Storylines: Vol 7, Issue 1

Storylines is the magazine of the Society for Storytelling.

This issue was edited by Tony Cooper. To submit articles and reviews to the editor for future editions, email storylines@sfs.org

Designed by Chip Colquhoun, based on the original design by Mike Carter.

How to contact the

SFS

All enquiries should be sent by email to admin@sfs.org.uk or by post to: The Society for Storytelling Morgan Library Acton Street Wem SY4 5AU Tel: 01939 235 500 Mob: 07969 541 552

The Society for Storytelling Trustees

Christine Willison (Chair) chair@sfs.org.uk Paul Jackson (Treasurer & Secretary) secretary@sfs.org.uk Tony Cooper storylines@sfs.org.uk

Membership Enquiries Ali Quarréll admin@sfs.org.uk

Email Bulletin (for members only) Kevin Blackburn sfs@fairbruk.demon.co.uk

National Storytelling Week Enquiries Del Reid via admin@sfs.org.uk Special Interest Group for Health & Wellbeing Janet Dowling via admin@sfs.org.uk

Area Representatives

Martin Manasse (North) Pippa Reid (South) via admin@sfs.org.uk www.sfs.org.uk

flattered. Everyone from advertising executives to singer/songwriters, animators to novelists, journalists to sculptors, film directors to actors, garden designers to scriptwriters have been described as “storytellers”. Well, they are and they aren’t.

They all use the same ingredients, similar sources and techniques as traditional storytellers – but in general they lack some of the vital elements that a live storyteller uses. For one thing they are often separated from their audiences by a video camera, an editing desk or a recording studio. Their words and actions are scripted and learned, or delivered by an auto-cue. Or they are sat in front of a computer many miles and months away from their audiences as they generate CGI images and stereo sounds or a stream of carefully chosen words on a page. They dig, design, compose, and have little idea who their audience will be, their age, their culture or their mood.

To be a live storyteller means being face-to-face with an audience, to have heard or read a tale then stored it in memory to be refashioned and retold at a suitable time. The tale will not be told quite as it was received because this audience may require a different style of language, perhaps with more or less detail, a few characters added or some removed. The teller will be picking up

picking up dozens of tiny reactions to the story that will modify the language, inspire humorous interjections, or extend or compress the narrative. The storyteller may have had a significant incident in their personal life – a birth maybe, a love affair, or the death of someone close – that will influence their story choice and delivery. The telling is a live organic creature that is almost out of the control of the teller and the audience, and may visit surprising places or explore buried feelings.

Enough. That the very word “storytelling” has been pirated away should be pleasing to us. It gives a spurious “worth” in the community at large. All I ask is that we are not mistaken for actors. We are both much more and much less than that.

Tony Cooper Editor

I suppose we should be

Cover Article:

The “Sole Unquiet Thing”

– Charles Tyrer reflects on the unique storytelling style of Iwan Kushka, after his appearance at Settle Stories last June.

Most of us have experienced the simple hypnotic pleasure of staring into a fireplace of glowing coals. From the spikes of flame escapes a world of figurative suggestion, a realm unbounded by the “grate” of the actual. Coleridge abandoned himself to it in his poem Frost at Midnight: “the thin blue flame” and “sole unquiet thing” were conduits to his poetic imagination.

For the psychoanalytical philosopher, Gaston Bachelard, the act of gazing into the hearth was no less than the origin of metaphor, the very earliest catalyst for the enablement of describing one thing in terms of its likeness to another. For some storytellers, the living coals themselves become the metaphor. Thinking through the imagination of the female protagonist in her novel Liza’s England, Pat Barker's gaze opens a door to perception, an aide de memoire:

Liza sat for a while staring into the fire... the glowing caverns and bleak, shadowy, overhanging cliffs that stimulated her imagination to enter again and explore the long country of the past.

And it is no coincidence that the most ancient of artforms, storytelling, has been performed by the hearth for millennia, for the two media are prismatic and complementary. Such an idea would not be lost on storyteller Iwan Kushka, who brought his own unique brand of “suggestion” to Settle Stories in June.

Storyteller Iwan Kushka

Noting the potential for beguilement of stories and fables, Iwan nailed the art of collective seduction from the perspective of one who has seen the process unfold first hand:

The main impression I have from my experience as a “community storyteller” is that stories are a great unifier – we all become enraptured in a good yarn, caught up in a childlike sense of wonder. “Unifier” seems the most useful term here. Stories, well told, bring audiences together, as they always have done. It remains very likely that the earliest traditions of oratory in the Greece of antiquity were enacted in the form of storytelling by early balladeers and shamans. Over generations, the kaleidoscope of narrative fragments, of myths and legends has become familiar in especial forms: two of the narrative keystones of Western Art, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, are epic – and

complex – re-workings of several spoken traditions.

