> After fathering Babs, wouldn't you?
>
> "I can't take it any more, the kid keeps taking my sword and
> changes it into
> an axe and *never* cleans it, and her room is a mess, with
> all those dangly bits. That's it, I'm outta here!"
I just wasted a perfectly good malt by snorting it all over the keyboard, and it's all your fault!
Let's see if I can find that myth...
Steve Maurer. May 1990.
http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/vinga/bgor.cfm
(yes, I probably should have known where to look)
Here's the relevant bit.
"In the great darkness, Ernalda, the green mother of all earth, was bereft of her husband-protectors. Yelm and Flamal were slain. Argan Argar did fight Lodril. Hykim, father of snakes, slithered away and was lost. And mighty Orlanth had left to assemble the Lightbringers. So no gods remained to protect Ernalda's overwhelming bounty.
It is said then, that a god came from the wilderness to protect her from darkness and Chaos. Yet unlike her other protectors, he had no lust for her divine fertility, and desired not to be a husband. His protection was only a matter of expediency. For if she died, all the mortal races would follow, having nothing to eat, and much would be lost in the great battle against Chaos.
Being spurned for the first time in her existence, Ernalda soon knew a great need to gather this protector to her, to ensnare him in her embrace and take him for her husband. She felt this even knowing he desired her not, and that to press the matter would drive him away forever (for even the gods desire what they cannot have). So a great plot was hatched, and by wiles and lies and the extreme innocence of her protector in these matters, she did finally know him carnally, though he understood not what she did. And a substantial portion of his true power entered within her to lay as god seed within her earthy womb.
Through the war the protector did fight Chaos, and kept it from Ernalda's soft body. Yet still she became weak, for a true goddess grew within her, and drew all her power of Fertility. Soon the presence of the baby became obvious on her body, and her protector became suspicious. "Whose Child is this?" he demanded, and before his presence she could not lie. He grew wroth, and swore he would leave her to her fate. Using his great power severed all connection with her, even our knowledge of him. "The child is now thine alone, lady. For mine is not the power of Life". And with that, he left."
He's never named, but I think we can work out who he was. Just don't mention the theory to any Humakti.
For a slightly less literal interpretation of their relationship, here's a Humakti myth I wrote a while back. Well, actually, there was this bit of Flash doing the rounds of the Internet, and I got dared to write a Humakti myth involving badgers, badgers, badgers, mushrooms... But then it accidentally acquired all this Mythic Significance. Never mind. I got the badgers, mushrooms and snakes in there, and even some dancing hamsters.
http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/humaktearth.cfm
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