By Aradell
If you’ve heard a story once, you need not hear it again. Or do you? Many of you have picked up an old book and reread the story, and you’ve probably noticed that it’s not just the plot that makes a tale, but the telling. One bard can sing or tell a tale, and you might not like it at all. Another can tell the same story, and it can be the most wondrous you’ve ever heard.
Here in the Old World, however, we attribute the differences to individual tellers. In Jedda, ancient traditions guide the making of words. A storyteller in Jedda is not celebrated so much for his or her ability to weave a tale as for the ability to utilize one of the three major styles to enrapture the audience.
These three styles are the foundation for all Jeddan storytelling. Each has regional and personal variations, but when you hear a tale, you’ll know before long which of the three styles it is being told in.
I’ve given a description of the three styles below, and a brief excerpt from a Jeddan story written in each of the styles.
Kuloro – Developed about a thousand years ago by the poet Alitashada, Kuloro uses vivid, luscious detail in an attempt to evoke tastes, smells, and in its highest manifestation, emotions. Plot is not as important in a Kuloro tale, and sometimes the storyteller will have no other goal in mind than to sweep his or her listeners into the scene being invoked. Often the description will not be literal, but will attempt, through words, to evoke the desired sensation.
The waters captured her, running dark and cold up her body as she let herself go into the stream. Flesh prickled-- her sigh now a biting inhale. All her body burned with the icy chill. In long streamers the current took the mud from her white flesh, curling it away in a dance of black and grey and brown. Her eyes softened, all the images and feelings blurring into a single sensation. Everything dark and mysterious left her body, disappearing into the pure white current.
Mitsa – ‘Mitsa’ means (roughly), ‘unopened flower’. It is said to be the first storytelling style of Jedda Felsuin. Unlike Kuloro, it is concerned primarily with the layout of the story. The style is very lyrical, and its beauty comes from the lilting quality of its words. Short tales or stories, often describing legendary people or events, emerge from this style, and almost all of the ancient stories of Jeddan heroes and religious figures are done in this style.
When Tiro drew his sword, all the crowd gasped, and eyes flickered wide. It shone bright with the sun’s light, and his battle-cry hushed every bird in every tree.
The Shai-kan warriors drew their swords, but in their eyes was only a deep, resounding fear.
"How can a man so embody the Perfect?" thought the crowd.
"How can he so inflame the Spirit, and cease the Heart from despair?"
And then they could think no more, for the Shai-kan shouted their defiance and ran forth, blades held at the ready.
It was a dance that Tiro performed, twirling and flashing in the bright sunlight.
Shai-kan armor splintered and fell, and soon after the first body toppled.
Then the next, and but a moment later, the next.
"Tiro," thought the crowd, "is surely more than man. He can only be a god."
Ratae – And finally Ratae, born of the simple prose written by devotees of Lakiratai.
Ratae uses as few words as possible to create a scene. By far, it is considered the most artful and difficult of the styles. A good story fully absorbs the reader, and with the lack of words, the reader’s mind is forced to fill in the details more vividly than any actual words ever could. Thus, the same story might be read by three different people, each picturing the events and settings in widely diverse manners. In its philosophy one finds many of the ideals of Lakiratai, with its primary message that our perception of the world, and not the world itself, gives form to ‘reality’.
A heavy snow falls, each step silent.
Then a shadow above, soft over the moon, and his dark eyes search.
There! A deepening among the trees, a gentle murmur of wind on a windless night.
And a stirring in his heart, for how long has he searched?
Each step covers leagues, leagues of cold nights and deep jungles and
deafening seas.
The deepening moves, shifts, immense and black.
Or is it only the sighing of trees?
For surely the wind moves them.
No, for scales unfurl, tree limbs crackle.
Inside himself he blossoms, magics rise,
White teeth sear the night,
And the evening becomes darker still.
This, then, gives a brief taste of the Jeddan styles of storytelling. Next time you read or hear a Jeddan tale, see if you can tell which of the three holds the story together.