Private message to Linus Moon
May. 18th, 2011 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_sally_anneI didn't get a chance to talk to you today so I'm putting it in the journal. Here's what I've found so far that seemed like it would have been really useful before modern spells:
1. BOTH of the fire runes, both the one that keeps the fire from going completely out and the one that keeps it from spreading beyond the hearth. I mean, you'd have to be sure to erase that second one if you wanted to light a candle or something from your hearth fire but it would be worth having, a house fire is bad enough even when you can cast 'aguamenti' on it. And the one that keeps the fire from going completely out at night saves you a lot of trouble relighting it. Lighting a fire without a wand is a lot of work.
2. The peaceful sleep rune, although you know I tried it last night and I did not think it worked well. Definitely not as well as a dreamless sleep potion seems to work.The
3. The 'don't notice me' rune might be useful when hunting, I'm not sure. I tried it out to see if the pets in my dorm noticed some food I left out. They all noticed it after a while BUT they didn't notice it right away. Though maybe they just weren't hungry? My rat's nearly always hungry, though.
4. I was trying to decide if there was a way to mark a whole field of crops with that rune, because that might protect it from vermin trying to eat it. The anti-pest rune works on stored food but not so much on food while it's still growing.
5. The anti-rot rune would be good for stored food, even when you store it properly it sometimes spoils.
Anyway, I'm not sure any of these are exactly better than stuff that's available now, at least if you can get it. There's a charm that keeps a fire going exactly where you want it, there's dreamless sleep potion, there's an invisibility cloak (though actually animals can still smell you, can't they? so maybe the rune that keeps them from noticing you WOULD be better, if you need to go sneaking up on animals), there are a number of hexes you can use to keep birds and mice from eating your crops, and there are a dozen different ways to preserve food, some of them not even magical. (The Strettons use magic when they make their jams, but they basically do with magic what you'd do if you were making jam WITHOUT magic. It's just easier to heat the jars and then put the food inside if you can use charms.)
But they'd certainly have been indispensable in Ancient Britain.
Have you come up with any good ones?
1. BOTH of the fire runes, both the one that keeps the fire from going completely out and the one that keeps it from spreading beyond the hearth. I mean, you'd have to be sure to erase that second one if you wanted to light a candle or something from your hearth fire but it would be worth having, a house fire is bad enough even when you can cast 'aguamenti' on it. And the one that keeps the fire from going completely out at night saves you a lot of trouble relighting it. Lighting a fire without a wand is a lot of work.
2. The peaceful sleep rune, although you know I tried it last night and I did not think it worked well. Definitely not as well as a dreamless sleep potion seems to work.The
3. The 'don't notice me' rune might be useful when hunting, I'm not sure. I tried it out to see if the pets in my dorm noticed some food I left out. They all noticed it after a while BUT they didn't notice it right away. Though maybe they just weren't hungry? My rat's nearly always hungry, though.
4. I was trying to decide if there was a way to mark a whole field of crops with that rune, because that might protect it from vermin trying to eat it. The anti-pest rune works on stored food but not so much on food while it's still growing.
5. The anti-rot rune would be good for stored food, even when you store it properly it sometimes spoils.
Anyway, I'm not sure any of these are exactly better than stuff that's available now, at least if you can get it. There's a charm that keeps a fire going exactly where you want it, there's dreamless sleep potion, there's an invisibility cloak (though actually animals can still smell you, can't they? so maybe the rune that keeps them from noticing you WOULD be better, if you need to go sneaking up on animals), there are a number of hexes you can use to keep birds and mice from eating your crops, and there are a dozen different ways to preserve food, some of them not even magical. (The Strettons use magic when they make their jams, but they basically do with magic what you'd do if you were making jam WITHOUT magic. It's just easier to heat the jars and then put the food inside if you can use charms.)
But they'd certainly have been indispensable in Ancient Britain.
Have you come up with any good ones?