Re: Giants and the River

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_GEknRX1mVvrmtsC298z-LmdzQDhyVsmeZcrOxGuieixTM3hjqFyLT3e-gT-J3Uwh>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 17:03:16 -0700 (PDT)

Adet, replying to Sam Elliot:
> > Giants seem to feature a lot in N. European mythology, battling
> > against the gods and so on (though I'm pig ignorant on this, BTW).
> > There is very little in Gloranthan mythology though. They were about
> > in the "early Green Age, and some claim that they are more ancient
> > still" (Anaxial's Roster p. 149). What more do we know about their
> > origins, especially how far back they might go?
>
> I've been wondering about the Gloranthan giants too. It would seem to
> me that there is more to the giants than is readily apparent. It
> sounds like they are a "race" of gods, or at least something pretty
> much like gods. Parhaps the titans of Greek legend, or indeed the
> giants of norse mythology who warred with the Aesir and Vanir gods.
>
> Giants and Dragons seem to have things in common. They both seem to
> have come second in the struggles that shaped Glorantha. They share
> some features with the mortal beings, and some with the gods, but both
> groups spend so much time asleep they are mistaken for geographical
> features.
>
> From some hints I also suspect that the line between gods, dragons and
> giants is not as clear as people parhaps think. Orlanth killed a
> dragon that tried to mate with Kero Fin, and Orlanth himself obviously
> has a draconic side. Gonn Orta sounds suspisciously like the dead god
> Genert, and so on...

An interesting question is where giants came from -- which otherworld? The same question is interesting for Dragons, too. Or are they native to the mundane world?

For a long while, this was my own personal preference: Giants are divine entities. Some are now known as gods. Others are not. Dragons were the original inhabitants of the mystic otherworld. They lost the war with the giants, who claimed their otherworld as the spoils. The mundane world is what is left of the mystic otherworld, which is why they have no place to go. That remnant otherworld is also the source of common magic.

I really doubt, though, that this has anything to do with official Glorantha. As you point out, Orlanth has a draconic self, which he could not have under my theory.

So, my actual working hypthesis about giants is that "giant" is actually an amalgam for different entities, which term carried over long after the differences became apparent. I think "giant" is akin to a form rune. Gods, spirits, and such could take the giant form. So, just like you can meet people with a soul or a spirit, you can meet theist or animist giants. Some of them are effectively demi-gods; others are effectively grand spirits; I suppose others might be saints-like. More speculatively, the parallel to dragons would be that dragons also are a form rune. The war between the giantd and dragons thus becomes something of a struggle between form runes way back when the more primal runes were attempting to express themselves. (Of course, that's the monomyth version of the story.) If you like that thought, then the further one is that the man rune descends from the giant rune, just like the beast rune descends from the dragon rune. Pushing it even further, there could be  a great tree - plant analog. Even further: Mostali - mineral. (I think that the "Otherworld Entity" rune could not have existed before death.)

I'm not sure that any of thes rambling helped, or even remotely addressed your question. I imagine that we will learn much more about giants and dragons when the Great Argrath campaign book comes out.