Re: Glorantha Digest V4 #24

From: Stephen P Martin <ilium_at_juno.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 21:52:56 EST


To All:

Please let me know if anyone objects to my less-than-specific Subject lines. It makes it easier to comment on the entire Digest as one message.

Simon Bray <101635.32_at_CompuServe.COM> Imperial Parables.
>
>HUMAKT'S LUCK
>

Outstanding! I would have preferred a more Orlanthi set of names and places, but otherwise it was excellent. I only wonder who would tell such a parable -- certainly not a Sword of Humakt? Though I could see the value a Humakti would get from this lesson.

It almost smacks of a Nysalorian riddle.

Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz> Astronomical matters
>
>[New Planet]
>
>I actually had an email from Greg about this. He was suprised
>about a mention of a four day week and thought that the Dara
>Happans divided the _day_ into 100 time divisions (roughly 15
>minutes long). From these time divisions, they construct 25
>hours (15 of light, 10 of darkness - cosmic compromise be
>buggered!). The original passage in the Genertela Book appears
>to have been a misunderstanding of his notes, it seems.
>

I have discussed this with him twice, and he has not mentioned this to me!

My solution to the 15 hours of day and 10 hours of night follows. Currently, the working materials for the sky give a 16 hour day/8 hour night in summer, 8 hour day/16 hour night in winter. Sky Dome tilt allowing (if it affects day/night length at all, which is _not_ a given) is to have 15 hour day/9 hour night in summer, 14 hour day/10 hour night in winter. From this original measure, DHs came up with a standardized day of 15 hours and night of 10 hours, at some point (possibly during the EWF). Similar to the way Harshax set the calendar at year Harshax 59 (KoS pg. 11). A Dara Happan Emperor complains about day and night being different lengths. They explain to him why, and all he pays attention to is the 15 and 10 hours. So, he tells his celestioscopers to fix it. And they do.

>there's two runes for the Blue Moon in the GRoY and one of
>them is a semi-circle over a wavy line (ie the water rune).
>Is this what you think Anaxial's rune is?
>

I thought about that for a time, and I have also pondered the relationship between the Blue Moon and Diros. Blue Moon either travels directly up the Sky Dome, starting at Lorion, or moves straight up the sky. Diros starts at Lorion, and moves along the River. I don't like the wavy line rune from GRoY, because Annilha/Blue Streak is an _enemy_ in Dara Happa, Anaxial most definitely is not.

>>I think that the Gloranthan year was originally 280 days long, not 294,
and that >>the Sunstop lasted exactly 2 weeks.
>
>This has a flaw in that only the westerners are said to have noted the
change in >time. Furthermore the proposed changed means that people live longer rather >than shorter as the westerners complained.
>

No, they weren't, and no, it doesn't. Other people could have noted the change, without it appearing in print. Glorantha Book does say that no one knows what Nysalor changed, just that he did change something. People could recognize this change without knowing exactly what changed -- Time theory is not a realm of study anywhere in Glorantha, to my knowledge. Remember the thing in KoS about Forgetting Things.

As for people living _longer_, not so -- now they age 294 days a year, not 280. In a 63 year life, this drops you to 60 years old -- not an insignificant amount of time to lose (close to 5%). This is not the most common view of time, certainly, but it falls within acceptable realms for what I have read about time. Basically, a little more than a year of time is crammed into a year -- time moves slightly faster, is probably the easiest way to think of it.

>I have doubts about the Sunstop lasting two weeks. The last
>song of Horned Ulf implies that it was frozen and people could
>become aware of this and break out. I'm told the people of
>the East Isles viewed the Sunstop as a century in length.
>

I believe that different people, in different parts of Glorantha, would experience the Sunstop in different ways. The part about the East Islanders is unoffocial, and so cannot be used to disprove _my_ unofficial theory. Note that many people were frozen, but the character in that story wasn't! Some people didn't even know the Sun stopped.

>My personal theory is that the days themselves were longer. Come the
Sunstop, >the days shortened and the tradition prone westerners noticed the difference in >their hours (they used water clocks whereas the Dara Happans and others used >sideral time). Hence their complaints.
>

If Time changed, I would think that water clocks would have changed with it. If years were shorter, I think it took people a long time to notice, a couple of generations. Perhaps as long as a century or two.

Stephen Martin
ilium_at_juno.com

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The Book of Drastic Resolutions
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