From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Mon 22 Aug 1994 - 11:03:06 EEST
Devin Cutler in X-RQ-ID: 5786
> Without wanting to insult those who thought the Anaxial the Sailor myth
> (GRoY) was brilliant stuff, does anyone else find this blatant ripoff of
> Terran flood myths to be a bit cheesy?
Well, you could as blatantly rip of the earthquake myth, the volcano myth, or the comet strike myth. Any more suggestions for cataclysms?
However, apart from earthquake, the alternatives to the flood would leave lasting remnants, even through the subsequent glacial.
> Why, other than the fact that it is a mythic archetype on Earth, does
> Glorantha need such a derivative myth? I certainly agree that a 'cleansing"
> myth has a place in any culture or world, but why did Greg need to be so
> obviosuly Noahesque with it all? I might have preferred something a bit more
> Sun-like (like perhaps volcanoes and a pall of ash from Lodril.
What they do is to release Oslira from the bondage Murharzarm had forced upon her. The waters still flowed upwards when the flood appeared, so Oslira just continued what she had started with.
> In any case, why would the Sky Gods choose rain as a way of cleansing. Isn't
> rain a vehicle of the rebel gods?
Not exactly. In fact, I'm sceptical about the rain bit myself. When the flood caused the Oslir to change from River to Sea, the waters still moved uphill, including any (hypothetical) rain - where to should rainfall drain?
If my theory about the release of Heler (out of Manarlavus' Dome aka Aroka) is correct, this myth occurred quite a while after the waters changed their direction of flow. I doubt there was much rain before Orlanth freed Heler - I mean, how would the water have entered air in the first place? The water powers which might have done so invaded heaven instead and turned the sky from yellow to blue.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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