[Glorantha] Monomythising - was Re: Outlawry, a wider perspective

[Simon Hibbs]

Simon Phipp:

>  I'm not sure if this has ever been looked at as a possible
>reason as to why Orlanth killed Yelm, but it is there. Of
>course the Solars probably claim that Umath is illegitimate
>and Orlanth almost certainly is, so there is no real claim.

Orlanth and Umath never appear, by name, in any Dara Happan
myths. Orlanth is nominaly identified with 'Rebellus Terminus'
who was responsible for the disintegration of Muharzarm (sp?),
so far as I remember. The mythic roles interlock, but the
monomyth version isn't native to either the Orlanthi or Dara
Happa and there are many discrepancies with the orriginals.

It seems clear that the points of similarity are strong enough
to allow usefull creative heroquesting. An Orlanthi might
quest the "Orlanth Kills the King of the Fire Tribe" myth in
order to get a benefit against a Dara Happan enemy who he
identifies magicaly with the King of the Fire Tribe, and that
will work very well, but I doubt that any Orlanthi has ever
quested the "Orlanth Kills Yelm" quest because they just
don't have any myths about Yelm. Conversely a Dara happan
would never quest the "Yelm is killed by Orlanth" myth
because in their mythology it just doesn't happen like that
anyway. Going so far as to say Orlanth is Yelm's blood
relative is going several steps further again, way out into
mythic-identification no-man's-land, IMHO. For a start it
would only be even vaguely possible if Dara happans believed
that Rebellus Terminus is a blood relative of Yelm, and I
don't think they do.


Simon Hibbs