On September 5th of the Julian calendar, with the laying of the last piece of thatched meadow, Rurik's new home was finally completed.
It was also this day that Rurik and his family moved into a brand new wooden house with wooden floors.
This wooden house is extraordinary!
According to his own ideas, Rurik tried his best to build a wooden house in the ninth century that was very Russian in style a thousand years later, that is, a real wooden house. In fact, it cannot be said to be a purely Russian style, or a Slavic style.
The key to woodcut-style architecture is to use wood as the main building material to build residential houses suitable for settling in the extremely cold world.
This house looks so special among the longhouse buildings in Roseburg!
At first glance, it looks like a pure wooden house, but you can see the clues if you look closely. Massive amounts of processed wood are stacked on top of each other to give the exterior a forest-like texture. I have to say that because of the structure of the wood, this house is really angular. Especially the square stone chimney that was erected makes it really become another building with a chimney besides the blacksmith shop.
Its appearance seems to mess up time and space.
If there is any part that is somewhat similar to the traditional Russian longhouse, it is the thatched meadow with its gabled roof. Moreover, the reason why a thatched meadow was added was entirely because Rurik felt that a roof made of wood alone would not have good water insulation. It also needed the help of traditional longhouse roof waterproofing materials, and a large amount of thatch for insulation. The water capacity is pretty good, so I can make do with it.
Of course, the best thing is to use clay to make tiles. Rurik knew that if he proposed a plan, the potters in the tribe could make it. But the problem here has never been whether it can be manufactured, but whether it can actually be laid. The house is waterproof, but the roof is too heavy.
Roseburg often experiences heavy snowfalls in winter. Rather than leaking roofs, people are most worried about houses being destroyed by snow in winter. Being overweight equals the risk of landslides, and after a landslide, not to mention people being killed or injured, the extreme cold will quickly kill people!
The appearance of the woodcut ridge is unique, and its interior is even more interesting.
It has an internal structure of three bedrooms and one living room, consisting of a living room, a master bedroom, two secondary bedrooms, and a storage room. The structure of the room was completely Rurik's bad taste.
All bedrooms have wooden beds, with soft reed grass underneath and a whole piece of cowhide that has been cut down, and a layer of fine linen laid on top of the leather to serve as a mattress.
Although there are no springs, I have to say that this bed is a combination of softness and warmth.
There is also a quilt on the bed, which is a whole piece of leather covered with a layer of linen. This is not surprising, since Rurik started enjoying it as early as his family's old home.
There are pillows, too, and they're even special.
Most of the oats purchased from Gould were new wheat, and a considerable part of these wheats were not well shelled, which forced the Russians to process them before they could enjoy them. Usually oat husks are useless waste, but now Rurik uses them as stuffing for pillows.
A room should have a wooden bed and a bedside table. The cabinet is just an object made of wooden boards joined together with mortise and tenon. The Russians are good at shipbuilding, and they are also good at making carpentry furniture. Just what can be put on the bedside table and in the drawer? Maybe an oil lamp, a dagger, or even some silver and gold coins.
Wooden carvings also have windows. Since glass plates have not yet been manufactured, the so-called windows are actually thick wooden boards hung on the window frame. It is propped up when light is needed, and the boards need to be thickened on cold snowy nights.
What Rurik is most excited about is the fireplace he installed in his new house.
The fireplace is located in the center of the living room wall. The hearth is made of refractory iron ore, and the chimney is surrounded by ordinary granite.
Although there are low four-corner wooden chairs in the living room, there are also a large number of cut square leather cushions.
It is really difficult for Russians to get rid of the tradition of sitting on the floor for an instant, so let's continue sitting on the floor. Rurik also sent a carpenter to make a minimalist style wooden table. It can be placed upright next to the wall and moved out when needed.
There are some iron hooks on the wooden walls of each room. As the family moves in, they immediately come in handy.
The master bedroom is naturally the residence of Otto and his wife.
Otto's sword, shield, and even chain mail and leather armor hung on the hooks. Some of the couple's thick leather coats were also hung up. What Rurik prepared for his parents was naturally a huge double bed made of spliced together. There were bedside tables on both sides of the bed, and there were also a pair of bronze lamps that had not yet been filled with grease.