Iwan Kushka, a storyteller in the best traditions of his art, gave persuasive authority to the illusory, and in so doing re-opened a window on the “lighted rooms” of the distant past – and eavesdropped on the collective, sotto voce whispers of the age(s).

“True Moon Tales are Half Truth Lies” welcomed us into the land of myth and true stories that never happened... Iwan shared the ancient Indian Legend of “The Transported Heads” – a tale in which two boys meet one girl and lose their hearts (and heads) in the process. All-inall, it was a journey of poetic flight into the collective intelligence of the old myths and legends, told with a highly atmospheric blend of story and music. A journey into the Underworld, ecstatic lovers, death and rebirth.

– Charles Tyrer

Belgian storyteller & musician Iwan Kushka brought with him the Iranian frame drum and the Armenian Duduk. He was joined by guitarist William Benzies and violinist Becky Doe.

Feature:

Sourcing Traditional Stories

– Rosalind Kerven looks into some of the best ways to broaden your repertoire of stories from around the world.

As a teller of traditional tales, you may feel that you already have more than enough material to work with. Perhaps your stories come from older family members or elders in your own community. Perhaps you’ve learned them from listening to other storytellers. But discovering new tales, especially from different cultures, is not just exciting. It also helps you understand how stories of all kinds work. It can give insights into the stories you already use, highlighting universal aspects of narrative, and also demonstrating the use of different concepts and dynamics. It may even lead you in new directions, to work with stories that you’d never heard of before, doing your bit for world narrative heritage by bringing them to life for new audiences.

Since no one knows who originally composed the old myths, legends and folktales back in the mists of time, there’s no copyright on the storylines – they belong to everyone, offering freedom to retell them in any appropriate way. The only restrictions are not to reproduce the exact words of written versions without crediting the author, and to respect the cultural sensitivities of the people who originally told them. But where can one find such new material?

As an author specialising in the genre, I’ve been collecting traditional stories from

around the world for over 30 years. My first stop – in the days before drastic public spending cuts – was my local county library. By good fortune, a librarian there shared my interest and had built up a hoard of books of old tales. At first I avidly borrowed them. Later, when the library decided to sell off this stock –sadly depriving future researchers of the chance to view it – I was able to purchase much of it to start my own collection. From there, my quest led me most rewardingly into the dusty recesses of second-hand bookshops. In the latter, I discovered the thrill of unearthing rare and unique books from a different age. Some of my greatest treasures include books of African tales compiled by 19th Century missionaries and colonial officers. Many old out-of-print volumes in the genre can be viewed in the British Library, and you may be able to borrow some of these through your local library’s inter-library loan scheme. More recently, the internet has made such books much more readily available.

If you wish to embark on a similar quest, what should you especially seek out? Here are some titles which I would recommend as absolute “musts” for anyone interested in world traditional tales:

Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend by Maria Leach (HarperCollins 1984). Crammed with over 8,000 articles by leading specialists on many important themes from all around the world. Skim through its pages to turn up diverse gems such as a Burmese flood myth, a Filipino folktale about abandoned children, and a legendary hero from Nicaragua, alongside better known myths and legends. There are also many long articles on topics ranging from Chinese Folklore to Micronesian Mythology, Riddles and Story Classifications. Although currently out-of-print, second-hand copies can be sourced through Amazon for a reasonable price.

Get yourself a good encyclopaedia of world mythology. My own favourite is The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (Hamlyn 1976). It’s particularly good on Classical and Egyptian mythology, though sparse on non-Western cultures. This too is out-of-print, but available second-hand online. If you prefer to buy a more recent encyclopaedia, seek one with text written by academics, who will likely research their material more rigorously than the lay enthusiast.

A really excellent series is the Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library. Each volume features a different culture, either compiled from older sources or collected “in the field”. The series covers stories from all over the world, including Japanese Fairy Tales, The Old Wives’ Fairy Tale Book (edited by Angela Carter), Legends and Tales of the American West, and Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece – alongside tales from Africa, Arabia and Latin America.

