>My next question is more along the lines of where it "is", if it's not
>a magically real connection.
It IS in Glorantha, the Middle World, the place that is made of everything.
>After all, if it were magically real, surely
>it would be present in some form in the O/S. But that was also my
>previous question, so I'll endeavour not belabour the point... Is it
>purely a "mundane world fluke" they happen to "resemble" each other?
Rather than a fluke, perhaps it is in fact the very nature of the world
itself.
>Perhaps what I'm saying boils down to this: if there's a myth in which
>the grazelanders complain about their beautiful animal being turned into
>a travesty by the Solar and Orlanthi theists, copied by some bunch of
>liturgists, etc, etc, then that _is_ a mythic connection (or one waiting
>to happen, if this "hasn't yet occurred" for some particular permutation).
Most of the separated mythologies have at least one story of "Where those
other guys came from." The Malkioni all know, for instance, how Worlath and
his fellows perverted the real world to make their own. Most of the Theists
have one or another version of "How Zzabur Made Sorcery," and the Doraddi
the stories of Bolongo making other worlds.
We know the hsunchen horses came from the Spirit World, and that the
Pegasoi were ripped asunder to become horses among the theists. (The
doraddi of course don't know horses in their most ancient mythology at all.
Nonetheless, they just appear in their story of "How the Evil Northerners
Came." I guess if I published the "Which horse is mine?" myth where Orlanth
can't tell the horses apart, it would answer your question.
Which one is actually the real story?
That is exactly the type of questions that is going to be confronted in the
Hero Wars. Certainly the extent of this string shows the tremendous
potential for assembling your myths and community to settle it once and for
all. About six adventure books down the line the Lunars are going to start
doing this: your hero band can take the lead in it.
>That would then be a magically real "link" between the two, above and
>beyond the usual "the other magical worlds are genericly wrong and here's
>why" type of generalised account. Such accounts may of course be only
>approximations to the "true" relationship, in the grand cosmology.
Where "That" = Glorantha, the middle world of mortality.
>> >You're telling me flat out that for any _single_ animal, it can only
>> >be "correctly explained" in one magical system.
This really depends on what you mean by "correctly."
But if you are going to worship Rathor with Sacrifice then it's gonna cost
you double HP.
>> >If it's an "animist
>> >animal", then the theists need hardly bother having a myth for it at all,
>> >since they'll ipso facto be "wrong", or at the very least, "less correct".
>> >
>> That's my understanding, yes. (Barring strange cases like things
>> originating in the underworld, I'd imagine).
>
>That's unfortunate, boring, barking mad, unnecessary, inconvenient,
>and damn well Not True In My Glorantha, then, if it comes right down to
>it.
YGMV.
>> >It doesn't bother me that this would sometimes, or even generally be the
>> >case, but as a (purported) universal truth it disturbs me greatly.
Well, please take a couple of stress pills before you read on.
>> >But why isn't this true of everything in the Inner World? (Please don't
>> >tell me that it _is_ now true of everything in the Inner World...)
If by "it" you mean the ultimate different origins of beings in the middle
world that have separate origins but can mingle and breed with each other
freely, then it is true of much of Glorantha.
>> Note that many animals (and plants and geographic
>> features) are just animals (or plants or...) without any particular link.
Perhaps most.
>Maybe I ranted too soon, then. Perhaps this is what Greg meant about
>most horses being "just horses" -- i.e. they are not really inherently
>magical beings as such (neither theist nor animist), therefore their
>"significance" as regards to animist or theistic magic or myth being
>"imposed" on them is just that -- an external imposition.
Yes.
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