For my father, Jack, who liked to listen
Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
J.R.R. TOLKIEN, The Lord of the Rings
Listen your way in
with your mouth
PAUL CELAN, “The Trumpet Part”
Sir, are all storytellers professional liars or just some of them?
GRADE-TWO STUDENT, HAVENWOOD PUBLIC SCHOOL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Suddenly They Heard Footsteps
Frankie and the Firebird
The Storm Fool’s Tale
Annals of Hosting
Stories for the Crossroads
Lives of the Storytellers
Speaking Story
Hunting and Gathering
Thunder over the Library
Old Patterns, New Yarns
Letting the Story Through
Emergency Storytelling
Dreaming a New Myth
STORIES
Why All Tongues Are Red
Rich and Poor
Strange Voices
The Devil’s Noodles
The Devil in Don Mills
Mr. Globus and Laughing Boy
The Storyteller at Fault
Afterword
Appendix: Storytelling Resources
Annotated Bibliography
Permissions
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM GRATEFUL to the Ontario Arts Council for the grant I received to work on this book. I thank my teachers, ancestors and the Toronto storytelling community for their love and support. To Carol, Jacob, Nathaniel (and kind Bernard upstairs) I owe more thanks than even a storyteller can put into words.
PREFACE
I WAS ONCE TELLING STORIES at a downtown arts centre when a restless group of kids stomped in. They were ten-year-olds from a Catholic school in a new housing development, and they came in munching potato chips and blowing bubble gum. One big boy with a cast on his arm had a well-practised burp. I could tell they weren’t in a listening mood. Since it was close to Halloween, I lit a candle, turned off the lights and started telling ghost stories.
It wasn’t long before they were hooked. I was, after all, using the world’s oldest method of crowd control: suspense. It worked for Scheherazade for a thousand and one Arabian nights and, sure enough, it worked for me. At the end I told them “The Golden Arm.” You’ve probably heard versions of this spooky “jump” story at summer camp, or on a sleepover where the challenge was to terrify your friends out of their wits. A treacherous husband has stolen his dead wife’s golden arm. He hides it under his pillow, and one night she comes looking for it. “What has become of your golden arm?” he asks shakily as she comes towards him. Then (and here the storyteller’s voice becomes very quiet) the ghost… reached… out… and… said… “You’ve got it!” At which point my thirty cool grade-five students screamed and jumped into each other’s laps. The tough kid with the cast, well, let’s just say he found new respect for the oral tradition.
When the lights came on, the children lined up to leave, talking excitedly about their shocking experience. I noticed one girl standing quietly, holding something around her neck. I asked if she liked the stories and she said, “Oh, yes. But when you told the last one I didn’t jump.”
“I noticed,” I said. “How come?”
“Because when I knew it was going to be scary, I held the Blessed Virgin Mary.” She showed me the amulet she was still holding. “You should get one, too.”
“I’m not sure I should,” I answered. “I’m Jewish.”
“That’s okay,” she said sagely. “Get a Jewish one.”
Writing this book about storytelling as an art and a way of life, I have often remembered the girl’s good counsel. When you know something scary is coming you must find and hold on to your own source of reassurance and wisdom. My young friend had an amulet. What I hold on to is the passionate belief that knowing good stories by heart and telling them to a circle of listeners makes a haven for the human spirit.
We are living through a time of unprecedented and troubling change. We have come to a crossroads where old and familiar customs break down, but the new moral frame and social structure we urgently need have not yet evolved. We step into the future with less connection to ancestral guidance than any human generation before us. Although we have invented amazing technologies for saving data, we are at risk of forgetting our personal, family and cultural stories. We broadcast our voices over vast distances, but talk less to our neighbours. Haunting these changes are the spectres of continuing violence, planetary degradation and, above all, the danger that we’ll come to believe the implacable message of the powerful: that resistance is futile.
The old stories teach us that resistance is never futile. Chinua Achebe tells this African fable in his great book, Anthills of the Savannah:
One time the Tortoise met the Leopard on the road. The Leopard said, “I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I’m going to eat you!” The little Tortoise said, “Just grant me one favour before you devour me.” The Leopard agreed.
“I must prepare my mind,” said the Tortoise.
The Leopard growled impatiently.
Then the Tortoise began to jump all over the road, throwing the dust every whichaway. He scattered the sand everywhere and ran madly back and forth across the road. Then he came back and stood proudly in front of the Leopard. “I am ready,” he said.
“Is that how you prepare for what I’m going to do to you?” snarled the Leopard.
“Yes,” said the Tortoise. “Because from now on, when people walk by this spot they’ll see these marks on the road and say, ‘This was a great struggle between two equals.’ They’ll remember that even a little Tortoise once fought the mighty Leopard. Perhaps the sign of our fight will give them the courage to fight you themselves.”
