Alfheimr Renaissance

Asta informs me that Myrun have been sitting in the library for a while and tried to talk to her about the globe, and she is still in there, so I can imagine the subject. Myrun isn't dumb. So I walk there and sit down in the second armchair. Myrun asks Caecilia to close the door, which she do after a quick nod from me, and Myrun just give me quick glances before she continues staring at the globe. I don't think it's a coincidence that she's staring at the globe, and maybe I shouldn't have made her start noticing and thinking about the mansion's open secrets. Myrun isn't dumb. She is quiet for a minute while we just sit there.

"Robert, you should put that thing away or put a piece of cloth over it when you have guests. So they don't see it and start wondering. You're my friend, but it's not always easy being around you and getting shocked like I have been. After we saw the swords - and your smile - I have started to take a closer look at the interior and surroundings. It was easy to get Jolfr distracted with mead and join the insult competition, but I started to walk around and look. Really look. I will not ask about the strange wooden things I remember on the wall above your bed, and there is also a similar one in the guards day room. There are also those strange things by the door in many rooms. I doubt it's for summoning guards, since you already have another system for that, and considering that doesn't use a rope to pull and ticks, it's also more special than we realise. What for I don't know. I have been wondering about the purpose for those glass tubes filled with metal in the great hall, and why they are very different from each other. I'm also not going to ask about that big wheeled cart under a piece of cloth in the great hall because you covered that, but not that globe. I found Asta in here. This is a room for knowledge and special items. We talked about her, the ship, sailing, trade, the Academy and you. As you know, those are all areas that interest me."

Myrun gives me a sinful smile, but her face turns more serious as she continues.

"Asta is a very nice, intelligent and well travelled young woman, and I understand why you made her the Captain of your ship. A ship that is already a legend. I noticed that your ship has received something new, but she did not want to talk about it. Asta loves to talk about sailing and the life as a seafarer, and she loves the Millennium Eagle. Being your Captain is the best thing that ever happened to her. She loves all your creations she enthusiastically talks about - with some exceptions - and she admire and praise you. Which hasn't diminished since the Stag night. But Asta is evasive about her goals in life, or her future beyond teaching navigation and seamanship for the next few years and helping you develop more equipment for seafarers. She refuses to even discuss future offers for work or leaving your service in a few years. She is completely loyal to you. Asta clearly loves this room, and enthusiastically showed and pointed out the map and chart on the wall, and how impressive and practical such maps are when you have the other navigation aids you've made, and the skill to use it. I saw the spyglass telescope on the shelf beside the sextants, and the magnificent ship's compass just casually leaned against the corner over there, which you've apparently built more of. Robert, you shouldn't have something like this just lying around or leaning against a wall in a room everyone has access to, and I don't just mean for its value."

Myrun gives me a slightly scolding look as she shakes her head, before she gives me an intensive stare as she continues talking.

"It's noticeable when Asta gets suspiciously quiet or changes the topic of conversation, and Asta went quiet when I asked what the globe was, and after a few minutes of trying to switch my attention, she excused herself and left. So I took a closer look on that globe. Much closer. I noticed it rotates. Found a the small Academy mark up there on the top. The same sign that's on the map and charts on the wall that Asta said was here, and that the Risk game board also has in the same place you also said are here. I saw how the coastlines on the big map resembled those on the globe, and a couple of the red lines match. Exactly. I was wondering why Asta didn't want to talk about the globe, and remember how you made a map of your farm outside Skiringsalr without having been there before. I have now sat here for a long time staring and thinking. And then you showed up. No matter how absurd I think it is... If that globe were a joke or a work of art, no one would care, but the silence says it's secret and I noticed the reverence Asta had for the globe - more than a lot of other things in here. So that must be the world as it truly is. I have spent most of the time trying to come up with one explanation after another, but the only plausible one is that the globe is a map of the world. You're a practical man and wouldn't have made it like a globe without a very good reason, because it's impractical in every way and far more complicated and more work to do than a flat map. The maps and charts has text describing corrections, because the map needs it, but it is missing from the globe. No corrections or notes. Because it's not needed. A flat map needs a correction, but a round globe doesn't. You made the globe because the world is spherical. Why is it not noticeable? Why doesn't we and the water fall off? We're not at the top."

