The Birth of Writing

You don’t have to be a good writer to be a scribe. I’ve heard you spin yarns around the story fire. You are very good Onas. So just pretend you’re telling a story."

Siberlee, The Mother of Nature - Clina 6th 665 AM

  Yes, I remember that spring day quite well. It was the day the concept of the written word was first imagined on Mernac, and I had at least some small part in that.   My Love, Siberlee, the Mother of Nature, asked me to “scribe” the history of Mernac and to begin creating a repository of all the knowledge the Gods possessed. But on that day… On that day I had no clue what she was talking about.   “What is…‘Scribe’?” was my very first question.   Her pale blue eyes met mine with a soft knowing smile. “To scribe,” she whispered,“ means to pen, to ink… to…”   The Goddess paused as she often did when considering how to explain something to me that came into being thousands of seasons earlier when she was still mortal. “To Write.”   “Onas, I want to teach you how to make speaking pictures. Much like the pictures you make for your art, except these images will represent the words we speak to each other.”   “Why would such a thing be needed? I remember asking, for I was quite naive, not to mention young, at the time.   “If some words need to be said, then, why not just say them?” I could not conceive of any reason these ‘pictures’ could be useful. “What purpose would pictures of words serve?”   The Mother of Nature giggled at this, as she often did when she was teaching me things. Now, you must understand it was not the laugh of superiority or contempt, Siberlee is simply not that way. But rather, it was an innocent laugh of love and amusement, much like a mother watching her young child learn something new.   “What if,” the Goddess started, “what if you were no longer here to speak the words, but they still needed to be said? What if the things you said are quite important and need to be said just ‘so’ and in the exact same way each time?”   “Well,” I pondered, oblivious to any possible scenario where words would need to be consistent, “do you mean if I were away on a hunting party, or in search of the Great Water, or something like that… and the words needed to be said here in our village, not there, where I was visiting?”   “Yes,” she replied with a laugh, “Something like that.”   “Then…, Then I would do what our people have always done. I would do the speaking around the story fire at night so that many could hear. Then, they would all be able to re-tell the tale even if I was not here to speak the words myself.”   “Yes my love, I see the wisdom,” she said with a hint of pride and, if truth be known, more than a hint of amusement, “you are well known as one of the greatest Storytellers in the Tian Islands if not all of Mernac.” Her body stiffened ever so slightly to convey her new seriousness. “Onas, let me ask you this, has any ever retold the tales you shared around the fire?”   “Of Course! You know this Siberlee. Many retell my tales.”   “I see. But do they do quite as good a job as you do when telling them, Onas? Do they recite the tales word-for-word? Is it EXACTLY the way you, yourself, tell the words?”   Of course, they didn’t. They couldn’t.   Now, though my parents coached me well on not having excessive pride and ego like The Fathers often do, I must admit I was quite proud of the fact that no one could spin a tale quite as well as I could. And many had tried.   Many of those not being as well coached on not displaying excessive pride and ego would experiment with adding a little something. Sometimes they would foolishly think the tale better by omitting an important part. But try as all my listeners might to improve the stories, I was confident that none told my tales quite the same way I did.   “No, the telling is never exactly the same when someone else says the words,” I replied to the Goddess. “Each of us is slightly different, so naturally each telling will also be different. But Siberlee, I think it is normal, and the natural way of things, don’t you think so?”   “Yes, I suppose you’re right, my love,” I remember her telling me softly.   I knew the tone. She was agreeing, but at the same time, she was trying to make me understand something completely foreign to me. It was not the first time. Being The First Disciple to The First God, many of the things Siberlee shared were quite foreign to me.   The slender Goddess paused for a few moments to let whatever she was trying to say soak in. As a pleasant distraction, she stood by the solid Oaken door of our home as the sun streamed golden highlights through her tresses as Elsen's gentle breeze played with them. The deity then crossed the villa’s great room toward me as if she was about to touch my arm affectionately. I knew she wanted to.   We both wanted to - but because of the gift of immortality given by The One, our Trauncha is such that we may no longer physically touch each other. Siberlee couldn’t touch me, but she did smile sweetly as she gazed at me, and then laughed nervously like a teenage girl in love for the first time.   I so love Siberlee’s laugh.   “Those who do your retelling…” Siberlee asked in a bit more serious tone, “do you suppose that any who listen to the retells ever… retell the tale, yet again, themselves?”   “Yes, I am quite certain of it… and even again if they happen to be a trader or traveler… and even yet again as travelers and traders tend to speak with others who travel… and possibly several more times…”   Siberlee’s gift of wisdom then washed through my mind. My thoughts wandered and expanded, just as it often does when I speak with Siberlee. I now wondered if I would even be able to recognize my own tales once they had been retold 100 times. Or even a handful of times for that matter.   It was then I saw her purpose, and more importantly the purpose of the written word.   “Siberlee, teach me to write.”