Tortoise leaves his marks not only in the sand but, even more subversively, in the memory of the community. If the story-traces of his struggle are remembered, he has indeed fought Leopard as an equal. We have many leopards blocking the road these days. Achebe’s story suggests that, although the ephemeral spoken word seems like a frail weapon to resist these deadly opponents, it may prove to be one of our strongest tools for fixing damaged lives, opening blocked roads and fighting against mighty leopards.
In her book The Dreamer Awakes, the wise teacher and master storyteller Alice Kane describes how she was contemplating the state of the world one day, and wondering what she, as a storyteller, could do to make a difference. Then she remembered her own wonder tales, where the hero, often a poor and unregarded boy or girl, must earn “a talisman, a little twisted stick, a sword of power, a dead mother’s blessing.” Armed with this token of new power, these unlikely heroes are able to accomplish world-changing deeds. Alice Kane decided that she, too, possessed such a talisman, and it was made of all the stories she knew by heart: “The whole background of story and song poured down upon us by those who have gone before. It is reassurance and courage, a great shining that transforms dark truth into victory.” Storytelling itself is, or can be, a tool for mending broken worlds.
The belief that storytelling is a necessary and beneficial art for our times has sparked a contemporary renaissance of oral literature. Achebe, describing the remarkable persistence of oral stories, has an elder remind his tribe, “The story is everlasting…. Like fire, when it is not blazing, it is smoldering under its own ashes or sleeping inside its flint-house.” That fire has been rekindled around the world, with a variety of festivals, groups and gatherings giving storytellers new places to explore their art. There is also a strong and growing interest in the
way stories frame and flow through our everyday lives, anchoring identity, preserving family heritage and building intercultural bridges. From the rediscovery of folk traditions to the creation of a future folklore, storytellers today are celebrating the renewal of an art many thought was an endangered species.
You may come to the art as a new teller or a devoted listener. You may have a particular interest in understanding the stories of your own life and family, or use storytelling as a way to build community locally or around the world. My own path to storytelling began as a listener. Listening to told stories, by campfires, in kitchens and in concert halls, was my first love. I had to start telling because, as the saying goes, it is unfair to eat the fruit if you don’t help plant the trees.
For many storytellers of my generation, Ruth Sawyer’s book The Way of the Storyteller was a fine springboard into the art. Published in 1942, it is her account of being a storytelling pioneer. “I wish,” she wrote at the time, “there might be a guild for storytellers today where master and apprentice might work together for the upholding of their art…” Her wish came true. An international community of storytellers has flourished since her inspiring book was written. I have felt fortunate to be part of the Canadian branch of this movement.
Suddenly They Heard Footsteps reflects my experience as a Canadian storyteller, but I hope it is true to our common dream, fired by elders like Alice Kane and Ruth Sawyer, of making storytelling a living art for our times.
The Way of the Storyteller was my literary inspiration. Becoming a storyteller fifty years after Sawyer, I have tried to show you the way of a storyteller who came of artistic age knowing his stories must have room in them for firebirds and microchips, for spirit quests and concentration camps. I offer this book as an honour-song for our storytelling ancestors and an invitation for you to join the storytellers’ circle. I look forward to hearing your stories at the crossroads.
SUDDENLY THEY HEARD FOOTSTEPS
Under the touch of its words, the secret melody of each person was awakened…
MARTIN BUBER, The Legend of the Baal Shem
I AM A STORYTELLER. If you were sitting next to me on a train or airplane and we did the what-do-you-dos, this is when you’d probably say: A storyteller? What kind of job is that? Usually I start out with the short answer: I travel around telling stories to people who like to listen. If you’re intrigued, and don’t turn away with a polite smile to stare at the clouds, I’ll go on and say that, yes, it really is how I make my living and, no, it’s not just for children. In fact, more and more people work as storytellers, and mostly with adult audiences. There’s a whole movement catching fire around the world, though I’m not surprised you haven’t heard about it—yet.
Your next question is usually: What kinds of stories do you tell?
I tell word-of-mouth stories, the kind people used to know by heart and have told since the first humans sat around the fire lying about the fish they almost caught or imagining how the world was made. I’ve hunted and gathered about a hundred and fifty stories over the years, some by listening, most by reading, and a few I’ve made up myself. It’s a patchwork quilt of oral literature, and includes wonder tales, myths, legends, fables, ghost stories, tall tales, original yarns, personal experiences, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Thousand and One Nights stories and family lore. Also, I tell lots of stories about Hodja.
Hodja?