"Gravity. Gravitation is the force that causes everything to fall to the ground and be held. Gravity is why an arrow that is shot makes an arc in the air and turns downward. The directions up and down exist because of gravity. It is the most powerful force in the Universe. The bigger and heavier something is, the more gravity it gets, and the earth and globe under our feet is nowhere near the upper limit." I gesture and show us both, then point to the globe in front of us. "As we sit here, you and I, we both have our own little gravity, but it's so incredibly weak in relation to something as big as the world, which is mostly stone and further in, mostly iron, that it can't be felt. The worlds iron core is the reason a compass works. Eventually I hope to make precision instruments that proves gravity between objects and measure how a small metal ball is affected by a huge lead ball, just by being near."

It's fascinating that an asteroid less than a kilometer in size can have its own little moon orbiting it out in space, and humanity has discovered hundreds in our solar system, but this is certainly not the time to bring that up. Iselin had a hard time understanding that part. And that space is empty so things don't slow down. But it is actually possible to measure the gravity between two objects and in the future I will build a contraption to do that. The Cavendish experiment done around 1800 is relatively simple and elegant, and better telescopes will be used to read the vernier scale from outside the room and inside the screened space. The experiment proved that a large mass can affect a smaller mass when they are suspended in isolated spaces from each other, and how much the effect is. I'm curious to make a similar contraption, and to actually see it for myself. It will be incredibly important to also let others use that, and recreate it in other places.

"If you could shoot an arrow with sufficient and accurate force and the arrow never lost that power, the arrow would fly straight and disappear over the horizon, but after a long time, it would have circled the world and hit you from the back. It's quite easy to prove the world you live in, the world you and everyone you've ever known or heard of is round and a globe. That is why ships disappear below the horizon much faster than they would on a flat surface, and if you look in really good telescopes in the right weather, you'll see top of the mast first, and the ship rises as it comes nearer, because you are look over the curved horizon." I grabs a slate board and quickly makes two sketches and I see Myrun understands, and why you see further from a higher altitude. "If you were to really travel around this world, you would surely find other people who already know this. The first person in Midgård that we know to have calculated the world size was called Eratosthenes, and he did it more than 2300 years ago, without leaving the place he lived on using simple means, and by sending a wanderer south to measure a distance. To use the Sextant, you need to use mathematics that calculates using a round surface - not a flat surface. Things like seasons; why it's warmer further south; the movement of the sun across the sky; why further north the sun does not rise for a month in the winter, and does not set for a month in the summer. Everything is explained and becomes quite easy and obvious if you know that the world is a globe that rotate and revolving around the sun."

"The world revolves around the sun?"

"Yes. The sun is incredibly much larger than this world, and the suns huge gravity is thus much much greater, so the world rotates around the sun. Where you stand still on the surface of the world it looks like the sun is moving across the sky, but it is the world that is rotating. The sun is round because it is a big fireball very very far away. Things smaller than the world is still huge, and with so much gravity it simply becomes spherical, because every point on the surface tries to fall toward the center, and simply crush everything together until it is round. The globe rotates and it has that angle on its axis to mimic reality. That's not a coincidence either, and the angle is also the reason that sundials must be at the correct angle for the north-south location where they are to show time correctly. The design of sundials can change depending on how close you are to the equator, which is the center of the globe as viewed from the axis, and marked by that line on the globe joining the two halves. Imagine the middle of the window is the sun. Now watch my finger on the surface of the globe. If you stand still on the surface as it rotates, it will look like the sun is rising, makes a nice arc across the sky and back down. That is a day. But realise that on the other side of the world, it's the middle of the night when it's the middle of the day here. So noon here, is not noon east or west of here. But there are no instant communication that far too prove it. But the world rotates around the sun, which means that the direction of the axis changes over the course of a year. When the top is towards the sun, we have summer. When it's away from the sun, we have winter. Further south, the world is more oriented towards the sun all year round and is thus warmer, and if you continue all the way down to the other side, they have winter when we have summer and vice versa. Their midsummer is now. Future ships that go on real long voyages will experience this. If you time the movement right and the ship is fast enough, a ship doesn't need to experience winter at all as it sail around the world.

