Storytellers were commissioned to explore what 'local' meant to them in their creative practice. The stories were told at Beyond the Border, Wales International Storytelling Festival and at storytelling events in Bristol.
After Martin Maudsley told his stories, he and Antonia Layard gathered responses from audience members about how they understood the local or whether they were local. These responses found 'the local' where we might have expected it but also, strikingly, an absence of local in other places.
Finding the Local: Our research using the storytelling interventions illustrated that to a very large extent you find what you look for, when you look in places you might expect it. In St Werburgh’s in Bristol, for example, a residential area with four pubs, a city farm, a community café with playground attached, eco-self build housing and shared open space, we found many expressions of ‘the local’. Responding to storytelling, including at a ‘Tasty Tales’ event where local food was matched with local stories in the iconic community café, residents expressed their understanding that there was a local ‘there’ and that they were often part of it.
Asked ‘what is local?’ participants said:
‘Next door. Nearby, in the vicinity. Neighbours. Local Shop. Friends round the corner’.
‘Food, energy, culture produced locally, controlled locally and shared’.
‘Are you local? Yes I have an allotment just up the hill’.
After a photographic intervention with a singing group rehearsing in a tunnel in St Werburgh's:
‘Local is where I live
Local is where I’ve raised my family
Local is where my allotment is
Local is where I get rested – refreshed
Local is where my best friends live’
And again, in Bridport in Dorset at the Arts Centre, we found a similar understandings: ‘Living locally is about getting to know people, overlapping circles, young and old and
Localism: for generations families would live in the same place, grow their own food and vegetables in the land and eat them, and in effect become one with the land.
This finding of the local, and such strong assertions of it, indicated that our initial hypothesis was misplaced. ‘The local’, it seems, is understood and lived, in an embodied sense. In Dorset, for example, two respondents mentioned cycling, as literally embodying ideas of the local: Knowing people whenever I’m in town. The community orchard. The Meeting House. Happy Island. Cycling everywhere, while another evocatively delimited the extent of the local: ‘The local is as far as I can cycle before breakfast’. Similarly food and allotments were prevalent in understandings of the local (echoed also in Michael Smith's writing, though not particularly in his film).
The local is behind you: For some participants, they recognise the local but it is behind them, they either cannot or do not go back. Michael Smith, for example, opened a piece of writing commissioned for the project with the line ‘I’m not local anymore, but I used to be, and I miss it’ (see the Writing tab on this website). Similarly, in Patchway, a suburb in North Bristol a very elderly woman, who had lived there for 45 years, still did not feel local. She was local in Devon, where she was born: ‘Once a Devonian, always a Devonian’. Land use decisions about that part of Bristol where she lived now were ‘up to the people of Filton, it’s their place’, although she might contribute to some consultations given that she was a council tax payer. In these cases there is perhaps no feeling, as well as at times, no place. This sense of the lost local also comes out very strongly in Michael Smith's film, Another England: Granada, under the tab Film (2) on this website.
Strikingly then, we found a shared idea of what ‘local’ is and that participants could identify with the idea of ‘the’ or ‘a’ local, even if they were not presently there or they did not feel part of the local that they could see when they visited some locations.
Two stories have been transcribed and can be read below.
After Martin Maudsley told his stories, he and Antonia Layard gathered responses from audience members about how they understood the local or whether they were local. These responses found 'the local' where we might have expected it but also, strikingly, an absence of local in other places.
Finding the Local: Our research using the storytelling interventions illustrated that to a very large extent you find what you look for, when you look in places you might expect it. In St Werburgh’s in Bristol, for example, a residential area with four pubs, a city farm, a community café with playground attached, eco-self build housing and shared open space, we found many expressions of ‘the local’. Responding to storytelling, including at a ‘Tasty Tales’ event where local food was matched with local stories in the iconic community café, residents expressed their understanding that there was a local ‘there’ and that they were often part of it.
Asked ‘what is local?’ participants said:
‘Next door. Nearby, in the vicinity. Neighbours. Local Shop. Friends round the corner’.
‘Food, energy, culture produced locally, controlled locally and shared’.
‘Are you local? Yes I have an allotment just up the hill’.
