Episode 3: Seventy Languages

In this episode we visit Siberia for the story of Seventy Languages. 

This story was taken from ‘Singing Story, Healing Drum’ by Kira Van Deusen. Other recommended volumes by the author are ‘Raven and The Rock’ and ‘The Flying Tiger’.

Learn more about Siberian spiritual traditions in the seminal text, ‘Shamanism; Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy’ by Mircea Eliade.

A wonderful album of Siberian music is ‘Voices From The Distant Steppe’ by Shu-De.

Support the podcast by buying an ebook for the price of a cup of coffee here.

Get Daniel's free full-colour Celtic Mythology Handbook here.

Thanks for being part of House of Legends.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello and welcome to the house of legends podcast where you can hear world myths and legends told by a professional storyteller. I'm your host, Daniel Allison, and this is episode three 70 languages. Before we get started with this story this week, I want to tell you a bit

Speaker 2: 0:33

about how it came to be here living in Thailand. If you've heard the previous episodes, you'll know that from Scotland, and I'm living here on coupon gun. I came here originally because I wanted to take up a martial art because I wanted it to be able to write good battle scenes and good combat scenes in my fiction fantasy. And of course that's just intrinsic to that kind of fiction and I want it to be able to take my characters through something that it's in a way been through myself. So I took up kickboxing, local, mixed martial arts gym, and it was very difficult because partly because I wasn't fit enough, partly because I'm completely unathletic, I've never played any sports willingly in my entire life. So it was kind of trial by fire, but I loved it. And very soon I was doing three classes a week and then I was running in the mornings and I was lifting weights on the nights when I wasn't at the gym. And then I began interested, began to get interested in Moitai just through watching on YouTube. More Thai is Thai boxing, it's like kickboxing on the outside. Once you get into it, it's very different is one of the most effective and one of the most Savage brutal martial arts. And it's also just a beautiful deadly dunce. There's incredible cultural around it. This credible dance and music there are part of every fight and I fell in love with it and I started to entertain this fantasy of going to Thailand for a month or two to train. And then I had a hard year in which I lost some people close to me and I decided life's too short for that. And she's a horrible cliche, but that was it. I decided I was going to pick a one way ticket and go for a year. So in December I arrived on the Island of coupon gun and I had enrolled at diamond Moitai, which is an international gym. So you have a lot of students from all over the world as well as some Thai students training there. And I've been there since December apart from a month when I was away visiting a tie storyteller that I know and spending some time in the labs. It's been very difficult. Grueling journey. You're training every single day in this intense heat, sweating and sweating and sweating and unlearning, take kickboxing techniques to learn. My tie was very um, but the trainers are amazing. You've got this constant diet of incredible, interesting, wacky people arriving from all over the world to talk to. So managed to gradually pick up the skills, make a lot of incredible friends. And I'm aiming to get into the ring here and around October time I live in a little house by a pond, which is about a hundred meters from the beach and house is surrounded by fruit trees and just all kinds of birds coming by all day. This tree frogs at night. It's, it's a pretty wonderful place to live. So moving on to this week story, this is a story that I came across in a book called singing story healing drum by KIRO van Dusen who's a Canadian storyteller and researcher. I've been interested in Siberia and stories for a long time and that is Kiera speciality. Siberia is the home of shamanism. I'm sure you've all heard of that word, the Shumon and which is bandied around quite a lot these days and given different meanings. Um, but originally essentially in that part of the world in Siberia means a kind of spiritual technician or kind of spiritual doctor who will diagnose illness and they see illness as being someone's usually as being a part of someone's spirit has gone and needs to be retrieved. And then they will travel in spirits to other worlds, to the upper world or lower world and seek to find that piece of a person's spirit and bring it back. And they will recount these journeys and also journeys in which they seek to gain spiritual knowledge or power by meeting and battling or being tested by a non human beings. In the other worlds, if you're interested in this Mercia Elliot's book, shamanism is the classic and from a storytelling perspective, what's really interesting is that the stories of Siberia are clearly very influenced by these narratives that the showmans will recount. This particular story is a favorite of mine that I love to tell. It's told in different forms across Siberia and Kairos kind enough to send me a book that I was unavailable at the time of different versions of it. I've mostly stuck to the sort of most popular version which he has in singing story healing drum, which you can get yourself if you're interested. So here's our story. This is 70 languages long ago and far away a Hunter lift deep within a vast forest. He lived in a yard with his wife and he had there his dog and his cow and his chickens too. The forest was vast and there were leopards and bears and deer and all manner of other animals there. And every day the Hunter would go out into the forest and go hunting and some days he wouldn't bring back food for the pot, but most days he would cause he was an excellent Hunter. Excellent with his boat. One day he set off into the forest early in the morning and he