The Bardic Collegium is for Oral Storytelling, not ‘Writing’
An update in our struggle against the accursed plague of scribes
Listen, friends! A grave new threat encroaches on our proud bardic traditions. Scribes have devised devilish new technologies that allow them to etch words onto vellum using ink-dipped styluses. These so-called “written works” are an affront to the natural oral customs of our people, and they must be “erased” from the face of the earth.
When we first delivered our oral lecture regarding the disgusting phenomenon known as “writing” rearing its ugly head within the Bardic Collegium back in Febluary, we were naïve in our understanding yet — such as babes — as to how this “writing” was going to manifest its dread influence, both here in the Bardic Collegium and across the Wide Lands. As the moons have waxed and waned, and the many festivals and revelries of Quatria passed us by in the Great Wheel of the Year, this putrid trend of “writing” has accelerated in underground sects who use whatever they can get their hands on, including tree bark, animal skins, and even baked clay tablets — all with no respect or licensing fees paid to our ancient and profound natural Bardic Order of the Paywall.
Thusly, today, the Honorable Chair of the House of Song issues this proclamation:
Let it be known therefore henceforth throughout the Collegium that the Luminous Council has affirmatively decreed: We are a home for oral storytelling, full stop.
Listeners in our Great Hall — and the Allied Tavern Association’s many fine licensed establishments — tell us constantly through our many decorative “suggestion boxes” that they only want heroic and legendary stories told by firelight, accompanied by copious quantities of “ale,” the amusant sounds of flutes, and the drôle antics of our kingdom’s finest comic jesters.
Listeners who have unwittingly been exposed to these accursed “books” in person say that, not only are they are not able to make out these cryptic glyphs imported from far off lands called “letters,” but also report additionally that having to scan them visually by candle-light leads them to dismal straits: headaches, eye-strain, confusion, and loss of memory — just to name a few of the known medical drawbacks according to our esteemed clerics, barbers, and chirurgeons, all of whom agree that “writing” is the most dangerous work of some demonic force bent on ruining the innocence of our listeners, whom we undertake to protect, as though our own children.
While The Collegium, in its mercy and wisdom, understands that scribal writing “technology” can seem tempting in many ways — especially to our impressionable young, who have not yet fully conformed to our antique, august, and hoary worldview — we remind our listeners that stories which are told entirely through “writing” are and always will be, under our decree: dead, devoid of all soul, and creativity, as are only bound into the human spirit and transmitted mouth to ear by voice and breath, as in the original Song of Anthuor.
Our Bardic Enforcement Society has already infiltrated the main cells of malcontents and misfits within our ranks, and their misguided and sinful attempts to capture into fixed form our Ancient & Marvelous Tales are currently being collected and destroyed in a Holy Fire that will burn throughout the ages, as any new technology is introduced. We will forever resist change or the weakening of our Order.
Although so-called “writing detection” tools are currently unreliable to the point of being unusable (admittedly making our use of them as unusual as it is unusualable), the licensed bards and druids who contribute to the Tapestry of Tales, and draw from the Storehouse of Eternal Wisdom, often spot it instantly when encountering it in spoken form, merely by “gut instinct” alone (which, as we know, can never be wrong). They need not know what the words nor letters presented might form together, nor their meaning nor significance. They need only know that the forms must be cleansed — and their practitioners banished to wander the Wide Lands as itinerant performers and jongleurs, without guild or guidance, forever prisoners of the road until death and beyond.
Likewise, we are hearing from our augurs, ovates, and even magi from The Bardic Collegia Abroad that they are seeing too many tale recitations by fifth year initiates (and sometimes even in the lower grades) that were obviously merely “memorized” rote from contraband written source texts, not learned by ear under our Perfect Guidance, as in the sacred traditions of our Esteemed & Enlightened Order.
At it’s worst, written “texts” are filled with “scribbles” — which is a word the Order of Scribes & Manuscript Merchants’ Association’s PR department made up to cutesify egregious mistakes and stray marks or doodles made in the “margins” of written texts by their own ugly villainous thieving scribes, who are stealing bread from the mouths of hardworking licensed bards everywhere.
But even at its best, written text is boring, lacking in human warmth, and filled with subtle deficiencies which are too subtle to ever name or be detected by anything but the most skilled and Highest of Rank among our Mysterious Order.
To take advantage of popular anti-writing sentiment currently circulating amongst the rabble, by secret order of the King himself, and to further secure our own hegemony over all definitions of “storytelling” and “humanity,” we hereby amend our Bardic Recitation Requirements Within the Great Hall or licensed Allied Tavern Association establishments, effective immediately.
We’re also making a small change to our bylaws to clarify that we will immediately forcibly eject from our Order any Bard of any Rank who contravenes these prohibitions against the pernicious use and influence of “writing” at any process or any point within the natural bardic process of oral storytelling. They will be considered excommunicado, persona non-grata, and their lives will be forfeit under the Perfect & Correct Law of Our Order, should they not immediately and henceforth proceed forthwith into permanent exile.
To be clear: those who are not members of our Order, nor the Allied Tavern Association, are not bound to follow these prohibitions, though under consious they ought be. Though we cast great shame on them and their actions, we will not (as yet, unless further provoked by their own jealous acts of theft) proceed with force against the Order of Scribes, nor any member of the bourgeoisie who may purchase or possess illicit written volumes for use in their private collections, provided they do not use these works as the basis for unauthorized oral presentations (whether in private or in public), in which case we are, by order of the King, legally allowed to intervene, and — provided their private security personnel are not more skilled and/or numerous than ours — we will undertake to do so.
If you are a member of the Bardic Collegium, however, and in the full examination of your conscience, are consumed with doubts about the rightness of this decree and the prohibition of the written word, remember your Oath Before the Holy Tree, and that you as a vine are bound to follow Where the Branches Grow. Report any such feelings of inadequacy to your superior immediately, and proceed to undertake the quest prescribed as resolution of the requisite songdebt, or be forever damned.
Let it hereby be known: no attempts to use our Great Hall and many fine licensed taverns for the furtherance of “writing” or “literacy” will be tolerated in any form.
If any listener shouldsoever heareth a tale or legend, oration, or chanson within the Great Hall they suspect was at some point by someone, once, perhaps, possibly, maybe, probably, have been, or could have been, or might eventually be written down, the best way to avoid similar stories is to hit the bard with a stick, bind their hands in hempen rope, and wait for competent Bardic Enforcement Society members to handle the dissenter who would seek to violate our Concordant Celestial Harmony.
The Bardic Collegium is additionally considering new ways to reduce the reach of the written word once and for all, in furtherance of our Holy & Utterly Righteous War Against All Writing, and also new ways for increasing transparency — whatever that even means.
In that transparent spirit, we’re planning to punish a dissenter publicly in the Great Square once per day for seventeen days, while reciting the Oldest Songs from the foundation of Our Illustrious Order. Soft drinks and a “light snack” will be served. All are welcome!*
(* All are not welcome. “Voluntary” contributions mandatory.)
While we’re on the topic, what other secondary rhyming tales would you have our poets tell between acts? Shout them out in response to the next licensed bardic performance you attend. We may not be able to recite every rhyme in completeness during the thrilling Festival of Punishment, but we’ll announce a follow-up decree later with the rhymes selected by our team, which you’ll soon be able to hear in participating licensed taverns.
Now, we hope you enjoy things getting “back to normal” around here as much as we do!