The moon is also a smaller globe that rotates around the world, caught by the world's greater gravity. It too is round because everything large and dense enough is. The reason the moon's surface looks the same is because its rotation speed is in sync with the world's rotation speed. It's like we're dancing and looking at each other and spinning around. We both move and rotate as everyone else sees it, but from your face, it looks like everything else is spinning. The crescent moon is the sun's light reflecting off the moon and depending on the angle, it will be from full to new moon. The reason the light on the moon goes in an arc is because the moon is a sphere and the sun shines from the side. When the moon is exactly half, it can be used to calculate the angle between the sun, moon and the world we are standing on, and via mathematics prove how many times farther the distance is to the sun than to the moon. An eclipse is when the motions line up and the moon block some of the light from the sun. That is why that eclipse takes a round part out of the sun. When those eclipses happen, and how big they are, is simply a mathematical equation and can be calculated if you have enough and accurate information about the different orbits and such. The marks on the moon's surface are deep craters and mountains, and if you look through really good telescopes, you can see it when the arc of light passes over a crater. But the moon is a dead world. There is no life there. It's just grey sand and rock, without even air to breathe. Humanity have figured out a lot of the world, moon, sun and the universe. Travel around and you're likely to find elves who have figured some of that out too.

The orbits in which the earth and the moon move are not perfectly round, but slightly offset, and this is why sundials doesn't tell the time exactly right, and why a time equation is needed to compensate. The time equation is a mathematical calculation that takes into account where the world is in its orbit around the sun and from where on the world you're measuring it, and the answer is how much the error is and on which side. I will build a much more realistic world model with the sun and the moon etc that will show this at the Academy in the future. With the right knowledge of the world, the moon, the sun and the right mathematics, you can calculate where you are in the world with a sextant by measuring how they stand in relation to each other and time. The more accurate the equipment and calculations, the more accurate the fix point. I hope in my lifetime to be able to improve the sextant and collect data for tables and so on, so that the absolute position can be determined to maybe 1000 fathoms under optimal conditions. A distance that corresponds to which side of this island you are on, even though you are out in the open sea. Frankly, with three sextant, three distant hills and large mirrors to synchronize so each spot measure at the same time, those three measurements will prove the world is a sphere and its size. One of my projects is that I hope to build huge spyglass telescopes, several body lengths long, to study the celestial bodies with much better magnification and sharpness. Iselin is looking forward to this, but she has already built her own telescope.

I will not start with information like this directly during the first week at the Academy. It is knowledge that comes after a while, but it will be taught. And well proven. Just telling isn't enough. There needs to be clear proof that people can try and see, preferably in several different ways. By the way, Asta's dream is to do discovering voyages. To see what is further away, and hopefully to sail around the world. I can say that land is there, but I don't know what life there is like, or if there are civilizations there. Don’t know what animals and resources there are. Climate can be approximated, but that's all. In a few years I hope to send the first group of ships on an expedition led by Asta and let her discover a bit of the World. It is a difficult journey that will take a long time, and need proper stores and better ships. Eventually those voyages will be further away and those voyages and exploration will probably take two or three years. The world is huge.”