If you’re seeking a more serendipitous selection of stories, the Coloured Fairy Books by Andrew Lang take a lot to beat. Each volume contains dozens of wonderful folktales. Published 1889–1910, during the golden age of story collecting, the complete set of twelve volumes is now available as an illustrated eBook at a very reasonable price. Individual volumes are also available on Amazon second-hand; or keep an eye out in charity shops.

For European classics, you need a Complete Grimms’ Fairy Tales and a volume of Perrault’s fairy tales. There are numerous editions of both currently available. For classical mythology, Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition is still in print with Penguin.

If you want stories from anywhere in the UK or Ireland, another absolute must is A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language by Katherine M. Briggs, parts A + B. Still available, though horrendously expensive, these two huge volumes represent unmatched scholarship and contain every story

motif that Briggs could find when she compiled it for publication in 1970–71.

Many classic titles have now been scanned and uploaded onto the internet, and there are three particular websites that I highly recommend. All are free of charge to users. You can either read the books onscreen, or print them out to read as hard copy.

archive.org

The most comprehensive collection of all. Each title can be viewed in a variety of formats, ranging from a PDF (an exact scan of the original book) to “Complete Text” (ideal to copy-and-paste). As well as searching for named books, don’t miss old copies of the Journal of American Folklore and publications by the Bureau of American Ethnology, many of which contain scholarly story collections sourced ‘in the field’.

www.gutenberg.org

Less wide-ranging than the above, but a repository of many excellent traditional story collections, again available in a variety of formats.

www.sacred-texts.com

Contrary to what the name implies, this isn’t restricted to religious titles, but covers a wide variety of world myths and folktales. Its format tends to be more onscreen reader-friendly than the other two websites.

Rosalind Kerven is the author of over 60 books published in 22 countries. Her retellings of world myths and legends are published by CUP, OUP, British Museum, British Library, National Trust, Dorling Kindersley, and many others. Her current titles contain rich source material for storytellers: English Fairy Tales & Legends; Arthurian Legends; Faeries, Elves & Goblins; and Viking Myths & Sagas. Coming later in 2016: an eBook reissue of her highly acclaimed collection of Chinese Myths and Folktales. She is currently working on a major collection of stories from Native American and Canadian First Nations traditions, to be published late 2017. www.workingwithmythsandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk www.vikingmythsandsagas.blogspot.co.uk

On Twitter @MythsandTales

To source some of Rosalind’s out of print collections of traditional tales, do contact her at roskerven@hotmail.com

Cryptic Crossword

Every issue, our resident cryptic crossword setter Motifeme offers you a beguiling riddle-me-this puzzle on a particular theme. This issue’s theme is drawn from Rosalind Kerven’s article on “Sourcing Traditional Tales” (p7) – all of the clues, and some of the answers, are based on the content of that article...

For hints and tips on completing this and other cryptic crosswords, you can contact Motifeme by emailing admin@sfs.org.uk

Across 1 – Rosalind and Joseph's fairy tales. (7) 5 – His 12 sons would make a great source of stories – especially 1 of 1. (5) 8 – Merchant found in a volume an intern edited. (7) 9 – The less wet are less drearier. (5) 10 – How ancient weapons were made – with their noses?! (5) 11 – Former example English Tradition Epic, interpreted by such as this. (7) 12 – Graves gets Greek dress right. (6) 14 – 12 horizontal tales from here. (6) 17 – Sound a call to Cnut's wife to get an example of 12 down. (7)

19 – Theme is the cat in charge. (5)

22/23 – The last of the Pantheon Library cited here in Malta, a rice mix. (5,7)

24 – Hike out of Yorkshire for a New Larousse Encyclopaedia, and you'll be this! (5)

25 – A URL is, to sum up, about a ship. (7)

Down

1 – Delves hidden depths to put them with the faeries and goblins, did Rosalind. (5)

2 – The style of a folk tale is kind of green. (5)

3 – Briggs' tine fails to pick up the Great British selkie's head, making a fire starter. (7)

4 – Folklore is full of these – as are the roes! (6)

5 – Does the Journal nudge into first place? You be this. (5)

6 – Nationality of folklore subject to a long article by Funk & Wagnall, an eye opener to assorted niches... (7)

7 – ...and of a flood myth, which makes a point of mixing umbers. (7)

12 – "I am what's all around me": another Funk & Wagnall topic. (7)

13 – Support building store with large book. (7)

15 – What you must do to this 'ere Trad. for the answer! (7)

16 – A tin and a lawyer provide her source of First Nation traditions. (6)

18 – Many, many works are masculine. (5)

20 – Force open for high regard. (5)

21 – From the classics we find 2. (5)

Answers from last issue (Cinderella)

Across: 1 Father, 4 Rhodopis, 10 Exacted, 11 Meat pie, 12 Eyes, 13 Saddleslut, 15 In line, 16 Station, 20 Brooded, 21 School, 24 False bride, 26 Crow, 28 Angrier, 29 Chinese, 30 Stranger, 31 Ceases.

