Robert's Raves

A Story By Any Other Name
by Robert Rodriquez

hen Katherine Janeway, Captain of the Federation starship Voyager, finds her ship and crew suddenly catapulted seven thousand lightyears into the hitherto unknown Delta Quadrant, she must undertake a voyage home which, even at top warp speed, will take seventy-five years to complete. As a central plot device for this latest Star Trek spin-off, the moguls at Paramount seem to have found a worthy device to keep the series going as long as they wish. How long the series eventually lasts will, of course, be determined by the series’ popularity and when the good folks at Paramount think it in their interest to pull the plug. But, of course, the plot device of an epic journey is not something that was conceived at Paramount. Nearly three thousand years ago, the celebrated Greek poet Homer retold the epic adventures of his great hero Odysseus, king of Ithica, and his great journey to return to his home and his beloved and faithful Penelope. Since Homer and Odysseus did not have the luxury of trans-warp drive, it took Odysseus ten years to finally make it home, albeit with seven of those years spent in pleasant dalliance with Calypso on her magic island, and much of the remainder spent avoiding the retribution of Aeolus and Poseidon, lords of wind and sea respectively, who had their own grudges to vent against Odysseus.

As acclaimed fantasy writer and folklorist Josepha Sherman so cogently put it in Once Upon a Galaxy, her excellent treatment of the role oral tradition and folk stories have played in the development of modern fantasy and science fiction literature, the realms of fantasy and science fiction literature owe as much to the oral tales of past generations as they do to their own literary adherents and protagonists. Journeys and epic voyages abound within the pages of traditional folk stories and narratives. Among the more notable of these are: the seven magnificent voyages of Sindbad from the Arabian Nights; the voyage of the children of Puna from Polynesian myth and legend; the voyages of Prince Maddoc; the legendary Saint Brendan, and the Celtic maritime hero Muledon from Welsh and Irish folklore and history, and the journey of Jason and his Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece hidden away in Colchis at the opposite end of the world from Jason’s Greek homeland.

Some journeys become so popular a folkloric device that they become part of international tradition. One such is the tale of a young man, usually the youngest of three brothers, who must journey to a distant royal court to win himself a wife, aided by a ship that can sail on land and sea, accompanied by extraordinary crew of helpers with magical powers. The tale is known across the world, and the hero goes by many names: Ti–Jean in Quebec, Jack in Nova Scotia and the southern Appalachians, Ivan in Russia, Per in Norway and the bald–headed Kelloglan in distant Turkey. This type of tale is often known as the ship on land and sea, the strong helpers, or how six traveled through the world to seek their fortune, as retold in numerous versions. The extraordinary powers of the helpers may include drinking and eating, marksmanship, running, listening, and in the Turkish variant even the ability to put enemies to sleep through music and being able to read the thoughts of others at a distance.

Some journeys are undertaken in order to rescue a close friend or loved one from some peril, usually of an otherworldly nature. In the British ballad, Orfeo, the king undertakes a journey to the realm under the hill, in order to rescue his queen who has been kidnapped by that realm’s ruler. Orfeo plays his harp so sweetly that the underworld monarch can deny him nothing, including the return of his queen to the world of mortal men. This tale is the British retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, save that Orpheus wanted to return his wife from the realm of the dead and would have succeeded had he not broken Hades’ injunction against looking behind him as he emerged from Hades’ realm. There is a tale from Albania in which a woodcutter must entertain a journey to the world of ghosts in order to rescue his brother who has been kidnapped to become the husband of the ghost king’s daughter. In order to rescue the lad, the woodcutter engages the spectral monarch in an all night riddle contest that he wins just as dawn strikes, thus ending the power of the ghost king. In a Welsh tale, a shepherd dared invade the realm of Awawn, the lord of death and darkness, in order to steal the monarch’s golden crown as part of a larger quest to please the monarch of Gwynedd. Many tales tell how a lowly hero must enter a distant or shadowy realm in order to retrieve or steal a valuable item or part of a fabled treasure. It might be a Faerie cup, a magical sword, or even a royal sceptre as in a Breton legend in which a peasant enters the Faerie realm to steal the crown of the Faerie queen in order to satisfy the demands of his future wife.

If journeys and epic voyages are numerous in the world of folklore and legend, then it is equally true that the realm of oral literature is filled with travelers and wanderers who themselves often become the centerpiece of a particular story or legend. Some of these travelers are doomed to perpetually wander, never resting, always going from place to place, to fulfill some command, search for a loved one, or serve some other need or compulsion that keeps them afoot forever with no chance to rest from their labors. Among these perpetual wanderers are: the Flying Dutchman of maritime lore, the wandering Jew, the smith, who, after being expelled from both heaven and hell, must wander the shadows forever, the three Nephytes from Mormon tradition, and perhaps the two best examples from modern folklore, the vanishing hitchhiker and the traveling salesman.

In the Hispanic tradition, especially within Mexico and the American southwest, the spectral figure of La Llorona, the weeping woman, is always present, as she wanders the world in desolation and sorrow, either seeking her own dead children, or else taking revenge upon the children of hapless mortals foolish enough to get in her way or disobey an injunction from an elder or parent. During the 1960’s a clever little fantasy story was published in which a strange fellow shows up at a party and claims to be the avatar of every traveling salesman who ever lived, doomed to wander the earth forever, visiting a million farmhouses, sleeping with a million farmers’ daughters, and never selling one blessed item. When he is asked what he carries in his travelling case, he gives a one word answer: bricks. In an episode of the British science fiction cult series, Dr. Who, the wandering time–lord encounters an astral Flying Dutchman, a tramp freighter who must wander the lanes of space until the end of time itself.

The late folklorist and scholar, Richard Dorson, once said that a good story never dies, and that if it did, it probably was not a good tale to begin with; he then went on to state that good stories get retold; they change, evolve into new forms, and continue on down that special road all good stories take. What, after all, was the 1950’s science fiction classic film, Forbidden Planet, but a futuristic retelling of William Shakespeare’s Tempest? What, after all, was Star Wars but Arthurian romance dressed up with special technical effects, with chargers and lances replaced by star fighters and light sabres? What, after all, was the classic Treasure of Sierra Madre but a cinematic reworking of the Pardoner’s tale from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from six centuries ago. Frodo Baggins’s quest to Mordor to destroy the ring of Sauran was told a thousand years ago by Teutonic and Scandinavian storytellers and skalds about Siegfried’s quest to destroy the cursed ring of gold from the evil treasure horde of the Rhine maidens. Modern popular characters, such as Superman, Spiderman, and Bugs Bunny, have had their oral and folkloric counterparts and antecedents for centuries and past generations. But then that’s the way it is, has been, and always will be whenever and wherever a good yarn is concerned.

So let us end where we began, with Captain Janeway’s ship and crew attempting to make their way back home to the Alpha Quadrant. Whether they ultimately succeed is as much up to the popularity of the series with the public as it is with the whims of the moguls at Paramount, what perils will Voyager encounter trying to get back home: futuristic Cyclops, Sirens, and Circe, or even stranger interstellar terrors in the vast void of space. And what will Captain Janeway find if indeed she does make it back? Homer may not be a member of Voyager’s crew, but surely his spirit hovers over them all as they try to get back home.

—published in WIP Summer 1996

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