The Hill of Gold. (notes)
The Hill of Gold is an enormous volcanic plug. No temple is at its summit (13thAge in Glorantha) but a settlement (Peralam) serves pilgrims below, with ‘plenty of temples’. The Vanchite name for it is ‘Lip of Reladiva’ (Enclosure 2)
The parts of the Hill of Gold are:
Morhaka, the Dead Gullet
Tralastaro, the place of the Silverbark Tree
Edaranu, is the Holy Wanderings
Hodrudes is the Opossum Hut. In Vanchite legend, Sarval the Possum lives here, one of the three servants (= Shadows) of Heliakal; the other two are Tunoral the raccoon and Yermalio/Yotelap the fox (the traitor). White Fox is the pet and servant of Inora in other myths (Anaxial’s Roster), so Yotelap may become her follower after Khelmal was frozen.
Peralam is the Hill of Gold proper. This is the trollish ‘Court of Conflict’ and conflated with the Empty Mountain in Berenethtelli stories.
Yelmalio/Antirius/Lightfore. Called Heliakal in Vanch, where he is consort of Reladivela, the Mare Goddess. The Vanchites say Heliakal was ‘killed’ at the Hill and Tunoral the raccoon god took up the protection of the people. ‘He took a fatal blow atop the Hill of Gold but returned after the Dawn to prepare for the coming of Yelm’ [GS, p.102]. This may be the last of his ‘six errors’.
‘Wounded, robbed, and hounded from place to place, Yelmalio carried the spark of life throughout the Darkness’ [GS, p.102].
The Kargzant cult of the Pentans views Antirius as a failed god.
After the sixth error, Antirius returned from the Hill of Gold on the back of a ‘gaunt black ox which coughed up maggots’ [GRY, p.17].
The Orb of the Eye (also called the Orb of Authority) was held by the usurper of the Hill of Gold. The GRY divided Yelmalio into the immortal Antirius and the mortal Emperor Vanyamoret. Vanyamoret was faced with his Black Shadow, the Other of Yelm, Kazkurtum, after he was wounded by the Cruel God. The body of Vanyamoret was brought back on a red and white bull. His body was burned but the feast at his funeral was thin and not enough for the people.
Later Vergustus was killed attempting to recover the Orb (and usurp the throne from Manimat), and his people were eaten by digijelm (trolls).
Alaramsor appears to be an avatar of Lightfore. Compare the troll name for Yelmalio, Amanstan. [Enclosure 2]
Orlanth. During the Haradangian Battles, Rastalulf took the Vanak Spear from the ‘heart-space’ of a foe (Alaramsor) at the Hill of Gold (this was a hero quest, and in the Otherworld). Earlier, Rastalulf had fought Alaramsor at the Empty Mountain; the Rastalulf saga however says the second battle at the Hill was also at Empty Mountain.
This was in the First Age; Rastalulf was from Yinkstead, among the Berenethtelli, that is, the composite Hyalorian Riders and northern Vingkotlings.
Rastalulf was accompanied by six companions, a Knower, Scout, Speaker, Watchman, Healer, and Riddler.
The Vanak Spear was greeted by Rastalulf-Orlanth as his ‘grandfather’, that is, Aether. It was a weapon against the Darkness.
Orlanth disarmed Yelmalio, leaving him unprepared for the troll god (GS, p.102)
Vanchite legend makes him a ‘weapon’ of Valkharal (Valind-Inora), called Ralantak the Winds of Change (Enclosure 2).
The importance of Orlanth in the Hill of Gold legend is probably a First Age innovation, derived in part by Rastalulf’s actions.
Zorak Zoran. He took Yelmalio’s fire from him after slaying or incapacitating him (in 13G it is said he ‘smashed his thighs’ (i.e., his genitals) at the Hill of Gold).
Possibly called the Cruel God by the GRY, p.29. The Cruel God gave the Orb of Authority to the digijelm (the trolls) (GRY, p.44).
May be equated with the Black Shadow, that is, Kazkurtum (the Empty Emperor, the embodiment of anarchy). However, note that Yurmalio is both trickster and betrayer and ‘follower’ (shadow) of Yelmalio/Khelmal in Imther.
The Invisible Other encountered Antirius at the Hill of Gold, ‘but Antirius was not fooled’ [GRY]
Eventually the Orb was recovered from the digijelm by Darvedeskorgos, cousin of Khordavu, by gambling with the stake of his own soul.
