THE TRAVELLING TALES
Though some of the
original collectors of folk tales, like the brothers Grimm, were
partly motivated by a desire to preserve national culture, what is
outstanding when comparing these tales from many cultures is how
universal humanity's stories are. Looking at their stories it is
clear that human beings are very similar in essence in all places.
This reflection was the motive behind this poem.
by Perla Marina
THE
TRAVELLING TALES
The spoken story is the human
claim,
And though its characters are
changelings,
They keep their constant
qualities-
The drama of the tale remains
the same.
From patient farmers in rice
paddies
Beside the waters of the wide
Hwang-Ho,
To scattered tribes in vast
Siberia
Who herded reindeer long ago;
To crowded deltas of Old
India,
The mother of so many tales;
To fishing coasts where
monsoons blow
And sway the tops of village
palms;
To dark, enchanted fir tree
forests
In older Europe, once upon a
time;
From Baghdad to Rome, from
Moscow to Nepal,
The folk's tales travelled, in
prose or rhyme,
On gypsy trails, in minstrels'
songs,
In travellers' talk, in old
wives' telling.
The spoken story is the wise
one's way,
The image having depth beyond
first sense
As through the form and fabled
meaning
Moves more than abstract
thought can say.
These are the stories from
The endless empires of the
soul:
The tales of all dreamtimes,
The rumourings that come
From west of the moon,
And east of the sun.
These are the tales that tell
Of deep abiding magic in
The hidden nature of the
human,
With knapsacks that harbour
The roaming winds of heaven,
Truth-telling mirrors, magic
words,
The golden or the fire birds;
The powerful genie and the
fierce
And vengeful spirit in a
flask;
Or wise, enchanted beasts
Who solve a hopeless task,
And cunning dwarfs and clumsy
giants,
And spell-bound beauty and
fortune's gifts;
Enchanted fruit at this
world's end,
The flying ship that sails the
land;
And seven's sign of time,
Or three, bold brothers,
Like three fraternal forces in
our souls,
Or twelve fair princesses who
sleep by day
And dance the secret,
star-blessed night away.
The spoken story is the human
spell,
And though its characters are
changelings,
They keep their constant
qualities-
A deeper truth from memory's
well.
These are the tales are
As ancient as first laughter;
The stories of all folly,
Wise fools and foolish holy-
The crafty and the cunning
wit,
The sly and pride-destroying
trick.
These are the tales in which
we see
Awakening awareness and the
clarity
Of conscious and perceptive
thought-
As with the craft of ancient
Wahn,
The white crow with his tricks
who flew
Far in Australia's time of
dream;
The force-defeating cunning of
Coyote
Who played his tricks upon the
prairie;
Or India's quick-witted Jackal
Who caged the tiger's deadly
rage;
Brer Rabbit, bred in the brier
patch,
Who came with folk, in slaving
sorrow,
From Africa's rich coasts and
far, vast plains.
These are the tales of jesters
fooling kings,
Of meaning's point on many
things;
The many pranks of master
Tyll,
The cunning little tailors
swaggering
To victory with foolish,
powerful foes;
From Odysseus to Renard, the
characters
Of cunning show clear
thinking's worth
And play their pranks for
everyone on earth.
The spoken story was before
the page;
And yet it lives from age to
age,
Reborn in novels, films, and
plays,
From hidden depths of human
ways.
For under each and every sky
There lives the family of
tales.
Why must we hate
For blind, dry, useless
dogma's sake?
In that folk heaven we are one
Beneath our sister moon and
brother sun.
