>But I do not
>think that heroquesting should change mundane history - the moving finger,
>and all that.
[...]
>Mythic history, yes, but the whole point is that that is myth,
>and myth is always of the present, even if allegedly in the past.
That's a really short quote, so I can say "Yeah, I agree", can't I? In fact
I would like to say something a bit stronger:
Dave, you are 99% correct and I will personally flame anyone who says
otherwise! :-)
What's the missing 1%? Well, I think you should have avoided the term
"mythic history" - even if you explain that it isn't _really_ history as
such, it could confuse the issue. Minor point.
To those who might have missed it, this is the same thing I was going on
about a few days (or was it weeks?) ago when I wrote something to the
effect that "the Gods are lousy historians", meaning that the gods know
about myth, 'cause that's where they live, but not about the realm of Time,
'cause that's off-limits to them.
Someone raised the objection that gods know everything their worshippers
have told them in prayer, so they should have some knowledge of past
events.
OK, first of all this information is (of course) purely subjective and
biased. Secondly, why would a devotee of a deity mention such mundane
things as what year it is or who is King at the time the prayer is said?
Why would he/she bother the deity with those everyday, self-evident facts
that an historian would be most interested in? Thirdly, I would claim that
as the god has no temporal consciousness, it is at a loss to say how long
ago a certain prayer was uttered, or even the sequence in which information
was given to it. Fourthly, deities will tend to have their own
interpretations of events, compounded of mundane information from
worshippers and mythic repercussions. For them, the myth will have
precedence. If something some priest said contradicts it, well, mortals
_are_ fallible... I could go on, but my attention span is approaching its
limit.
So, anyway: history and myth are two different views of events (the world, reality...), sometimes complementary, sometimes exclusive, but always different. Don't get them confused.
( Jonas Schiott ) ( Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria ) ( Goteborgs Universitet ) ------------------------------
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