Title: Holidays of the Iliac Bay
Author: Theth-i
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Price: 379
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Content:


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[/center]Holidays

[/center]of the

[/center]Iliac Bay



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[/center]    The region of the Iliac Bay has a rich history, and not
surprisingly, a number of holidays unique to it because of
this history. The Breton and the Redguard cultures have many
similarities, but just as many distinctions. An analysis of
the holidays is one way to study the people.

    As any schoolchild could tell you, the Redguards are a
relatively new culture to Tamriel. Their arrival from their
homeland is actually well recorded, though it occured
several thousand years ago, in the 808th year of the 1st Era.
Hammerfell was a great desert encompassed by almost
impassable mountains -- unclaimed and unwanted. Many of
the holidays extant in modern Hammerfell seem to be direct
translations of older Redguard festivals before their
migration to Tamriel.

    The orgiastic seasonal celebrations seem unusual in a
province with few changes in the weather from month to month.
Yet on the 28th of Suns Dawn, the Redguards of the Banthan
jungle celebrate Aduros Nau to relieve the wintertide
lethargy; on the 1st of Mid Year, the people of Abibon-Gora
celebrate Drigh R'Zimb in honor of the sun, which no normal
Redguard worships in this day; similarly, on the 29th of Suns
Height, the festival in the Desert called Fiery Night, seems
almost perverse in such an environment; the Koomu Alezer'i
on the 11th of Last Seed in Sentinel has been translated as a
harvest thanksgiving, though many scholars have suggested
that it was once a springtide holiday; similarly, the Feast
of the Tiger in the Bantha on the 14th of Last Seed was
probably once a religious holiday to a Tiger God, instead of
a thanksgiving.

     Other old Redguard holidays have either been acknowledged
as part of the old culture or adjusted to fit with the
climate of Hammerfell. The Serpent's Dance, for example, of
Satakalaam is patently an old festival honoring a Serpent
God of the homeland who evidently did not survive the
journey to Hammerfell. The significance of the date, the 3rd
of Suns Dusk, has been lost with the Serpent Priests. Baranth
Do, on the 18th of Evening Star, and Chil'a, on the 24th of
the same month, are both New Years festivals. Most likely,
they have been moved from their original dates to correspond
with the notion of the year defined in Tamriel.

     The Bretons have been in Tamriel since before recorded
history. Their holidays have remained almost unchanged since
primitive times, though new holidays have been created to
replace those which have lost popularity.

     The oldest holidays still observed in High Rock must
include Waking Day, on the 18th of Morning Star, when the
people of the Yeorth Burrowland wake the spirits of nature
after the winter, very nearly in the tradition of their more
reverential ancestors. Flower Day, held on the 25th of First
Seed in the smaller villages of High Rock is most likely just
as older or older. The old cult of the flower is also
remembered as Gardtide in Tamarilyn Point on the 1st of
Rains Hand. Daggerfall's Day of the Dead, on the 13th of
Rains Hand, suggests the ancestor worship that marked the
Breton religion of antiquity. Finally, the ancient goddess
of the moons, Secunda, is remembered in the Moon Festival in
Glenumbra Moors on the 8th of Suns Dusk, just as the nights
begin to grow longer.

     The more recently created holidays of High Rock are those
like Tibedetha, "Tibers Day," celebrated every 24th of Mid
Year in honor of Alcaire's most famous, son, Tiber Septim.
Likewise, Othroktide on the 5th of Suns Dawn is held in honor of
the first and most illustrious Baron of Dwynnen. In quite
extreme contrast, Marukh's Day on the 9th of Second Seed, is a
solemn holiday, immortalizing the lessons of the equally
solemn 1st Era prophet Marukh. My favorite of the modern
Breton festivals has to be Mad Pelagius, held in mock honor
of the most eccentric of the Septim Emperors. Pelagius was,
after all, a prince of Wayrest before he became King of
Solitude, and then Emperor of Tamriel. The Bretons like to
boast that it was his time in High Rock that drove him mad.

 