After a photographic intervention with a singing group rehearsing in a tunnel in St Werburgh's:
‘Local is where I live
Local is where I’ve raised my family
Local is where my allotment is
Local is where I get rested – refreshed
Local is where my best friends live’
And again, in Bridport in Dorset at the Arts Centre, we found a similar understandings: ‘Living locally is about getting to know people, overlapping circles, young and old and
Localism: for generations families would live in the same place, grow their own food and vegetables in the land and eat them, and in effect become one with the land.
This finding of the local, and such strong assertions of it, indicated that our initial hypothesis was misplaced. ‘The local’, it seems, is understood and lived, in an embodied sense. In Dorset, for example, two respondents mentioned cycling, as literally embodying ideas of the local: Knowing people whenever I’m in town. The community orchard. The Meeting House. Happy Island. Cycling everywhere, while another evocatively delimited the extent of the local: ‘The local is as far as I can cycle before breakfast’. Similarly food and allotments were prevalent in understandings of the local (echoed also in Michael Smith's writing, though not particularly in his film).
The local is behind you: For some participants, they recognise the local but it is behind them, they either cannot or do not go back. Michael Smith, for example, opened a piece of writing commissioned for the project with the line ‘I’m not local anymore, but I used to be, and I miss it’ (see the Writing tab on this website). Similarly, in Patchway, a suburb in North Bristol a very elderly woman, who had lived there for 45 years, still did not feel local. She was local in Devon, where she was born: ‘Once a Devonian, always a Devonian’. Land use decisions about that part of Bristol where she lived now were ‘up to the people of Filton, it’s their place’, although she might contribute to some consultations given that she was a council tax payer. In these cases there is perhaps no feeling, as well as at times, no place. This sense of the lost local also comes out very strongly in Michael Smith's film, Another England: Granada, under the tab Film (2) on this website.
Strikingly then, we found a shared idea of what ‘local’ is and that participants could identify with the idea of ‘the’ or ‘a’ local, even if they were not presently there or they did not feel part of the local that they could see when they visited some locations.
Two stories have been transcribed and can be read below.
(1) Martin Maudsley & Fiona Barrow: Whose Land and other stories.
Music [Fiona Barrow on Accordion]
About eighty years ago a man from Manchester …was walking up in the high Peak District of Derbyshire. He paused, he took off his grey canvas rucksack and he put it down and let his breath come in cool and clear. Much cleaner than the dirty old town where he lived and worked for six days a week. Then his eye drifted around admiring the view of those lofty peaks and then he saw something, just a black speck moving on the horizon, zig-zagging across that uneven terrain and it got closer and closer and bigger until he saw it was a man about the same age as him but dressed very differently with moleskin breeches and a tweed jacket and a deerstalker hat. He marched over to within two inches of the grey rucksack and with a pointing finger he said: “This is my land! Get off it!” He was met with a furrowed brow and a broad sweep of the arms: “How can you own all of this land?” “It was my father’s land,” he said. “Where did your father get it from?” “From his father before him.” “Where did he get it from?” “He fought for it, that’s what.” So the rambler rolled up his white cotton sleeves and said: “Well, I’ll fight you for it then.” The man in the tweed jacket declined the invitation for an honest game of fisticuffs. In fact the next day he ordered his small army of gamekeepers to patrol that land that he owned and aggressively, if necessary, to repel his borders. That incident along with many others in the 1930s culminated in a Ramblers Rally in the Peak District and then a mass trespass. Ah well, although many things changed after that incident, the law eventually was changed as regarding access to the land, five of those Manchester men were arrested and were sent to trial and with the magistrates of three local landowners they were sent to prison. And a funny thing, one of the men, in defending himself in the flagrant flouting of the law with regards to private property, he said this: “It don’t ought to be that one man could own the land, it should be that all men should belong to the land.” A fair point for us. But then he said something more enigmatic, he said: “Before us, there were other folk in this land and maybe we’ve forgotten them but they haven’t forgotten us.”
[Drum beat.]
Martin carries on telling the story over the drumbeat.
