Why Does a Journeyman Journey?
[ Class
Logs
]
Carik
Dormitory
Lounge
The gathering
place for the Apprentices is only a little smaller in relation to the Dorms
themselves. More polished stone fills the area with a muted reflection from the
glows. Wooden tables are surrounded by dark coloured chairs, offering many
places to sit upon. A soft rug lines the center of the room, for those that
don't enjoy the company of rigid seating arrangements. Off in the corner is a
fine stone sand table for the apprentices to use for their studies.
Gliding around are Lady, Princess, Storm, and Shurin. You see Well-Loved Harp,
Apprentice Bulletin Board, Apprentice's Darts, Skippy, Whisper, and
Carik grins. "How long have all
you folks been in the craft? Tibias, you said a few sevendays, yes?"
Kierna thinks back and starts ticking turns of on her fingers "Well I think
it has been about 12 turns but I may have missed one in there."
Tibias nods. "Just a few sevendays."
Carik grins. "I've been in the craft for about 15 Turns, but I got some
training from the Harper in our area before that..."
Helyne walks with a skip and a smile in from the Balcony Hallway.
Kierna sighs "I wish that I could have gotten some training before because
then I might be futher along in my studies."
Carik grins at the newcomer. "Well come! I'm Carik..." He stands,
offering you his hand.
Carik nods. "I know the feeling... I spend a lot of time journeying, and I
learn something new every time I go out."
Cathryn walks in from the Female
Apprentice Dorms.
Helyne smiles as she walks into the lounge. "G'evenin'! M'name is
Helyne." she says with a friendly smiles and shakes Carik's hand firmly.
Cathryn nods
Cathryn smiles shyly, " I'm
Cathryn."
Carik smiles at the newcomer. "Big crowd tonight! I'm Carik..."
Cathryn
You see a 5ft 4in female that is fairly well rounded. Her hair is brown and braided down to about the middle of her back. a cream coloured Chemise with a bluish green skirt and a green bodice. On her shoulder is a harper blue apprentice's knot. Cathryn is 17 Turns, 2 months, and 9 days old.
Cathryn blushes.
Cathryn says, "It is very nice to met you Carik."
Carik returns to his seat on the couch, smiling. "Have a seat,
everyone..."
Cathryn sits quietly on the floor with her chin on her knees.
Carik gestures to the harp on the table..."Do any of you folks know who
owns this?"
Helyne smiles as she drops to the rug gracefully, and looks around at everyone
else.
Cathryn shakes her head no.
Helyne shakes her head as she realizes that the harp has been there as long as
she has.
Kierna settles back into her seat and queries Carik "What is it like being
a journeyman? Are you learning alot more from that then when you were an apprentice?"
Carik shrugs, and sits back, his fingers loosing a gentle rain of notes from the
strings of the harp. "It's different...different journeymen do different
things. One or two teach, a few compose, some build instruments. Personally, I
Journey."
Cathryn nods, listening intently.
Cathryn quietly wonders who's Harp it is.
Carik tips his head to the side a bit, stilling the strings. "Do any of you
know /why/ us journeymen get sent out? Most of you probably know we do, but I
know I didn't quite understand why until I was a journeyman myself..."
Tibias snaps out of a long daydream, noticing everyone sitting, and sits down
himself.
Cathryn thinks... "Is it to help others?
Carik nods to Cathryn. "That's a start...help them how?"
Cathryn smiles, " I saw a Journeyman change the mood of people at a gather,
they were angry, and he made them laugh.
Kierna thinks "To teach them things?"
Tibias nods, noticing what this conversation is all about, "To teach those
who do not have easy contact to the hall. Also to bring information to
them."
Helyne quirks up and eyebrow. She thinks she does, and offers a raised hand.
"To go to other holds, halls, and weyrs to teach children, and to entertain
the people?" she says.
Carik nods to each of you in turn. "Those are all parts of it. I do a fair
amount of teaching and message carrying, and entertaining folks who can't make
it to the gathers. And, as Cathryn pointed out, we try to keep track of the mood
of the people; do a bit of soothing when they're restless or angry, cheer them
up when it's been a hard turn, or encourage them if things are going wrong. Any
other ideas?"
Cathryn thinks....." They help others see things differently. "
Carik nods. "How so?"
Helyne blinks once, and offers another comment, "For handfastings, and to
keep laws in order?" she shrugs and looks around for other answers.
