Re: Dismembered gods: huh?

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_usol.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:40:24 -0600

At 03:04 PM 2/18/2004 -0800, S. Ben Melhuish wrote:
>I don't know my real-world mythology very well beyond Greek and a
>smattering of Norse, but Glorantha's dismemberment rate seems ...
>disproportionately high. Am I missing a host of real-world analogies, or
>is there a cosmological reason for dismembering in Glorantha, or is Greg
>just fond of dismembering?

Not sure about the high rate or not, but here are some examples (gods and others) of dismemberment and severe injury:

Norse: Ymir (dismembered to create world), Odin (lost eye), Tyr (lost hand), Narve (dismembered, guts used to bind Loki) Egyptian: Osiris (dismembered, partially reconstructed), Horus (lost eye which shattered and had to be gathered together, lost both eyes, lost hand), Seth (castrated), Amun (lost eye), Isis (beheaded, still controlled her body and restored herself)
Greek: Uranus (castrated), Medusa (beheaded), Orpheus (dismembered, head lived on)
Celtic: Nuada (lost arm, and thus kingship), Bran (beheaded, head lived on), Conaire (survived beheading briefly) Mesopotamian: Tiamat (dismembered to create world) India/Vedic: Purusha/Brahma (dismembered to create world) Japan: Kagutsuchi (dismembered)
Aztec: Tlaltecuhtli (dismembered to create world, may be related to human sacrifices and dismemberment)
More recent European tales: Green Knight (Arthurian, beheaded and then reattached), misc disembodied heads (fairy tales, people and animals, some restored)
US stories: headless horseman

Thanks,
Andy

--__--__--

End of Glorantha Digest