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

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 Received on Thu 04 May 2006 - 09:50:26 EEST