In Enclosure 2 the troll name for the Hill of Gold is Challenge Peak. It is reached by the Bridge of Passage and contains the Court of Conflict. ZZ took the shadow of death from Norag and used it to immobilize ‘Amanstan’, maiming him.
Orlanth attacked ZZ with the Firewind and the Hellwind (which is cold storm), but ZZ ‘swallowed them’. Hellwind is also the name of one of the spirits that was incorporated into ZZ by the Kitori, Zolan Zubar. Orlanth fled in a ‘cloud of smoke’. ZZ then took Death, and beat the sword into a maul.
ZZ returned to the Court of Conflict and subdued Humakt, Shargash, Vronkal, and Karrgan (the original holder of the rune of Ending, Kargan Tor; however, compare Kargzant).
Note however that Zorak Zoran, like Yelmalio, is a composite god of the Unity Council. He combines Hellwind/Zolan Zubar (possibly the son of Orlanth and the Dark Woman or of Inora), the Black Shadow/Kazkurtum (the hungry emperor), the Black Sun/Monster Sun (Shargash) and other great spirits into a new entity, by ‘eating them’. Because Zorak Zoran was made to destroy the Riders of Dara Happa, ‘Dara Happa on Horse’, he usurped part of Kargzant as well.
In Vanchite legend he is two entities, firstly a weapon or spirit dominated by Valkharal (Valind/Inora), called Orak the Nightmare, Mask of Darkness, and secondly an entity called Vinak the Bonecrushing Grip. (Enclosure 2) In ‘How Inora Preserved Ice Mountain’ she is served by hollri, or ice trolls, who drive off their cousin ZZ.
Inora/Norag: the trolls claim she was victorious at the Hill of Gold over the Little Death. This was on Fireday/Illusion Week/Dark Season, the Winter Solstice.
She froze Yelmalio after ZZ broke his thighs (GtG, p.156). This was because his sexual potency was diminished (my interpretation).
The White Lady received the Heart of Oslira from Antirius to give life. (GRY) This signifies the heat of the Winter Sun melting the Great Glacier.
In Enclosure 2 it is said that ZZ subdued Norag and took from her the ‘freezing Shadow of Death’. This was a fragment of Death itself, which she lost forever; she fled to the North.
In Enclosure 2 (The Fall of Heliakal) she is merged with Zorak Zoran (or his precursor) and Orlanth and described in Vanchite legend as Valkharal the Winter King, who may be more accurately her father, Valind the Glacier.
In the Ralian (?) myth of Inora she defeats all three: Zorak Zoran with her hollri, Orlanth by her freezing embrace, and Yelmalio by causing him to slip on her ice and fall off the mountain.
The Prototype of the Myth:
The Little Sun is the sun of the Lesser Darkness. He protected the people of Elempur.
*Qelmal was Lightfore, the Little Sun. Qelmal’s horse was Hippoi, the mare, who was also his mate, though her brother *Qarzan attempted to take her away from him, and sorely wounded her.
At Peralam she toppled from the heavens, stricken by a treacherous bolt of thunder; the snow king was marching south with his armies. Qelmal convinced the Winter daughter to help him find his dying mate, melting her with his ‘heat’. Qelmal did not intend to stay with the daughter of Ice, but she befriended his shadow, a spirit with a tail of fire. Ever afterwards snow persists in the shadow of the sun.
Qelmal tried to leave with Hippoi, breaking his promise to the snow princess. She went to her father and demanded justice.
The enraged Cold King found him after Qelmal’s own shadow, the fox, betrayed and attacked him from behind, and the King of the hollri (snow trolls) buried him in wind, darkness, and ice, destroying Elempur. The Glacier afterwards separated this place from the rest of Dara Happa/the Empire of the Sun.
Hippoi was freed by the winter king’s daughter and was healed, in part, by Hyalor, one of the mortals of Elempur, making the Riders. Inora, regretting her anger, wept tears of sweet water, which combine to form the great river, and the Shadow Fox went into the Night, which now covered the sky, and fetched the stars to repair her mistake. When the Glacier went away the Sun climbed out of icy tomb and took to the sky again. But he never came to touch the ground in the Middle World again.
My contention is that the Council substituted the artificial Zorak Zoran for the distant and still Valind. The fox-god, the little traitor, was partly combined with their Orlanth, but is more accurately connected with the Blue Moon [and the Bat of Death], who summoned the stars when the Sun and the Sun’s Son were lost, making the Great Darkness slightly less dim.