Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

Posts Tagged ‘Farizad’

Storytelling Starters ~ The Gardener and the Cake-Maker

Saturday, June 15th, 2019

Last week it was Farizad of the Rose’s Smile. This week it has to be the old riddling story that must have come back to my mind in the wake of Farizad because it’s also got roses in it. In the last few days, I’ve been trying to update it a bit to make it more suitable for our modern times.

That’s why the gardener’s wife in the story (she’s crucial) is now an entrepreneurial Cake-maker who sells her excellent cakes not only to Lord Top Noddy, her husband’s employer, but to everyone else on his vast estate. Indeed, it is probably the fact that she is doing so well that has aroused the ire of the Jealous Evil Spirit of Capitalism whose mean-mindedness is the motivating force of the story as it is now.

The story: The first bit

One evening, our gardener came home from a hard day’s work to find that although the smell of newly baked cakes pervaded his kitchen, his wife was not there.  What could have happened? Where could she possibly be? (Such questions are especially helpful when telling this story to older children. The zanier the answers, the better.) (more…)

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Posted in Adults, Riddles, rhymes, sayings, Secondary-age | No Comments »

Storytelling Starters ~ Repertoire Refreshment 3: The Quest

Saturday, February 14th, 2015

So here’s the third of my blogs about that beautiful story from the Arabian Nights which I’m preparing for telling in a fortnight’s time.  The first blog gave a brief idea of the story as I’d remembered it over a number of years. The second itemised the three treasures in the story that I’d completely forgotten about. Now here’s the main body of the story.  I’ve simmered it down to its bare bones. That’s how I work when I’m starting from a written story. Visualisation must do the rest. Here goes.

The set-up:

P1070107Farizad and her two brothers, Farid and Faruz, live in the beautiful garden which was created by the gardener and his wife who were their parents.

Now the parents have died.

One day an old woman comes to the garden and says to Farizad: This garden is beautiful but it would be perfect with 3 rare treasures – the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Golden Water. Farizad asks where these can be found? In the mountains on the road into India.

Farizad says she must go and find them. Farid and Faruz say, ‘No, we’ll go.’ But then they agree that one brother must stay to look after Farizad.

Quest of Brother No. 1 (more…)

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Posted in Adults, Folktales, Preparing, Primary, Props and Resources, Remembering, Visualisation | 1 Comment »