Down: 1 Frenetic, 2 Traveller, 3 Eats, 5 Humidity, 6 Dialectics, 7 Pupil, 8 Sheath, 9 Adman, 14 Indonesian, 17 Odourless, 18 Pear tree, 19 Flawless, 22 Offals, 23 Edict, 25 Lager, 27 Fire.

Sharing Stories, Sharing Understanding

– Eirwen Malin shares the successes of a project supported by NIACE Cymru and the Beyond the Border festival, which bridged international boundaries.

One lovely May morning, a storyteller walked happily along in the sunshine looking forward to sharing his stories at the town library. Perhaps because the spring weather had tempted everyone out of doors, when he arrived at the library everything was ready – but there was no audience. A storyteller without anyone to listen is a sad storyteller.

But someone saved the day. “Let’s take you to a class,” she said, “English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)”.

In the class, the storyteller decided to tell a story from Wales.

He told the story, and as soon as he had finished one of the group said, “We have a story like that in my country…” and briefly recounted it. “I have a story from my country,” said another, and she told that one. And so the class went on, with learners telling stories from their own traditions. and the storyteller, who knew lots of stories, setting off new threads. The learners who came from many different countries and backgrounds were amazed by the similarities in the stories coming from such different places.

The ESOL tutor was pleased with how her students had listened so carefully and understood the stories told in English, but even more pleased that they had been motivated to use the English they had learned to tell stories from their own

cultures. Her learners were so engaged and so willing to speak, that she wished she could have a storyteller in class more often.

The storyteller – David Ambrose, Artistic Director of Beyond the Border –was also very happy, and he told others how he and the learners had shared their stories. Knowing that she was interested in storytelling too, one of the people he told was the author, then working for NIACE Cymru (the National Institute for Adults Continuing Education in Wales) – and so began the work that made the Sharing Stories: Sharing Understanding project a reality.

number of services such as health, education, and commercial services, and improve their well-being. At the same time they would be able to learn, through stories, about their host culture in Wales, and about the many cultures represented by fellow migrants from different parts of the world. In all, participants from around 30 different countries were involved. Those from Wales also learned, and we hope that the project has made a difference in local community cohesion. This was one of the most joyful projects I have ever been involved with.

NIACE Cymru (now the Learning and Work Institute), an adult learning charity, and Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival brought their combined skills to devise and resource the project, which was funded by the Big Lottery Fund in Wales’ People and Places Programme. To ensure that the project reached its intended audience, we worked with 4 community organisations in Cardiff and Swansea.

The project was aimed at migrants to Wales to help them gain confidence in learning English. Through doing so they would improve their employability, gain access to a

Eight storytellers worked with ESOL tutors and nearly 400 learners in short courses. Almost all (88%) became confident to understand a short story in English and over a third gained sufficient confidence to tell a story in English to a small group of people. It was the way that the stories motivated learners to speak in English that was possibly the most noteworthy learning point from the project. Frequently ESOL learners have a good understanding but lack confidence in speaking. Possibly because the focus for their speaking was stories from their own traditions, material that was culturally familiar to them, they seemed to gain increasing confidence. Project participants

varied in nature – one young woman arrived in Britain only a week before she and her young daughter joined a session, while others were long-term residents whose confidence in English was still low after many years.

The project was structured to include some more social intercultural events, partly organised by the learners themselves, which made them feel respected and welcome to Wales – and provided the opportunity to celebrate and share their own cultures through stories in English for all nationalities to hear. These social events were open to a wider audience from the local community and were well attended. Two groups of learners, one from Cardiff and one from Swansea, were able to visit the 2014 Beyond the Border Festival and had an afternoon of stories finishing with

the very Welsh tradition of tea and cake in Milgi’s café. Wales has two languages, and – though the project activities were predominantly in English – participants were pleased to hear some Welsh language too, and were keen to learn more.

