Luaithre - the ash folk

Gloine is death incarnated. It is beautiful, indeed. But only Luaithre are crazy enough to live there.

— A Lowlander from Gáláwá

Summary

There is but a single tribe inhabiting mount Gloine, called Luaithre. Best known for their connection to the Mountain Ash Grove, where the fallen bark of the Mountain Ash is gathered, and for which they have been called Ash-folk, mainly by the lowlanders.

Glassmakers

Luaithre are best known for glassmaking in which they excel over all tribes in Saveni. Since their settlements are situated in the forests, the produce is typically called a forest glass, though there are a great number of glass types, ranging from colourless and transparent, through coloured transparent to opaque.

Two ingredients which appear in most of their recipes are the mountain crystals — colourless, hard and high-melting minerals and various types of ash.

Stag glass — premium grade

The premium grade glass, sometimes called the stag glass is prepared using only the most transparent mountain crystals and the ashen bark of the Mountain Ash. As the bark is collected seasonally and its resource is limited, the amount is limited as well and the price is very often elevated. Although the recipe is known, people had great difficulties with recreating the end product. One of the factors is thought to be the melting pot, which Luaithre use for bonding ritual, and which is said to be made of a fallen star.

This grade is called a stag glass as a reference to Àncéarmâr — the Stag of Autumn, to whom the Gáláwan version of the myth is dedicated.

Forest glass

In contrast to the stag glass, the forest glass is made of regular ash, coming from the wood that was burned throughout the year. The mountain crystal is still used as the main ingredient, though, which gives the glass high strength and transparency. There is no fixed recipe for the forest glass. It is rather a group of types, which share a common ingredient of a forest ash.

Some very common additives include tinkal, sapphire or calcined galena. The first is very popular, for it makes the mixture much easier to work with by lowering the molding temperature of the glass. Additives are added to increase the hardness/scratch resistivity of the glass, increase the ability to split light and add colour.

Forest glass (especially the tinkal variety) is the most popular pick of the containers used by some of the skalds.