Cathryn sighs " I was in a place with crawlies, I didn't' have any but they
are not allowed in public place. Master Caramak, helped me by showing me why and
that it was not just a rule, but that there was a reason and a good one behind
the rule. I had not thought to see it that way before.
Kierna says, "So they can know of all the happening around Pern."
Carik nods. "Good. So we're sort of arbiters and information-/gatherers as
well as entertainers and news-givers."
Cathryn sighs, "That is a lot of different things to learn Journeyman
Carik."
Carik sets the harp aside to lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"We play a lot of roles when we're out and about. We try to bring news back
to the Harper Hall, so the masters can let the Lord Holders and the Weyrleaders
know if they need to, and so we know where to concentrate our attentions in the
future. We bring news of the latest happenings to the smaller holds who might
not hear otherwise. As Helyne said, we're law-keepers and arbiters; when people
on a small holding want to be handfasted, they generally wait for a Harper to
pass through. We can also pass judgement on minor crimes, although that's
usually a matter for a Holder or Lord Holder."
Cathryn nods.
Carik nods to Cathryn. "Just Carik, please... and it is. It's part of the
reason you're all serving as apprentices, and why not everyone Journeys; some
people can't stand being out traveling for as long as we have to."
Cathryn blushes, "I'm Sorry Carik.
Helyne smiles as Carik used her
example.
Carik grins. "No problem..."
Cathryn hugs helyne.
Tibias watches all the happenings eagerly, filing all the information in his
head so he can refer to it later. I wish I had a scrap of hide...
Kierna says, "That sounds like a lot of things you have to know and
remember."
Carik thinks a moment... "We also help teach the younglings... usually
there's a Harper posted to all the major holds, but who's to teach the
youngsters at the cotholds, if they're too far away to travel to the hold for
learning, and their parent's need them to help with harvest? We teach them the
teaching ballads, and make sure they know how laws and customs work." He
nods to Kierna. "It is, but it all fits together: by learning the laws, we
should know them well enough to teach; By the time you're made a journeyman, or
woman, you should know all the teaching ballads. They're written to be easy to
learn, mostly."
Carik grins. "What about language?"
Tibias nods, "Since I was a traveler, I didn't get to learn from a harper,
'cept when one was journeying with me."
Helyne blushes. She didn't like the harper at her hold. She was the rouge.
Cathryn hmms, " The Knowledge of Pern is boundless/ As boundless the seas
do flow; Seek to learn and pass it on/ For Pern and folk, we all must know.
Cathryn blushes, she was just thinking about her Harper's favorite piece.
Carik grins, and nods. "One other thing we do is try to collect
knowledge... Sometimes the other Crafts complain that we're prying, but we
mostly just try to record it all."
Kierna nods "But you would think that they would want us to record the
information, why would they complain?"
Cathryn sighs, " Craft secrets jealously guarded.
Helyne nods, "Some of the major holds I visited always called harpers
prying menaces." she says quietly. "Especially Bitra." she adds
in even more quietly.
Cathryn hugs Helyne gently.
Tibias watches the conversation intently, not having anything to say because he
wouldn't know.
Helyne grins at the hug, and hugs Cathryn back.
Cathryn wasn't' supposed to be a harper, but bungled weaving horribly.
Carik grins. "Well, sometimes it's a legitimate complaint; after all, there
are things the HarperHall wouldn't want anyone else to know. It's
convenient for us to have ways of communicating which other people can't
understand, like drum-code. However, sometimes the Crafts, Harperhall included,
simply get too attached to their secrets; to their way of thinking, if everyone
knows what they know, why would they continue to exist?"
Cathryn sighs, "They are scared to lose the appreciation of the other folk
on pern?"
Helyne shrugs her shoulders, and looks around at the faces once more.
Tibias nods, "That would make sense."
Cathryn winces, " How would they support their families, that is a hard
idea to get around Carik.
Carik nods. "What most of them don't think about is the expertise that the
different crafts have acquired; even with the information, a good teacher still
helps, and most Holders don't have the time to grow crops, weave cloth, mine,
and harp all at once. It's simply more effective to divide the labor."
Cathryn nods.
Carik nods to the newcomer. "A while ago, I asked about language, and what
the Harpercraft, and the wandering Journeymen in particular, have to do with it.
Does anyone have a guess?"
Cathryn thinks we help preserve language, and help in translating
dialects?"
Carik nods slowly... "Anyone else?"
