Fauliot, Pascal. Les contes des arts martiaux. Paris, 1981. “The Master of the Tea Ceremony” is my free translation, with permission, from Fauliot’s book of Zen-like tales.
Finnigan, Joan. Laughing All The Way Home. Toronto, 1984.
_____. Legacies, Legends & Lies. Kingston, 1987. Finnigan is an oral historian of Canada’s fabled Ottawa Valley.
Garner, Alan. The Stone Book Quartet. London, 1976.
___. Strandloper. London, 1996. Besides his many collections of folk tales and his famous fantasy novels, in these two books Garner makes astonishing connections between everyday experience, deeply rooted local history and myth.
Goss, Linda, et al., eds. Talk That Talk: An Anthology of African American Storytelling. 1989.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret Hunt. New York, 1972.
Haddawy, Husein. The Arabian Nights. New York, 1990. His translation is based on a text edited by Muhsin Mahdi.
Havelock, Eric. Preface to Plato. Cambridge, 1963. A study of Homeric Greece.
Holst, Spencer. The Language of Cats. New York, 1971.
______. Spencer Holst Stones. New York, 1976. Two great collections of modern fables by someone Allen Ginsberg once described as a “stand-up tragic.” A friend introduced me to Holst’s writing at the very beginning of my storytelling career, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York, 1974.
_____. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York, 1974.
Housman, Laurence. Arabian Nights. New York, 1981.
Johnston, Basil. The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway. Toronto, 1995. One of several authoritative explorations of Ojibway myth by a respected elder.
Kane, Alice. The Dreamer Awakes. Edited by Sean Kane. Introduction by Robert Bringhurst. A superb collection of stories from the repertoire of one of Canada’s finest storytellers. Bringhurst’s introduction shows that the art of the wonder tale lies on a continuum with the world’s most powerful myths.
____. Songs and Sayings of an Ulster Childhood. Edited by Edith Fowke. Toronto, 1983.
Kane, Sean. Wisdom of the Mythtellers. Peterborough, 1994. A fascinating exploration of myth as a living presence in the lives of those who tell and remember them.
Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. London, 1983.
Lee, Dennis. Alligator Pie. Toronto, 2001.
Lemieux, Germain. Les vieux m’ont conté. Montreal, 1973. Under the direction of folklorist Germain Lemieux, this is an amazing series of books, currently up to thirty volumes, each chronicling the repertoire of traditional Franco-Ontarian storytellers.
Leslau, Charlotte and Wolf. African Myths and Folktales. White Plains, 1963. “How Heart Came Into the World” is adapted, with permission, from the Leslaus’ “The Creation of the World.”
Lord, Albert B. The Singer of Tales. Edited by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy. Cambridge, 2000. A groundbreaking work on Homeric and contemporary epic traditions.
Lottridge, Celia Barker. Ten Small Tales. Toronto, 1993. A great book of stories for the very young.
MacDonald, Margaret Read. The Storyteller’s Sourcebook A Subject, Title and Motif-Index to Children’s Folklore Collections. Farmington Hills, 1982.
_____, and Brian Sturm. The Storyteller’s Sourcebook (2002 Supplement): A Subject, Title and Motif-Index to Children’s Folklore Collections, 1983–1999. Farmington Hills, 2001.
MacNeil, Joe Neil. Tales Until Dawn: The World of a Cape Breton Gaelic Story-Teller. Translated and edited by John Shaw. Montreal, 1988.
Mardrus, J. C. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. Translated into English from the Mardrus French translation by Powys Mathers. London, 1937. I based my story “Ali the Persian’s Bag” on a version found in Mardrus, as well as on the John Payne, Edward Lane and Richard Burton translations.
McCaughrean, Geraldine. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Oxford, 1982. Beware of her use of cream cheese instead of oil when Morgiana kills the thieves.
Morrow, Glenn, et al., eds. Ahhhh! A Tribute to Brother Blue & Ruth Edmonds Hill. Cambridge, 2003.
