Storytelling - Distractions to your Focus

The Enchanting Bird

Two brothers and a sister each set off in turn to find the Enchanting Bird of Truth. They are orphans left in the woods as babies and brought up by charcoal burners, so now they want to find out about their origins. Well, the oldest brother sets out, leaving a knife to be watched over. If it rusts, he’s in danger; if blood appears on it, he is dead. He stops in a city and finds out from a storyteller telling tales in the market place that there is a mountain twenty one days’ march away. On this mountain, it seems that the Enchanting Bird of Truth perches. To reach it, he must follow the ‘heart road’ and not leave it, though he may look to the right or the left at wonders he may see as he passes. When he reaches the shadow of the mountain, however, he must look straight ahead and up towards the bird and not be distracted. The huge white bird will look back at him, fixing him with a fierce gaze. At its feet on the mountain peak are two piles of dust, one white and one blue. If he looks away, the bird will fly up into the air and drop the blue dust on him and he will turn to a blue stone on the mountainside, where he will stay forever unless someone rescues him. But if he manages to get all the way to the top without being distracted, then the bird will drop white dust on him and he will have the truth and the bird itself will turn into a white sparrow and perch on his shoulder. This is what the storyteller tells him and he listens, but he doesn’t listen to the story the storyteller tells that day in the market place. He’s too busy preparing and then setting off on the heart road, which he follows, seeing to his amazement to the right and the left of that path enchanted gardens, flying palaces, dragons, giants and all kinds of strange things. He stays on the road and reaches the mountain, but as soon as he steps into the shadow and begins to climb, voices are calling out to him all around, begging him to turn this way or that. What’s more, the bird seems huge and its eyes seem to burn him and, in the end, he’s unable to resist turning his head as a voice offers a short cut. Instantly, the bird flies up and drops the blue dust and he turns to a blue stone.

Back in the woods, rust appears on the knife, so the second brother sets off leaving behind a rosary of pearl. If the pearls stick, then he’s in danger; if they form a leaden lump, then he’s dead. Of course, he finds the same storyteller, hears about the same Bird of Truth and sets out along the heart road. Like his brother, he doesn’t bother to listen to the storyteller’s story. Like his brother, he sees wonders of all kinds, reaches the mountain and looks straight ahead as he climbs. Like his brother, he hears all kinds of voices calling him here and there, one of which is his own brother’s voice. Like his brother, he can’t resist turning and he too becomes a blue stone. So then it’s up to the girl. Finding that the pearls are sticking, she sets out, finds the same storyteller who tells her about the bird on the mountain. Off she goes, but not before she has listened well to and marked and inwardly digested the storyteller’s story. She travels the heart road, sees incredible wonders, reaches the mountain and walks up it to the top, where the bird flies into the air and drops white dust on her and perches on her shoulder. So then she has the truth, can know that she is a princess cheated out of her inheritance by wicked aunts who imprisoned her mother. Her brothers, whom she now rescues along with a thousand other young men turned to stone on the mountainside, are princes. They set off to set wrongs to rights and what happens next is, more or less, another story.

What about the story the storyteller told in the marketplace, you may well ask? Well, it’s complicated. But the main thing to understand is the little trick it suggested to the girl. Because when she climbed the mountain, the voices were all around but she didn’t hear them. She’d stuffed her ears with cotton wool, you see.

(This story was extracted from the Uncommon Knowledge site)