La Corne d'Arabie / The Horn of Araby

(English translation is available below)

 La Corne de l'Arabie est un élément géographique mentionné, à ma connaissance, seulement quelque fois dans la littérature liée au monde de Warhammer. On y fait référence dans le roman Fell Cargo de Dan Abnett, dans The Voyage South de Nicola Griffith, et on peut distinguer sur certaines cartes du monde de Warhammer un élément géographique qui pourrait y correspondre. 

Voici les passages en question dans Fell Cargo :

“Oh, they’re true, so tell,” said Benuto. “Ten months now, the Butcher Ship’s been out there. We all thought it fancy at first too. But the trade routes have emptied, and many of Sartosa’s own have gone missing, to boot.”

“So he preys on more than merchantmen?”

“The Butcher preys on everything. Mainlander and pirate alike. He is the sea daemon himself Benuto spat and touched the gold ring in his ear to ward against bad fortune. Jacque Rawhead’s boat, both of Hasty Leopald’s, the Windrush, the Labour of Love, the Espiritu Santo, the Princess Ella and the Lightning Tree, unless old Jeremiah Tusk went south around the Horn of Araby this year like he’s always been threatening.”

[...]

“Away?” Luka smiled. “Did you make your trip at last?”

Tusk nodded. “All the way south, around the Horn of Araby. Just as I said I would, one day.”

“And how was it?”

“Eventful,” Tusk smiled.

Luka had often begged Tusk to record a narrative of his exploits, for his life had contained so much more than any one man should have been capable of. His stories, his secrets, the strange facts of his enterprises, were priceless gems and should have been bound up in a book like the ones in the Marquis of Aguilas’ library, for future generations to learn from. But Tusk was always tight-lipped, and desired no glory from posterity. “My stories will die with me,” he’d once told Luka, “except those that are remembered by the likes of you and told on to others.”

Livre d'armées Bêtes du Chaos v6

“Around the Horn,” Luka murmured. “By Manann, Jeremiah, I’m proud of you.”

[...]

“We’ve heard tell of that,” said Manuel Honduro, Tusk’s mixed race master mate. “At the ports we’ve come to, along the tip of Araby.”

Et dans The Voyage South :

Ariel heard the bitterness. "Marya, if this is an ocean-going ship, why isn't it at sea?"

"It's not profitable to follow the old trade routes any more, we get taxed out of existence by people like Jorge and his friends. The Magrittans."

"But what right do they have?"

"The oldest one in the world. Might." She reached for one of the bundles of clothes and pulled out a map. She traced the outline of the Horn of Araby. There was dirt under her fingernail. "Anyone wanting to move goods from here to anywhere past the Estalian coast - Bretonnia, Marienburg, Erengrad, anywhere - has to pass here." She tapped the southern tip of Estalia. "And that's where the Magrittan fleet has been manoeuvring for the past four or five months. Nothing gets through without paying taxes. They even dared tax an Elven ship that stopped over on the horn on its way from Lustria."

[...]

"Here to the west, between the Horn of Araby and the southern tip of Estalia, the sea flows into the Great Western Ocean. That should now be blocked off by ships from Marienburg, Lustria and even from Brionne or Bordelaux. They will be sailing west to meet us and the fleet out of Meknes." 

 [...]

"It might catch the Horn of Araby," Cendenai remarked. She looked over at Mousaou Salah who was pale with shock, then at her father, and beckoned the signaller. "I'm ordering the fleet away."

WFB3

Ce qu'on peut retenir de ces passages est que, d'après The Voyage South, la Corne de l'Arabie se trouve en face de la pointe sud de l'Estalie et, avec cette dernière, semble fermer l'accès à la mer qui sépare le Vieux Monde de l'Arabie. Conformément à de nombreuses sources des années 80 et 90, le Vieux Monde est alors plus calqué sur notre bonne vieille Terre et ce genre de référence est courant dans les romans les plus anciens. Ici, on nous présente clairement un reflet de la Méditerranée occidentale et le Détroit de Gibraltar. Avec une flotte suffisamment importante, il est possible d'en barrer l'accès et contrôler le passage vers le Grand Océan. Ceci implique, avec le dernier passage cité où la menace (un démon majeur), pourrait facilement atteindre la Corne, que les deux sont relativement proches en terme de distance. Dans Fell Cargo, les marins considèrent que franchir la Corne est un fait d'arme et quelque chose de peu courant. Rappelons que les elfes d'Ulthuan tendent à défendre farouchement l'accès au Grand Océan et que trop s'éloigner du détroit constitué par la pointe sud de l'Estalie et l'Arabie est probablement considéré par les elfes comme une intrusion. De ce point de vue, passer trop au large de la Corne pourrait être vu comme le risque d'être pris à parti par Ulthuan.

