Re: What lies beneath Alda Chur???

From: ian_hammond_cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_m9LGw_vWFCeyaVQQGGVqza2isZIio5HKc5i-eq58Bg-yqJ2tcqD_z2TTB>
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:45:25 -0000

> OK, straighten me out on this: Isn't Yelm what most cultures (at least in central Genertela) call the ball of light and flame that travels across the sky every day? Don't most Orlanthi believe that this ball is Yelm? <

For the Orlanthi, the god of the Sun is Elmal. The Orlanthi have a mythical figure called the Emperor who ruled during the stagnant golden age. Orlanth contests with him, and kills him. When the Orlanthi encountered Dara Happan culture, the two cultures equated the Dara Happan ruling god, Yelm, with the Orlanthi Emperor, drawing on parallels between the two myths. But that does not make the Emperor/Yelm the sun for Orlanthi.

So in this sense people disagree on who the sun in the sky is.

Lots of folks seem to get uptight at the idea that in Glorantha the sun can be both Yelm and Elmal. My best understanding is a Platonic vision of the universe in which both Yelm and Elmal are both but shadows of essential 'sun-ness'. They may even be manifestations of the projections of individual societies understanding of 'sun-ness'. So the Orlanthi see the sun as a thane to Orlanth, and only have eyes to see or ears to hear certain the myths of the sun, and they call what they perceive Elmal etc. Under this view, great gods, would simply be better reflections of the 'all' than lesser gods would.

The enlightened are then people who are capable of seeing the 'all' of 'sun-ness'

But I might be wide of the mark.