep the windows and finish the production. Then in WW2 the windows were all taken out of the church and stashed in a bunker in the dunes to protect them should the city get bombed.

Regarding the the picture above: the church has a display of several mosaic windows. As far as I'm aware most of them are made from scraps after repairs and restorations and when things break. There may be some bits of windows from other churches mixed in. They are generally real period glass, mosaiced into a pleasing arrangement.

Mosaic of medieval stained glass

[lunellum]

This is one of those pointless small details that drive me up. a. wall.

I think another reason why people get it so wrong is because they assume they know 1) when paper was invented (depends on the region but it's probably earlier than most people assume) and 2) that parchment was used the same way back then as paper is now (it's not, it's much more of a luxury product)

Some random points re: paper vs parchment in no particular order or priority:

Depending on the type and quality of parchment it can feel kinda like stiff fabric or thick, stiff plastic. Sometimes with a velvety texture. Somerimes the hair is still on it. It's skin, after all.

You can't fold it as easily as paper, you'll probably have to score it first unless it's very very thin. Once folded it will hold its shape pretty well. You certainly can't scrunch it up in a ball and throw it away in a huff the way you'd do with a discarded draft of a letter.

Good parchment lasts. That said, good paper lasts too, especially the stuff made of cotton.

Parchment doesn't get thrown out easily. Depending on the quality, thickness and how many times it's been reused you can: scrape the writing off and reuse it, scrub it off, cut it up and recycle it as covers or binding materials, boil it down for glue.

If you're writing a story set in a historical time (or a fantasy version) and you want an analogue of how we use paper, parchment is probably not the way to go. Consider: slate tablets, wax tablets, wood chips, bark, small stones. These are all cheaper and easier to get than parchment.

I’ve posted about paper vs parchment before, but I do think “author thinks parchment is just an old-timey word for paper and thus parchment in-story behaves like paper” is one of the more interesting common anachronisms, because it has an obvious and understandable source! Most modern writers have interacted with parchment paper at some point, but not with real parchment. So it’s really easy to go “oh, I know what that word means! I don’t need to google that!” Which is different from straightforward “didn’t know what year [thing] was invented” errors

[lunellum]

As requested!

A common thing I see in fantasy settings (whether it's d&d, a book, game etc) is a city layout with an entire block dedicated to the "[insert profession here] quarter". The most egregious example of this was the "jewelers' quarter". Let me explain why this ticks me off in 5 parts.

Disclaimer: there are always exeptions to the following, especially in fantasy settings. For example a tiny mining village that's 3/4 smithing district because the bulk of the manual labour and environmental control is done by magic. Also, if you're worldbuilding its really up to you how "accurate" you what things to be. Take with a grain of salt.

Part 1: demographics

First and most obviously, how does a town this size support the type and amount of profession specific areas?

Cities are primarily groups of humans living together. Even if you view a city primarily as a center of production, the people doing that production still need to live somewhere. In the time before motorised transport, that somewhere needs to be close.

So of you have a city of 500 people, it doesn't make sense to have a merchant district AND a smithing quarter AND a leatherworking quarter AND a temple quarter AND... There's simply not enough people to support these things.

Consider what a city needs outside of trade or crafts. Living quarters, common spaces, parks, public houses, etc. A city can't be 75% profession specific establishments. Where will people sleep? Bathe?

Also, a lot of these areas are too damn specific. Take the jewelers' quarter from earlier. An entire quarter, just for making jewelery? That only makes sense if your city is absolutely huge, big enough to support all the industries making jewelery is based on. Even then, it doesn't make sense to have a whole area specifically for that. More realistically, you'd find jewelers mixed in with blacksmiths, whitesmiths, gold and silversmiths, gem cutters, alchemists, glassblowers, etc.

Then the whole quarter is called the "smithing quarter" or you can go wild with some more imaginative names like the "iron quarter" or the "soot quarter".

And even having an entire quarter for smithing would be something reserved for really big cities. In your local small quest hub, it's way more likely to just have a craftsman quarter. Even if you do have a huge city with a smithing quarter, there'll be housing too, and pubs, and things that aren't a smithy.

Part 2: location

Another logical one: where is your city located? What's nearby? Are there natural resources? Is it on a trade crossroads? Are there many other cities nearby, allowing this particular city to be able to specialise?

If your city is a coastal city with a large trading/fishing harbour, it makes sense for there to be a large area dedicated to docks, warehouses, fish processing, trade, merchants in non-local goods. It makes sense for there to be more inns than the local population could support, because of the rotating sailor population.

If your city is in the middle of a swamp with nary a dry rock in sight, it makes no sense for it to dedicate precious space to ore refining and smithing when that could have been used for living space, woodworking, processing of local plants etc. They don't even mine, what are they going to do with a dozen forges?

Even if there's a lot of import/export, sometimes it just doesn't make sense to ship tons of rough ore half a world away when it could be processed into metal bars and take up so much less space on the boat.

If magic is common and cheap enough for it to be used for transportation (flight, teleportation, trans that run on magic, I dunno) you can cheat this a bit. It's still really resource intensive to move things around like that, and often easier to use what you've got closer at hand or what can be imported more easily.

