Now, Vingans can and do drink too much, hit things, and so on, but if
they were going to take anything in trousers that caught their eye into
bed with them, they needed a reliable contraceptive. No, I mean a
RELIABLE contraceptive. Such as we do not yet have in the RW. So it
had to be of divine origin. So, the red hair-dye acts as a contraceptive
(no, magic isn't meant to make medical sense).
In fact when I read up about henna in Sumerian culture and its link to fertility, that helped a lot. Just put it on the opposite end of the body to get the opposite effect, right?
Much, much later, I discovered from working with Harald Smith that the "original" Vinga had control of female fertility as one of her main aspects. But, like I said before, I'm not allowed to go into more detail. Sorry. I know secrets are annoying, but I really don't want any Humakti accusing me of oath-breaking.
Oh, and my Vinga hasn't given up fertility for good. Just "until there is peace". In Orlanthi society? Right.
Ernaldans say that it just proves that Vinga's immature: she can cope with the responsibilities of an adult man, but not those of an adult woman. She'll grow out of it.
Is Vinga really Orlanth? Good question. I'll admit that since I wrote something like half the existing Vingan myths myself, I'm on rather tenuous ground when it comes to quotes. But most of the myths of Vingan's exploits, written by me or others, occur in the period when Orlanth had already left on the LBQ, or was absent for other reasons. In almost every case, she takes the part in them that Orlanth would have done, had he been present, though often her methods rely more on sneakiness than strength. So yes, mythically she's often an Orlanthsubstitute. But only Orlanth Adventurous/Warrior. She doesn't have many Wind powers beyond those used for basic sneakiness, and her leadership is of a very different style to that of Orlanth Rex.
Myths that "star" both Orlanth and Vinga? Not many. There are some
(one per version of Vinga!) where she proves herself to be a warrior, and
in many of those it's Orlanth the chief who grants her her new status.
But in quite a few more, it's Elmal, or Orlanth's warband accept her by
general proclamation.
I believe there are myths where Vinga proves herself to be Orlanth's daughter, though I've never written one myself. My Vinga is definitely the daughter of Ernalda (or of the local earth goddess in places where this isn't Ernalda), and since Ernalda is married exclusively to Orlanth at the time, Orlanth is the male head of the household in which Vinga grows up. So he's her legal father. But whether he's her father in the biological sense is something I've never been convinced of.
Well in fact, of course, as we've been saying, "Vinga" was a mortal
hero who managed to incarnate some limited aspects of a now-
(almost)-forgotten earth goddess. And neither the hero or the original
goddess were directly related to either Orlanth or Ernalda. But the
relationship has been "proved" by HQing since, and is what's now
generally accepted amonst Orlanthi.
Two screenfuls on Vinga: shut up, Jane! TTFN.
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/
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