Storytellers and ESOL tutors kept detailed notes of the stories used, how they were delivered, which were successful exercises, and the development of individual learners’ understanding and confidence to speak. Successful techniques of telling, confidence-building exercises and other practice was shared throughout the project, and has been collected in a publication Sharing Stories: Sharing Understanding –which also contains text versions of some of the favourite stories used in the project, and a DVD of “tellings” recorded within the project.

– Eirwen Malin

The book is available from Beyond the Border via the website: www.beyondtheborder.com/publications

Pictured left: Participant Affa Idris telling a story

Blending It

– Cath Heinemeyer, from the International Centre for Arts and Narrative (ICAN), shares her impressions from Storyknowing, a symposium and festival of storytelling and theatre with adolescents in York, 22-23 April 2016

Is there a kind of knowledge that can only be encapsulated in story form? Many writers and philosophers have suggested so. Jerome Bruner (2006) contrasts the “logico-scientific” way of knowing, which aims to categorise and conceptualise, with the “narrative mode”, which asks the meaning of experience – of particular people’s experiences in particular times.

If story gives us a way of communicating that bypasses generalisations and abstractions, might it help us have difficult conversations across generational boundaries? Might it help us understand the 21st century experience of youth, by learning from young people’s stories, and also allow us to be more helpfully present to teenagers as arts practitioners, teachers and professionals?

These are the questions that brought 120 researchers, practitioners, storytellers and adolescents together for a practice research symposium on storytelling and theatre with young people, at York St John University and York Theatre Royal (the two partners in the ICAN centre). They also gave the event its name: “Storyknowing”.

Our aim was to have a dialogue conducted through talks, practical workshops, and performances – that is, partly through

story itself. We wanted to find out: how does working with teenagers reshape the art of storytelling? And what do they use stories to communicate, and how?

During the symposium it became clear that people are working with teenagers through story in diverse corners of practice: mental health, education, social work, art gallery outreach, dance and theatre – often in isolation from any storytelling networks. Workshops with Steve Killick, Rachel King and her Warwick MA Drama in Education students, Michael Harvey, Openstorytellers, and many others, brought nourishment and new strategies to these practitioners.

It became clear too that for teenagers the boundaries between artforms (say, between storytelling and theatre) are blurred or even irrelevant. When we asked teenage

delegates to spend the day preparing a retelling of the story I told the whole conference in the morning, it was natural to them to blend music, movement and ‘spoken word’ in their abstract and intelligent performances.

A certain divergence was in evidence between practice (often verbatim theatre or devising work) drawing on young people’s own personal stories (often stories of traumatic experience or marginalisation), and that starting from myth, folktale, art or other stimuli. The most interesting practice, for me, was that which worked on the boundary between these realms, recognising how they are interwoven in every telling (and every listening) of a story. In fact, to my eyes, a sort of syncretism of the mythic and the personal, the timeless and the political, the

traditional tale and its contemporary resonances, seems to define the performance of many younger tellers, including those with whom I have worked.

Our keynote speakers Roger Hill and Jo Blake Cave both grappled with challenging territory – Roger with the question of how young people can or should respond to what seem like “dark times”; Jo with the need for young storytellers to be freed from the ‘unspoken rules’ of the storytelling movement, while drawing on its riches. For both speakers, young people need to be able to create their own forms of storytelling, to make sense of the rapid pace of ecological, social and cultural change.

Some of these themes were evident in the young people’s performances during the event. “The Holding Place” by York Theatre Royal’s youth

theatre, infused the myth of Dido and Aeneas into the current and pressing story of the refugee crisis. The performance of the Rwandan legend of Miseke and Thunder, by Kala Sangam South Asian Arts’ young Indian dancers, seemed to allude to the hothousing and surveillance of young people. As ICAN’s PhD student, conducting practice-as-research into storytelling with teenagers, I was fortunate to be able to work with these talented, artistically and socially committed young people, to help them devise these performances. Storyknowing was the biggest event yet at ICAN, and represented the culmination of the current phase of our socially engaged practice and research. Led by Juliet Forster of the Theatre Royal and Professor Matthew Reason of York St John University, we are now turning our faces towards an issue that has kept leaping out at us

over the past three years of work: the crisis in young people’s mental health. Rapidly rising levels of self-harm, depression, eating disorders and anxiety, documented by Girlguiding UK, Childline and countless other studies, provoke widespread adult consternation and speculation (is it social media? Porn? Academic pressures? Unemployment? All the parents’ fault?), but few helpful answers.