Cathryn blushes, " The language dialect of one place can be very different
in the way they speak it."
Carik says "We do try to preserve it, but rather than trying to /translate/
dialects, we try to keep them from getting so different that people can't
understand each other."
Helyne nods at Cathryn's comment. She has her own way of talking too. Shrugging
her shoulders, she looks to Carik for the answer.
Cathryn blushes.
Cathryn giggles, behind her hand.
Carik grins. "To some degree, there's no way to avoid the language
shifting, and different people will speak differently. Our job is to keep it
similar enough that people from Ista will still be able
to talk to people from, say, Ruatha or High Reaches."
Helyne looks at Cathryn strangely, as she takes in what Carik's saying.
Cathryn blushes. " Language, has always gotten me into trouble."
Tibias smiles, "You should start teaching correct language to some
caravaners I know." he laughs.
Cathryn blushes. Scooting further into a corner of the lounge to listen.
Helyne grins as she nods her head at Tibias's comment, "Aye, I know some
people that could use some launguage fixin'."
Kierna says, "Which harper was it that did the lessons on how to teach the
kids to speak correctly?"
Carik grins. "Part of that is that the caravaners don't tend to stay in one
place long enough to learn all of the teaching ballads, and part of it is that
they /do/ travel... can anyone figure out just
what traveling has to do with a caravaner's language?"
Tibias nods, raising his hand high in the air...
Carik grins at the newcomer, waiting for an answer...
Carik nods. "Tibias?"
Cathryn raises her hand.
Tibias smiles, "Since I was a traveler myself, I think it is because that
we, i mean, they pick up accents fro a whole bunch of different holds. Mixing it
all together."
Carik grins. "Cathryn?"
Kaeryn realizes that something is going on here, so she finds a place to sit and
settles herself down quietly to listen.
Helyne waits till Tibias is done before she adds her own piece in, "Plus,
they're not around people much, and sota invent their own language." she
says, then realizes someone else wanted to go.
Cathryn sighs, " i have noticed that the language changes meaning too, the
same words but not the same meanings. WHY is that carik?
Cathryn blushes quietly.
Carik nods. "You're all correct; or at least, I think so! Each of the
Crafts has it's own terms which don't mean anything to anyone else, and the
caravaners are no exception. In reference to moving,
Tibias has it right. They pick up words and dialects from everywhere they go,
and it all sort of flows together, creating something new, as Helyne said. As to
Cathryn's question... I haven't the faintest idea. I could try to put something
together, but I don't know."
Carik grins. "My best guess is that it's because, over time, people learn
the word from hearing it, and start using it slightly differently. Eventually,
you find it means something completely different, and no one quite knows why, or
when it changed."
Carik grins. "Do any of you have a guess?"
Cathryn blushes hiding her face in her hands.
Helyne thinks for a minute before replying, "Well, if the hold, like small
cotholds, don't get to see a harper for a while, they lose the meaning..."
she trails off as she realizes she's just repeating what Cathryn and Carik just
said.
Kaeryn raises her hand and waits to be acknowledged before speaking. "I
think that sometimes people find something that they don't have a name for, and
remember a word they don't remember the meaning of, and they put them
together..." She shrugs slightly.
Carik grins at Cathryn. "No need to blush for that...it's at least as good
a guess as mine, and leads back to the lesson, and why language is a part of our
job. Without it, the language would shift
much more quickly than it does."
Helyne looks over at Cathryn and grins at her continuous blushing.
Carik grins. "So are you all still interested in being Harpers? I hope I haven't
scared you all out of it..."
Cathryn smiles, " I want to Harper more than I want to breathe."
Carik grins. "Good!"
Helyne turns back to Carik and laughs, "A bit too late now, eh? I love
being a harper, and I hope to become a Journeywoman someday." she says
proudly.
Tibias smiles, "I'm going to be a harper no matter what."
Cathryn grins, " And she is a very good friend too."
Carik laughs. "Excellent! From the answers you were giving me, you'll do
well... Just keep thinking, and learn all you can."
Kierna giggles "Of course, I love being a harper, there is nothing like
it."
Helyne giggles at Cathryn's remark.
Carik raises an eyebrow at the giggles, and decides not to ask.
Tibias hrms, also wondering why everyone is giggling.
Fingering the sketchbook in her lap, Kaeryn grins. "I /love/ being a
harper. I think we help people, in our own way, and it is nice to do that."
