Ah don't like thet thar Moon

From: David Cake <davidc_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 01:48:41 -0800


>*sigh* Here we go, back to the old 'subjective vs objective' thing
>again.

        Yup. Are you surprised?

> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that
>generally the Moon in Glorantha is set against the Storm, regardless of
>what local flavor or variances of Myth exist in a given area.

        Talking about the Moon in Glorantha is pretty pointless. The Moon is quite definately above Peloria, and created by Pelorian magic. We are talking about the Moon in Peloria and Dragon Pass, not the Moon in Glorantha.

        In the Yelmic religion of Peloria, Storm is not really acknowledged as a separate power or element. Nonetheless, they dislike Orlanth because they identify him with Rebellus Terminus.

        In the other religions of Peloria, such as the religion of Pelanda, they acknoledge several air deities, chief among them being Entekos, the goddess of virtue, blessings of the air, and the planet known as Dendara elsewhere. They also know of Walindum, a bad god of winter. The Moon smiles happily at Entekos, but no one likes Walindum. Moon is not opposed to air or storm, but is opposed to bad gods like Walindum.

        Speculation - The Red Goddess is known to have conquered the Star Bears, beings of the heavens who caused trouble. The Star Bears are associated with Gagarth by the Orlanthi. Perhaps in Saird, Holay, etc. the Red Goddess is known to have tamed Gagarth and driven him from the sky - confirming Orlanth as the rightful ruler? This gives a reason for the Orlanthi to be somewhat well disposed towards the Red Goddess, without lessening her storm conquering aspect?

> What I
>wanted to know is how local Orlanthi would deal with Lunar Occupation in
>a given area.

        Its a political question as much as a religious one. If your rulers worship strange gods, thats not necessarily cause for rebellion. If your rulers worship strange gods, but have some claim to legitimacy via the normal means (lineal descent) and are at pains not to cause religious antagonism (which pretty much describes Tarsh, for example), then thats probably OK. Living under strange rulers, especially if they seem to be doing a good job, is preferred to civil way by most.

        And if your leaders worship very similar gods to you, but you hate them and they oppress you, then that IS cause for rebellion. This has happened all the time in Pelorian and Sartarite history.

> Do you hold the
>view that the cosmological forces of Glorantha don't exist as such, and
>the Moon VS Storm conflict only exists due to the desires of worshippers
>in certain parts of Generatela (ie - those Pelorians want to get back at
>the southern barbarians who have humiliated them so many times, so they
>literally invented a Goddess to do it?)

        The Moon vs Air conflict is demonstrably not a universal cosmological given - the Lunars are well disposed towards the cults of Entekos and Molanni, and probably others. But Storm is not Air. The Lunars are opposed to rebellion, unless it is done by them, and so oppose Orlanth were he retains a rebellious aspect. Of course, they also oppose Orlanth where the Orlanthi religion preaches hatred of the Moon.

        And I agree with Pam - the opposition of Storm and Moon is a relatively minor aspect of both the Red Goddess cult and Pelorian thinking. The Sartarites are hung up on it, but its easy to blow it way out of proportion.

Pam
>(Except, of course, that everybody DOES hate Sheng...)

        Oh, I have my doubts about soem of the more extremist Dara Happans. He was a Sky worshipper, after all. And he seems to have acknowledged the Yelm cult as the most favoured of the Pelorian indigenous cults (among the Warmed).

Hasni
>For one, I have allways believed that when a Gloranthan looks at the sky
>and sees the Sun, she believes that it is PHYSICALLY Yelm.

        Yelm worshippers do. Everyone else thinks it is the Sun, and possibly has a myth about it.

Hasni
>Ok, I can understand that people might not recognize that the big
>glowing ball of light in the sky is actually Yelm:the sun. However, I
>can't reconcile the basic myth of "Orlanth kills Yelm, so Glorantha is
>dark and the Trolls flee Hell because it's all bright and hot and stuff,
>but Orlanth frees Yelm from Hell, and now the sun is there half the day
>and in Normal Glorantha the other half."

        I think every one believes something along the lines of "Something went badly wrong. The Sun disappeared, and everything got cold and starved. Then the bad things came, including trolls and hideous chaotic monsters. We managed to survive, though many others didn't, and then we did great magical things to put the world right, and eventually the sun came back."

        Its also possible that everyone who knows about the Underworld knows that it used to be dark and the bright burning thing arrived at the same time it disappeared from the surface. I'm not sure if everyone believes the sun used to be stationary in the sky, but its possible. One worthwhile digest project, I humbly suggest, would be a very brief 'God Learner history', of things that everyone more or less agrees on (with annotations and explanations for where one culture significantly disagrees). We could start with the objectively visible (ie astronomical bodies and their coming and going), rather than attempting the monomyth.

        Names and interpretations, however, vary locally. The Pelorians (and probably a lot of people who picked up their ideas from the First Council) call the sun Yelm, or something similar. But most people don't call the sun Yelm. They also have different interpretations of why the sun fell out of the sky. And some don't personify it, either.

        David


Powered by hypermail