So if you’ve been with us for any length of time, you no doubt that a lot of us here tell stories about a place in Scotland called the Kinrowan Estate, its inhabitants and what happens there. Some might sound mundane such as the Contradances held here, some might sound a bit fanciful such as the history of this Estate and some simply you think can’t be true, say that story about the ghost fiddler playing at dawn one early Winter day.
It’s not for me to say which stories are true, which might be true and which couldn’t possibly be true. And it really doesn’t matter as long as you find the story being told satisfying.
Well dear readers, I come to tell you that all narrators are unreliable and just can’t be trusted to tell the truth especially when it seems most likely that they are indeed telling a truth. Note I didn’t say the truth as I don’t believe there is ever such a thing as every storyteller believes that the story they’re telling could be true.
I remember a storyteller that came in just past midnight on a cold, windy night in, I think, in November quite some decades back. He ordered a whiskey, one of our more expensive ones, and paid for it with silver coins from an empire that may or not have ever existed. After he finished off that one, he asked if could trade a tale for a place to stay for a few nights. Sure as long as you pay for your whiskey, said Reynard.
But, you say, I’m a reliable narrator. No, I’m certain you’re not as you filter everything through your perceptions and you likely have no idea what many of those filters actually exist as they’re deeply buried in your consciousness, so deep that you don’t know they exist. So everything that you tell is not reliable as it is only what you believe is the truth.
Now the best storytellers are the ones that know that every story’s a lie but know how to make you believe it’s true, say the story of a Robin Hood who isn’t the hero as told in most tales, but rather is the villain of the tale and the Sheriff of Nottingham is the hero, or where the rule of King Arthur saw Britain plunged into unending civil war as Arthur gave into his baser instincts.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if the stories we all tell aren’t true in some manner as long as they’re something that’s entertaining. And that’s my story for now.
Now where did my Ravens get off to?
