> Fair enough, although one of the things that appealed to me about
> Glorantha was the way that a given phenomena had a plethora of
> different explanations in different cultural systems (i.e. the
> Darkness(es), the Sunstop). It's possible that I have become overly
> enthused with this.
That's still true, but the phenomenon in this case isn't Vinga but Women who are also Red. In fact I suspect that perhaps femininity and redness are in this case just symptoms of some higher phenomenon. Vinga is just the Heortling version infused, modified, warped and adapted by Heortling culture to create their own unique red woman archetype.
> If Holay's Red Woman might not be Vinga, who might she be?
I could be facetious and just say that she's herself. I don't know enough (anything, actually) about Holayan religion to be helpful. I can give a cursory analysis of the red woman archetype though. Red could be blood. Women bleed once a month, so that's a possible symbolic connection right there. The bleeding is related to the fertility cycle, but blood is also associated with death so there are a number of possible ways this symbolism could express itself. Fear, sex, death, fertility - take your pick. Among the Tarshites Maran Gor worshipers drink blood, another Red Woman completely different from Vinga yet right in the heart of the Barbarian Belt. Then there's Sedenya, the Red Goddess. How about the Red Woman in The Matrix? Chris De Burgh's Lady in Red.
The Holayan Red Woman needn't be any of these though.
Simon Hibbs
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