Re: Saunas

From: o_leppa <oleppa_at_KFvuvvAzqZuph6RCVNe2KrDHV1zNOb5epz3GtVzsoLo93JkWLUQblKz0ZIE_491DXzK-K>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:30:59 -0000

Good day to everyone. This sounds like an interesting project. I hope I can contribute in some way. Feel free to assign anything John.

But since you are talking of saunas, I feel that I have to say something.

> >Saunas sound more Ernaldan than Orlanthi to me. Perhaps it is part
of
> >the secret women's magic where they go and do strange stuff in
caves.
> >
> >Actually I love the sauna, quite popular here in Sweden. We're not
quite
> >as fanatical as our eastern brothers, though.

That's perhaps because you don't have decent saunas. Under 100C is not a decent sauna.

> The pleasure for the men could be emerging from the warm (but
> stifling) heat of the Earth/Mahome into the cool free air -- the
> sauna is a place where the "woman's world" lets you free yourself
of
> dirt and fatigue and return to the open air refreshed. A man who
> spends too much time in the sauna, of course, leaves himself open
to
> "Nandan" and "Humakt" jokes.

Now this is plain silly and kinda offensive to a finn. Sauna as a institution is _very_ masculine (it's the hardest and most masculine men who are enthusiastics in the real world after all). Glorantha is perhaps different in some forms of cultural behaviour but please do not desecrate this one (not that making something feminine is bad - it is just that misunderstanding of sauna would be that).

To me sauna is clearly a form of holy breath and therefore a form of Orlanth. But I can see the Ernalda connection if people are referring to the mild steamy turkish sauna.

Cheers anyway
Otto