Before this land was our land, this land belonged to the Giants. The Isle of Albion it was flat and featureless without shape or form in those days but the Giants they were enthusiastic and industrious in their topographic transformations. They dug in the ground, they crushed rocks, they rolled boulders, they tunneled, they piled up the earth into peaks and ridges, they made mountains out of molehills. On the Scottish coast they gathered together one day for a boulder-throwing competition, hurling great big hunks of granite out into the sea, to see who could throw it the furthest and of course creating the Western Highlands. They built a bridge between Scotland and Ireland, a basalt bridge, and the foundations can still be seen on either side of the Irish Sea. In the North, Fingle carved out a cave for his home, in the South, Michael made a Mount. And in a place, not yet called Bristol, there were two Giants, two brothers, Vincent and Goran and they were caught in a love triangle. A Giant’s love triangle with a beautiful Giantess by the name of Evona. And while those two brothers were feuding away to try and get the attentions of Evona, after lots of fraternal violence, they decided the one who married Evona would be the one who could drain the water from her lands. And they built their ditches and their tunnels to take the water away but to cut a longer story short it was Vincent who won the hand in marriage and now Goran is furious, with a great stride across the land, with a fist big as a chair he went to hit his brother but he fell backwards into the sea, into the Bristol Channel where he still is today, his flat chest is called Flatholm, his big nose Seaholm Steepholm?. It’s true I came across the bridge today, I saw them both. The Giants are long gone now, some dead, but others sleeping. Their buried bodies form the bones of this land.
[Music]
This land wasn’t always ours, this land once belonged to the Fair Folk, to the shining ones, to the hidden ones. They always loved the wild places, the deep woods, the mountain moors, the fragrant lakes and the bubbling springs. They’re like the genii loci, the spirits of place, infusing their sensual magic and their atmospheric charms into the vibrancy of nature. When we first came along they were happy to live alongside us in the field and farm, by the garden gate, underneath the bridge, at the bottom of the well, even in the heart of our own home. Unseen, they did untold good, agricultural assistance, tweaked the buds to make the flowers open, they tickled the leaves so they uncurled, they helped the corn to ripen, they helped the milk to flow. And if ever a field had fairies dwelling upon it, well, that field was fertile and produced beyond any other. And the old folks back in those days, well they didn’t see the Fair Folk very often, perhaps just out of the corner of their eye, perhaps in a gleam of sunlight reflected in a stream but they knew they were there. They followed the fairy customs, they left offerings of thanks, just a slice of new baked bread, a little thimble of thick cream, a cup of freshly picked berries, a pot of harvest ale, a wee dram. But in time we forgot, or we got arrogant, or anyhow we just didn’t do it. And at first the Fair Folk well, they took offence, and after taking offence they took revenge and now it was that milk soured in the dairy, now it was that the fields were blighted, the corn wouldn’t ripen, the milk stopped flowing. But the Fair Folk they weren’t in for malicious, vicious actions for too long, soon they started to drift away, to go within, into the hidden places, the deepest parts of the woods, the tops of mountains, underneath logs, but they were still there. Just because we can’t see them doesn't mean to say they aren’t there.
This land of ours, it wasn’t always ours. It once belonged to the Devil and a merry old time he had of it too with the British Isles as his personal playground. Well he was late to get up was the lazy old Devil and he made his way down to Cornwall for a full English Breakfast in the Devil’s Frying Pan. And after that he liked to look the part, of course, so he went to the Devil’s Dressing Room in Staffordshire. After that he made his way down the Devil’s Road in Sussex until he came to the South Downs and there well, he wasn’t averse to a bit of physical action he was as strong as one of them Giants and there he was digging the Devil’s Dyke on the South Downs when he stubbed his toe on a stubborn rock. And he kicked it, out it came from the land out into the sea where it became the Isle of ……[looks to audience, who answer]…Wight. Well after all those exertions the Old Devil he needed something to resuscitate himself and down he went to the Devil’s Punchbowl in Surrey for a wee drink or two and perhaps up to the Devil’s Chimney in Cheltenham for a few puffs. And then off to Tintern there to the Devil’s Pulpit to preach his profane sermons. And after that to the Devil’s Hole on Dartmoor where he made a sleeping potion. And when he was tired, well there’s the Devil’s Den in Kent, but at night we all know that the Devil sleeps at the Devil’s Bed in Boscombe (??)…. Well eventually, you may be glad or you may not be glad to hear, the Devil died.
[Phew….Audience member]
Phew?! You are glad! [inaudible comment] saved by St Michael or perhaps Jack who was already honing his skills from slaying Giants. But the Devil being dead didn’t mean the Devil disappeared. He left his body parts scattered around the countryside. You will know that the Devil’s Nostrils are right up in Shetland. You’ll know that the Devil’s Throat is in Norfolk, the Devil’s Toenails scattered all up along the Severn Estuary. Well the Devil’s Arse is back down in Derbyshire, still known to emit foul flatulence. Don’t take my word for it. The Devil’s Penis is up in Sotland in the Cairngorms, changed after a visit by Queen Victoria to the Devil’s Point…(singing….We know what it really is…). Well, the Devil, as well as giving us quite graphic anatomical landscape features, he left us in the British Isles with his music. And we all know that the Devil’s got the best tunes.
