> > > > Was Elmal ambushed at the Hill of Gold, or is that a pure
> > > > Yelmalio schtick?
>It's originally an Antirius one.
Debatable. When Antirius mentions first mentions it, it seems to be something well known.
> > Elmal does not have any fire powers and is more important for
> > shining light, not fire.
>I'll always have trouble swallowing this one ; the major sun god of
>a whole pantheon has no fire powers?
That's because he's the sun of the high mountain tops where light is more noticable than heat.
>So it's most likely a cyclical thing, wherein Elmal has Fire powers,
>that are lost to him at the end of the autumn (but this doesn't have
>to be a Hill of Gold thing).
That actually comes from a torch Orlanth gave him at the dawn AFAIK. From the Elmal cult writeup:
::When Orlanth returned to the surface world he bore with him a sacred ::torch. From the eastern gates of the world he cast it high into the sky ::so that it flew right into Orlanth's stead where Elmal waited. The light ::healed Elmal, who rose into the sky to welcome the return of Orlanth and ::his prizes. Orlanth then blessed Elmal with the sacred duty to patrol ::the sky and underworld now, while he himself took the chieftainship again
--Peter Metcalfe
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