The Yeoman Farmer Mage

[mishalak]

Farming isn't an easy thing. Crops fail with some amount of regularity pretty much everywhere due to the actions of too much water, not enough water, insects, blights, and cold weather. Europeans and their descendants stopped having to face that between 1650 and the late 1800s. What changed was the introduction of new crops, so if one failed maybe there would another that could help people scrape by. The second thing was improving food transport that allowed regions with surplus to feed those that were without. But even prior to that dependence upon rain agriculture, instead of irrigation agriculture, meant that they would have to face starvation on average only once every thirteen years (though that's an average, you could get three nasty years together and then a long stretch of nothing).

So how would magic come into the mix? Well in standard fantasy I suspect that the whole community would call upon the local mage to do something when disaster threatened. Making food appear from nowhere doesn't seem too common in fiction, though it is in older stories. Finding a temporary supply of water or perhaps calling enough storms to make it a lean year instead of a starvation year seem likely. From this I could see development of a pan-European weather council, much like the postal union, by the 20th century that quietly works to make sure that rains are regular and not too much. (To much controversy by people who want a wilder more natural world.)

On the individual farm level I suspect if magic is possible for the average person, rather than just those with inborn talent, each farmer might know a somewhat useful alchemical recipe or chant. Something that seems to improve sprouting or a ceremony that keeps the crows away at least for a week or two before the seeds sprout. Or this might be one of the many functions of the local priesthood in blessing the crop. Though I need to do more research to figure out where most of the losses were to figure out what people of the time would see as most pressing on an individual level. Eventually though by the magic equivelent of the 20th Century only specialized farmer-mages who use a host of spells will still be in the business.

In my own conception of magic as spirits I thought perhaps something given to the cats in the weekly treat of milk that makes them better mousers than the average feral cats. A sixth sense of where a mouse is in addition to their already impressive sense of smell and hearing. Or that give a cat a loyal range just around the granary or house in return for being fed enough to make up for opportunities lost elsewhere. And a germination help spell cast upon the seeds before planting to give them an extra boost. And of course in places with heavy soil perhaps the whole village invests in a enchanted plow to better till the fields just as in history in northern Europe the whole village had to work together when they needed to use many oxen to pull the heavy plows needed.

Comments

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

This is really nifty, comparing my current work's magic to this and other work I've done. I'm glad at least one of them makes sense; it's hard to think about all of this stuff at once.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

What is your current work, biochem?

And hello.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Oh, writing. Biochem happens, but I meant writing. Just felt a little ridiculous saying it.
I like the practical uses for magic; I tend to use it for much the same thing in at least a few stories. Why don't people die of cholera? Because someone whose talent is cleaning water lives upstream.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I always have liked the old rules about magic from fairytales. Life for life, blood for blood, death for death. Not that when I'm imagining it magic couldn't save someone's life from something like cholera without having someone else die, but that would take understanding cholera rather than just pointing the magical fire hose at it and hosing it down until it goes out. So in a fantasy it might look like it is some sort of cockeyed Victorian middle ages where no one dies of cholera it is actually the magic equivalent of sometime after 1900. Heck I'm working on a fantasy where the magic is on level with something like 24th century technology. Because I find that interesting.