Tricksters galore

From: Erik Sieurin <BV9521_at_utb.hb.se>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 10:45:06 +0100


> The Closedhandist Heresy is hilarious: a piece of perfect Gloranthan
> inspiration. The name is the ideal capstone to the thought itself. These guys
> exist for sure in my Glorantha...

And think about the reprogramming methods the Orthodox will have to use to make all those horribly deluded dwarves normal again, once they are back in control.....
Argrath:
> Another popular "dueling" method is what is known in the U.S. as "playing the
> dozens." This is a little ritual of exchanging colorful and witty insults,
> often having to do with the target's mother. Delivery is important, so it's
> hard to give an example in writing. Lots of sexual innuendo. If you can get
> your opponent really angry while amusing the on-lookers (who are key to the
> whole ritual), you score a point.

Applause for that idea.
>
> I generally liked Eric's take on things, except for the implication that
> anyone chooses to be a Eurmali. Few people in Orlanthi society choose their
> life roles, and no one would choose to be a Eurmali.
Here we obviously differ - but part of my "take" on Eurmal is that he is not that powerful, mysterious and important that the Sages tell you... He is "too shallow to be real", and all that pompous crap sometimes spouted about him is just another of his distasteful jokes..
But I agree that most people have no real choice about their roles in life in _any_ society, especially a preindustrial clannish one. Perhaps I should have written "choice, as much as there really is a choice", but it seems a little heavyhanded. And if "circumstances" (and who are they? Arachne Solara? Krasht? Greg Stafford?) make you an outlaw, you have the choice - no divine support (remember, you killed your cousin Ed, and Orlanth do not like "kinstrife") in a world where "the relationship between man and myth is essential" - or becoming an Eurmali.

EURMAL AND CHILDREN'S TALES
The Finnish author Zacharias Topelius wrote a "play for children" that I read when I was a kid. I found it in one of my father's schoolbooks - it was not the kind of story children of my generation would have gotten, heavy-handedly moralistic in a Victorian way with a lot of sentimentality of the worst kind. But it contains one marvellous semi-villain, who first threatens the lives of the heroes, but then helps them.
The guy is described as a "cannibal" - most translators would have called him an "ogre". His wife, who is more the normal, suffering housewife kind, really wishes he would be a normal farmer, but he is like he is. I'm paraphrasing from memory: "That he is a sorcerer, that I can stand - he uses his magic mostly to amuse himself, and sometimes even helps people. And that he is a robber I can also take, since he mostly steals from other people. But his taste for man-flesh, especially that of children, is the thing I have most trouble with. Today I have only an old rooster to give him for dinner, and surely he will begin to growl, and after dinner he will go out with his big sack to catch himself a poor kid for the evening meal...."
THERE you have an "amiable" Cacodemonist - or, more to the point of this discussion, a Trickster outlaw like the one I described yesterday....
(How the children got out of it? Well, the Brave But Poor Boy (TM) amuses him (!) when he tries to kill the ogre, who has captured his friends - he has no real chance of winning, but the guy finds it so ridiculous that the kid could even THINK of victory, that he bursts out laughing. Then, his poor wife pleads with him that "if you will just leave the poor children alone, I'll slaughter the Cristmas Pig (you anglosaxons would slaughter the Christmas Turkey) for you and cook it" and he is satisfied with that "pork is also tasty, come to think of it".)

Erik, who is getting hungry, Sieurin


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