[Music – violin - by Fiona Barrow]
Applause
That tune of course speaks of the Devil’s Interval – can you just show us what the Devil’s Interval is?
[Fiona plays]
And we thought we’d just take this point to say thank you for coming. When we imagined having a little tent at Beyond the Border it was just this number of people we had in our mind, mostly gathered round here and just a few at the back, friends and [inaudible]. So…er…thank you, welcome to this evening. Thank you to Beyond the Border for having us here…um… my name is Martin Maudesley and Fiona Barrow from Bristol. And we’ve just realized actually, just coming in here and talking and saying to our lovely compere our names was [sic] Barrow and Maudesley are both names given to mental asylums….[audience laughter]…an interesting connection we hadn't figured out before….[more audience laughter]…but we’ve been pondering, and meandering, and musing on a question, a question that we were slightly influenced by the popular TV quiz show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ So we framed it as ‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’ And in our meanderings around that question three stories have come to us, three stories that we’d like to share with you tonight, they’re quite short stories…don’t start panicking at this late hour…three stories, one is from West Wales…anybody here from West Wales…the ones that are, are looking around behind them, welcome and thank you. We’re from the West Country and so we have a story from the West Country and finally a story from the Far East, from Kazakhstan. And we were really sad because we were hoping that this tent would be thriving and thronging with Kasakh music from the Steppes for us. But sadly they can’t be with us here for this festival, hopefully the next one.
So let’s start where we are in Wales, with a tale from ….[big bang heard from outside]…always starts with a big bang…
Music [continues throughout the story]
There was once a woman who knew her place, she knew the ground beneath her feet, …the bare bones of the land, she knew the mountains above, the Black Mountains, puncturing the sky so they were almost holding up the clouds. She knew the forests and the trees around her, able to identify each type of tree just by the noise the wind makes in its leaves. But most of all she knew the river that tumbled and roared by her house, the White River it was called. She knew the river in the Wintertime with its frozen fringes of ice-restricted flow. She knew the river in the Spring, swollen with melt water, rushing and roaring, the air moist with mist. She knew the river in the Summer, in a gentler mood, where the deeper pools and the riffles reflected the blue sky above. The river provided the woman with everything she needed: it provided drinking water of course, a place to bathe, a place to wash her clothes, a place to catch fish, at the narrowest part of the river she’d strung across a little net for salmon and trout. And she gathered wild plants for both food and medicine. But most of all the river gave her companionship, with its constant motions, changing moods. She lived in a small wooden cabin beside that river far from the hustle and bustle of the village and there were some in the village who thought she was odd, there were some in the village who used the word witch. But there were some who beat a path to her door, and everyone who beat a path to that door she opened that door and she let them in and she sat unhurried and she listened. And after listening she gave them perhaps a herbal remedy to take away with them or perhaps some earthly wisdom. By living close to nature she saw deeply into human nature. So like the river, the years rolled by, each new season bringing new inspiration until one year came that brought new life. The woman was expecting a baby. No one knew who the father was; there was plenty of talk in the tavern and gossip at the gate. If anyone asked her she said the river was bringing her this baby. In Midsummer he was born, Midsummer’s Day and she called him Owen, well born, and if a child was ever well born it was Owen, surrounded by the constant love of his mother. And there with nature’s playground at his feet and fingertips and with the freedom to explore, to go out into the wild world to discover a self within. For Owen time stretched slowly changing emotions and new experiences everyday, but for his mother the time was like a flash of light, too soon it was gone. The little piggy (??? Can’t be this but can’t make out what!) boy in her arms now grown up with broad shoulders, had eyes that glinted with his own ideas and with his own ambitions. After twenty Summers and twenty Winters came a Spring where he sat down by the river with the dangling catkins of alder and willow and there he stayed a little longer sitting by the river bank, enjoying