Our evolving practice of multi-artform storytelling has given us evidence that story can help. It can’t heal – but it can open up new fronts for dialogue. And in a situation where young people are endlessly urged to “be more resilient” while the pressures on them continue to mount up, it can help both adults and young people think more laterally, maybe more rebelliously. Maybe working with mentally unwell young people through story will yield up some answers to the “why” questions, and begin to tell us what to do about it.

– Cath Heinemeyer

For further information about ICAN and Storyknowing see artsandnarrative.co.uk – or join the Facebook group “Storyknowing: Storytelling with Adolescents”. To find out more about Cath’s research see www.storytellingwithadolescents.blogspot.co.uk

Reference: In Search of Pedagogy, Volume II (Bruner, Jerome S. (2006) Routledge)

Flatland and Laughing Gas

– Tony Cooper presents stories from education and therapy

I was recently an inpatient in a hospital and I met a wide variety of people: surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, other patients, cleaners, social workers and tea ladies. They were all from a wide variety of backgrounds and ethnic origins (Africa, Malaysia, Scotland, Ireland, China, Spain and Kent) but they were remarkably similar in their responses on hearing that I was a storyteller. “Oh, where do you work? Children's parties? Playgroups? What age of children do you prefer to work with?”

They were all surprised to learn of my work with dementia sufferers at Age Concern. The young people that I had worked with were on the autistic spectrum and had amazed their carers and parents by stopping their usual displacement activity while tales were being told, and had participated in story making and associated art activities. Few of the people I met had come across oral

storytelling as an adult activity – and if they had, it was seen as just another branch of entertainment not dissimilar to stand-up comedy or street theatre.

Which is surprising given that stories have been used therapeutically and educationally in Eastern lands for many thousands of years. An Indian teller would listen to a problem then choose the right tale to ameliorate, say, excess greed, low self-esteem or a relationship situation. Chinese stories were almost viewed as medicine in the north of the country. The humour contained in the Afghan or Persian Sufi “Mulla Nasrudin” tales is

designed to lower the mind’s logical defences with laughter so that an otherwise unacceptable idea can eventually filter through.

The position of storytelling in Western culture seems to be undervalued by educationists and politicians, and others who control their nations’ resources. Their attitude seems similar to other useful discoveries of the past – let us take nitrous oxide as an example.

This gas was first synthesised by English natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley in 1772. The use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug at "laughing gas parties”, primarily arranged for the British upper classes, became an immediate success beginning in 1799. Despite Humphrey Davy's discovery that inhalation of nitrous oxide could relieve a conscious person from pain, another 44 years elapsed before doctors attempted to use it for anaesthesia.

Another example of a concept that was originally seriously undervalued was Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, an 1884 satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. This was written as a satire on the prevalent class system. It described a society of

two-dimensional shapes whose rigid positions in their community was disrupted by a sphere passing through their flat land – appearing first as a dot before expanding into a circle then shrinking down to a vanishing spot again. It was not until Albert Einstein needed a way to visualise a fifth dimension in the 1920s that the genius of Abbott’s Flatland was appreciated.

The reappraisal of oral storytelling will, of course be a slow process in a society where success must be measured in units of value. There is, however, hope on the way. Chip Colquhoun has been working with Turkish academics and English educationists to produce a quantitative evaluation of the advantages of using stories in the learning environment. Facts learned in a conventional manner are retained less accurately and for a briefer period than those absorbed through storytelling. Once these facts become known to those who manage our education, perhaps storytellers and storytelling will become permanent additions to the learning worlds. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

– Tony Cooper

Improving Your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work or Play

by Doug Lipman

Reviewed by Anthony Fitzbaden-Powell

This is a book from an experienced teller that has something to say to all storytellers, seasoned or beginner. In the introduction, the author talks about the importance of being “in the moment” when storytelling –focusing on the story that you're telling now, not the way you told it before or will in the future. He also mentions the storytelling triangle in which the story, the storyteller, and the audience are all connected – although the story and audience are connected in the diagram by a dotted line, because the teller has no direct control over how the audience connects to the story. I have not seen this vital concept anywhere else.

The 19 chapters offer strong and useful guidelines on the practice of oral storytelling. Mr Lipman gives ideas for exercises in expressing feeling using only tone of voice and gibberish words. He explains how eye contact "rules" can differ by culture. The value of using repetition to emphasise certain things. Keeping the plot uncrowded because it can be hard for the audience to keep track of more than two characters during storytelling.