WFRP1

Malheureusement, l'évolution des cartes du monde de Warhammer a régulièrement modifié, agrandi, réduit voire fait disparaître des éléments géographiques. C'est le cas pour de nombreuses régions, la plus flagrante étant Ulthuan qui, entre deux cartes, est devenu le continent en forme circulaire doté d'une mer intérieur que nous connaissons. D'autres endroits, comme Albion, ont largement changé de forme et taille au fil du temps. Concernant le nord de l'Arabie, on peut aisément constater sur les extraits de cartes présents dans cet article qu'il existe un élément géographique proéminent pointant vers le nord, précisément vers la pointe sud ouest de l'Estalie dans WFRP1, et plus à l'est dans FWB3 et d'autres sources postérieures, comme certaines Livres d'Armée, par exemple celui des Bêtes du Chaos.

D'autres sources, parfois antérieures, souvent postérieures, ne montrent pas cette protubérance sur la péninsule arabienne. Par exemple, les cartes du monde dans WFB5 et WFB7 :

WFB5 

WFB7

Pour réconcilier ces deux visions de l'Arabie et réintroduire un élément géographique dont l'importance semblait bien marquée dans ces deux romans, j'ai fait le choix d'en faire une archipel, proche du continent mais également bien démarquée afin de justifier d'un point de vue intradiégétique que, en fonction du cartographe et de l'année d'établissement de la carte, la vision de l'endroit puisse être différente. Sur certaines, on les considérera comme de simples îles et on les exclura donc de la représentation, comme ce peut être le cas avec l'île de Fyrus qui, bien que mentionnée très tôt dans l'univers de Warhammer, n'est finalement apparue que sur la carte de Total War Warhammer II. Sur d'autres, le cartographe n'aura pas pris conscience qu'il s'agissait d'une masse terrestre distincte et l'aura donc représentée comme faisant partie intégrante de la péninsule arabienne. 

Historiquement, ceci peut se retrouver par exemple dans l'illustration de la géographie de Pomponius Mela, géographe romain du I° siècle de notre ère, dans l'Atlas Antiquus de Justus Perthes (1893) où l'on constate que la Mer Caspienne est ouverte sur l'océan par le nord, ou que la Scandinavie est représentée comme une archipel car les Romains, dans l'Antiquité, n'avaient pas conscience qu'elle était reliée au continent. On peut également y voir que le Sri-Lanka, ici appelé Taprobane, était considéré par Pomponius Mela comme constituant hypothétiquement la partie visible d'un continent inconnu situé dans l'hémisphère sud, continent normalement inaccessible car situé au delà de l'équateur, une zone alors considérée comme infranchissable selon la théorie des cinq zones climatiques de Parménide (V° siècle avant notre ère). 

Pomponius Mela, Atlas Antiquus by Justus Perthes (1893)

English translation

The Horn of Araby is a geographical feature mentioned, to my knowledge, only a few times in the literature related to the Warhammer world. It is referred to in Dan Abnett's Fell Cargo, in Nicola Griffith's The Voyage South, and a geographical feature can be discerned on some maps of the Warhammer world that might correspond to it. 

Here are the passages in question in Fell Cargo:

“Oh, they’re true, so tell,” said Benuto. “Ten months now, the Butcher Ship’s been out there. We all thought it fancy at first too. But the trade routes have emptied, and many of Sartosa’s own have gone missing, to boot.”

“So he preys on more than merchantmen?”

“The Butcher preys on everything. Mainlander and pirate alike. He is the sea daemon himself Benuto spat and touched the gold ring in his ear to ward against bad fortune. Jacque Rawhead’s boat, both of Hasty Leopald’s, the Windrush, the Labour of Love, the Espiritu Santo, the Princess Ella and the Lightning Tree, unless old Jeremiah Tusk went south around the Horn of Araby this year like he’s always been threatening.”

[...]

“Away?” Luka smiled. “Did you make your trip at last?”

Tusk nodded. “All the way south, around the Horn of Araby. Just as I said I would, one day.”

“And how was it?”

“Eventful,” Tusk smiled.

Luka had often begged Tusk to record a narrative of his exploits, for his life had contained so much more than any one man should have been capable of. His stories, his secrets, the strange facts of his enterprises, were priceless gems and should have been bound up in a book like the ones in the Marquis of Aguilas’ library, for future generations to learn from. But Tusk was always tight-lipped, and desired no glory from posterity. “My stories will die with me,” he’d once told Luka, “except those that are remembered by the likes of you and told on to others.”