the tune that the river was playing, lost in his own thoughts. Febrile daydreams of feminine forms. Then he noticed a change in the tune of the river and when he looked up, there was a beautiful woman standing in the shallows of the river and he was mesmerized. He bent down and he stood up and he went to look but then she was gone – was it a dream? Was it a shifting shadow? But his heart told him that she was real. That heart was now doing catapults inside his chest. But she was gone, what should he do? He did what any young man would do, run home to see your mother. She was there as she always was, her eyes wrinkled with wisdom as she spoke to him and she said: “You have seen one of the Tulluth Teg, one of the Fair Folk and as much as my head would tell you to stay clear my heart knows that you wouldn't listen, so I give you this advice. Give a gift to the river, but not a trinket or treasure, give her something of yourself, something homemade.” Owen spent the morning thinking and in the afternoon the kitchen was filled with flying flour. He made a loaf of bread, a lovely loaf of bread, a barley wheat barley bread, and he took that barley bread loaf and down to the river he went. He placed it on a flat stone and sat down by the river and waited. But nothing happened. So he picked up the bread and put the loaf into the river itself, watched it tumble a few times and then off and down and away. Then there was a different tune in the river, then a little light laughter and then the sound of a female voice: “Half baked is your bread, Owen, and not for the likes of me.” Well Owen was disappointed but not despondent, he’d put a lot of love into that loaf. The next thing he knew what to do, he went into the forest, he went to an old sycamore tree and he cut a switch and there for the rest of the day he spent carving that little piece of wood into the shape of a spoon. Intricately carved it was in the bowl of the spoon in the shape of a heart. He took that love spoon down to the river he went and with a hope and a wish he threw it into the water and immediately the river changed its tune. There was a little light laughter and then came a female voice: “Well made is your spoon, Owen, but harder to catch am I than that.” Now Owen was crestfallen, he wasn’t sure what to do, a sleepless night followed an early morning, and there he was walking the banks of the river up and down, and as he walked he found he started to talk, and as he talked he found that his heart began to speak through his mouth, began to tell a story, he began to tell his own story of living by the river. He told of his own first memory of being bathed by his mother in that soft cool water. He told of his experiences as a toddler, picking up stones and making dams and seeing the little water creatures duck and dive around in the water. He told of long lazy Summers days fishing and that first experience of catching his first salmon. He told of the day when he dived into one of the deeper pools and he caught his head on a rock and he lost consciousness but he woke to find himself lying on the bank as if placed there by invisible hands. He told of meeting someone by the river, he told of a love for a woman he didn't yet know. As he looked up she was there. She was smiling at him. She took his hand went towards him and as she did then the river began to roar and roll, it began to boil and bubble and there out of the water came another shape, out of the water came her father the River God, with boulders for bones, muscles of mud, sinews of silt, green dripping hair of river weed, his fingers and toes were the twisted roots of willow and alder and his eyes flashed angrily as two little fishes. “This is my daughter,” said the River God, “and she’s one of the Talluth Teg and she’s not for the likes of you, not for the taking of a mortal man.” And then with a great watery arm around his daughter he pulled them both down into the depths and was gone. Now Owen is heartbroken, his dreams are shattered. He ran back home to see his mother once more and she saw from her eyes through his eyes into his heart. She knew there was nothing to be said but she held him for a while just like she’d done since he was a baby. The next day she came to him and said: “I want to give you a gift, a musical instrument, a harp that I myself made before you were born from a branch that was blown down in a storm from a willow by the river. Take this harp and play it. Maybe it will give voice to how you feel.” That’s what he did, he went down to the point in the river where he’s met the maiden and he played. He played the harp as if plucking his own heart strings, his mind filled with images of wood and water and woman. And he began to sing to the river…
[sings] River roll, water flow, swelling waters tumbling slow. Always finding your way through, rushing down to the sea….