Hodja Nasrudin is my favourite “wise fool” from the Middle East. I grew up hearing stories about him from my Turkish grandmother. Have you heard the story about the time Hodja was on a plane when an engine caught fire? The pilot said, “Don’t worry—we can fly on three engines. It just means we’ll be an hour late landing in Toronto.” Then a second engine broke. “Don’t worry,” said the pilot, “we can fly on two. But this means we’ll be two hours late landing in Toronto.” Third engine, same announcement: “We can still fly on one engine, but we will now be three hours late landing in Toronto.” Hodja turned to his seatmate and said, “Oi! If the last engine breaks, we’ll be up here all day!” You can see how dangerous it is to start talking to a storyteller. One story leads to another, and another.
Where do people tell stories nowadays?
Storytellers take their art to festivals, schools, libraries, camps, prisons, hospitals, universities, fancy places, poor places, parks, cafés, campuses, concert halls—anywhere people will gather to listen.
Why do people tell stories nowadays?
That’s the hardest question of all. If we really were meeting on a plane instead of here in a book, the moment I started telling you we’d run into turbulence, start our descent, or have to watch the in-flight movie—and that would be that. How can I possibly tell you the whole story about the art and purpose of storytelling in this day and age?
Luckily, here I can give you the long answer. You can take a break if you like, set the book aside, go for a walk: the words will stay put. They’ll still be there when you come home. Books are reliable that way. Mind you, the staying-put part is, for a storyteller, the doubtful thing about writing. I love storytelling because I can hear the words fresh from the speaker’s mouth, not find them frozen in print or glimmering on a computer screen. It reminds me of a Hodja story. (Yes, it’s true—everything reminds me of a Hodja story!) Once, his fellow-villagers asked Hodja Nasrudin how he’d achieved his surpassing wisdom. He answered, “When I hear that a wise person is going to speak, I go and listen to whatever they are saying. And when I find that people have been listening to me… I ask them afterwards what I just said.” As an author, unless we happen to meet—and I hope we do—I’ll never know what you heard in what I wrote. To write a book about an oral art is a contradiction, and a very old one at that. When Socrates took his famous walk with Phaedrus outside the gates of Athens, he told him a story about the time in Egypt when the inventor-god Theuth came to King Thamus to show off his latest new improved time-saving invention; a veritable “recipe for memory and wisdom.” He called it writing. Instead of praising this new technology, the king was dubious. He warned Theuth that “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within but by means of external marks.” Theuth won the argument, of course, and we went on to invent ever faster and more efficient systems of external marks, up to and including our modern word processors. But Thamus was right as well. His early prophecy has come true. When words become too remote from the living voice, we risk losing a sense of our voice’s value. When words become too detached from personal memory, we risk forgetting what’s worth remembering in the first place.
Thamus would be pleased (but not surprised) to hear that storytelling is coming back in our time. People have a new desire to reconnect to their own voices, memories and stories. We’ve come to realize that we can’t double-click on wisdom. You must spend time listening, and what you must listen to are stories told by word of mouth. The human race has never found a better way to convey its cumulative wisdom, dreams and sense of community than through the art and activity of storytelling.
Perhaps storytelling is our oldest art, the first that marked our difference from the other species. “So why do I say that the story is chief among his fellows?” Chinua Achebe has an elder ask in Anthills of the Savannah.
The same reason I think that our people sometimes will give the name Nkolika to their daughters—Recalling-Is-Greatest. Why? Because it is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind. Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from
their neighbours.
To provide their communities with this escort made of oral stories, Native elders around the world have been telling creation myths for many millennia. Stone-age storytellers sat in the entrances of their caves, looked at the Milky Way and told stories about the spirits of their ancestors travelling to their resting-grounds. The troubadours in medieval Europe sang their romances in the castles of Provence. Homer chanted the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greece and Ionia three thousand years ago. The elements of this art haven’t changed significantly over the centuries. In some traditions storytellers use music, in others their voices are unaccompanied. In some traditions the storytelling experience is very participatory, with the audience involved throughout. In other places, people are happy to listen quietly for many hours and let the storyteller transport them. But the fundamental experience of storytelling hasn’t changed since the beginning of human history. One person speaks to a circle of listeners, who give their attention; if the story is told well, its words have the power to spark across the gap and take root in the listeners’ souls.
Many countries now have their own storytelling movements. In Canada most major cities have a story telling festival, as do cities in the United States, France, Brazil, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Israel, Austria, Singapore, Australia, Senegal and New Zealand—to name a few. But it is still a renaissance at its very beginning, and anybody who sets out on the storyteller’s way today is still a pioneer. There are far more questions than answers at this early stage of the storytelling movement. What kinds of stories should we tell today? Where will we find our audiences? How can we learn from our master storytellers? What new approaches can we bring to the storyteller’s art?
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