Odd how things happen, isn’t it? On Thursday evening, we went to a concert at the Union Chapel in Islington. I hadn’t been there for a million years – and it’s a beautiful place with a fascinating history. Way back then, my visit was to hear the wonderful Welsh singer and harpist, Siân James (with whom I once did a storytelling performance). Now it was to hear the equally wonderful Portuguese fado singer, Claudia Aurora.

One of Claudia’s songs on Thursday was all about insects. She introduced it with a heartfelt (and very funny) account of how she cannot bear SPIDERS and how she’d found a HUGE spider on one of her curtains and was TERRIFIED until her neighbour came to the rescue.

So there I sat as she was speaking, my mind ranging over the subject of spiders – all the cobwebs currently on my windows, for it’s definitely been the spider season, and how, when someone tells me how they hate spiders, I often briefly recount that North American Indian story which is such a brilliant reminder of our human foibles. (more…)

Here’s a question. What would you do if someone you thought of as a very good friend brought you a present of two identical apples and when you gave one of these apples to your dog (who loved apples), your dog instantly fell down dead? What would you do with the other apple?

That is the question which the prince in The Parrot and the Tree of Life is obliged to answer.

The Parrot and the Tree of Life:

The prince in the story did not hesitate for a moment. He answered the question without hesitation by taking  hold of the friend and wringing her neck. Then he took hold of the second apple and threw it out onto the grass outside his throne room, banning anyone from going near it.

Over the succeeding years, an apple tree grew where the second apple had fallen and this tree bore the most delicious-looking fruits. Of course none of the prince’s courtiers would eat them because they were banned from doing so. The  tree became known as The Tree of Death. However, when an aged couple who were the prince’s gardeners felt they wanted to die together, they decided to go the tree. There, they took an apple each and ate it. (more…)

Today, I’ll be doing something I’ve never done before – telling a story at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Two storytellers who live in Wales, Marion Oughton and Cath Little, have invited me to join them in the storytelling session they’re giving in the Welsh Learners’ tent on the Eisteddfod field. This will be a pleasure. The National Eisteddfod is an annual event, held in a different part of Wales each year and oscillating between the north of the country and the south. This year it’s being held in Y Fenni (known in English as Abergavenny) and it’s proving extremely well-organised and highly successful. In the two days I’ve been here already, I’ve loved it.

My story: Three Sisters

The story I intend to tell – in Welsh of course – is a story about three of Wales’s best-known rivers. At the start, we meet three sisters living on top of a mountain in mid-Wales (and therefore not far from Y Fenni). They make their clothes out of birds’ feathers. They wash in the limpid pools of water left on the mountain top by the rains. When they look into the distance they can see the sea and sometimes they get a scent of it. They fantasise. What would it be like to go to the sea?

Fantasy in this story turns  into a definite plan as the sisters decide that the very next day they will go and visit the sea. What will the seashore be like, the oldest sister wondered. Will the sea shine? the middle sister asked. Would they see silver fish in the waves asked the youngest.

In the morning, the eldest sister woke early and decided to go some of the way down the mountain at once to see what the journey would be like. She dressed and washed and then, putting her feet in a pool of water,  drew the water behind her as she started down the mountain. But the countryside around her was so lovely,  she completely forgot her plan to return for her sisters and, instead, went smoothly on. (more…)

Good stories make good travellers. They can also contribute to the spread of storytelling. In both these respects, the story of Ibanang has proved of great personal worth for me. For instance, I’m sure it played a big part in bringing about the five-week storytelling trip to South Africa I was invited to make in 1992. This is how it came about.

Alan Kenyon was a wonderful man. When he began attending the Drill Hall workshops I used to run with my friend and colleague Karen Tovell,  I learned that he was over here from South Africa on a sabbatical from his work as a teacher-trainer. Science was his subject and his project in the UK was to explore the potential of storytelling for the teaching of science. Alan and I got on well. But it’s perfectly possible that no more would have come of our Drill Hall meetings had an extraordinary coincidence not come to light.

Shortly after I’d first met Alan, I was due to start a new storytelling course in Lambeth. The course was to be held in an out-of-the-way centre where I hadn’t previously worked. It was very badly advertised by Lambeth Adult Education and I had a sense that, quite possibly, no-one at all would turn up. And no-one did – except for Alan. His coming along gave us a welcome chance to talk and, as I drove him back into town, it turned out we had a friend in common: Lynne, had become one of my very dearest friends. By now, she was back in South Africa where she’d grown up and I’d become godmother to her daughter.