As he played the notes on the harp they hovered in the air above and then like pebbles they fell down through the surface of the river, down to the riverbed, to where the River God was lying and he heard them. He heard that music and he was moved. And the water stirred and tumbled. And there out of the water came the River God and by his side the River Maiden. “Your music is unlike any other mortal’s that I have heard. And I will give you now if she is willing, my daughter, to be married but I also give you a warning. You must never strike her, with anything made of metal.” Owen was shocked, he would never dream of hitting a woman, never hit the person he loved and certainly not with metal but he promised not to do so. And the woman stepped out of the water and the River God returned to the riverbed. There by the banks they made love that was wild wonderful and watery. So they lived together they married not long later, they sparked in each other such inspiration, they created for each other such contentment, they cheered for them and soon they had a new life of their own and a new baby boy was born. And the following year another baby boy, a brother was born. And like the river, the years rolled by. They moved downstream away from his mother to a little mill house and there they made a living by dyeing fabric and woollen garments to take to the villages and nearby towns. And then one year came by in the Autumn time. It was a wild and windy day but Owen he had to ride out to a nearby town to deliver some cloth. So he went into the stable to get the horse. And as he came out the weather spooked him and it reared up in the air and neighed loudly Owen’s wife came out of the house to see what the commotion was and it was then that Owen reached out to grab the bridle and the bit from the horse came loose in his hand and released suddenly an arc came forward, and he caught the temple of his wife and she screamed, but not with pain, with dismay. She turned to look at him one last look with tear-filled eyes and then she turned and before he could do anything about it she ran away, far from his house down to the riverbank. Owen spent the rest of that day wandering the rest of that bank and the rest of the night. For the days after he became a hollow man, a wraith, a shadow, with empty eyes. He knew he could not find her. His children they went to live with his mother. Then one day he went down to the river to the spot where he’d first met the River Maiden. He called out to the River God: “If you will not give back my wife to me, then take me to her.” There was a rolling and a stirring of the water and out came the River God with boulders for bones, muscles of mud, sinews of silt, toes and fingers of twisted roots and eyes not flashing with anger but swimming with pity. The River God reached down with his hand to the tip of his head and for a moment Owen he turned translucent then shimmered as his body lost its form and poured down to the ground as water. The water ran trickled over the land where he once had stood on the river banks into the water mingling and mixing with the quiet river rolling and flowing down to the sea. Owen was finally reunited with his bride…
[sings] Oh river, swirling, tumbling waters, always finding your own way through, washing……[inaudible] down to the sea…….
[Applause]
We’re going to change tone and we’re going to change tune because the music’s (in another nearby tent] going to get louder than I anticipated…so we’ll have some music of our own and we’ve got a song to match the story we have from the West Country. And it’s a cider song. And it’s a thing that can be joined in with if you fancy. It’s a song that fits in really well with the first quarter of the story but if we prelude it now you’ll get to lie down with a bottle of beer or you can imagine it’s cider….then you can get the drift of it. We’ll teach it to you, we’ll sing it through a couple of times but them you can join in with it all together when it’s the right moment. How about that? Right let’s get the right key…
[Music begins; they sing:]
Sunshine goes into the apples
Flowers they love the bees
I find my heart beat a-skipping
When apples fall down from the trees
(don’t pick them till they’re ready)
I like to drink rough cider – oo arrr
Till I fall down on my knees
Because if sunshine goes into them apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Do you want the words? Repeats words…when I say drink rough cider you say oo-arr. Let’s try it.
Audience join in with the song.
Jack and Jill went up the hill and bought a piece of Gloucestershire, four or five acres of fertile farmland all around the sides of a hill, that on the ordnance survey says Fair Hill. But that all the old folk still called the Hill of the Fairies. Well they bought that land to grow trees, apple trees to make juice to turn into cider and to turn a tidy profit for themselves. They planted the latest varieties of cider apple trees – Kingston Black, Red Streak, Gloucestershire Gold. And in that warm and wet West Country weather the trees survived and thrived. In a few years the orchard was filled with the perfume and the sound of the bees going about their pollinatory beesness. Two years later when those trees were strong and straight and with apples aplenty, and so they picked the apples themselves but soon they had to go and buy an apple press, a gurt big apple press and then a gurt big barn as well, to store the apples but also to store the wooden barrels, the cider. It was good stuff. Jack and Jill’s Loopy Juice, they called it and they sent it out of the villages down through Gloucester as far as Bristol and people liked it, soon supply was outstripping demand (sic) and so they needed help, they hired agricultural workers to come and help pick the apples and make the cider. Villagers who were steeped in the traditions of apple picking and cider making and if we’d have been there in the Autumn, perhaps on an October’s night, a mild night, we’d had a few ciders ourselves some of us and were laying down on our back, some of us still alert, some of us telling stories, some of us listening and all of us singing songs about them apples, here we go…[sings]…
