So horns-by which I mean the instrument-are a minor but notable part of the Green Ember world. Lord Rake had a special horn for ceremonies and battle signals at Cloud Mountain. The Terralain army sounded horns as they charged into battle at Halfwind Citadel. And Airen’s snoring, according to her daughter Weezie, resembles “a battle horn plunged underwater”.
There are probably other references in the Green Ember, Tales of Old Natalia, and Green Ember Archer as well. It’s not really surprising, as horns are a pretty common facet of medieval fantasy type series. The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and others have featured them. However, there is one thing that has struck me about horns in the Green Ember being a bit of an oddity.
As folks are most likely aware, horns-the instrument-are called such because way back in the day they were fashioned from horns-the animal body part. Boromir’s horn from The Lord of the Rings, for example, was made from the horn of a wild ox hunted by one of his ancestors, if memory serves. However, this raises a question: where would rabbits get horns from? They don’t hunt animals for food, and even if they did we’re aware of no horned animals in the Green Ember world.
And if, for some reason, the rabbits just naturally developed the metal or wood instruments that we call horns, why do they call them horns?
Personally I sort of assumed the rabbits, wolves and birds were the only ones, as well as the dragons of course, however in the first book several small birds are mentioned: Wilfred uses a sparrow's call to tell Smalls and Picket where he is, Picket has a dream about riding around on a blind cardinal, etc. Heather also mentioned turtles at one point: "Last one to [the berry grove, I can't remember what it's called] is a turtle!" So maybe there are other animals living somewhere in Natalia.
Hmm... Good point. Perhaps they fashioned them out of wood and thought they looked like horns? But then again, if they had never seen horns... Maybe in the old days, like at golden coast, there were horned animals.... So perhaps that? Sorry if that made no sense... It's 8 am in the morning lol
Interesting point. I think it goes back to what language the rabbits are speaking: are they literally speaking English, or is Sam ‘translating’ the story from whatever fantasy language they actually use? Every word we use comes from a long linguistic development, so if the rabbits speak English, does that mean that their words ‘temporary,’ from the root ‘tempor,’ and ‘survive,’ from ‘viv,’ mean Flint and Fay spoke Latin? When reading fiction set in another world, I assume that English is not the language actually spoken. I think that in this case, ‘horn’ does not have the same connotations to the rabbits as it does to us, because it’s just their word for the musical instrument, not an animal’s body part. Thanks for bringing up the issue! It was really fun to think about :)
I've actually thought about this before, since my siblings and I were curious as to which other animals were in the Green Ember (sentient or not).
My personal theory is that whatever animal the horns came from was hunted to extinction by the Birds of Prey and wolves, and their bones/horns were scattered about for the rabbits to find and figure out how to use gradually. It's a cool theory for me, but it's not at all backed by canon evidence xD
Definitely food for the thought. The Green Ember universe certainly has some thought-provoking questions...
I think you just broke my brain.
In GE I think there is every woodland animal in the books, so I could see gyspy/merchant mountain goats living in the Low Bleaks and mountian ranges of Natalia, selling their broken horns and other rare materials to the rabbits of Kingston.
Interesting point… maybe the horns are relics from the dragon age and Prince Lander found them to be useful tools for communicating to the army/soldiers. But it seems kind of barbaric for the rabbits to be using (for lack of a better phrase) the body parts of their enemies as, well, tools and instruments of war.
Maybe Flint and Fay were jackalopes and it’s a nod to them, but usually jackalopes have antlers not horns; and that still wouldn’t answer where or how the rabbits got horns. So I feel like the 'dragon horn theory' is more plausible.
Which also raises the question of rabbits wearing leather, for example Jo looks to be wearing a belt and archer shoulder pad thing(??) in GE book art and I highly doubt it’s cloth and it doesn’t look to be chain link or metal. (But ya know, that's a whole other can of worms!)
I never even thought of that, interesting. I have no idea and am quite confuzzled
Shower thoughts be like: