"Three Tales of Ukkabal" by Ritter

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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This is Rob MacWolf,

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your fellow traveler,

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and Today’s story is

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“Three Tales of Ukkabal”

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by Ritter, a musical husky with a passion for literature.

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You can find more of his stories,

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including the full Loom of Hours cycle,

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on AO3. Please enjoy

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“THREE TALES OF UKKABAL”

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by Ritter One day, some students were having a discussion about the origin of Man

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when they came to a disagreement that neither honey nor garum

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could assuage. For the sake of their friendship, they resolved to suspend the discussion

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and sought out the wisdom of their master,

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Junan, in the temple.

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“O Teacher,” they said,

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“where do we come from?”

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“Where you come from is what you make it.”

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The students, not understanding,

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“Where then do we come from:

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the gods who made us, or the men who made themselves?”

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At this, Junan lost his temper.

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“Idiot youngsters!

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Go bother the grounds-keeper with your foolishness;

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I have no time for sophistry.”

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Then he returned to attending the gods.

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The students heeded his words,

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and their legs took them to Kizun,

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the grounds-keeper.

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“Dear sir,” they said,

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“pray enlighten us - where do we come from?”

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This was Kizun’s reply: KIZUN’S TALE

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When the world was young and man and plant and beast still called each other equals,

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there was Speech, and speaking was Power,

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and every utterance was a violence upon the face of the land.

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Amid the seas of boiling rock and fields rampant with strangling fern

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came Ereakaiza,

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whose visage was silence

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(The chief and creator deity of the Ukkabali

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pantheon, Ereakaiza is noteworthy

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in that they are never referred to using any part of speech other than their name,

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as they are deemed “too important to be substituted with anything other than themselves.”

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(Humbert 1997)); and Ereakaiza gazed upon the land, where

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in their battles Lion and Stag cleft mountains in twain,

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and Ibex raised mighty Whale from geysers out of the deep. And Ereakaiza saw Millipede steal the legs from Slug and Snail,

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and Bat steal the wings from Emu. And Ereakaiza saw also that Wolf split Man from Man

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so that, enraptured by the beauty of his brother’s face and legs and breasts,

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Man would distract himself from the hunt

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and lay with his sprung-off kin;

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but instead, delight so possessed Man that he chased after Wolf

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to share with him these pleasures;

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and Wolf became Dog,

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who chased after Ox;

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and Ox became Cow,

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who chased after Horse.

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Then Ereakaiza, tiring of this chaos,

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came and choked the Word out of every creature,

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and all of them howled and mewled and squeaked

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and ululated in anger and dismay,

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but to no end: for Speech had gone out of them,

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and their word was no longer deed carven upon the earth.

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So the creatures learned to resolve their disputes with blows,

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and to this end grew claw and thorn and sting,

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while Man retreated to his delights

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and built yokes and vineyards and pleasure-domes. And Ereakaiza took pity upon Man, from whom Wolf

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had taken his hunter’s cunning,

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and allowed him to retain the most part of his Speech.

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And this is why people take such joy

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in creating figments and toying with words and colors;

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for we are as children playing with their parents’ tools,

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in the hopes that one day we may be allowed to wield them fully

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once more. Now Ereakaiza was content with the world,

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and wandered far afield to where the sands and the skies intertwine,

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in the place where neither Time nor Cause holds sway,

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and there made a dwelling,

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and listened as the earth and the wind and the sea

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wove together a song of primeval being.

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Ereakaiza slept then

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and sleeps still, dreaming of things long gone and things which we of the soil will not see come to pass.

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And all who come upon Ereakaiza’s form partake too of this slumber,

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for in this way they become party to blessed creation. *

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Some disciples were unsatisfied with this answer,

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and rather than resume the argument, they resolved to ask the street-sweeper,

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Bal-liao. “Dear madam,” they said, “pray enlighten us -

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where do we come from?”

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This was Bal-liao’s reply: BAL-LIAO’S TALE THE WRATH OF UKK

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The children of Man were not always scattered across the realms,

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for the Firstborn once regarded each other as siblings,

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dwelling in the same lands and dining at each other’s feasts

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and building great houses together as close kin are wont to.

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But a hard drought came and laid waste to the fields,

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and there was a want of food in the land

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such that many people were brought to the edge of death.

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The youngest of the Firstborn,

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who was named Inti,

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sought aid from Neb, who as eldest had first pick of the fruits of the earth.

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But Neb rebuffed him,

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and so Inti sailed to meet Kir,

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who as second-eldest had first pick of the fruits of the sea.

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But Kir, too, sent him away empty-handed,

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and so Inti went to meet Ukk ,

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who had not yet withdrawn from the world,

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and as third-eldest

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had rights to the herds of the vast plains.

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(Some scholars (Egidius 2001, Humbert 1997) note the similarity

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of the names “Neb” and “Kir”

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to the Egyptian neb (‘lord’)

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and the Greek kyrios (also ‘lord’).

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This resemblance is merely speculative, however.

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“Inti” is most likely a reference to the Indus region,

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although Cauvin (2011)

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provides surprising evidence to suggest that it may refer to the Incan

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sun god of the same name.

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“Ukk”, of course, forms the etymological root of the city of Ukkabal,

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which the hero is said to have founded.)

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Ukk’s heart was filled with mercy, and he gave to Inti a third part of his herds,

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and a third part of his lands between the mountains and the sea, where Inti and his family could settle and make themselves a new home.

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For a time, prosperity blessed the siblings,

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and their fortunes and families grew. While

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Neb’s children settled the fertile deltas beyond their homelands,

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Kir’s children journeyed across the seas, and Ukk’s spread throughout the plains on horseback and ox.