Sunshine goes into the apples
Flowers they love the bees
I find my heart beat a-skipping
When apples fall down from the trees
(Don’t pick them till they’re ready)
I like to drink rough cider – oo arrr
Till I fall down on my knees
Because if sunshine goes into the apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Repeat the last line…
Because if sunshine goes into the apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Well the apple trees were burgeoning, the land was lush, the cider was flowing out and the profits were pouring in, business was booming for Jack and Jill. But, sad to say, that for some people, sometimes, need can turn to greed. By having plenty can make some people want to keep more of it for themselves. Success can turn to selfishness and so it was with Jack and Jill. Even though their profits were piling high, they paid their workers an absolute pittance, way below the minimum agricultural wage and soon things were so bad they couldn’t even afford to buy a pint of their own juice in the local pub. Hard times in old England, in old England it was very hard times. Well then they started to think that all this money that somehow we can make more, somehow we can force the land to produce more. They began to think about intensification. They went and bought chemicals, the latest in herbicide and pesticide and fertilizer as well. If there were a few more apples on the trees there was a lot less of everything else. Fewer flowers in the meadows, fewer birds in the branches, fewer bees between the trees. Then they got mechanized methods of getting the apples off the trees. They could sack half the workers straight away and they made sure with those mechanized methods that every single apple was taken from the trees. They ignored the old traditions of leaving two apples on every apple tree in the orchard, one for the birds, the other for the Fairies. Soon they had pushed the land as hard as they could, pushed their workers as hard as they could, they drained the profits from land and now after intensification they began to think about extensification: they started to think about planting more trees, up and around the Hill of the Fairies, on land that was common land, common grazing land. At first people didn’t mind to see trees being planted, especially apple trees, it’s the West Country. But after the trees came fences, barbed wire, and signs – Private Property Keep Out - Jack and Jill. And one day Jack he was wandering over the top of the Hill of the Fairies looking for some more land. He went to the far side of the hill, down towards the village, he’d never been there before, and there on the lower slopes there was a fruit tree, not an apple tree but a pear tree. He went down to the pear tree and picked one and bit through the thin skin into the delicious white flesh, the juice drizzled and did a little dance in the middle of his taste buds [inaudible] such a fine pear. Then as he was enjoying that pear he noticed there was a little tent, just at the bottom of the slope, just a little way from the tree and out of the tent came an old man with hair as white as birch bark but his body was well toned and well tanned. He had a tight white t-shirt with the words “Occupy” written across them [audience laughter]. He came over to the tree, the pear tree, he came over to Jack and he said: “Plenty of fruit for everyone, Jack. If we only take our fair pear share.” Jack wasn’t interested in this. “I’ll tell you what, we should be grateful for this pear tree, because this pear didn’t always used to grow here. This pear tree once grew in Somerset. It grew on a farm. There was a farmer, and he loved the pear tree and he loved the pears but he didn’t like the rooks who used to shit in his tree. And he took a gun and he used to fire at the rooks and the birds in the top of the tree. But they saw him coming out with the gun and they flew away way before he could shoot at them. But then he had an idea. He painted the branches with horse glue. Next time the rooks came to land they clenched on and they were stuck. Now he goes in and gets his gun and now he points it at the tree and BANG! But it still wasn’t much of a good shot because it goes up over the top of the tree. But the birds they lift up their wings in shock and they start to flap at the sound of the gun. …….[makes noise of flapping wings and tree being uprooted]….[audience laughter]…the sound you are familiar with, the sound of a tree being uprooted…by birds…and there he looks up in the air and the whole tree is flying, flying across the land. And from Somerset, across the city and county of Bristol, and there it comes into Gloucestershire, and in Gloucestershire, as it often does, it started to rain. As it rained the glue was loosened, down came the tree into the very moist muddy ground [squelching sound] it landed down there and there it is growing and that’s why it’s growing here right in front of us so we should be grateful. ”
Psshhhhawwpfui [noise to indicate that Jack thinks the story is rubbish] do you think he was going to believe a story like that? Jack started to gather more pears, more armfuls of pears, put them in his pockets, carried them in his arms and he started to think about perry production as well as cider production. Back he went over the hill. That night when Jack and Jill were in their counting house, counting out their money there was a knock at the door. He opened the door and there was an old man with his hat tilted down upon his head. You could just see two little green glinting eyes.
“Business seems to be doing well, “ says the old fella.
“What business is of yours is my business?” says Jack
“I’m just here to buy a barrel of cider.”
“Well that’s different,” says Jack.
“What d’you want? Big barrel, little barrel.”
