From: peter metcalfe (metcalph@voyager.co.nz)
Date: Sun 28 Dec 1997 - 10:05:47 EET
Stephen Martin:
AJ>>I am not an expert on what is in which written source, but pray tell;
>>in which written source does it say that the [...] Dwarfs are _not_
>>descended from the Man Rune?
>Dwarfs, on the other hand, by their own Mythos were _created_ by the
>Ancient Mostali, who in turn were created by Mostal. Nowhere in this
>whole series of myths (see both Elder Secrets and the series of dwarf
>articles now available on Chaosium's Web Page) is the Man Rune,
>Grandfather Mortal, Old Man, or any such figure mentioned.
This is hardly a complete refutation as there are many things that
get dropped out of people's mythologies and many things that get
added in. For example:
1) The RW Gypsies claim in their myth to be descended from the
Pharaoh who drowned when Moses crossed the Red Sea. Their language
OTOH demonstrates that they originally came from North India and
not from egypt.
2) The Dara Happans deny that anybody ruled before the coming
of Yelm. Looking at the Entekosiad OTOH reveals the existance
of the White Queen who ruled before Yelm.
3) Virtually every Ralian's myths about Arkat will have lies,
misunderstandings, omissions and deliberate half-truths. There
may be a grain of truth in their mythology but I personally have
my doubts.
>Nowhere does it say that Argrath is NOT Gbaji reincarnated, but that
>doesn't mean that he is -- in a world as incompletely described as
>Glorantha, lack of reference cannot be used as proof of something, can
>it? Shoot, that doesn't work in the RW either, as I recall. It can be
>used as _support_ for a theory, but certainly not proof.
But the _fact_ that the mostali are human based and use sex to
procreate does imply that they are descended from the Man Rune.
If they had a seperate origin then why were they chosen to have
two arms and two legs, two eyes, a mouth etc? Why not something
like the trimanes or the gobblers or the tinimits? In this case
Occam's razor indicates that there is an omission (aka Gold Mostali
software upgrade to prevent occurence of openhandism) of anything
resembling Grandfather Mortal from the myths than the complete
absence of grandfather mortal in the actual making of the mostali.
The immortality of the mostali proves nothing because it is not
On a related note, I'm very suspicious about the myths which has
unconditional (unlike the mistress race trolls) in that becoming
apostate turns one mortal - in this they are akin to the Brithini
who are most assuredly descended from the man rune. Likewise the
Morokanth and the Newtlings are not man-rune creatures yet they
are mortal.
Kyger Litor copulating with 'the man-rune' to begat the race of Uz.
I do not believe that the original Uz myths would have such a
mention in them. If anything they would follow the Rathori women
and claim that Kyger Litor and Korasting were (note past tense) so
fertile they could begat children without men. That would remove
at a stroke any human connection yet it changes not the fact that
the Uz are descended from the man-rune.
- --Peter Metcalfe
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