Hornmoot

Overview

Hornmoot was originally a Dwarven celebration that signalled the beginning of the new trading year. It marked the point of the year when the Dwarves would emerge from their ancient mountain or valley homes, which had been cut off due to winter weather, and would sound horns to announce that trade routes were once more clear and able to do business. It is said that the tradition was brought to A'arde from the Dwarves' original homeworld when the Dwarven Gods sought sanctuary for their charges after a cataclysmic event.

Over the centuries, the sounds of horns signalling open trade became a popular and well-received custom amongst other races and cultures, until Hornmoot was adopted as a worldwide celebration of not just the start of a new Trading Year, but also of the beginning of Spring as a whole.

In the new celebration, which is typically celebrated on the 5th of Palesun, people host large parties or street gatherings, serving a wide variety of traditional Dwarven foods and ales, in homage to the festival's origins. Horns are sounded on the hour between 8am and 5pm (or, more traditionally, between sunrise and sunset), and many business owners will offer trials or samples of goods throughout the day.

History

Hornmoot began as the Dwarven celebration of Hornfest, which was brought to the world of A'arde by the Dwarven Gods and the people they managed to bring with them when they fled their homeworld after a cataclysmic event. For many years after the Dwarven people were offered sanctuary, Hornfest was celebrated as a localised affair to mountainous regions within A'arde, such as the mountainous ring surrounding the Heartlands, the area in the western mainland that eventually became part of the continent of Eirinn, and the perilous peaks of the Silver Wastes. As the Dwarves of the Plains, Shores and Deeps began to reclaim their preferred habitats, Hornfest began to spread from the mountains. During the Age of Renewal, Hornfest was almost exclusively celebrated by Dwarves, but it piqued the interest of many heritages and cultures that encountered them. By the Age of Dragons, many non-Dwarves would attend celebrations that were easy to access.

However, the attack of the Interloper Dragon Ythrynaar, and his attempted Reign of Ash toward the end of the Age of Dragons, saw the end of Hornfest in its purely Dwarven form, as many of the mountain strongholds were wiped out or forced underground by the Interloper. During the early Age of Arcana, people from all cultures worked together to help the Dwarves rebuild, and Hornfest soon mutated into a more multicultural form. While many Dwarven cities still observed the ancient traditions, Hornfest morphed into Hornmoot, and the celebration became one of both trade and spring.

Many of the specifics of the celebrations of Hornmoot during the Age of Arcana were lost during the Fall of the Floating Cities, and throughout the Ages of Chaos and Darkness it was rarely celebrated except in Sanctuary Zones. These celebrations took scattered oral records of the traditions and pulled them together into a rough semblance of what the festivals would have looked like, but since few were able to see them, the tradition of Hornmoot was near forgotten except in those Sanctuaries.

At the end of the Age of Darkness and into the Age of Redemption, the tradition of Hornmoot spread once more across the globe. Especially important was the Revival Hornmoot of Dybbjergly, as the settlement there, including the Grand Forge of the Temple of Jernmand Peder, had been inaccessible to all but its own small community for centuries in a bid to protect one of the last remaining Embers of Jernmand. The modern Hornmoot celebrations stem from that initial festival in Dybbjergly, focusing on revival, renewal and rebirth.

Observance

Hornmoot is traditionally celebrated on the 5th of Palesun, despite Spring officially beginning on the first. This is in line with the original Dwarven tradition, which required the roads to be cleared during the four days before the celebration. Only when the roads were clear could Hornmoot could officially begin.

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