Scapegoating, Sheepcats, Place Names from Nick Brooke on 1999-12-11 (Glorantha Digest Vol 07)

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 12:02:26 -0000

Philip (One-L) Hibbs writes:

> Scapegoats - I was just thinking about them. Does the concept exist > (in the biblical sense, see Leviticus 16) in Glorantha?

I've thought in the past that maybe goats are associated with Chaos in Orlanthi lands *in part* because the Orlanthi associate goats with Chaos; in places where goats aren't thought to be / accused of being Chaotic, they aren't so Chaotic.

The mythic connection nowadays would be with the Summons of Evil HQ -- if the Orlanthi say something is a Really Bad Straw Man, they can make it so.

Though given other Gloranthan factors -- Ragnaglar the Goat-God, goatheaded Broos, the Devil's cloven hooves, etc. -- there is certainly more to it than that alone. Perhaps it is true that "goats are chaotic sheep"?

(I do *not* believe that if you convinced four hundred thousand Trollkin that the Red Moon was a big lump of Edam it would somehow become one).

Dom Twist writes:

> Gotta say I dont see why Cats cant be usefull in the Hunt.

As I posted a few days ago, Martin miswrote "hunting" when he meant "herding". Nobody denies that cats are useful to hunters; this is at the core of the "Odayla and Yinkin" cult in Tales #18.

> There's certainly a myth out here on the net somewhere explaining
> why Yinkin doesnt herd sheep. (Yinkin the Shepard..........I'm afraid
> to say I have forgotten the author(s) and location I saw this at)

The story of "Yinkin the Shepherd" is on my webpage, at:
	http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/Folktale/yinkin.htm

Place Names:

I *like* Gloranthan place names, usually. I think the modern "drive" towards linguistic pernickityness isn't very useful.

A year or so ago, one of Greg's criticisms of the "Sog City Guide" (other than that we advertised seagull pasties as "tasty") was that having a suburb named "Pinchgut" was somehow "not a real Gloranthan name." I called his bluff on this, and the answer was (typo's and all):

: Here's a can of worms.

: I have been pretty inconsistant in using "natural" names or English
: Names. Boldhome, for instance, is an English name, translated from
: Sartarite. Same for Northpoint. My theory used to be that if a name
: was directly translatable, I'd do that in Englihs, while if it wasn't,
: then it'd be in its native tongue (Dunstop). Some names in their
: natural tongue have come out looking like English (Bagnot).

: My effort these days is to eliminate the English names, but it's
: rather hard with some such as Boldhome.

: So, re: Pinchgut.

: I like this name as an Enogih name, and can imagine a half dozen
: storeis about how it is called that. But as a Natural name, it is
: too much like the Enlgsh to make me comfortable.

I *think* that "Englihs", "Enogih" and "Enlgsh" all refer to our language :-)

FWIW, I don't use the "Kaurmeinyan" names by Loren Miller, though I think they're a great thing for his campaign.

I also don't use the only "English" Carmanian city names given by Greg in the Lunar History and Genertela Book: in my version, the city called "Dolebury" (in the Zero Wane history) and "Burntwall" (in the Genertela Book chapter on the Lunar Empire) is properly known as "Shardash", the last capital of the Carmanian Empire.

"Dolebury" is a bad translation of a Lunar attempt to brand it "the city of grief"; while "Burntwall" is an accurate description of what's left today (cf. Genertela Book, and my article on the Oronin Valley in Tales #16, for more detail).

So I'm inconsistent? So what!

I *do* feel that arguing about Swenstown/Jonstown is misguided: there's this Orlanthi guy called Swen (or Jon), and here's the town he founded. What on earth could be wrong with that? Origin stories are in KoS, so we don't need to make up new ones.

:::: Email: <mailto:Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com> Nick
:::: Website: <http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/>

End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #217