Tuesday 17 October 2023

Retelling Folk Tales

The Game of Empire, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

In Lulach on the Highroad River on Daedalus in the Patrician System, Targovi tells Toborko folk tales to Cynthians in exchange for tossed coins. Both Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman have incorporated Norse mythology into their works of fantasy. Anderson retold Hrolf Kraki's Saga and Gaiman has retold the main myths in his Norse Mythology. In his Introduction to this latter work, Gaiman wrote that the myths live when they are retold. He advises us not only to read the stories but also to tell them to others. And that brings us back to Targovi telling Toborko tales in Lulach. The stories live in the memories of Cynthian cubs who might, when grown up, travel to Imhotep, hear them again and then remember Targovi. This is an interaction between two of the other intelligent species that have colonized the Patrician System.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS shows Dominic Flandry pretending to be a professional story teller.

I think, in mostly illiterate societies like that of Unan Besar before Biocontrol was overthrown, auricular story tellers fills some of the gap occupied by fiction writers in literate societies.

Ad astra! Sean