{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3229",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3229,
    "subject": "Mound Dwellers",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-05-07T19:21:54+00:00",
    "last": "2002-05-07T19:21:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-906@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Josh Geller",
        "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-07T19:21:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Mound Dwellers",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Mon, 6 May 2002, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nJosh G. points out that the \"brown book\" stories..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "And in what we are please to call 'our world' the story of\nAlexander gets overlaid upon the story of Gilgamesh."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I'm afraid I'm blanking on this."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Besides the historical Alexander, recorded by his contemporaries, and used\nby Arrian and others who wrote the surviving Alexander biographies, there\nis a mythic Alexander who derives from the oral traditions of the peoples\nthat he conquered, and was not written until medieval times or later.\n\nDuring the time it was an oral tradition, the story was modified\nextensively, and incorporated elements that had previously been used in\nthe stories of Gilgamesh and others.\n\nThere are these mythic patterns, which historical personalities, as they\ngrow among the Dead, tend to conform to.\n\nNow I'd like to go off on a tangent.\n\nThere was an ancient (\"pagan\" - I really dislike this term) king of\nNorway, named Olaf, who was buried in a mound at Geierstaad. He was\nhenceforth known as Olaf Geierstaadalf (\"Olaf the Elf from Geierstaad\").\nThis happened maybe in the 8th century some time.\n\nA few hundred years later, Olaf the Holy is Christianizing Norway, in the\nmost direct and positive way imaginable. There's a problem, though: King\n(later Saint) Olaf is well-known to be the reincarnation of Olaf\nGeierstaadalf. He has Olaf the Elf's sword, for instance, taken out of the\nmound, there were prophecies about it, some of his companions (in fact)\nare well-known to be reincarnations of Olaf the Elf's companions. This is\nvery embarrassing for a Christian king, and leads to his public denial, in\nfront of the mound, that he was ever Olaf the Elf, because as good\nChristians, they all know that people are born once for all time.\n\nThe public denial went something like this: Olaf and some of his\ncompanions were in front of the mound, and one of them asked him if he\nremembered when they were there before: Olaf replied that he did not, that\nit could not be, that it was a lie and stated the Christian dogma in the\nmatter. He was then overcome with emotion and ran away so as to hide his\ntears.\n\nYes, this does relate to the Gene Wolfe novel \"The Devil In A Forest\"."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}