From: Jane Williams (janewill@mail.nildram.co.uk)
Date: Wed 13 Nov 1996 - 21:36:47 EET
I'm not at all sure I understand all of the Great Time debate, but
let me add a few snippets anyway.
Vinga. Someone said that the Vingan myths hadn't been written up yet.
I agree that there doesn't seem to be anything official, or even
approved, but several of us have written Vingan myths, some more
"complete" than others. My Vinga is at
http:/homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/vinga/vinga.htm
and includes a list of links to other people's versions as well. And
they all disagree. Of course.
Yes, my version of the myth is also chronologically challenged. And I
bet if you look hard enough, Vinga isn't the only one with this
problem (how many myths have Ernalda chatting to people after she'd
already falled "asleep"?)
Possible theory: pre-dawn, time was subjective, not objective. So
each being, from their POV, went through a series of events whose
cause/effect sequence made sense, based on their knowledge. So Vinga
is accepted as a warrior while Elmal guards the stead in Orlanth's
absence, and _then_, having become a warrior, rescues Elmal at the
HoG. Inspired in part by her loyalty to him as a fellow defender of
the stead. Now from Elmal's POV, maybe the HoG was before he started
guarding the stead, and he'd never met her before: but if he doesn't tell Vinga
that, it doesn't matter. Maybe that was one reason why he gave her such a
hard time being allowed to fight, because he resented having been rescued
by a mere woman in *his* past?
I'm not sure if this makes sense or not, but it does seem to fit what
happens in the myths. And maybe the participants did know and
understand all this, but their discussions on the subjects get skipped
in re-tellings so as to avoid confusing the audience?
Right having got myself confused there, let's try another tack.
Yelmic POV on time as opposed to Orlanthi. As I understand it, the
Golden Age for Yelm was when everything stayed the same, people did
their appointed job in the same way every "day" (or other cycle!),
and so on. Until Storm messed things up. As opposed to now, when,
erm, Yelm does the same thing every day.... Maybe it's a difference
in motivation? Then he did the same thing because he wanted to and it
was his nature, now it's because he agreed to the Compromise? Either
way, he is/was doing the same thing all the time because he wants to.
But for the Orlanthi, Dawn was when Orlanth lost (gave up) a fair
size chunk of his freedom. A much more significant difference.
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Jane Williams: jane@williams.nildram.co.uk
Web site at: homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/janehome.htm
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