Saints and sinners

From: Mark Sabalauskas <marks_at_tiac.net>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 10:03:26 -0500 (EST)


> various professions based on the most tenuous justifications. A Christian=
> example of this is St. ________ (whose name I've forgotten); she was=
> martyred and had her breasts cut off. Iconography showed her holding her=
> breasts on a plate (!); later on, people thought that these were bells, so=
> she became the patron of bellmakers.

        That'd be Saint Agatha, a virgin martyr whose cult is fairly ancient, unfortunately we don't have a reliable Acts or other biographical info. She's also, more reasonably, invoked against fire (with which she is said to have been tortured) and diseases of the breast.

        Also, to natter on a bit more about this, one might note that Saint Dismas' patronage of thieves is also a bit of stretch. If I recall correctly, he was described as a bandit, which within the context of first century Palestine probably means "insurgent", "partisan", or at least "person who has really been screwed over by the social conditions of resulting from Roman rule and who took up arms to survive". The possible Gloranthan application of evolving iconographic interpretations or the role of "thieves" in the struggle against the Lunar Empire is left to the reader...

        In any event, and more to the point, I'm not at all certain why Jeff would have thought the non-existence of a Greek thief god would have any Glorantha ramifications. If Glorantha thieves get the chance to worship an entity that can make their work more productive, I'd imagine they'll do so.

                        Mark


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