Rosmerta; goddess of abundance and fertility (rosmertiae) wrote in history_dot_com, @ 2012-04-10 17:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~anteros, ~rosmerta |
Valses Sentimentales [Vienna, 1782] (tag: Anteros)
Sometimes, Rosmerta reflected, as she watched the pastel skirts of another woman whirl past like petals on the wind, you just couldn't improve on originals. Which didn't mean that people wouldn't try. Which was what was happening now, with this silly little dance that was so shocking and affronting proper men and women of upstanding virtue. Rosmerta didn't find it scandalous at all. She found it boring.
The problem, probably, was that Rosmerta was a goddess of the countryside and rural areas. These lords and ladies, city-dwellers for the most part, had different sorts of pursuits and activities than those in the country. There, a night of dancing did not mean standing around the edges of a room, politely sipping watered down wine while passing gossip and spreading rumors, hoping to make an eligible match to keep the family fortunes intact and squirt out an heir and a spare before ignoring your spouse for the rest of your days. Here, that was all that seemed to happen.
Rosmerta far preferred the rural areas, with the farmers and their wives, the little villages full of people that knew everyone they met. The butchers and bakers there catered to their clientele because they already knew what they were going to order, they'd done it for their entire lives. The pubmaster would brew up a special batch because at the end of the harvest season there would be a celebration. And there, that celebration included dancing that was actual dancing.
Perhaps that was why she found this new waltz so very dull. She knew where it came from. It was based on the ländler, a wonderful dance full of turns and twists and spins and stomping. The men would even put hobnails on their boots to make the stomping sound louder. Sometimes there would even be yodeling.
There was no yodeling here tonight thought. The uppercrust had come along, taken a wonderful country dance, and made it something they thought was less vulgar and more risque. They'd closed the form, so the dancing partners faced one another, the man's arm around the woman's waist. For some reason, they thought this was terribly, terribly naughty.
Rosmerta was almost irritated at how much time she's spent getting ready for this ball. All that effort, just to stand here watching people twirl. One more cup of the ratafia, and then she was leaving. Surely there had to be a party somewhere outside the city where there was real dancing.