Loskalm and Time.

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From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 15 Jul 1994 - 23:39:24 EEST

Joerg:
> >> The Hrestoli in Old Loskalm don't have any [Orlanthi subjects]. These
> >> make up probably one half of all Hrestoli in Glorantha.

> > The other half being whom? I think most other alleged Hrestoli aren't
> > part of the Loskalmi Nouveau Idealism, so all bets off for them. As for
> > ex-pat Loskalmi, I dunno. Where are they, for one thing?

> Janube River valley up to Eastpoint: all ancient Loskalm.
[and assorted others]

All "old" Hrestoli, which is _not_ what I asked about. "New" idealism dates from during the ban, so it's spread beyond Loskalm and Junora is likely to be very limited, to date. You referred to Loskalmi adventurers in the rest of Fronela, it was they I was inviting expoundment upon.

> > There is? Who, the Jonatings? I'm not convinced they are "Hrestoli" in
> > any sense other than not being Rokari.

> See above, except for Wexten. The form of Hrestolism I call Linealist,
> which dominated throughout 1st and 2nd Age Seshnela.

I've no idea if your term is accept(ed|able), but at any rate, we certainly _do_ need to distinguish between these two forms, and not just call them both Hrestolism (as you blithely did in the original).

> Talar is occupied by a very different culture. As to making one up:
> feel free to do so.

Not so different that they don't have the same social castes, at least. Bear in mind that Linealist-Hrestolism was the earliest (still-existing, at any rate) "offshoot" of the Brithini culture. Hrestol himself is referred to as a Talar in places, rightly or wrongly.

> >> Yes, especially the moment at 0 YT. In Godtime.

> > Eh, yeah, that's the "year" I'm talking about. Didn't I just say that?

> Already in Godtime there were days. In my reply to Nils I speculated about
> their nature.

There were days before 0YS? I doubt it. No sun, no days, in my book. Call this excessive reductionism if you will. If you mean before 0 _ST_ (not the calander we were discussing, note); depends whom one asks. The DHans certainly reckon there were, but it's not clear that the Orlanthi do.

> >> I think that Yelm introduced a certain scheme of temporal order in his
> >> realm, if he didn't inherit it already from the Celestial Court.

> > And he didn't, according to Dara Happan beliefs.

> He didn't, according to Plentonius. But Plentonius needn't be right
> in any statement.

I'm not saying he's "right", I'm saying that's our best approximation for what the Dara Happans _believe_.

> My God Learner self tells me that Elias Loennrot, the
> collector of these Karelian sagas, heard two versions of the same
> story with more differences than he felt empowered to reconcile, so he
> let this event occur twice in his collection of single myths.

Not unlike the "bigamy" footnote debate in KoS, indeed.

> Plentonius has a whole bunch of Hill of Gold events...

Including one where the Orb of Authority is lost, and one where it's found again, not obvious candidates for being identified as same original event.

> > Doesn't it worry you
> > that this is entirely at odds with Theyalan beliefs on the matter, in
> > using this as "evidence" of anything?

> It isn't if you delve for the underlying hard info.

The what? The hard info being, supposedly? Are you asserting that the Theyalans don't believe "Time began in 0ST, "before" that there was weird, acausal stuff", or merely that their belief can be "explained" away?

> > Doesn't the GRAY history of that
> > period look, in fact, like something of a flimsy tissue of guesswork and
> > fabrication?

> To me, it has a lot in common with the Kalevala. Both were compiled by a
> nationalist in a period of reconstitution of a national identity. Both
> are works of literature rather than an authentic set of folk myths. And
> both hold the only surviving info on the matters.

Apart from everyone else's myths of the same "period", which you believe must be ultimately reconciable. Anyway, I was talking about the "timeline" of Yelm's (first) reign, which has nothing very specifically to do with the Dara Happan nation (as well as being not very specific), not GRAY as a whole.

> In yet another (possibly too long) posting I ranted about why and how
> a unified myth is essential for Glorantha-

Strange how it ever managed without it, and continues to, in many areas.

Alex.

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