The first few chapters focus on how people store images in different ways: visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, verbal/conceptual and olfactory. You can

develop some of these senses with your storytelling imagery if they're not already strong. The teller’s posture is examined in Kinaesthetic Imagery (muscular, movement, posture). The author relates an interesting personal story about the expectations and emotions conveyed by his unintentional posture during a tense situation.

Chapters 5–9 deal with story. The format of a story (one climactic ending versus several stories strung together by a common theme, etc) can vary depending on the culture. He goes on to discuss learning the story and discovering the meaning. The author suggests that we recognise the Most Important Thing (MIT) to help us tell it. The MIT to you could be different from the MIT for someone else and it can change. There are different ways to outline the story to help you remember it and tell it to emphasise the things you want (depending on your MIT). He adds that there is no point in memorising the words, try to get the gist of it first.

The next five chapters emphasises the audience-teller relationship. Usually the audience is the beneficiary and the storyteller is the helper, but the roles can be reversed in situations of therapy, rehearsal, etc. The storyteller needs to be clear

about the roles before beginning so there is no confusion. There are Four Tasks: Uniting (the audience), Inviting (relaxed confidence), Offering (the story), and Acknowledging (your audience).

"Leaning forward" is the author’s term to indicate that the audience is engaged and on the edge of their seat, especially in tales of wit and humour. It expresses a relaxed, transported state of listening, like to fantasy tales.

The last four focus on performance skills. Both storytellers with experience and beginners will find much to inform and inspire in this book. I certainly did.

– Anthony Fitzbaden-Powell

Improving Your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work or Play is available from August House priced at £10.59

Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture

by Lewis Hyde Reviewed by Jade Parsons

It happened again. I picked up this book in a bookshop (yes, there are still some about) and read just the first few words – and I was enraptured. With one high heel propped on the lowest shelf and my head awkwardly tilted to one side, I read for possibly two hours. Eventually a shop assistant wandered over and sweetly enquired whether I needed “any help?”

Not for the first time, the vision of a facially tattooed and pierced female

loitering in a warm place as rain pelts down in the street outside had set off “alarm bells” in a commercial situation. So I surprised her by buying the book – I had to, because the premise of the subtitle struck chords with me as a storyteller, tregetour, teacher and clown (“tregetour” is a medieval term for magician).

The late author Terry Pratchett mentioned in one of his many books that progress, ideas and everything that combines to create what we call “civilisation” happens on the edges – where the water meets the land, where the “law” meets the badlands, where a woman dresses as a man or visa versa, beyond the city walls and where magicians break the laws of logic and physics.

Likewise Lewis Hyde has trawled the comparative mythology of the world to find the tricksters: Prometheus, who stole food and fire from the Greek gods; Esau, the Yoruba god of chance and divination; and Coyote, who showed the North American Original People language, his insatiable appetites both dietary and carnal, and how to visit the Land of the Dead. All demonstrate unbridled energy as they dance on the cliff-edge of disaster by breaking rules, defying convention and bladdering authority in the mouth.

I have read all 354 pages and was impressed by the easy style and thorough research but for one subject barely touched: female tricksters. In the 8 pages where they are mentioned there is the female Coyote, the shameless skirt-lifting Greek Baubo, and a few others.

I could suggest around 12 others to fill another volume with their different takes on how tricks can be played, bolstered by the many gender-changes that male tricksters have exhibited: the Maori Ārohirohi; Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto, the goddess of dawn, mirth and revelry in the Shinto religion of Japan; River Song, the character in Dr Who; Mohini the Hindu trickster bride; and more.

Hyde lays the general absence of female tricksters at the feet of mainly patriarchal societies –ignoring the fact that in these situations the habitual storytellers were the women.

With this caveat to one side, I highly recommend this thick volume to all storytellers, male and female.

– Jade Parsons

Tricker Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture is available from Canongate priced at £9.99

Review: The Storytelling

Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

by Jonathan Gottschall Reviewed by Roy Walters

I must make an awful admission: when I first picked up this book I flicked through it, noticed the illustrations and a few chapter headings, and dismissed it as typical lightweight American quasi-philosophical jumble designed for new-age storytellers to be enjoyed after a nourishing and exotic hand-rolled cigarette.

