Allegory vs Literalism

From: Michael Cule <mikec_at_room3b.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 10:42:22 +0100


In message <1035624611.1122290.0_at_[62.253.240.28]>, glorantha-request_at_rpglist.org writes
>It seems to me that the initiation myth is entirely allegorical. The
>"bad uncles" are not really relatives at all, at least not in the human
>sense of kinship. They are part of an older order of gods, against
>whom Umath unsuccessfully rebelled and Orlanth successfully rebelled.
>Our puny human brains, when we return from the Gods' World, must
>analogize the older order with an older generation to make it
>comprehnsible.

Well, yes but....

The thing about Glorantha that I've always liked is the fact that metaphor is real. Dragons are simultaneously metaphors about the unknowableness of cosmic truth and the transcendence of the mundane and also bloody big kilometre long firebreathing lizards.

So, I think it *is* a meaningful question to ask who all those relatives of Orlanth's were.

-- 
Michael Cule

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