Asgardians and Orlanth the Cross-dresser

From: Mikael Raaterova <ginijji_at_telia.com>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 23:14:00 +0200


Alex the F:

> > > Andrew Larsen offered us a myth and a heroquest. I loved it! I
>especially
>> > liked "Orlanth chose to pretend to flee" and the Wotan-like transvestism
>> > of dressing up as a serving maid.
>
>Wasn't that a Thor myth? Or, did they _all_ get up to cross-drssing
>high-jinks, those repressed Asgardian types?!

IIRscriptureC, Thor never *willingly* cross-dressed (or so they say). Not the manliest thing to do in viking society.

Also, the vikings did like to tell humorous stories. Especially about their gods. When some Giant (whose name eludes me for the moment...) had gotten hold of Mjollnir and demanded fair Freya (Afrodite of the North, so to speak) in marriage to give it back, Loki (the resident trickster) persuaded Thor to dress up as a bride and pretend to be Freya so Thor could steal back his hammer. Which gave the storytellers lots of opportunities for cheap sit com.

To provide some Gloranthan content in an otherwise OT posting:

Zorak Zoran (or some other bad god, if you don't live in Far Point) get hold of Orlanth's Thunderbolt. He demands Ernalda ("with her huuuge ... tracts of land") to give it back. Eurmal persuades Orlanth to dress up as Ernalda ("ZZ won't notice; he can't tell the difference between a cow and a bull anyway") so Orlanth can get his Thunderbolt back during the wedding party (that *precedes* the wedding ritual) and smash the place up before he blows out of there.

With some creative mythmaking you can probably hammer the Sandals of Darkness into it as well.

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