Mudrick, Marvin. Books Aren’t Life but Then What Is? New York, 1979.
___. Mudrick Transcribed: Classes and Talks. Edited by Lance Kaplan. Santa Barbara, 1989.
___. Nobody Here but Us Chickens. New York, 1981. Professor Mudrick was the greatest Chaucer teacher who ever lived. It was his inventive and high-spirited introduction to medieval literature that launched me into storytelling. These books show him in action.
Niemi, Loren, and Elizabeth Ellis. Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories. Little Rock, 2002. An interesting reflection on stories that can be difficult for both teller and audience.
Opie, Iona and Peter. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. London, 1959.
Paley, Vivian Gussin. The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter. Cambridge, 1990.
Pellowski, Anne. The World of Storytelling: A Practical Guide to the Origins, Development, and Applications of Storytelling. New York, 1977. A fine source of information about storytelling as a traditional and contemporary art.
Phelps, Ethel. The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from around the World. New York, 1981.
Plato. Phaedrus. In Collected Dialogues. Translated by R. Hackforth. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, 1961.
Rehnman, Mats, and Jenny Hostetter. The Voice of the Story. Stockholm, 2002.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York, 1989.
Robinson, Harry. Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver, 1989.
Rosen, Betty. And None of It Was Nonsense: The Power of Storytelling in School. New York, 1988.
Rosenbluth, Vera. Keeping Family Stories Alive: A Creative Guide to Taping Your Family Life & Lore. Vancouver, 1990.
Salinger, J. D. Nine Stories. Boston, 1948.
Sawyer, Ruth. The Way of the Storyteller. New York, 1942. A classic account of the life and art of one of the pioneers of the storytelling renaissance.
Schami, Rafik. Damascus Nights. Translated by Philip Boehm. New York, 1993.
Schram, Penninah. Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another. New York, 1987. A wonderful collection of Jewish tales.
Schwartz, Howard. Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales. New York, 1985. My story “The Silent Prince” was inspired by a story titled “The Mute Princess” from Schwartz’s collection. My story shares with his the motif of a silent character who is told riddles and thus drawn into speech. “The Silent Prince” includes three dilemma tales. The first one is adapted from “Who Cured the Princess?,” a story recorded by Moshe Kaplan as heard from a Polish rabbi (Israel Folktale Archives 464); collected in Folktales of Israel, edited by Dov Noy (Chicago, 1963). The second story was sent to me by children’s librarian Carol McDougal, who heard it from a Portuguese girl recently arrived in Toronto from her village in the Azores. The third dilemma story uses the well-known motif of the seal-wife, and mixes it with stories I have heard from Cree and Iroquois friends about the beings they call Thunderbirds. In the western wonder tale tradition, it seems to me these thunder-beings are close cousins to the Firebird.
Simpson, Jacqueline. Icelandic Folktales and Legends. London, 1972. My story “The Dreamer and the Butterfly” is based on a story traditional in many northern countries. Versions can be found in Scandinavian, Icelandic and English collections. I particularly enjoy Simpson’s story, “The Dreamer and the Treasure.”
Stone, Elizabeth, et al., eds. Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins: How Our Family Stories Shape Us. 1989.
Stone, Kay. Burning Brightly: New Light on Old Stories Told Today. Peterborough, 1998. A very interesting study of how six contemporary storytellers worked with traditional stories.
Stone, Ted. The One That Got Away. Saskatoon, 1990. A wonderful tell
er of tall tales (also see his Hailstorms and Hoopsnakes).
Tocher, Michelle. How to Ride a Dragon: Women with Breast Cancer Tell Their Stories. Toronto, 2001. An important book for those who practise storytelling as a healing art.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. London, 1954.
Weaver, Mary, ed. Tales As Tools: The Power of Story in the Classroom. Jonesborough, 1994.