So when Paul and I went to Cape Town to visit Lynne and her family in February 1990 – justa day after Nelson Mandela was released from prison – we naturally got in touch with Alan. By then, he had formed a storytelling group that used to meet every month at his house. I was invited along to a meeting and found myself among a wonderful group – ethnically very diverse (which was unusual for South Africa at that time) and full of interesting characters.

At that meeting, Alan asked me to retell the story of Ibanang. He’d remembered it from a Drill Hall workshop and had already told it back in Cape Town at one of the storytelling group’s meetings.  (more…)

Last week’s story was The Swallowing Drum, the story of a girl called Ibanang. This week, I promised some ideas about telling and working with it. Before getting going, however, I must emphasise my belief that a simple, straightforward telling can also work very well. Often, however, participation is both appropriate and helpful for enriching the story and making it stick in its listeners’ minds. What follows are some well-tried ideas.

Joining in with sound and action:

The drums Ibanang encounters on her way into the forest provide a brilliant opportunity. Pretend you are beating the drums with drum-sticks and repeat what the drums say a number of times and in different tones of voice – high for the little drum, medium-voice for the middle-size one, low for the big one. By the time you get to the middle-size drum – and I recommend leaving it to the children to join in when they want to – I can pretty much guarantee you’ll have your whole group doing the same as you.

If you know some kind of celebratory song, add it in at the end of the story when people are celebrating the end of the evil drum. And sing it several times over, with verve.

Getting children to volunteer their own ideas:

Some storytellers worry that the session will get out of control if you provide opportunities for children to say things in the course of the storytelling. Perhaps this is why some adults only ask very limited questions (eg do you know what colour of coat Red Riding Hood put on?) (more…)

A good story lasts and a good story travels. In the course of this week, I received a request from one of this blog’s readers. Steph who works in South London and whom I met at my Waterstones event a few weeks ago was asking for suggestions. She needs good hero/heroine stories for when she’ll be telling stories in a South London Primary school during Black History Month in October.

A Nigerian folk-story known as The Swallowing Drum was one suggestion that quickly popped up in my mind. The story was first introduced to me by my fellow storyteller, Karen Tovell. It’s brilliant for involving older-age, Key Stage Two primary pupils in participation, debate and story-creating. Adults in workshops, too, can get an enormous amount from it. Besides, there’s a fascinating tale to be told about how this story travelled from a telling of it I did in London to a large class of 11-12 year old children in one of South Africa’s black township schools. And, for me at any rate, the story raises an interesting question:  Who is the heroine of this story – the mother or the daughter?

But all that is too much for one blog. So this week I’m simply retelling the story, reserving the rest for next week and perhaps  the week after that.  

The Swallowing Drum:

Once in a town called Ikom, there lived a girl called Ibanang. While her father went off to work on his land each day, her mother would sweep their hut, fetch water from the river and prepare their food. Then, when the father came home at mid-day, Ibanang’s mother would go off to work in the field while Ibanang’s father did all kinds of other jobs about their home and taught Ibanang how to weave.

Ibanang’s parents always had one important rule for Ibanang. They’d tell her she mustn’t go into the nearby forest – not on her own or without any grown-ups. Sometimes, families would go into the forest to collect wild honey or mushrooms. But Ibanang knew she mustn’t ever go there alone. Her friends’ parents said the same thing to them: Do not go into the forest on your own. But when the children were playing, they all  used to wonder what could be in the forest that was such a problem. Wild animals? A witch? What could it be? (more…)

OK, I admit it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve become a devoted football fan. Obviously that’s because I’m Welsh and the Wales football team did so brilliantly in the Euros. It wasn’t easy seeing them get knocked out against Portugal in their semi-final this Wednesday. Yet, especially in this post-Brexit world, it’s an inspiration that the team believes so much in the strength of playing as a team, they pay such high regard to their fans and the support they get from them, they speak with such warmth of their country and they have been so good-humoured during their time away in France.

Besides, Gareth Bale is drop-dead gorgeous, both to look at and in his manner. I’m not sure I’ll keep following football as avidly now as I have been, but I’m sure I’ll be following him and the wonderful Welsh team.

