RE: Yinkin, Schroedinger's Cat-God ?

From: Paul Andrew King <paul_at_morat.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:27:29 +0100

>It does get a little more specific, as I understand it. As he was wandering
>the land, he came across "the Frozen Man", licked him till he thawed, and
>was delighted to discover that this was Orlanth. And yes, Orlanth continued,
>Yinkin did not. As I read it, this was in the frozen surface world, where
>there were still people, not the Underworld as such. Though it must have
>been getting quite hard to tell one from the other by then.

Looking closer it says ",,,and no one could tell the difference between life and death..." and in the next paragraph describes it as "The Land of the Dead". It could be read as implying that Yinkin died without knowing it and that was how he was able to reach Orlanth.

But the myth in KoS describes Yinkin as "murdered" (p87). So the simplest way to reconcile the two is that Yinkin was killed after thawing Orlanth. But that doesn't seem to deal with the idea that Yinkin survived.

While the idea of Yinkin sneaking ahead out of the Underworld is good (typical cat !), perhaps another way is to go with something like the old "nine lives" idea.

Or just maybe the idea in the title is one of the Divine Secrets of Glorantha :-)

-- 
--
"The T'ang emperors were strong believers in the pills of 
immortality.  More emperors died of poisoning from ingesting minerals 
in the T'ang than in any other dynasty" - Eva Wong _The Shambhala 
Guide to Taoism_

Paul K.


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