Chaos Beast Army Book v6

“Around the Horn,” Luka murmured. “By Manann, Jeremiah, I’m proud of you.”

[...]

“We’ve heard tell of that,” said Manuel Honduro, Tusk’s mixed race master mate. “At the ports we’ve come to, along the tip of Araby.”

And in The Voyage South :

Ariel heard the bitterness. "Marya, if this is an ocean-going ship, why isn't it at sea?"

"It's not profitable to follow the old trade routes any more, we get taxed out of existence by people like Jorge and his friends. The Magrittans."

"But what right do they have?"

"The oldest one in the world. Might." She reached for one of the bundles of clothes and pulled out a map. She traced the outline of the Horn of Araby. There was dirt under her fingernail. "Anyone wanting to move goods from here to anywhere past the Estalian coast - Bretonnia, Marienburg, Erengrad, anywhere - has to pass here." She tapped the southern tip of Estalia. "And that's where the Magrittan fleet has been manoeuvring for the past four or five months. Nothing gets through without paying taxes. They even dared tax an Elven ship that stopped over on the horn on its way from Lustria."

[...]

"Here to the west, between the Horn of Araby and the southern tip of Estalia, the sea flows into the Great Western Ocean. That should now be blocked off by ships from Marienburg, Lustria and even from Brionne or Bordelaux. They will be sailing west to meet us and the fleet out of Meknes." 

 [...]

"It might catch the Horn of Araby," Cendenai remarked. She looked over at Mousaou Salah who was pale with shock, then at her father, and beckoned the signaller. "I'm ordering the fleet away."

 

WFB3

What can be learned from these extracts is that, according to The Voyage South, the Horn of Araby lies opposite the southern tip of Estalia and, together with the latter, seems to close the access to the sea that separates the Old World from Araby. In accordance with many sources from the 1980s and 1990s, the Old World is then more closely modelled on our good old Earth and this kind of reference is common in the older novels. Here we are clearly presented with a reflection of the western Mediterranean Sea and the Straits of Gibraltar. With a sufficiently large fleet, it is possible to block the access and control the passage to the Great Ocean. This implies, along with the last mentioned passage where the threat (a major demon), could easily reach the Horn, that the two are relatively close in distance. In Fell Cargo, the sailors consider crossing the Horn to be a feat and something unusual. It should be remembered that the elves of Ulthuan tend to defend fiercely the access to the Great Ocean and that moving too far away from the strait formed by the southern tip of Estalia and Araby is probably considered by the elves as an intrusion. From this point of view, going too far off the Horn could be seen as a risk of being targeted by Ulthuan.

WFRP1

Unfortunately, the evolution of Warhammer world maps has regularly modified, enlarged, reduced or even made disappear geographical elements. This is the case for many regions, the most obvious being Ulthuan which, between two maps, has become the circular continent with an inland sea that we know. Other places, such as Albion, have largely changed shape and size over time. As for northern Araby, it is easy to see from the map samples included in this article that there is a prominent geographical feature pointing north, precisely to the south-western tip of Estalia in WFRP1, and further east in FWB3 and other later sources, such as some of the Army Books, e.g. the Beasts of Chaos.

Other sources, sometimes older, often later, do not show this protrusion on the Arabyan Peninsula. For example, the world maps in WFB5 and WFB7 :

WFB5 

WFB7

To reconcile these two visions of Araby and to reintroduce a geographical element whose importance seemed to be well marked in these two novels, I chose to make it an archipelago, close to the continent but also well demarcated in order to justify from an intradiegetic point of view that, depending on the cartographer and the year the map was drawn, the vision of the place could be different. On some, it will be considered as mere islands and will therefore be excluded from the representation, as may be the case with the island of Fyrus which, although mentioned very early in the Warhammer universe, finally only appeared on the map of Total War Warhammer II. On others, the cartographer will not have realised that it was a separate landmass and so will have depicted it as part of the Arabyan Peninsula. 

Historically, this can be seen, for example, in the illustration of the geography of Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer of the first century AD, in the Atlas Antiquus by Justus Perthes (1893), where it can be seen that the Caspian Sea is open to the ocean from the north, or that Scandinavia is represented as an archipelago, because the Romans in antiquity were not aware that it was connected to the continent. It can also be seen that Sri Lanka, here called Taprobane, was considered by Pomponius Mela as hypothetically constituting the visible part of an unknown continent located in the southern hemisphere, a continent normally inaccessible because it was located beyond the equator, a zone then considered impassable according to the theory of the five climatic zones of Parmenides (5th century BC).

Pomponius Mela, Atlas Antiquus by Justus Perthes (1893)