[ANON POST] Medieval Winter Travel

[orange_fell]

Part of the plot in my story revolves around the fact that my characters really need to travel to a specific place - but they live in a very snowy, northern climate, and when the story opens winter is already closing in. To make matters worse, there's a mountain range between them and their intended destination, which they can theoretically travel

Comments

[elenbarathi]

You're welcome! Here's The History of Santa's Reindeer: I've seen Danish Christmas cards where Santa's sleigh is pulled by big white goats.

Horses have to graze, even in the high mountains in mid-winter. Some fodder can be packed as a supplement, but not enough to live on exclusively, and the great Horse Cultures - the Mongols, the Lakota - have been nomads, not farmers. No doubt they gathered the wild grasses, but they weren't systematically haying. (The Once And Future King has a good bit about medieval haying too.)

Since the last Ice Age, England hasn't ever been all that frigid, surrounded by sea as it is. I should think there would almost always be grass to be found in sheltered spots - not the choicest grass, perhaps, but good enough to get by on - as long as the sheep hadn't gotten there first. Sheep are highly destructive to pasture because they yank the grass up by the roots rather than nipping it off above-ground - that's the main reason for the eternal war between cowboys and shepherds.

BTW, goats are browsers, like deer, rather than grazers like sheep, cows and horses. Browsers will graze and grazers will browse if they must (or if there's 'candy' like clover or apple blossom) but goats can live quite happily on plants that horses won't touch.

It seems counter-intuitive, but a mild winter can be deadlier than a frigid one. When it's far below freezing, the air is very dry, and dry air doesn't conduct heat that well; as long as one keeps the wind out and doesn't break a sweat, one can stay warm. But when it's just above freezing, every molecule of water vapor on the breeze is a little vampire, sucking warmth away. Get soaked through, or even just soak your shoes, and hypothermia may kill you, when you'd have been okay if the temp had been ten degrees lower.

[elenbarathi]

The problem is that my story isn't set in England. It's in a fantasy world at a significantly higher latitude (think somewhere between the 60th and 70th parallel north on earth) and with significantly larger mountains. I picked High Middle Ages Europe for a ballpark estimate of the technology available.

Really interesting info about grazers and browsers, thanks.

It doesn't seem counter-intuitive at all, but then I'm from a place that sees a lot of winter both wet and dry, and have done a lot of mountain hiking in the snow.