Part 3: zoning

I've been using smithing as an example a lot and there's a reason for this. Smithing has a lot of byproducts, and many of them are bad for people.

An area that has a lot of smithing wouldn't be very popular to live in because it's unhealthy, dirty, loud and smelly. An area that processes fish or meat is smelly. An area with leatherworkers is smelly.

When a city develops, people will naturally try to strike a balance between the convenience of living near your local fishmonger and the pleasure of having a house that doesn't smell like rotting fish all the damn time. Wealthy people will move further away and send a servant to pick up a fish for dinner.

This goes for noisy industries too, but I mention smell for a reason. A popular medical theory was the miasma theory. This theory holds that bad smells directly cause diseases. That means that living next to a leatherworker would be considered a health risk just by virtue of the smell. Keep that in mind if you're basing a city on European medieval flavours.

This also helps decide where to locate the wealthier parts of town: away from smelly professions, closer to luxury shops. A very rough guideline is: the closer a profession is to a raw material, the less desirable it is to live next to. A luxury seamstress would be welcomed in a wealthy neighbourhood. A wool producer, not so much. It's one of those industries that commonly uses urine. Poor people would have less choice in where to live and are more likely to live closer to where they work anyway.

Also, never never never put certain industries upstream. A smithy needs running water, but it outputs some heinous byproducts.

Part 4: chains of industry

This is my favourite part! I mentioned the idea of a combined use crafting quarter earlier, for example the general-purpose smithing/glassblowing/jewelry making/alchemy quarter. Why would these four things go well together?

Three reason: resources (they all need some access to sources of fire/heat and preferably running water), inconveniences (they're all various degrees of dirty and smelly and dangerous businesses), and chains of industry.

When you want to make something, whether that's a shirt or a necklace of a sandwich, there are many steps required before you can even get started. If you're a jeweler, you don't just need tools and a forge, you need precious stones, metals, chemicals to treat your metals, polishing agents, all sort of things. It would be very convenient for the jeweler to not have to walk too far to get these things. Conversely, an alchemist who sells acids, metal polish, etc can ask for higher prices if they know the jeweler next door is willing to pay for the convenience of not having to trek halfway across town.

That's how you get groups of industries close together that all rely on each other. The trash collecter is close to the paper making who buys their rags to make paper with. The paper maker is close to the scribe who needs the paper. The scribe is also close to the people who make ink and the leatherworkers for the trimmings. The leatherworker in turn is close to the butcher because they trade hides and carcasses back and forth.

It's up to you how close "close" is and some of this depends on how big the city is, where the closest source of running water is,what the state of transport is, how much is imported... But if you're trying to group professions together in a logical way, it helps to picture a little guy with a handcart. Wouldn't make sense for a cart of raw hides to go halfway through the city, crossing through two parks and a wealthy residential district.

Part 5: misc things to keep in mind

This is getting too long and rambly, so in random order some final points:

The most important factor is common sense

You get to decide how much of this matters for your world

It helps to have a rough idea of how some of these professions actually work

No neighbourhood is only one thing, don't be afraid to jumble it all up

Put gross industries downstream and downwind

Fantasy worldbuilding nitpick part 3: common mistakes in city layout and the various industries and professions located therein. In this essay I wil

[lunellum]

I'm so glad you asked! And so spontaneous, not at all prompted or anything ;D

I'm currently traveling so this will be a bit messy but a few key points.

About the historical context:

First off, it can be hard to find sources for what daily life was like in the european medieval period, especially if you want to know more about "common" people (not nobles or clergy). That sort of information was just usually not written down let alone preserved. That said, we can find hints in surviving stories, manuscripts, illustrations etc.

Let's address the elephant in the room: the game of thrones-y gritty, dark fantasy/historical fiction that claims all the violence and rape is historically accurate. It's not. I'm not sure how else to say that except... very little about that is accurate to any historical period.

Relatedly, the image people have of the middle ages as drab and brown, see also the complaint that the show is too colourful. Also untrue, it's just that we don't have a lot of surviving examples and those we do have will have discoloured significantly. One of the most difficult colours to achieve was actually true black. If you wanted green, red, yellow, greenish blue, those are all perfectly doable using natural dyes. A Google search will show you many examples.

Regarding the silly and horny accusations: one interesting source is old joke books. I've personally worked with a joke book from the 1600s so that's not quite medieval but I think it's still a good indicator that people are people. In these joke books, you will find that historical people are cruel, funny, horny, silly, and weirdly obsessed with poop jokes. There is no point in history where people weren't making stupid sex jokes. Including in "high" culture.

Another good source is the literature we DO have. For some basic level examples: Chaucer, Reynard the fox and (yes) the Decameron. The problem with all of these is that a fair portion of the jokes and innuendos will be couched in unfamiliar language. To a modern reader, it simple doesn't register as weird when, in a story about a priest, his live-in housekeeper enters the room. Friends, that's his mistress. His mistress he's not supposed to have because he's supposed to be celibate. The joke is that the clergy are horny and corrupt.

