Storytelling Starters ~ Season’s Greetings 2012
Last Sunday afternoon, I went to a lovely gathering given by fellow storyteller Helen East. The party was to celebrate her new book of London Folk Tales published in the History Press series which, area by area, is gradually aiming to cover the stories of the entire country.
Helen’s story: St Uncumber
At Sunday’s gathering, Helen told one of the stories in her book – the story of St Uncumber, a once very popular saint who was regarded as the protector of women stuck in bad marriages and possibly hoping to disencumber themselves of them.
In Helen’s story, a poor boy fiddler wandered into old St Paul’s, where there used to be a wooden statue of St Uncumber, and began playing his fiddle in front of the carving. As he played with all the feeling he could muster, the wooden woman began to tremble and come alive. Soon she was swaying wildly in rhythm to his playing until, finally, she bent down, slipped off one of her golden shoes and tossed it to the fiddler, as if to thank him for his music.
But when the fiddler went out of the church, people who saw him carrying the golden shoe mobbed him and accused him of stealing it. Before long, he was being tried, found guilty of robbery and sentenced to death. Thankfully, his accusers acceded to his wish that first they accompany him back to the wooden statue. When they got there, the little fiddler played again. For a long while, the statue did not respond. But when she did, everything happened just as before until she finally bent down, slipped off her other golden shoe and tossed this, too, at the fiddler.
It’s a very delightful story and it was finely told by Helen accompanied by music from her partner, Rick Wilson. Please buy Helen’s book to read it and other London stories from Helen’s amazing store of rare and unusual tales.
Uncumbering
May Helen’s book sell well. And may we all, this Christmas, feel we can ‘uncumber’ ourselves in the sense of putting aside our woes and our worries and remembering all the good things of life.
Wonders of nature
PS: Talking of gold – as in St Uncumber’s shoes – the little red and gold polyanthus in the photo above is currently in full bloom in my Welsh garden despite all the wind and the rain.
Down the road, the gorse bush to the right was one of several in golden blossom yesterday against a grey and rain-filled sky.