Hello everyone! This is Casimir with The Skald’s Circle again. Today we’ll be talking about stories within stories.
Alright, so since this article is far and beyond meta, we’re going to play some mind games. Off the top of your head, I would like you to think of a storyteller, some wisdom, a bit of poetry, or any deities or beings in your favorite mythologies. You’ve got the commonly known ones: Odin, Thoth, Anansi…then you get your less commonly known ones: Mimir, Kvasir, and Apollo — I could go on but you’re here to read an article, not have me drone on with names of deities. What I’m getting at here though is that I want you all to consider the reverence that we hold these deities of stories. We recall very well the stories of how Odin went about gaining his knowledge of poetry, of how powerful Apollo was and how he nearly shook Olympus to its very core. Hell, there is a written language named after the Celtic deity of knowledge, Ogma. The story of Gilgamesh particularly helps demonstrate this strange relationship that our stories have with, well, stories. Gilgamesh goes on a great quest to seek immortality, only to be told that it cannot happen, though you can gain immortality through stories. Oddly enough, whether or not Gilgamesh actually existed, he succeeded in gaining immortality (I’m going to hold you all accountable to make sure we actually tell the story of Gilgamesh.). The point being, that even within our stories, we have recorded how important these stories are.
Stories and wisdom within our own stories are held as sources of power, literally, in the case of the Norse myths. They are sources of comfort, of a life after death, where we will live on far beyond our natural life span, and I’ll be damned it works. How many of us know the names of people and deities who died, or haven’t been around for centuries or even millenia? I know I can name a few off the top of my head right now. We have known our stories have held power ever since we started telling them. This harkens back to my other article from a while back about the power of stories. The stories are more than the words that carry them, they are this great…ephemeral power that is carried down from their first telling to today, and it’s recorded in the stories themselves. I am probably repeating myself, but once again I find the idea of stories absolutely fascinating. We pass them on and millenia after they’ve first been told they still carry power behind them. That’s why storytellers are important even today, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a storyteller. I’m saying that because all of us have this…instinctual craving to listen to stories. Go forth, and share these stories, help us continue the greatest of human traditions, and let us make sure that none of our heroes or gods ever die.
I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology folklore, and history on History with The Skald’s Circle. If you’d like to know more, or perhaps discuss it with me, I’m always more than willing. Also, if you have something you would like us to research, please let us know! Also if you learned something new, give us a like, and let us know, we really appreciate being noticed…Until then, I’ll be back next week with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources!