Funny that. Whenever anyone has asked me what I’d try and save if my house was burning down, I’ve always replied, ‘My stones.’ In all shapes and sizes and colours, I have so many of them, picked up and brought home from walks over beaches. Yet on reflection, that’s a daft thing to say. If anything was to survive a fire, surely my many pebbles would be the things to do it.

Walking across a favourite Pembrokeshire beach on one of the brighter days this week, I started thinking about stones and pebbles all over again. Heart of stone, stone cold sober … stones are usually associated with coldness. Yet when you handle a pebble, it’s more likely to be warmth that you feel. Besides, the individuality of pebbles – size, shape, colour – warms your imagination. It’s  why I’ve often taken a bag of them on a storytelling visit to a school. For when you look at children looking at pebbles, it’s often as if they’ve never previously seen such things. Quite probably, many haven’t. Given the chance, they tend to look at them with enormous care, noticing their individual features – for sometimes a stone can look like a face, as if it has eyes to look back at you with. Or sometimes it may have cracks or holes that make it look like living things might hide inside it.

Besides, it’s rather nice to imagine that a stone can be alive, can even be hungry and have plenty to say. It’s why I’ve always liked telling children the following story which, as I recall, comes from South America.

The story stone:

The story is of the ancient stone in the forest which a little boy encountered after losing his way among the trees. As soon as the boy set eyes on this stone, he sat himself down on it in despair, put his head in his hands and started to cry. How would he ever find his way out of the forest? Would he ever get home?

That’s when the stone intervened. ‘What’s wrong, little boy?’ it enquired. ‘I’m lost,’ said the boy looking around in amazement, ‘and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Well, I’ve got stories,’  the stone replied, ‘and if you like, I’ll tell you one to cheer you up.‘ ‘Yes please,’ said the boy. ‘OK,’ said the stone, ‘but before I begin, do you mind if I enquire if you’ve got anything to eat?’

The boy started to fish through his pockets and soon brought out a piece of cloth with the remains of a cake inside. ‘Just this last bit of cake,’ he said.

‘Well, give it to me,’ the stone told the boy, ‘and then I’ll tell you my story.’

So the boy put the stone on a ledge in the rock and that’s when the stone began. It started by telling the boy how the world began and how the sun got into the sky. Then it told another story about the stars in the sky and another one about the trees in the forest and how they talk to each other.

The little boy was enraptured. He kept asking the stone for another story and it was only after a good long while that he said he probably ought to be going home.

‘Good luck when you go,’ the stone responded, ‘and remember, you can always come back for more stories. Bring your family with you next time you come and bring your friends as well. The more the merrier. But please always remember when you come that it would be very nice to bring me some food. I like to have something to eat, you see. Besides, giving a story is like giving a gift and it’s good for the one who receives it to give something to the storyteller in return.’

The little boy said of course he’d return and – it was very surprising – now that he was feeling so cheerful after hearing all those stories, he found his way home with no trouble at all. When he told the people at home about the stone in the forest, they were extremely interested and, after that, they all made their way there on many occasions. It always felt like a celebration and they always remembered to take some food.

The storyteller’s return:

Well, as a storyteller I don’t ask for food. It feels sufficient for me to have listening ears and warm hearts and honest response. The next school visit I’m preparing for is on March 13th. It’s a school I’ve been to before and I’m looking forward to going there again. My visit will be at the start of the school’s Arts Week and I’ve been told that they’re focusing their week around Renoir’s painting, The Umbrellas.

A nice challenge that. I’d already started thinking what stories I might tell – and since umbrellas is a theme, rain was much in my mind – when one of our godchildren sent us a YouTube link (see below) to a wonderful choir beginning an event with what can only be described as making rain. How they did that – smoothing hands together, snapping fingers, clapping and tapping and stamping feet – is something I’ve often done with children before. I was delighted to be reminded of it. It’ll come in very handy. And, who knows, so might the story of the story stone.

PS: Here’s that YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/-c9-poC5HGw. Paste it onto your browser and, fingers crossed, it should work.

Tags: pebbles, rain, Renoir, The Story Stone, The Umbrellas

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 4th, 2017 at 10:09 am and is filed under All ages, Folktales, Getting participation, Personal experience, Props and Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.