Widdowson, John. Little Jack and Other Newfoundland Folktales. St. John’s, 2003. A collection of stories from one of the strongest oral traditional cultures in Canada.
Williamson, Duncan. The Broonie, Silkies and Fairies. New York, 1985.
___. A Thorn in the King’s Foot: Stories of the Scottish Travelling People. With Linda Williamson. Middlesex, 1987.
Wolfe, Alexander. Earth Elder Stories. Saskatoon, 1988.
Wolkstein, Diane. The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. New York, 1980. A landmark collection containing not only wonderful stories but also fine portraits of the tellers and their environments.
Yashinsky, Dan. Tales for an Unknown City. Montreal, 1990. An anthology of stories collected from 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling.
Yolen, Jane. Tales of Wonder. New York, 1983.
Young, Ella. The Wondersmith and His Son: A Tale from the Golden Childhood of the World. London, 1927. Along with Young’s Celtic Wonder-Tales (reissued in 1996), these were two of Alice Kane’s favorite collections. She based several concerts on stories from these books.
Zeitlin, Steve. Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling. New York, 1997. A fine collection of stories, essays and anecdotes from tellers’ lives.
PERMISSIONS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following sources for permission to reprint from previously published material. Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders; in the event of an inadvertent omission or error, please notify the publisher.
Quotes from Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (Doubleday), copyright 1987 by Chinua Achebe, by permission of Random House, Inc.
Adaptation of “Tortoises, Men, and Stones” from Ulli Beier, The Origin of Life and Death, by permission of Heinemann Publishers (Oxford) Ltd.
Translation of “L’Oiseau couleur du temps,” by Jocelyn Bérubé, on his record album Nil en ville (Montreal, 1976) by permission of Jocelyn Bérubé. Published here as “The Bird Colour-of-Time.”
Quotes from Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem (Princeton University Press), copyright Princeton University Press, by permission of Princeton University Press.
Quotes from Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Later Masters (Schocken Books), by permission of Random House, Inc.
Quotes from Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger, by permission of Persea Books.
Adaptation of “The Feast” from Harold Courlander, The King’s Drum and Other African Stories, copyright 1962, 1990, by Harold Courlander, used by permission of The Emma Courlander Trust.
Quotes from Julie Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders (University of Nebraska), by permission of University of Nebraska.
Translation of “Le maitre de thé et le ronin” from Pascal Fauliot, Les contes des arts martiaux, (Paris: 1981), by permission of Pascal Fauliot. Published here as “The Master of the Tea Ceremony.”
Quotes from Alice Kane, The Dreamer Awakes (Broadview), ed. Sean Kane, introduction by Robert Bringhurst, by permission of Broadview Press.
Adaptation of “The Creation of the World” from Charlotte and Wolf Leslau, eds., African Myths and Folktales, by permission of Peter Pauper Press. Published here as “How Heart Came into the World.”
Quotes from Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Until Dawn, ed. John Shaw (McGill-Queen’s University Press), by permission of McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Quotes from Alexander Wolfe, Earth Elder Stories (Fifth House), by permission of Fitzhenry and Whiteside.
DAN YASHINSKY was born in Detroit and came to Canada after attending university in California. He is the editor of four collections of tales, including Tales for an Unknown City, which won the Toronto Book Award. Dan has been a working storyteller for almost thirty years. He founded the Toronto Festival of Storytelling in 1979, which continues to grow and delight audiences of all ages. He was also one of the founders of the Storytellers School of Toronto and began the 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling in 1978, a weekly institution in Toronto that continues to this day, in spite of having passed the 1,001st night long ago. He has listened to and told stories across Canada and around the world. In 1999, he hosted The Talking Stick, a national radio show on CBC. He was the recipient of the 1999 Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling and community.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2005
Copyright © 2004 Dan Yashinsky
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Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2004. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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Yashinsky, Dan, 1950–
Suddenly they heard footsteps : storytelling for the twenty-first century / Dan Yashinsky.
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