Trotsky (not) on horses:
> Well, I didn't mention them, because I know they have multiple,
> unrelated, origins, like the racoons do. :-) But, of course, they do
> have obvious different breeds, so that might be less of a surprise to
> people.
If one were to take RW biology seriously though (always a dangerous thing to do... <g>, I'd have thought horses would be a good deal more "surprising" in this regard. There's only one (modern) species of horse, and I don't think the "breeds" of horse have much in the way of significant genetic diversity. OTOH I believe there are several different species of raccoon...
I'm frankly still entirely at a loss as to Greg's thinking, and indeed his meaning here. If the "different" animals don't have to be separate species (whatever that means (esp. in Glorantha), can evidently interbreed enthusiastically, then I can't see how it can be anything other than a defeasible, if not outright infeasible, assumption that origins in different otherworlds must maintain some sort of strictly separate identity. Even setting aside the earlier question of their "convergence" to similar but doggedly separate entities.
It seems to me that of course, in some cases there will be entirely different, mythically valid accounts for similar-but-different things. But equally, it's the nature of myth that there will be entirely different, mythically valid accounts of the _same_ thing, in some cases. (Be it a species of animal, the sun, etc.) If there this were not so in Glorantha, I don't see how this can help but make it a less interesting place mythically than it otherwise would be -- and indeed hitherto appeared to be. After all, animals, like humans, are creature of the inner world; it's not as if they _have_ to be irrevocably wedded to one and only one other world.
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