Myrun stays quiet while she just looks at me. It feels uncomfortable to have her focusing on me like this, obviously calculating and thinking. Maybe I said too much? Finally she breaks the silence:

"Robert, when you eventually organise those long voyages across the sea, to establish new farms, settlements and kingdoms far away, please tell me, because I want to support you in that. There are plenty of elves who would like a chance at a new life, especially people in the north and the northwest where the valleys have limited arable land. With your knowledge and support, they will have a good chance for a good life, and they will not be left to their fate, although many would gladly take the chance. This is proven by you waiting and by your creations so far, both for navigating the seas, keeping seafarers alive, and ways of making and storing provisions. You are not a man to send people away without giving them a great chance to survive, and you want to know where they have gone and settled so you can explore from that settlement, and trade with them. You have plans, and I've seen how much more land that globe shows there is far far across the sea. The land up here I always thought was so big, is so very small in comparison. Even the land to the east is truly huge on a scale I didn't understand before."

I should have expected her to think along those lines, but I don't want to promise too much. However, it can be practical with support from her in getting volunteers for settlements. But before I can answer her, Myrun continued talking:

"Your Academy will teach knowledge, and obviously you're going to teach knowledge like this and so many other subjects. What do I need to pay for you to teach Siri? We both know it's going to be a straight and honest transaction instead of something else agreed upon, whatever I might have preferred. I know you are not interested in marriage to me, but let's stop pretending because we both know I would agree to be your second wife, but that chance disappeared with Kari's inheritance and when I helped you avoid marriage to Princess Sefa. Letting Danr's ship leave Skiringsalr six months ago was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I should have lured him with business, to at least give myself time to think. Time to try to get to know you better. Time to be wise and brave. I've thought a lot about whether I would have really taken the steps to try to make you my husband, or just lure you to stay in Skiringalr. What would our lives have been like? But just like Asbjörn, I just have to accept that the Gods makes plans, the Norns weave a fate, and few have the wisdom or luck to change that weave to their benefit. We are mostly their pawns. Iselin told me that she has given you permission to continue having sex with other women, as long as there are no true relationships without her permission, so I hope we can continue to share a bed occasionally. But as I said, Siri's education will be an honest transaction. So; payment?”

"No doubt, it's better to keep that purely as a financial matter, just like any other student will be, so that we can both enjoy spending time with each other from time to time, knowing the one has nothing to do with the other. We're unlikely to become unfriendly, but should that happen, I will do my best to not let it affect Siri's education. The Academy and its students are one thing - my private life is another. It is important, both for our friendship, and so that any future moments between us is just two friends sharing an intimate moment. Education cost is not decided yet, and I will try to treat everyone equally even though richer people may pay more, partially because they have a better foundation and will generally learn more advanced things, but I can promise that Siri has a place here at the Academy as long as she and you follow the rules, and I'm not worried about that. I can give you a list of the preliminary rules, and education areas."

Caecilia comes in when I shout for her, and I ask her to get the right folder and the notebook from my study, and when she returns, I take out the relevant pages and give it to Myrun. Myrun nods and agrees as she reads, and even though everything doesn't sit well with her, she really likes other things, and she understands the education will be very broad, and it's all or nothing.

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Rules:

# All students are equal and social class between students doesn't matter. No titles are used.

# All residents of the islands must be respected regardless of social level or gender:

Regent, Craftsman, Teacher, Student, Slave. Man or woman.

# Conflicts between families and nations do not apply on the Academy's islands, it is neutral ground.

# Violence and threats against students or residents at the Academy and on the island are not accepted except in a training situation, and the acceptable level is low and depends on the training.

# Students do not carry a weapons except during special occasions, and anything more than a knife with a hand-length blade is stored by the Academy.

# People who use violence, threats of violence, or power, to oppress, humiliate or force others to do things against their will, are not welcome as students.

# Parents and others must not try to circumvent the rules by doing it outside the Academy and Furstdom islands.

# Students have no servants of their own as long as there are no medical reasons, and no guards of their own except in certain cases. The Academy decides that from case to case.

# The students will have to learn to take care of themselves, their room and clothes, and how to cook, for a shorter period of time.