walked along and he looked for the signs of prey. He looked for, for on this twig, for on that Twiggy look for flattened grass. But you saw nothing so on. He went into the forest, he walked and walked and walked and always he was searching with his keen eyes based on nothing. So he kept going and late in the day he came to something strange right there in the forest. He saw before him a wall of yellow mist. And this wasn't thin spectral mist. This was thick mist. It looks so thick that you could have cut it with his knife and it wasn't a bright golden yellow, the gold of the sun. It was a kind of sickly bilious color. And something about him repelled him. He didn't want to go close to it, but of course he was curious and he wanted to know what this was. So the Hunter drew closer. He put his hand into the wall of mist and then he stepped forward and he walked into the mist. He walked through it, and when he emerged out of the other side, the Hunter found himself at the head of a Valley and this Valley, this Valley was a place of death. Nothing left within it. The ground where there should have been grass was Ash. The only trees or stumps chart and blackened as if they had burned. There was Ash everywhere. The sky was dark clouds. And as he walked, he saw, he walked along the edge of a river bank, but no water ran in the river and the floor of the river bed was littered, the skeletons of fish, the Hunter to send it into the Valley. Tony went and he looked this way and that, and he was, he was horrified. He'd never seen, you'd never dreamed or imagined of a place such as this. He reached the Valley floor and he was looking about himself looking here and there and looking up into the sky. When he noticed something, he noticed that there was in the sky adopt and this dot was growing bigger. It was growing bigger and bigger and bigger and it was taking shape. It was a form. It was something flying. And the Hunter stared as this shape became a great snake and wind snake, its wings were all the colors of the rainbow. This great being circled over and over and head and then landed before the Hunter, it lowered its head out, flicked its for tongue and it spoke to the Hunter great Hunter and said, find a marksman. I have someone do here because I need your help. And the Hunter stared up at it and he said, well, well I, I will help you if I can, but I don't see how one such as me could. It could help one such as you and this great snake. It said, there is a curse upon my land, this land. And that curse is the yellow wind snake. Every evening it comes here and it breathes. It's poison over the land, which kills everything. Every evening. When it comes though, I rise up into the sky and we do battle with it. Tonight you will help me how the snake said, we will meet in the air, we will clash together and we will gouge and we wrap it one another four times. We will rise up into the air. Four times we will come falling down and that fourth time you will have a clear view of its eye. It's one eye at that moment. At that exact moment you must shoot. You must fire an arrow and you must fire it. True. And if it pierces the yellow winged snakes, I, I land, my Valley will be saved. Well the Hunter was not going to refuse. So he found himself a position behind a charge tree stump and there he crouched down, holding his bow and he waited. He waited until the gun to grow dark. And then he heard a hissing and he turned and he saw it was the rainbow wing snake hissing and the rainbows in snake was taking off into the air and he looked and he saw sure enough, another adult in the sky. And the start was growing and growing and growing and growing. It was the yellow winged snake. The yellow wind snake gave out a great screeching. The rainbow wings snake screeched too, and together high in the sky. The two of them clashed and they gouged and they ripped and they bit, and they tore at one another, twisting and turning in the Twilight sky. The Hunter watched his arrow ready four times. They Rose up four times. They came twisting, tumbling down. And that fourth time, that fourth time, just as the rainbow wings snake had said, the yellowing snakes, I was exposed. And the Hunter, the Hunter took his chance. He aimed his arrow and he, he loosed and his arrow flew through the sky and he watched through the sky, through, through, through, through, through, through, and it, it hit the yellow wings. Snakes. I it found its target. The arrow was true and the yellow wings, snakes. I exploded black liquid showering the earth and as the yellowing snake fell dead to the ground. It, it gave off a poisonous vapor just like that bank folk and that vapor filled the sky and soon it was coming towards the Hunter and the Hunter knew he could not escape from it. But the rainbow wings snake flew down and it wrapped its wings around a Hunter and they're within that rainbow tent. The snake's wings understate for four days and four nights. Then on the final morning, the snake opened its wings and the Hunter found themselves within a world renewed the grass shimmered beneath his feet. It was all the colors of the rainbow as where the leaves on the trees, the Gruits hall, beautiful around him. The river was full of bubbling, gushing water and little fish with wings leapt out of it. A leopard walks by and a branch above a minute gave a growl, seemed to be a thank you. A herd of deer ran by birds, flew over and the rainbow wings snake said, Hunter, it is time for you to claim your award. So the Hunter has instructed, climbed up on the rain, Boeing snakes back and the snake made its way over to the river, to a waterfall. And through the waterfall it went down a tunnel town took great tunnel. They flew lifts by gemstones of every color and sometimes the tunnel was narrow and he had to hold on tight and his back was scraped by the rock above and sometimes it opened out and they flew the rainbow in snake spreading its wings wide. Sometimes they crossed underground seas or creatures lost even to legend