Fortunately, there are annotated versions that point these jokes out. Unfortunately, it's hard to get a good one.

Now, the Decameron (the book) is actually much more explicit about its erotic context than most, which is why I'm so baffled by the critics claiming the show is too horny. The source material is horny as hell, what are they talking about?

Finally, I would like to point out medieval marginalia. Just have a Google, look at the images. Are you still gonna claim these people aren't silly? Sure, some of them have an allegorical meaning, but I'm pretty sure the monkey with the trumpet up its ass is just funny.

About the Netflix show directly:

Most importabtly, the show is NOT a one on one adaptation of the book. I think that's what's tripping a lot of people up, but it's not intending or pretending to be that.

The original Decameron is a frame story of ten nobles sitting around telling eachother stories. Each noble serves as a stereotype of a human trait or virtue (except for Dioneo, who is the wildcard). The stories themselves are often short morality tales or bawdy anecdotes. This is, quite frankly, not the most interesting thing to turn into a show! So they didn't!

The show changes around most of the characters, omits some and adds some others. It adds a lot more meat to the frame story and leaves out the storytelling competition except for 2 instances.

The first one: Pampinea's party game. This one serves to illustrate the dysfunctional situation at the villa and each of the characters' worst traits. It is a competition, and she wins regardless of who actually deserves it. No one dares counter.

The second one: at the end, with the survivors. This one illustrates the balance they've found despite all the tragedy and loss. They're sitting together without a clear leader. They're sleeping rough but they find their joy in each other's company. It's not a competition anymore.

Also, there are a lot of nods to the stories in the original text. I can't look up any examples right now but the barrel thing is fresh in my mind.

In my opinion, a lot of the themes they added are wonderful (family, found and otherwise, finding love after grief, breaking free from abusive relationships and abusive friendships) but would not read well to the audience contemporary to the original Decameron so no, that part is not accurate. That's okay! That's what adaptations are all about.

And to circle back to the accusation that it's too silly: yes, parts of the show are very silly. But there is an underlying tragedy and bittersweet core that becomes especially obvious in the last two episodes. I would just like to point out Panfilo's steady decline and Misia's realisation of her situation. These people are fucked up. They're trying, and sometimes all that does is make things worse. But they're not giving up until the bitter end.

Regarding the "accuracy": it's very obvious that the creators of this show did their research. The party games, the costuming, the noble/servant relationships. These people know what they're doing and I'm impressed.

And finally: should anyone bring up the diversity of the cast and characters, the european middle ages had brown and black and asian people. The middle ages had people who engaged in gay acts (even if they didn't have the concept of a gay identity). And even if it didn't, all kinds of people deserve to be in all kinds of stories. The end.

I've seen some folks criticise the Decameron (the Netflix show) for not being "authentic" and "accurate" enough for

being too colourful

being too horny

being too silly and not serious enough when it comes to the subject of death and pandemic...

To which I would like to say they've clearly never looked into actual medieval history, culture and literature.

[lunellum]

I actually have a little book about different ways parchment gets damaged from a library preservation point of view haha

Fire: it burns, but not super well. Given high enough temperature and enough time it'll still be gone obviously. But say... a character throws a parchment sheet into the fireplace, good chance you can snatch that back out before much damage has been done. If it's a book it's even more durable because it's a big tight block and the fire tends to have a hard time penetrating all the way (hur hur)

One thing you do get with parchment is partial fire damage/heat damage where it's not necessarily burnt but the heat warps the parchment itself and kinda fuses it together. The parchment will sometimes distort in irregular ways and get weirdly brittle. All of which means you can't really open the book anymore.

HOWEVER. There have been a bunch of restoration projects that scanned damaged books and digitised the writing. I don't know the science on that but it's pretty cool.

Water: parchment is to some degree water resistant as it's a cured hide. But long term exposure to water or high humidity is really bad news. Apart from the effect on the ink, the parchment starts warping (like with fire/heat) and kinda gluing itself together. Then you can again not open the book which is An Issue. I've also seen restauration projects using scanning techniques for this scenario.

If parchment gets too wet for too long it can sort of... gelatinise which is... I mean it's mostly collagen? It returns to goo. But usually at that point the mould has got into it pretty bad.

Funnily enough if parchment is too dry it also suffers and will start distorting and then it can pull itself loose from its binding which is a pain.

Random fact: my favourite type of parchment damage is from iron gall ink. It's a lovely deep black ink initially. It's also fairly acidic and over time will eat through parchment, leaving letter-shaped holes. Absolutely devastating to the book obviously, but looks real cool.

I’ve posted about paper vs parchment before, but I do think “author thinks parchment is just an old-timey word for paper and thus parchment in-story behaves like paper” is one of the more interesting common anachronisms, because it has an obvious and understandable source! Most modern writers have interacted with parchment paper at some point, but not with real parchment. So it’s really easy to go “oh, I know what that word means! I don’t need to google that!” Which is different from straightforward “didn’t know what year [thing] was invented” errors