Myth of the Month: Heler, the Great Rain (Oct 2002)

By Greg Stafford

Included in The Book of Heortling Mythology (2009)

Many beings took good advantage of opportunities. When the fire gods were being extinguished many water beings gained power. One of those was named Heler.

Heler looked upon the world. It was all surrounded by water. A fair sized squarish shape floated upon that limitless sea, and now even that was becoming increasingly covered with water. Heler determined to make himself a new realm, untouched yet, in the hopes of claiming a wide and powerful position in the universe as it was being recreated.

Heler was the child of Sshorga. He came into being when Shargash destroyed the wound of Sshorga with his great fiery shield. Heler’s first perception was from that moment, in the air between the sky close overhead and the earth far below. Heler watched his mother, the great blue dragon, cover all of Dara Happa and the lands around it. As he watched she began to circle around the corner of the world, north and east of the Great Mountain, making a great continental island there.

Heler was a blessed being, and so he knew just the right way to do sacred things. He found a quiet place in the middle air and he prayed to his mother, the Great Waters, and the powers behind those. He was called to give his sacrifice, and he gave to humankind the ability to weep the golden tear. (This is a mystical secret: the Golden Tear is said to be not a tear like crying, but a tear like a rip in the fabric.) This is his first presence in the world. He can never leave us.

For this Sshorga appeared to him to grant him an interview. Heler spoke with great reverence, and he proved his influence within the Water Dragon so that the conversation between them was a monologue.

Heler offered to give to Sshorga an entryway into the upper sky world. He knew of that opening because he was, after all, the Lord of the Golden Tear. He initiated Sshorga into the secrets of the Young God. (This is an astronomical secret: the Young God is a constellation whose presence in the Sky River marks the beginning of the year.) Sshorga had never spoken to the Young God before.

Heler asked in return only to be a portion of the flow of the Great One, a stream in the river, a current in the sea, a pool in the lake. He received this.

“As the sky is high and will be filled, so shall you have this middle air as your domain,” said Sshorg. And he, for after this Sshorga is a male being, went away to speak to the Young Son.

Heler was pleased with himself. He remained where he was, watching the earth below and, after a while, the storm gods all around him. Once or twice the tempests tried to bully Heler, but he had a touch of Sshorga and was growing really fast with her fluid powers. Heler, even young, also had a good measure of the fighting powers of Shargash, who was his father. The bullies went away.

At first, then, in the Middle Air Heler was a river. Overhead Sshorga had undergone another transformation and was called Lorion. Lorion, the Celestial River, was clearly visible to all of us below as it moved into the sky world. As it advanced to the place where the sun had been first went Shargash to fight, then went Antirius. Alas, those fiery deities were defeated and the river kept growing. And finally, despite the best efforts of all the heavenly forces, at one point the entire sky turned blue. When the entire sky turned blue it succumbed to the powers of the watery realm, and in fact became a part of the lower worlds. In a very real sense it joined Glorantha for the first time. Dayzatar, the pure god of the Sky Realm, left his realm at this point, leaving heaven to the rule of others. The glowing of his being went from the sky, leaving it empty to be filled with the water of Lorion.

And as the Sky Waters fared, so also went Heler’s domain. When the sky turned blue the Middle Air began to fill with water too. Heler grew to be great and powerful.

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