Re: Pharandros's birthdate

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 01:13 MET


Peter Metcalfe
>In his thesis about Moraides reign, Joerg refers to something that I
>haven't tackled him on yet. He has been dating Pharandros's birth to
>1602 ST for reasons unknown.

Have I? I just said that 1582 would mean that my current candidate for his mother, Harsta Vostorsdotter, was born in 1568. If Pharandros was born in 1582, he would have to have been conceived in 1581, at Harsta's age 13. This would be early even for medieval standards.

>>(compare Wyrm's Footnotes 12 - I find it highly
>>unlikely that Pharandros would marry a woman at least 14 years his elder)

>I presume this is under the new date of birth for Pharandros. However
>if Pharandros was born in 1582, we wouldn't have this problem. Unless
>there's something in WF12 (I don't have the text) that makes this
>impossible.

Not impossible, but unlikely.

WF 12 tells about Fazzur's father:
"Vostos' last child, a daughter, was born in 1568 and was named Harsta. She was proud and haughty noblewoman, and wed the second son of King Phargentes." and "During the 1613 rebellion in Sartar, the commander there proved himself a drunkard and incompetent in his handling the situation. Fazzur petitioned his brother-in-law, now the King of Tarsh, for command of the relieving troops."

Thus, if the "second son of Phargentes" was Pharandros (WF 12 is a bit uncertain about the Tarshite king names), and was born in 1582, Harsta would have been 14 years his elder. If Pharandros, as I tend to think, was born a couple of years after Grizzly Peak (say around 1585), the age difference would be a full generation, and make the identification of Harsta as Moirades' wife more likely.

(I note that this text _does_ indicate a change of rulers in the meantime, but this seems to have been overridden by the Genertela Box, and the Sartarite sources.)

>>There is only the unluckily placed "date" of Moirades' death in the Tarsh
>>king list, and the birth year of Pharandros calculated from that, indicating
>>at this course of events.

>Umm? Pharandros's birth is dated as occuring shortly after his father's
>ascension as King of Tarsh, not his date of his father's death!

IMO the number "became king at age 28" is the source for dating his birth to 1582, based on the alleged death year of 1610 for Moirades. I'd date Pharandros return from his education in Glamour to around 1614. This may have been the start of his co-regency (Yarandros seems to have been de facto co-ruler of his father Ovartien as well).

>>My current impression is that Pharandros and Estal Donge are the children of
>>Moirades and Harsta Vostosdotter, Fazzur's sister. Since her birth-date is
>>given as 1568, I have the impression that 1582 is a little bit early for
>>Pharandros' birth, though Lunar standards may vary. (Source: Wyrms Footnotes
>>#12, p.16)

>Could you please spell out what is causing your problem? You seem
>to be radically changing the date of Pharandros's birth on the grounds
>that Moraides is unlikely to have married a fourteen year old girl
>(which is not unusal in the middle ages BTW).

I am having second thoughts about Moirades' impregnating of a 13 year old, i.e. hardly initiated into the rites of the women's cult. Remember that Gloranthan years are shorter than Terran years, thus a 13-year-old Gloranthan is roughly the biological equivalent to a 9-year-old Terran. While the shorter year has the advantage of letting us use familiar age ranges for the Gloranthan denizens (a venerated 60-year-old Gloranthan elder would be a 48-year-old Terran from the Dark Ages, IMO a good parallel), it doesn't really allow for shortened childhoods unless in heroic cases (Hon-eel).


End of Glorantha Digest V2 #401


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