Then, whilst footling through what Google can dredge up from a search of “storytelling”, I stumbled across a YouTube TED talk by the author about the book – which lead to a reconsideration and a rereading. I was devastated. The only other times that I have been stimulated to shout “YES!” when first reading a book were when I read Idries Shah’s Nasrudin tales in the 1960s, physicist Richard Feynman’s lecture notes in the ‘70s, and Terry Pratchett’s Colour of Magic in the ‘80s. They all shared the same features: important ideas delivered in an entertaining and digestible manner that forces the reader to laugh out loud, then turn to their partner and quote from the book.

So, what is it about? The title and subtitle explain a lot but do little to show what varied resources have been used. The eclectic selection can be best illustrated by a glance at the index at the back – let me take the letter ‘M’ as a typical choice:

mirror neurons Pinkers model responses to fiction ‘torture’ experiments

Misery (King)

Misha: A memory of the Holocaust Years (De Wael)

MMORPG devotees future of story and real life vs World of Warcraft

Moby Dick (Melville)

“Modest Proposal, A” (Swift) monkeys typing Hamlet Monty Python and the Holy Grail

If these do not tempt you to read the book then it is not for you. At least view the TED talk – I am sure that you’ll be hooked.

– Roy Walters

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human is available from Mariner Books priced at £11.99

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Story of the Season: The Women’s Revenge

from Koitabu, Papua New Guinea transmuted into text by Rosalind Kerven

Long ago in the time of the ancestors, the men became very lazy. They only went hunting when they felt like it – and they never brought home a single piece of meat. Instead they gorged themselves on the kill just where they caught it in the middle of the forest – and then had the cheek to go back to the village empty handed.

The women thought something terrible must have happened to drive all the game animals away. That was the lie the men spread about. Meanwhile, the women carried on slaving away in their gardens, trying desperately to grow enough vegetables and fruit to fill the stomachs that were really crying out for meat.

They got pitifully thin; and as for the children, they were wasting away.

But the men were fit and strong as ever. How could they carry on like this? How could they watch their own little ones crying with hunger? How could they bear to see their wives so pinched and weak, even the ones growing big with child?

At last, on a day when the men were all away, the chief’s wife called all the village women to a meeting.

“Listen,” she cried, “I believe our husbands are all deceiving us. Where do they keep slinking off to so secretly? Why aren’t they growing weak like we are? I’ve got my suspicions; but first, does anyone really know the truth?”

There was a long silence. Then a woman called Au stood up. She was young and newly married. Tears shone in her eyes.

“I can tell you what’s going on,” she whispered. “My husband Gaigo: he’s not like

all the rest. He truly loves me. We have a baby coming and he wants it to grow strong. So every evening he comes home with a little meat hidden in his hair. He makes sure that I always get to eat it. He tells me in secret that this meat is left over from the men’s feasting in the forest!”

At this, a great ripple of anger spread through the women.

“Right!” commanded the chief’s wife. “The time has come for revenge, my sisters. Forget your work in the gardens today; instead come into the forest, away from the paths our husbands take. Today it’s our turn to go hunting. Our quarry is this: a thousand magic black feathers.”

That evening there was nothing to eat at all: no meat, no vegetables, no fruit –for the women had neglected their usual work. The men were angry: they screamed at their wives for being lazy. The women shrugged and walked away, following the men’s own habit. As for the children, they just curled up around their hunger pains and fell asleep.

The next day when the men were away, all the women came together again, bringing their feathers. The chief’s wife showed how to sew them together. Then each woman tied a bundle to her arms.

Wings.

“Come,” cried the chief’s wife, “fly with me to freedom! Those men can take care of themselves in future. Yes, and let them look after their own children too, for a change.”

children too, for a change.”

They all flapped their wings – and at once they rose into the air, transformed. Now they were no longer women, but bats!

The bat-women flew high over the trees. They looked down. They saw the smoke of cooking fires; they smelled meat roasting; they heard their husbands laughing and belching over their clandestine feast.

Now their anger knew no bounds. They swooped down at the men, hissing and spitting.

“Look what we’ve become! We’re leaving you for ever. Go home to the village and feed your children before they die of hunger!”

Then they rose again and flew away, scattering to dark, secret hiding places.

The men went back to the village. There they found their children crying. Gentle Au was trying to comfort them. She alone had stayed behind, out of love for her husband who loved her.

After that, the men learned to feed their children as they should. The children grew strong again, they grew up, they had children of their own. They told them this story. Au taught the girls how to do women’s work in the gardens; and now every father taught his sons the law that the hunt must be shared.

From The Rain Forest Storybook by Rosalind Kerven (Cambridge University Press 1994)

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