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But Inti’s children were confined to the lands between the mountains and the sea,

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and soon enough, the land was not enough to hold them,

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nor the soil rich enough to sustain their herds,

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and they began to fear once more that starvation and death would be their doom.

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So they conspired to invade Ukk’s lands while he was away,

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inspecting the new borders of his realm;

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and they drove forth women and children and cattle alike,

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ransacking their houses and storming their fields.

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When Ukk heard of this,

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he was become wroth,

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and immediately flew to his siblings to seek aid and counsel.

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But Neb rebuffed him, as he had done to Inti,

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and Kir too rebuffed him,

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as she had done to Inti.

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So Ukk, in his wrath, swore an oath to sever kin from kin,

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invoking the gods who dwelt in the mountains,

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and they, being beholden to Man,

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had no choice save to uphold it.

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But they, not wishing to see the blood of Man spilt upon the continent,

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also opened the Ways so that Ukk might take his leave and start anew in a strange land. So Ukk

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gathered his wives and his children,

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and they rode for the Ways,

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out of deference for the gods who had birthed Them.

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But on the way, they came across Inti and his children,

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who had grown fat upon the land;

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and Ukk was filled with rage.

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He drove them before him, chasing them into the Ways,

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and would have followed them out again, into the mountains of a new world,

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had not the gods closed off that passage before his horse could get through.

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Only then did Ukk settle in the land of the Ways,

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raising the first city, UKKABAL,

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upon the figure of the Sleeping God.

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From there did his children expand out,

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filling the rest of the land,

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and they kept good watch over the Ways,

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lest curious minds wander in or out

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and bring the strife of the First Siblings

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with them. (Linguistic analysis suggests that this is a sanitized pastiche of two different folktales,

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both of which have long been known to scholars.

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In one of the original stories, Ukk slaughters Inti and his children, and is exiled by the gods to the land of the Ways.

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In the other story, it is Inti

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who is exiled, but Ukk grows jealous of him and usurps his position,

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banishing him to the ‘new world’ instead. Runao, the courtier who compiled these stories, may have thought both versions unsuitable for his charges,

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or may have had philosophical reasons to challenge them.

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Such speculation is beyond the scope of this work.) *

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Still some disciples were unsatisfied with this, so they returned to the temple and brought their query before their master,

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Junan, once more.

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“O Teacher,” they said,

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“we have asked Kizun, the grounds-keeper,

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and we have asked Bal-liao,

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the street-sweeper,

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but we still do not know where we come from.”

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Junan sighed. “Silly children,” he said.

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“Come, let me tell you a tale, then, and hopefully then you shall be satisfied.”

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This was what Junan said: JUNAN’S TALE THE MAGISTRATE AND THE CROW

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Once, there was a powerful magistrate who was known throughout the land for his wisdom, fairness, and knowledge.

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He lived in a terraced house far above the city,

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where many would travel from far and wide to hear his opinion on sundry matters.

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It so happened that one day,

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a young crow landed in the magistrate’s courtyard

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with its wing broken.

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The magistrate, taking pity on the poor creature,

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took it in and attempted to mend it.

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But none of his strengths were in the art of healing,

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and so the magistrate had to pore over his books, make many a failed poultice,

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and consult with healers before he could care fully for his new charge.

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He nursed the crow back to health,

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and over this time formed a strong bond with it,

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so that it always returned to his side,

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singing when the magistrate played music,

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and listening intently when he discoursed about law and philosophy.

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One morning, the magistrate was taken gravely ill,

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and had to retire to bed.

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He fell into a deep, deep sleep, from which none thought he would waken.

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In that sleep, he dreamt that he was a young chick,

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chirping desperately for its mother,

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gobbling down whatever new grub she came by to deliver.

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He dreamt that he was a fledgling,

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learning to spread its wings for the first time,

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soaring over the woods and the fields and the cities that men had built.

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He dreamt that he was a bird,

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picking at the ground, getting into a squabble with another bird,

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flying with the stabbing pain of a broken wing into an enclosed garden,

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where a kindly man picked him up with soft hands

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and laid him upon a table.

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When the magistrate awoke from his slumber,

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he opened his window to find his friend the crow,

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who had waited all this time in the trees outside.

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“My friend,” said the magistrate,

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“I know now who you are and what is meant for us,

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and it pains me what I must do,

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but there is no way around it.

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For you must seek new lands instead of returning to me

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(to me); and you must carry my spirit where I am not

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(am not). Thus, by the power of my station and the sacredness of our bond,

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I banish you from this city and this land,

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never to see your plumage or hear your cry ever again.”

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And the crow nuzzled the magistrate’s arm,

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took to the heavens,

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and was never seen again in those parts until the magistrate’s death.

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(Junan’s Tale takes the form of philosophical parables

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common to the classical Middle Kingdom period and similar to the Buddhist koan.

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Confounding allegories are presented straightforwardly,

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with the intention that students meditate upon them until they become enlightened to the metaphor. Leading theories about Junan’s Tale suggest that it is meant as a representation of the cyclic nature of gods and mortals -

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that the gods, finding themselves in the bodies of men,

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must inevitably depart from their home in order to spread their wisdom,

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resisting the impulse to return to their core selves in the process.

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See Egidius, Prophets of the Times: Bronze-Age Divination in Runao’s Book of Hours (2001), p. 164 for more details on this interpretation.) *

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“Do you understand now the three parts to the answer?” said Junan.

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(The more commonly known version of this question - “Do you understand now that there are three parts to the answer?” (emphasis added) -

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is a mistranslation,

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popularized by Burton

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(1888).) And the students were enlightened.

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This was “Three Tales of Ukkabal”

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by Ritter, read for you by Rob MacWolf, werewolf hitchhiker.

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You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

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or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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Thank you for listening

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to The Voice of Dog.