Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Tom Langhorne provides a great look into 17th-century gear that your average highlander would take on their journeys, and he has a few historical camping videos as well. Unsurprisingly, much of his gear looks exactly like a ranger's hard kit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCFS2amNPA8&t=45s

I have such mixed feelings about this project of Mr. Langhorne's.

I’ve been watching his videos for a while, and he’s a very talented bushcrafter/survivalist with a well thought out, functional kit that definitely has a period flavor! It's also improved quite a bit over time, especially his blades and soft kit.

On the other hand, I don't consider him to be a good researcher. He has shown very little documentation to back up what he says, and I really wish he would be more precise with his language. Even just calling the 17th century "ancient" seems a bit of a stretch to me. Honestly, if he just changed his phrasing to "they could have done this" or "based on the technology of the time, this is possible", I would have almost no problems with what he's putting out. He did state in another video that he wasn’t really interested in super nitty-gritty research, though, so it's not like he hasn't been upfront about it. I would just take anything he says about the authenticity of his kit with a grain of salt (although that's probably best to do for anyone's kit).

That said, for the purposes of Middle-earth, there's a lot of interesting stuff there, and you could certainly do worse when looking for inspiration for a Ranger kit!

We obviously shop at the same places,I have that same creel and cauldron

Taurinor wrote: I really wish he would be more precise with his language. Even just calling the 17th century "ancient" seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Yeah, I caught that the first time I watched this video and it kinda irked me as well. I'm pretty new to his videos, I've only watched this one and two of his camping ones, but you're right in that he definitely seems to be more focused on the bushcraft/survival stuff and less about being a historical presenter. In this video, he does at least provide the books he gathered his research from and he does disclaim that he had to "fill in the gaps" by looking at other cultures and sub in some "close enough" gear.

As you said though, I think there's good inspiration and ideas for ranger equipment in this video.

Yep, I've been subscribed to his you-tube for quite a while, he does great stuff even if it's very experimental and not so well backed in history however I've done a fair amount of reading about the highland way of life and I can't really blame him, there is not much information to go on