The Five Senses
“The five senses” is a subject explored by a handful of Renaissance painters, among them Jan Brueghel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, and Michaelina Wautier. For my own version of the five senses, each sense is represented by an intelligent species in the world of Fantasy Ecology.
Smell
Orcs are a migratory people. Every spring, Udug-padak’s clan returns to the grasslands, and every spring, Udug is stuck on gardening duty. This is an unpleasant-smelling task which mostly involves spreading behemoth dung around meridak plants, to promote their growth by next spring. The meridak is a tasty tuber with sweet-smelling flowers, and has countless culinary uses. Though Udug grimaces at the stench of the dung, he knows that the smell of meridak stew wafting from the chimneys of the yurts in the evening will make it all worthwhile.