There are two secondary bedrooms. From the beginning, Rurik had reserved a room for his Rumia, but now the situation has completely changed.
Rumia had to be arranged into Rurik's bedroom, and what was worse was that the two of them had to squeeze into a wooden bed for the time being. Of course, Rurik thought that he might grow into a burly man with a beard in the future. He just made his bed very big, and now it is no problem to squeeze two children into it.
So, what about the room that was supposed to house Rumia?
Carlotta and Ella, two girls from the Ostara tribe, moved in.
They almost instinctively realized that the large leather-covered table was for sleeping, and the soft and warm feeling after lying on it made them sleepy in an instant. If they hadn't eaten another dinner, they would have fallen asleep in the afternoon.
It’s just that the two girls arrived at the Ross tribe with almost nothing. Now they put on the ordinary linen and leather clothes provided by Rurik. The expensive white fox fur jackets given by Gould have become wonderful decorations on the walls. .
As for the storage room, Niya immediately realized its huge role.
In this dark room without windows, the hooks on the wooden wall are used to hang bacon jerky, and a batch of wheat is placed here.
As for the kitchen and toilet, they are not inside the wood carvings. According to tradition, Rurik sent people to build dry latrines. The kitchen was simply a shed with solid walls and a stove containing charcoal blocks.
The new house was finally built, and there was no ceremony to mark the completion of the new house. Otto happily moved in and started the comfortable living experience on the first day.
The tribesmen have long been interested in the leader's new house. Before it was completed, many tribesmen still understood its structural principles. Everyone generally feels that the new house is just a traditional longhouse placed on the wooden floor, with a large number of partitions inside.
Since the leader's family felt that the structure of the new house was very good, everyone followed suit.
In the foreseeable future, even in September, more similar woodcut ridges will be built and form a new traditional residential style of the Ross tribe.
A new day comes in peace.
The large living room was filled with the aroma of oatmeal.
The low table that was originally leaning against the wooden wall was placed, and a number of earthenware bowls were placed on the table, including cooked oatmeal porridge or sliced bacon. This meal was prepared early in the morning by Niya and Rumia. After the meal was finished, everyone had their own work to do.
"Ah! Last night was so comfortable. It reminded me of my experience in Novgorod." Otto, who was sitting cross-legged, suddenly stretched out comfortably and praised.
"Dad? Do you really like it?" Rurik asked eagerly.
"Of course, people over there enjoy it better than we do, and now I'm starting to enjoy it too. Sleeping on the bed is really more comfortable than sleeping on the ground."
Rurik just wanted to hear such praise. He even regretted that he couldn't figure out the spring, otherwise he would have to make a Simmons mattress.
He asked the two girls: "Carlotta, Ella, what do you think?"
"Very comfortable!" Carlotta's eyes were full of passion. "I have never had such a comfortable sleeping experience. I really don't want to leave it."
Ella naturally listened to her sister and repeated the above words from the bottom of her heart.
Everyone has a great impression of the new house, and life is full of infinite beauty.
Otto picked up the spoon and began to eat the thick wheat porridge in big mouthfuls. From time to time, he also nibbled on a piece of bacon to enhance the taste of the wheat porridge.
Everyone is accustomed to eating with a spoon, and now the tribe's wheat reserves are unprecedented. The oats that once had to be eaten sparingly can at least be enjoyed by the leader and his family without restraint.
In the past period of time, the food Rurik gave to all his old and new servants came from Gould's large batch of wheat porridge. Since the servants are mostly little girls, they are not big eaters, but just a group of children. Eating half a pound of wheat every day is already too much.
There are also more than 150 military-trained men from Rurik, and all of them eat a similar meal, which is a mixture of oatmeal porridge and fish. Herring and oats were cooked in huge pottery urns with salt obtained from boiling the sea. Rurik also forced his men to drink tea boiled with dried chrysanthemums and dried pine needles.
Now, every day, children eat foods high in carbohydrates, high in protein, and slightly high in fat and salt. The diet is rich in vitamins and minerals.
