Made true by the telling

 

The Storyteller
by Jane Yolen

He unpacks his bag of tales
with fingers quick
as a weaver's
          picking the weft threads
          threading the warp.
Watch his fingers.
Watch his lips
speaking the old familiar words:

          "Once there was
           and there was not,
           oh, best beloved,
           when the world was filled with wishes
           the way the sea is filled with fishes..."

All those threads
pulling us back
to another world, another time,
when goosegirls married well
and frogs could rhyme,
when maids spoke syllables of pearl
and stepmothers came to grief.

Belief is the warp
and the sharp-picked pattern
of motif
reminds us that Araby
is not so far;
that the pleasure dome
of a Bagdad caliph
sits side by side
with the rush-roofed home
of a Tattercoat or an animal bride.
Cinderella wears a shoe
first fitted in the East
where her prince -
no more a beast
than the usual run of royal son -
measures her nobility
by the lotus foot,
so many inches to the reign.
Then the slipper made glass
by a slip of ear and tongue.
All tales are mistakes
made true by the telling.

The watching eye takes in the hue,
the listening ear the word,
but all they comprehend is Art.
A story must be worn again
before the magic garment
fits the heart.

The storyteller is done.
He packs his bag.
But watch his fingers
and his lips.
It is the oldest feat
of prestidigitation.
What you saw,
what you heard
was equal to a new Creation.

The colors blur,
time is now.
He speaks his final piece
before his final bow:

          "It is all true,
           it is not true.
           The more I tell you,
           the more I shall lie.
           What is a story
           but jesting Pilate's cry.
           I am not paid to tell you the truth."

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Images above: Sleeping Beauty illustration by John D. Batten (1860-1932), and four fairy tale illustrations by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). "The Storyteller" is copyright c 1984 by Jane Yolen, and appears here with her permission. The poem was first published in National Storytelling Journal (1984), and reprinted in Jane's recent collection The Last Selchie Child (A Midsummer Night's Press, 2011).