Great Northern Forest
The Great Northern Forest stretches from the shores of the Sea of Thassa to beyond the Mountains of Thentis and is a wild, lawless place, the home of Outlaws and Panther Girls.
"See," she said, pointing up to the hills and forest north
of Laura. "Those are the great forests. No one knows how far they extend to the east,
and they go north as far as Torvaldsland. In them there are the forest people, but also
many bands of outlaws, some of women and some of men."
"Women?" I asked.
"Some call the the forest girls," said Ute. "Others call them the panther
girls, for they dress in the teeth and skins of forest panthers, which they slay with
their spears and bows."
I looked at her.
"They live in the forest without men," she said, "saving those they
enslave, and then sell, when tiring of them. They shave the heads of their male slaves in
that fashion to humiliate them. And that, too, is the way they sell them, that all the
world may know that they fell slave to females, who then sold them."
I looked about myself. The forests of the northern temperate latitudes of Gor are
countries in themselves, covering hundreds of thousands of square pasangs of area. They
contain great numbers of various species of trees, and different portions of the forest
may differ considerably among themselves. The most typical and famous tree of these
forests is the loft, reddish Tur tree, some varieties of which grow more than two hundred
feet high. It is not known how far these forests extend. It is not impossible that they
belt the land surfaces of the planet. They begin near the shores of Thassa, the Sea, in
the west. How far they extend to the east is not known. They do extend beyond the most
northern ridges of the Thentis Mountains.
We found ourselves now in a stand of the lofty Tur trees. I could see broadly spreading
branches some two hundred feet or more over my head. The trunks of the trees were almost
bare of branches until, so far above, branches seemed to explode in an interlacing blanket
of foilage, almost obliterating the sky. I could see glimpses of the three moons high
above. The floor of the forest was almost bare. Between the lofty, widely spaced trees
there was little but a carpeting of leaves.
In the forests there were sleen and panthers, and fierce tarsks.
"Few travelers journey through the northern forests," I said.
"Do not go, Master, into the forests," had begged Sheera. "It is dangerous!"
Overhead were several birds, bright, chattering, darting, swift among the branches and green leaves. I heard the throaty warbling, so loud for such a small bird, of the tiny horned gim. Somewhere, far off, but carrying through the forest, was the rapid, staccato slap of the sharp beak of the yellow-breasted hermit bird, pounding into the reddish bark of the tur tree, hunting for larvae.
Goreans care for their world. They love the sky, the plains, the sea, the rain in the summer, the snow in the winter. They will sometimes stand and watch clouds. The movement of grass in the wind is very beautiful to them. More than one Gorean poet had sung of the leaf of a Tur tree.
Hanging is a not uncommon penalty in the northern forests for outlawry. Another such penalty, not infrequently inflicted, is hamstringing.