It can be said that for children who do not do a lot of physical exertion, the nutritional level of the food Rurik rewarded them is no longer much different from that of Swedish children thousands of years later.
In other words, from now on, the nutritional intake of a group of children from the Ross tribe has systematically surpassed other tribes. Eating well means that physical fitness has reached its peak. Coupled with the widespread use of soap, diseases can no longer erode children's health.
Ordinary tribesmen would not expect so much. What they saw was that Rurik was a kind and good man. He was very kind to his brothers and servants at a young age. Wouldn't he be even better to his clan members in the future?
Otto finished the bowl of wheat porridge very quickly and handed his empty ceramic bowl to Rumia: "Give me another bowl."
"Yes, big boss."
Rumia respectfully walked into the pottery urn that was brought into the house, picked up the bronze spoon and started scooping out. And she also filled her stomach with a lot of wheat porridge. Now she had wheat and meat, and she could even drink some ale if she wanted to. Such a life could be called a dream.
Isn't it a dream?
Rumia slept with her master Rurik last night. Where would the master allow a servant to be so close? The conclusion is self-evident.
For example, Carlotta and Ella thought that the previous longhouse was too crowded, so Sister Rumia had to rest together with Rurik.
Unexpectedly, their relationship has become very close.
The future high chief and the future high priest maintain an extremely close relationship? Carlotta was delighted.
Otto, who was eating a few more spoons of wheat porridge, glanced at his son holding two sticks holding bacon, and an idea suddenly came to his mind.
"Rurik, I'm surprised, you still like to use wooden sticks? Can't you grab meat with your hands?"
Rurik chuckled: "I'm used to it. With these two sticks, I can easily pick out the meat from the boiling soup pot."
"A weird little trick, but it's a pity I can't learn it."
Otto was complaining about chopsticks. His concept of hygiene was already weak. If it weren't for the fact that soap could easily make it extremely clean, thereby theoretically pleasing the gods, he wouldn't be bothered to use it. He stuffed the meat into his mouth, and then rubbed his greasy hands casually on the linen clothes.
Where is the son? When the child eats, his hands can barely touch the food.
Carlotta became interested. She asked as if she were facing her own brother: "Rurik, would you like me to use your strange tableware?"
"All right."
Rurik handed over the chopsticks, and Carlotta tried to operate it, but found that she couldn't pick up even a piece of meat. She frowned and tried hard, but it seemed to have no effect except making others laugh.
Finally, she simply inserted the chopstick into the meat like a big toothpick, stuffed the bacon into her mouth without thinking, chewed it and swallowed it.
"Rurik, your hands are too flexible. Is this also the result of being blessed by God?"
Her words made Rurik dumbfounded.
Rurik collected the chopsticks and handed them to Rumia: "Come on, let's show our Carlotta a show."
Until now, as Rurik's first student, Rumia's strange knowledge has been increasing. Rurik felt that the child's mathematical knowledge had reached the level of fifth grade elementary school, and he could do all the calculations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division within a thousand. However, due to reality, she seriously lacked logical concepts for numbers that were too large in magnitude. She needed to More time to understand.
Rumia has long been taught how to use chopsticks by Rurik. After a long period of practice, she has basically mastered using two wooden sticks as tongs. She is even trying to learn a unique skill that only Rurik knows - rotating the wooden stick on each finger.
This is Rurik's pen-turning trick. There is not much difference between chopstick-turning and pen-turning.
Does it have any relevance in the current era? There is one, however, which is to please others.
Rurik used this trick of turning wooden sticks with his fingers to prove his flexibility and to please his family.
Rurik's hands are indeed flexible. If this child's body did not limit himself, he could transform into a craftsman and make some useful instruments with his own hands.
Now Rurik had some ideas.
The children played with the sticks for a while, and Otto was amused by them. He felt that he was enjoying family happiness, and it would be great if Svetlana from Novgorod sat here again.
Otto was in a blissful trance. He seemed to see his grown-up son, accompanied by four beautiful girls. They are both sons' wives, although they are sitting here now, both of them are little girls.
Otto coughed twice deliberately to interrupt the children's play.
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Chapter 235 The birth of a wooden building
