The Old Earth Way

[Jex]

All right, I know I've been asking a lot of questions here as I'm trying to research and get things in order for my Marshedge gazetteer project (and I'm very grateful for all the helpful responses I've received), but I think I've now finally finished reading over all the most immediately relevant old source material, so hopefully this will be the last question.  (And with any luck within the next couple months I'll finally, finally get this thing done and up on the Jonstown Compendium!)  Anyway, this is something I've been wondering for a long time, but I haven't asked it here before because I was looking through various sources hoping to find an answer on my own, but having failed to turn up anything, I thought I'd throw myself one more time on the tender mercies of the forum...

The descriptions of the Lismelder tribe in Tales of the Reaching Moon #18 and #19 make repeated reference to a religious tradition called the "Old Earth Way" (or occasionally "Ways") that seems to have played a significant role in the Lismelder's early history.  Queen Lismelder, the first leader of the tribe, reinstituted the Old Earth Way among her followers, and her daughters tried to force the whole tribe to follow the Old Earth Way until Indrodar Greydog steered them back into the Orlanthi path.  But I've been unable to figure out what exactly the Old Earth Way was; I haven't been able to find the phrase used anywhere in any other Glorantha materials (though it's entirely possible I missed it somewhere).  Given its apparent importance to the Lismelder history (and, depending on what it was, maybe the possibility that it may still have some adherents today?), I'd really like to try to figure out what the Old Earth Way was all about.

The way I see it, there are three main possibilities:

1. The "Old Earth Way" just refers to the religious tradition practiced in Esrolia, or one similar, centered around the Earth Mother Ernalda and recognizing Orlanth as only one of her many husbands rather than as the king of the gods.  This would seem on the surface to be the most straightforward and obvious interpretation, but there are two problems with it.  For one, the way the Old Earth Way is referred to in TotRM seems to make it out to be something vaguely sinister—but then again, perhaps to good faithful Orlanthi this placing of Ernalda above Orlanth would be seen as blasphemous and sinister.  But another problem is that there's a reference to Indrodar "bringing [Queen Tara] back into the ways of Orlanth and Ernalda"—which wouldn't seem to make a whole lot of sense if they were already worshiping Ernalda.
2. It's an ad hoc reference that just doesn't fit with later canon and is best ignored.  Tome of the Reaching Moon wasn't an official publication, after all, and even if some things from this zine were later canonized, that doesn't mean everything in it is canon—and this is one thing that isn't.  I don't like this option, because I would like to incorporate what I can from earlier sources, and frankly the tribe's history with the Old Earth Way does seem to present some interesting possibilities... but if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.
3. The "Old Earth Way" refers to the worship of some earth god(dess) or collection of god(dess)es not now normally widely worshiped among the Orlanthi.  The Earth Witch, perhaps?

Anyway, does anyone have any insight as to which of these possibilities (or perhaps another possibility I haven't thought of) was intended, or is most likely to be correct?  Or is there some clear reference to the Old Earth Way elsewhere that lays out exactly what the term refers to and am I just dumb?

[metcalph]

I would have thought the Old Earth Way was following the religious practices of the Tarsh Exiles.

[Jex]

Hmm... some of the the Maran-Gor-centered practices of the Tarsh exiles do seem like they could be a good fit, and they do fit the "Earth" part of the name.  But does it fit the "old" part?  Are those religious practices of particularly long standing, or are they something the Tarsh exiles only came up with in violent defiance of the Lunar occupation?  (Honest question; I don't know.)

The only other problem I see with this idea is that Lismelder herself doesn't seem to have any connection to Tarsh.  Before she went off to found her own tribe, she was a member of the Malani Tribe; I'm not sure where she would have picked up Tarsh religious practices.  Or were the religious practices now followed in Old Tarsh once more widespread than they are today?

Ah, wait, okay, never mind; I think I found the answer to both those questions.  Per the Maran Gor entry in Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses:

Quote

At the Dawn, Maran Gor was powerful and revered by the people of Dragon Pass. Her great temple at the foot of Kero Fin ferociously guarded the rights of the Earth goddesses. The cult of the Earth Shaker has waned considerably since the Dawning, but in certain isolated spots, she is still highly revered.

Okay, then, yeah, it all seems to check out.  Old?  Check.  Earth?  Check.  I don't know that I can be 100% sure this is what was meant in TotRM, but it does seem to fit the bill and I'll probably go with this unless I hear something more definitive.  Thanks.

[Joerg]

Possibly this refers to the concept of 7-year Sacred Kings, like the Illaro Dynasty had after the Tarsh CIvil War. Which would happen after the separation of the Lismelder Tribe from the Malani, those troubles might have happened around the Zarran War.

[Eff]

4 hours ago, Jex said:

Okay, then, yeah, it all seems to check out.  Old?  Check.  Earth?  Check.  I don't know that I can be 100% sure this is what was meant in TotRM, but it does seem to fit the bill and I'll probably go with this unless I hear something more definitive.  Thanks.

Without any personal knowledge of what was meant in those articles either, I suspect that there's first and foremost a root inspiration in Robert Graves' (and the associated, more academic work) beliefs about primordial matriarchal civilization and worship of a primordial triple goddess, with plenty of blood sacrifices and elaborations of the Roman rex nemorensis ritual in the Golden Bough tradition. You can certainly see that influence in the Wyrm's Footnotes article on the earth gods and the pair of triads of earth goddesses.

[Nick Brooke]

“Queens should rule tribes, because Kings tend to be violent warmongering assholes like Mad-Blood Malan.”

That’s probably most of it. It’s just the Esrolian alternative, seizing its moment after Lismelder repudiated her mad, bad dad.

[Jex]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

You can certainly see that influence in the Wyrm's Footnotes article on the earth gods and the pair of triads of earth goddesses.

Ah, I admit that except for issue 15 which covers the Upland Marsh (but which is largely copied from TotRM), I haven't really taken a close look at Wyrm's Footnotes.  I'll skim them and check out the article you mentioned for some possible inspiration.

[Beoferret]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Possibly this refers to the concept of 7-year Sacred Kings, like the Illaro Dynasty had after the Tarsh CIvil War.

7-year Sacred Kings? Is this a reference to rulers who'd be ritually sacrificed at the end of a set term?

Speaking of which ....

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Without any personal knowledge of what was meant in those articles either, I suspect that there's first and foremost a root inspiration in Robert Graves' (and the associated, more academic work) beliefs about primordial matriarchal civilization and worship of a primordial triple goddess, with plenty of blood sacrifices and elaborations of the Roman rex nemorensis ritual in the Golden Bough tradition. You can certainly see that influence in the Wyrm's Footnotes article on the earth gods and the pair of triads of earth goddesses.

Mary Renault's The King Must Die, historically accurate or not, offers a pretty evocative description of a matriarchal, earth-focused society with annual sacrifice of ritual kings. Worth a read. 

Also, there's the possibility that the ancient Irish sacrificed tribal kings, when times were rough (e.g., after a poor or failed harvest) and their bodies then placed in a bog. Not sure any Lismelder would want to put a body in the Upland Marsh though.