> I'm fairly sure the Earth Goddesses were originally capable of giving
> birth without any necesssity for a father.
I once saw the Puppeteer Troupe perform a skit which they claimed was based on the innermost rites of the Esrola Temple. It was about Esra and Entru, the First Woman and First Man. Before they learned to propagate the way we do nowadays, each used a variety of other partners.
Entru was a hairy man, who ran wild in the forest and lurked with the other wild beasts. He had his earliest children by them: they are the animal-like ancestors of the beastly Wenelian barbarians.
As for Esra -- well, there were some bawdy allusions to serpents and ears of corn, but I can't pretend to have understood them all. Many of her children engendered by these means are the ancient temple guardians found throughout Esrolia (as indeed are their parents).
Then Esra sought out and trapped Entru. She shaved him, making him civilised. She dressed him in garments, taming him by teaching him speech and manners and love. Their children were not hairy like their father but smooth, and they are the ancestors of all of us today.
Esra and Entru lived happily together until they were parted in the Gods War, when the possessive jealousy and anger of the male gods destroyed the world. Now Entru must remain in the silent caverns of Ty Kora Tek, so that Ketha, Goddess of Springtime, can return to the world with every turning year.
o for 'Esra' read 'Asrelia, as the Earth Mother' o for 'Entru' read 'Genert, as the First Father' o for 'Ketha' read 'Voria, as Spring/Grain Goddess' o for 'Ty Kora Tek' read 'Ty Kora Tek'
IMG, I use the Four Corners of the Earth (rather than the later Six Daughters of Earth) as the model for the ancient Earth Pantheon of Esrolia. Sure, they now worship Maran and Babs and all the other new-fangled ones, but these four are found in the original and oldest myths. Cf. "Wyrms Footprints" for more info. on the mutability of Earth Goddesses (young Asrelia = Voria, etc.).
"Entru" is found in various old Stafford stuff, but never properly explored or defined: he seems to be ancestor of the Entruli found along the Manirian coast. I "borrowed" the name for this story, but wouldn't be surprised if there are other, different stories about him. The name's structure (N-T-R) was similar enough to Genert (N-R-T) and Jernotius (R-N-T) for me to fit him into the pan-Gloranthan pattern of ancient male earth-associated deities... (and then Greg went and changed Jernotius into Rashorana, the bugger!).
The reference to the Wenelians' ancestry is for *my* Wenelians, half-hsunchen barbarians grunting in the wild woods; but anyone using stock Orlanthi Wenelians could keep this reference as something so old that nobody remembers what it's about any more.
The myth-sequence is a combination of Enkidu (Epic of Gilgamesh), Samson & Delilah (Old Testament), Demeter and Persephone (Greek Myth), and Inanna's betrayal of Dumuzi (Sumerian), with some naughty bits from Aristophanic Comedy thrown in for laughs.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #234
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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