For the 28th of March, on #marchinleo, I will talk about traditions. Or to expand my point of view, about how traditions are dying.
A few months ago, I was reading some random news about how the last person speaking some language I never heard about is too old, and once she dies, that language will be lost forever. This is not a first. In our not-so-long history, which is probably only 15-17.000 years old, countless civilizations were raised and died, some disappearing completely without a trace, some only leaving a few artefacts, or writing proofs, to show that they were here once ( see Linear A alphabet, which was not deciphered yet even today).
I cannot stop myself from quoting Ozymandias, by Shelley, which conjures in my mind the exact feeling that I have thinking about traditions and how some of them disappeared without a trace.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Some old stories from my native country, like centuries-old stories, talk about what you would call today a shaman, people with formidable knowledge, meteorological control powers, and out-of-this-world skills. I heard so much about them from the elders of the village where my grandparents lived, and not only, as a kid, growing up.
We had no internet back then, so this was our equivalent of today's Marvel movies. The short version is that those people were called Solomonari, as masters of the magic powers derived from King Solomon's legendary knowledge. But some believe that this is only a way of a much older tradition being assimilated by the Christian religion, as I must admit, their described abilities have nothing to do with Christianity.
https://images.hive.blog/DQmYB4m6w6b8rZArbj128HteYx2vejdrKMNwNy2vooe7sxU/solomonar.webp
Let me tell you some of the stories. Starting point: magic is just science that we cannot explain yet. Still, they were known to control the weather, re-directing storms away from the villages, to protect their harvest, if the villagers were friendly, and sometimes re-directing the storms to the villages, if they were badly treated. After WW2, when some of the soldiers from the Romanian Army, which was at some time fighting the Russian Army, while under German occupation, were gathered and sent to reeducation camps in Siberia, these Solomonari used some interesting method of transportation, akin to teleportation, to bring them back home. They were using some of these men's personal things, to call them back, through the sky and air, making them appear in their home, and the only rule was for them to drink 2 litres of fresh milk, as soon as they were back, to recover completely from their travel. At least 5 cases are known at the time (1950s).
They could move quickly from one region to another, using what they called 'cloudwalking'; we do not know today what that is. Apparently, according to folklore, if you were the seventh son, or if you had some specific marks on your skin, you had great chances of becoming one of them. Then, once you are ready, you will travel to some 'magical' school called Scholomance, where you will be trained according to your skills and abilities. They had very old books, treating all kinds of subjects, starting with easy ones like 'How to heal with plants, using the power of nature' or Human medical treaties, and ending with some very complicated ones, such as 'How to create new universes, perfectly integrated into the manifested world'. This is a provoking thought, making you wonder 'What If' all this was once real?
The most recent mention was about one man thought to be the last of the Solomonari, who probably died sometime in the 60s or 70s. He had only one son, who was not interested in the fairytales, and only learned a bit about plants and how to use them to heal. Not this one, I knew people who knew him, and once I had to be part of a group that went into the mountains to gather rare plants, with him being part of that group. Some common acquaintances told me that he could prescribe treatments that would help to keep even illnesses like cancer at bay. I had a problem with my kidneys, related to 'sand' and micro-stones, and he did tell me about a plant that grows on the Romanian and Bulgarian seaside, and I used that for three months, never having problems with kidney stones after that. So, part of me knows that his plant-related knowledge was solid, from my own experience and from others I know. Only to be a bit annoyed, thinking about how much oral knowledge died with his father.
Of course, I would like to think that these people still exist even now, keeping themselves away from the media circus, even if this is just a reason for an interesting story to be told on a dark night when we are out camping.
All the best,
George
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