Third Eye Blue

From: Bwbfc_at_aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 11:43:40 EST


Message resent. I fear I've sent it at owner-glorantha-digest and it's not the right address...

Hi, I've been reading this digest for a few months. It's the first big post i send. Besides, i never thanked the person who answered my earlier off-topic questions long ago, so just thanks. I apologize too for interfering with current discussions. (phew, now the real subject:)

Most of this come from sources most of which are very old issues of this digest, the rest is darezzabur assumption of mine):

The Third Eye Blue People are an errant people found in Peloria. Some say they come from Fronela and once had a powerful culture there. Others say they are related to the wendarians of old. Actually i don't know the truth. In gd vol 1 #202-3-4-5 there is conflictive but constructive stuff and i might adopt it.

They are famous for their mastery over the secrets of metal. The dwarves hate them because they say the 3 Eye Blue have stolen the secret of iron to them. Some say the Third Eye Blue nation was destroyed by the Nidan Decamony before Dawn. After this the bunch of them went to Peloria.

The following is from a book about Mycenian times i saw at the bookstore today (actually, the day i wrote this email) (IDRC states for "I don't recall clearly "). It's a french author and IDRC who was the author (an historian, not a storyteller,
though it wouldn't matter if he was):

In Lydia or Lycia or Cilicia IDRC (well, in Asia Minor), in Mycenian Greeks' time, lived the mythic Cyclops, who had three eyes (the one-eyed Cylcops is a later myth) Their third eye was the eye of clairvoyance. They formed several tribes, and each tribe had mastery over one art: metal, building, fighting, hunting (with a big club), herding goats (and making goat pie?) and so on IDRC. Frex the builder-Cyclops built the "cylclopean" walls of many Mycenian cities. These Cylcops' mastery came from their third eye, which gave them insight into the secrets of their art (thus resp metal, stone, goats...).

Reading about these Cyclops made me think of the 3rd Eye Blue. Except for their physical strength i think i will ado/apt all the stuff for my Glorantha. The book looks like very good fantasy-stuff (maybe it's a bad historian :)) Too bad that there is no Mycenian-like culture in Glorantha afaik (though the matriarchal Esrolians might have some Minoan features, or maybe the unknown civilization who built the ruined city under modern Nochet).

Finally, after all this long stuff, i would like to ask some questions: It's nice to have people with third eye blue tatooed (?) on their foreheads and giving them smithwise clairvoyance and I'm pretty sure they worship some Third Eye Blue God (IDRC where i read this). But i have no idea what sort of mythology he may have and what other god/spirits they may worship. Perhaps they even use sorcery..

Another very terrible question: are they blue-skinned or is this just their third eye which is blue? Maybe it's a stupid question, but in french Third Eye Blue People could have both meanings if we just forget that the Blue adjective should be before the Eye noun. I used to think it was a Blue eye and "Third Eye Blue" was a stylish turn of phrase. Besides, usually blue people have a good reason for being blue: their mother being a water goddess or blue moon goddess frex. Would they be children of Janube? I'm not too happy with this idea. I'd prefer Ladaral, the great volcano god whose body lies at
the bottom of the Neliomi Sea and whose spirit heats the Brazen Wall of the Brithini Citadel in Sog (found this in a story Origin of the Janube River by Peter Metcalfe on the Issaries website). But i'm not sure such a diminished god can still be worshipped (being enslaved by Brithini sorcerors).

In any case, as all of this is mostly assumptions and it's very late by now, I'll stop there, cuz it's been lengthy and i'm losing the thread of my thoughts poking into my english dictionnary. I'd greatly value your ideas and opinions about those mysteries, and (in last resort :-)) references to published material but i'm not sure there is much published material about this.

Jerome

PS: i hope this message is not in some weird format.


End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #157


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