# Students have to try every educational subject the teachers say they have to try, no matter how disgusting, uncomfortable, unpleasant, or male/female it is considered.

# Students will be tested in different skills and what they have learned. Cheating on exams and tests is prohibited and dishonest. At the end of each week, there is likely to be a simpler essay writing about what the students learned during the week.

# Too low performance gives a chance for improvement, but repeated too low results lead to exclusion and being sent home. The education fee is forfeited.

# The Academy feeds the student during their stay, and the student lives in an assigned place, and wears assigned clothes during the day's studying or training.

# Students will not demand, pay, force or be forced into sexual services. It is disrespectful and will be severely punished.

# Students have to be honest and truthful if Academy leaders ask something specific in a private setting, and refusing to answer is almost as bad. The Academy is governed by law and rules, and the Academy leader decide and impose punishments on students and faculty.

# If the student is relegated, the student will be put ashore in Lysesund and how they get home is not the Academy's problem. The education fee is forfeited.

Education fee:

The fee partially depends on the ability to pay. Richer families pay more, but some students get slightly better accommodation. Exceptional students who are unable to pay can apply to be exempted from paying, or owing it to be repaid in the future. A few students each year can be admitted from those who cannot pay, on something called a scholarship.

Educational periods:

There are two educational periods per year. The summer term and the winter term are each 25 weeks long. Switching takes place at the autumn and spring equinox before and after the Tosra Gathering. Approximate distribution of education time, although the days are mixed.

Summer Term = Introduction 1w, Foundation 5w, Farm 9w, Crafts 3w, Nature 4w, Social 3w.

Winter Term = Introduction 1w, Foundation 5w, Farm 5w, Crafts 5w, Nature 4w, Social 6w.

Areas of education:

When a student knows the area well enough, the time can be used to learn other things.

# 1, Basic: Reading, Writing and Maths (all three common systems).

# 2, The farm: Taking care of oneself and a farm, the land, crops and animals.

# 3, Crafting: Various basic types, to take care of equipment, and do a trade.

# 4, Nature: Nature Knowledge, Survival, Orienteering, Sailing, Riding, Driving a wagon, Hunting and Fishing.

# 5, Social: Language, History, Law and Justice, Etiquette, Dance, Music. Weapons training. Guard duty.

#6, Advanced: More theoretical and advanced areas of physics, chemistry, nature and special art skills.

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I can't do or teach all of that myself, but I don't need to know it yet, and will always need teachers who can do it better in all areas. Myrun have finished reading it, so I say:

"This spring, after the spring's Tosra Gathering, the first selection for the Academy will take place, even though it is intended that the lessons this summer will not be as comprehensive and they will be focused outdoors and practice more than knowledge, in addition to teaching many people to read, write and count. Without saying too much, I suggest you keep the whole week before the Auction and the Tosra Gathering free, and tip Liv as well. That aside, much has not been decided yet and at least the first year will be trying out and learning for both the Academy, the teachers and the students, and I expect to lack teachers for quite a few subjects. Many of the more advanced subjects I will have to teach myself because there is probably no one else who can teach them, and a lot of it will be lectures or experiments to show different things or make the students think about areas they have probably never done before. I have already anticipated having to expand the Academy in the coming years due to different orientations and need. Art, music and theater are large areas that have their own premises requirements, and it should be in its own building. But if Siri wants, she will get to participate during this first year, and she will learn a lot about a lot, but I reckon it will take maybe two years for what I consider to be a basic education, and that is because she can read, write and count, but she will have to learn my new maths system. Then it depends on what she is interested in, and considering all the new knowledge, that is hard to predict. The only thing I can promise is that Siri will have an interesting couple of years, and she will see the world differently when she leaves."

Myrun smile as she nod, and happy and looking forward to telling Siri about her possibilities. As we leave, I turn the globe so the Academy logo is on the back under the globes arm and ask Caecilia to cover the globe with a nicer blanket or piece of cloth.