It’s surely all this football stuff that caused a familiar phrase to pop up in my mind this week and with it the story from which it comes. The phrase is ‘extendable legs’. And the story it comes from is one I told in this blog on 21st July, 2012. To read a full version of it, you can look back at that blog posting. Simply fill in the words Chinese Brothers in the Storyworks Blog References slot on the top left side of the blog. Then press Search and up it will come.

The story itself is one children love to remember. An example occurred earlier this summer when I said to the two children in a family we know that I had a special story to tell them. Because the 10-year old sister is potty about mermaids, this was going to be a mermaid story. But somehow or other the promise of a story immediately made the 7-year old brother remember  The Five Chinese Brothers which I’d told to them it must be three years ago. Volunteering that they still had the colourful Chinese pin-cushion I’d taken them as a present to go with the story, he started recalling the magic powers that are at its centre.

The Five Chinese Brothers: (more…)

It’s odd. You rack your brain for a story on a particular theme, conclude that you don’t have one, then suddenly realise that of course you do. It’s just that you’ve never seen it before from the perspective of that particular theme.

A dog story?

This week the problem occurred to me in relation to dogs. There I was on Abermawr beach when up came Storm. Storm is a black and white collie. His owner lives about half-an-hour’s walk from the beach. But Storm is always on the beach. For ten years or more, I’ve seen him whenever I go there. One day, I even spotted him from high on the coast path quite a distance away. A black and white dog? Yes, it was Storm.

Storm wears two tags on his collar. One says his name. The other says, ‘Please leave me on Abermawr beach.’ He loves that beach. He walks up and down it and in and out of the sea as if he just has to let you know what a fine place it is. This week, though, he looked less energetic. We could see he’s getting old. If and when he’s not on that beach, it won’t ever feel quite the same.

Storm started me thinking I’d like to write about him. And that led to me wondering if I know any folktale-type stories about a dog. No, I thought, I do not have n a single one. Then it dawned on me. I do. There’s a dog in a story I’ll be telling next week as part of Enchanted Evening, the evening of songs and stories my husband and I will be doing at Pepper’s in Fishguard with David Pepper as Paul’s accompanist.

Lifting the Sky is the story. It’s one that means a lot to me. (more…)

Stories reappear in all kinds of different forms in all kinds of different places. A couple of weeks ago when I raised this theme before, an appreciative comment came through. It’s a recognisable theme with infinite potential. As memories are sparked, one story can end up as a chain of tales. So I wonder if the story I’ve got for you this week will produce some parallels. It popped into my mind while I was mentally sifting through Pembrokeshire tales ready for my session at Waterstone’s bookshop in Piccadilly next Thursday, 26 May. (Details of the event are at the top of my website. Do come along.)

The story:

A fisherman was out at sea. It was a lovely sunny day and he thought he’d take a rest. So he dropped his anchor over the side of his boat. A minute later, he was very surprised when he heard a cross voice shouting at him. When he looked over the side of his boat, he saw a little man climbing up his anchor rope. The little man looked extremely angry and he kept on shouting loudly. ‘You’ve dropped your anchor onto my house and it’s come through my sitting room ceiling.’

The magic:

So that’s the story. My father used to tell it to when I was a small child. To be honest, he kept on telling it to me every now and again until he died, aged 92. Sometimes he’d elaborate a tiny bit, describing how the little man shook his fist at the fisherman when he got to the top of the rope. Sometimes the fisherman may even have said, ‘I’m sorry. ’ But that’s all. The tale remained short.

So why did I love the story so much? Why do I love it still? (more…)

I’m visiting booming bittern territory this weekend. Will I get to hear one? If I’m lucky. The booming bittern has been one of the most threatened bird species in the UK. Evidently, it’s now making a bit of a comeback. It belongs in the heron family, lurks in reed beds and is extremely secretive. It’s the male that makes the extraordinary noise. When I heard one in the same area a few years ago, it really did BOOM.

And then there’s the blackbirds. So intense and tuneful is their singing, morning and evening, here in our part of South London, it fills the air around us. It is pure joy. 

But  for this week’s blog, I promised a story about how birds came to live in trees. This story was originally told to me by a woman from Thailand in an Adult Education class in storytelling I was running at the time.  Apologising profusely for her poor English, she then told the story to great effect. I’ve retold it in this blog once before, back in 2011. It bears repeating. I think it works well with Primary-age children.

TWO BIRDS IN A BEARD or HOW BIRDS GOT TO LIVE IN TREES: (more…)