swim at last they reached the city at the center of the world and they're thin. That crystalline city under found himself among the snake people and he was brought to the great Dipaolis at the center where the King and queen of the snake people lived and he was introduced to them by the rainbow wings snake who was their son. The rainbow wings. Snake told the stalls story and when he'd finished the queen spoke, we are grateful to you, Hunter. She said, and now indeed you must claim your award. We can offer you a choice. Pick one. You may have gold, silver, and jewels, all the treasures of the earth. Or we can give to you 70 languages, languages at the birds, the languages of the animals, the fish, the sun, the stars, the moon, and the wind. I'll take the languages. So the Hunter better to take the gold. So the King stretching his wings. A man who knows 70 languages does not find it easy to live. Thank you. But I'll take the languages. So it was done. And when he was ready, the Hunter was taken after that city and he was taken through those tunnels again by the ringworm rainbow wings snake. And they emerged out of that waterfall and he went to the head of the Valley and there he said goodbye to the rain bowing snake. And as they were saying their goodbyes, the rainbow wings snake said this, you must be sure that you never ever share with anyone the truth what happened here and that you know those languages. If you share the, you know those languages, you will die. Hunter said, of course, no problem. And through the wall of Misty went and he found himself back within the forest where he lived. And sure enough as he walked, he could hear the speech of the leaves of the wind, of the birds, the grass, the sun, the star is in the moon. He got home and we kept the knowledge to himself and he got on with his life there. And life was a bit easier now because it was a lot easier to hunt with Hawaii. He could hear the problem. The problem was his wife, you see his wife, Nicole woman was, and she picked up that there was something different about him. And one night she was lying there sleeping. He was laying there sleeping when he was woken up. And this is what we heard. Hey, I've got an idea. There was a mouse. Why don't we climb up onto this jug of milk here and you can hold my tail and help me get down and have a we drink and I can hold your tail and you can help me get down there. Never we'd drink. Okay. Said the other mouse and the man just lay there mice listening to them and then he heard this. Okay. Steady, steady, steady plop up he got and he went over and he fresh the mouse out, got out of there and he got back to bed and found his wife looking at him. How did you know that the mice were in the milk? Oh, well, I just know there's something funny going on with you and in the morning I'm going to find out what it is. And she turned over with her and I can tell you the Hunter did not sleep well the rest of that night. Early in the morning when the sun was just beginning to rise, he went out of sight and he walked around and I tell you the Hunter was in torment because you remembered. Well, the rainbow wings snake had said to him, and he really didn't want to break his promise and that was, that was wrong. He wouldn't do that. But he also believed that there shouldn't be secrets between a man and his wife. And he didn't want to do the wrong thing by her. And I didn't know what there to be. I didn't want that to be tension every day between them. It was a tough one. He really didn't know what to do. And he walked around and he walked around and he came to the place whereas cow was, and his cow said, you stupid man, you stupid man. You're going to tell her the secret. You're going to tell her that you know the languages and when you do you'll die. And well he went on to say, not enough as the cow's opinion, but you know, you went on and then it came to the place where the hens, where the chickens and they said, Burke, he's going to tell it a secret. He's gonna tell it the secret. And when he does, he'll die. Ani when he still didn't know. He still didn't know and there was this dog has old faithful dog lying there and it said some must or you are some friend you are, you're going to tell her this secret and you'll die and leave me alone. The dog turned away. Oh, you see me leaning more towards not telling her now, but it was still a hard decision. Still hard and now he could hear getting up and he knew the time had come and the Hunter, he decided not to tell his wife and because of that he's alive. To this day.

Speaker 1: 25:00

That's the story of 70 languages and I love that more than it

Speaker 2: 25:04

anything else for its color and its vibrancy, incredible images within it. I also do love this question though of whether he should tell his wife because it's seems to me that I was looking for absolute values. Like you should never tell a lie. You should never steal a, you should never be violent. But it doesn't seem to me that there is any room for absolutes and within the real world. And I think this story is a great illustration of that. I mean, you know, there's a, he can't be right in both ways. He has to either do wrong by the snake and by himself and die or he has to support apparently do wrong by his wife with Luke for these absolutes, but they just seem to be against nature. And I feel like this stories can help us to accept and celebrate that. So this has been the last, the house of legends launch episodes. So these are going to go out and hopefully I'll get some feedback from you. Find out what's working, what's not working for you, where you'd like the podcast to go. You can get in touch through the Instagram page through the Facebook page or you can join the Facebook group and you can join that and have discussions and get to know other friends or the stories if you just want to listen. That's great. So that's all from the house of legends. Please leave her.

Speaker 1: 26:25

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