Re: One Man's Sheep is Another Man's Goat

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 14:34:46 GMT

Gary R Switzer:
> Orlanthi Taxonomy (over)simplified: If *we* herd it, it's a sheep...if
> those Orleving bastards keep it, it's a goat."
>
> Heler knows I don't want to reopen the Ob/Sub debate but, if All*
> Orlanthi agree that an Angora is a sheep and not a
> goat it's because Orlanth has let them know it's so. On the other hand,
> if All* Odaylan hunters decline to hunt the
> Bighorn Sheep around Larnste's Footprint because Ragnaglar cursed
> them and turned them into Bighorn Goats, they
> (and we) are on firm mythic ground.

I had very much the same thought myself (I think when Joerg and I were talking about this). Didn't mention it here, since 'obvious enlightened compromise' and 'Glorantha Digest' are such strangers as concepts. Poor folk (and/or just plain Strange) folk up in the peaks keep what the neighbours call 'mountain sheep' if they're feeling very charitable that day; if you want to be More Anti-Chaos Than Thou, then exterminating a few of your neighbours' Bighorm Sheep ("Pah! [Bah?] *You* say it's a sheep, I say, look at the size of the chaos-prong on that!) is a handy way of doing it. (Unless and until they send a retailiatory raiding party...)

> That being said, even the Orlanthi are likely incapable of deluding
> themselves that dogs are just funny-looking cats.

Though IIRC, one of the Bad Dogs 'slinks like a cat' (?), or some such feline (though not, apparently, redeeming) attribute.

I'm feeling sufficiently brave now, following Bryan M's surfeit of accents, that I'll risk the wrath of MIME-encoding...

Slán,
Alex.

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