“Oh a little barrel I reckon, a little barrell’ll do, but I want you to do me a favour. I want you to take that little barrel and I want you to take it up to the old hill, the one they call the Hill of the Fairies, you know the one I mean, take it up to the hill and pour the cider into the ground, to say thanks for all the blessings the land has been giving us.”
“What!?” says Jack, “waste my cider pouring it into the ground …?”
But then the old man opened a hand. It was a clean gold sovereign. Jack took it “That’ll do nicely, I’ll do what you say tomorrow,” he shut the door and off he went. The next day came and he was busy, ordering people around, counting money, forcing the land to grow more. It wasn’t till the end of the afternoon when he remembered about the barrel. He told his wife Jill and Jill said: “Hey, hang on a minute, hang on a minute, what d’you mean about taking cider up to the top of the hill? Why not take an old barrel over there and go to the stream and fill it up with water and take the water up to the hill and pour it into the ground and then we can see what we’re doing and they won’t know and we can sell the cider again and make double the profits.” Jack looked at Jill. ‘That’s why I married you,” he said. And that’s what they did, they took a barrel, took it down to the river, they filled it up with water and rolled it up to the top of the hill and poured it down into the ground…glug glug glug… That night they came back and as they prepared to go to bed the weather turned wild. They could hear the rain, they could hear the wind whistling around the eaves of the house…
[music begins]
wild [inaudible] a storm was raging outside. Soon they could hear the sounds of the branches of their precious apple trees breaking, they could hear the sounds of the wooden barns slowly splintering, hear them being torn apart. They lay in their beds cold, shivering, afraid of what devastation was going on outside. It got worse and worse they didn’t sleep a wink until the morning. The storm had blown out, they came outside their house to see the destruction. Trees uprooted and sent out at all angle branches broke, apples flung to all the corners of the fields. What could they do? Well Jack he decided he was going to go up to the trees and trim off those broken branches to stop any infection. He goes up to the tree and climbs up into the branches, he’s got his billhook. As he starts to prune those branches, he trips, his muddy feet slipping on a branch and that billhook bites into the deep fleshy part between thumb and finger and the blood starts to pour. He yells out and manages to get himself down. And Jill comes over she takes some moss from the base of the tree and presses it in to try and stem the flow but it’s still trickling down his hand and onto the floor. “We’ve got to take you to the doctor in the village on the other side of the hill,” and so she holds his arm, the other arm and takes him out of the house and through the orchard to the hill. But just before they reach the peak of the hill she’s so busy watching and holding him, she trips herself and she falls down, there’s a jagged rock and it cuts into her leg and the blood starts to pour from her too. They didn’t make it that much further until they sat down on the top of the hill to catch their breath. Now the wounds are open and pouring, the blood trickling down onto the ground, eventually they lie down, eventually they close their eyes as the blood pumps from their bodies. Eight pints of blood each, sixteen pints altogether, the same volume as a small barrel of cider.
[Music]
Jack and Jill went up the hill to empty the barrel of water
Jack fell down, his blood on the ground
And Jill’s came trickling after..
[Applause]
Don't mess with the Fairies….and we’re going to finish…thank you very much for coming……we’re going to finish with a story from Kazakhstan…
Music [Fiona Barrow on Accordion]
About eighty years ago a man from Manchester …was walking up in the high Peak District of Derbyshire. He paused, he took off his grey canvas rucksack and he put it down and let his breath come in cool and clear. Much cleaner than the dirty old town where he lived and worked for six days a week. Then his eye drifted around admiring the view of those lofty peaks and then he saw something, just a black speck moving on the horizon, zig-zagging across that uneven terrain and it got closer and closer and bigger until he saw it was a man about the same age as him but dressed very differently with moleskin breeches and a tweed jacket and a deerstalker hat. He marched over to within two inches of the grey rucksack and with a pointing finger he said: “This is my land! Get off it!” He was met with a furrowed brow and a broad sweep of the arms: “How can you own all of this land?” “It was my father’s land,” he said. “Where did your father get it from?” “From his father before him.” “Where did he get it from?” “He fought for it, that’s what.” So the rambler rolled up his white cotton sleeves and said: “Well, I’ll fight you for it then.” The man in the tweed jacket declined the invitation for an honest game of fisticuffs. In fact the next day he ordered his small army of gamekeepers to patrol that land that he owned and aggressively, if necessary, to repel his borders. That incident along with many others in the 1930s culminated in a Ramblers Rally in the Peak District and then a mass trespass. Ah well, although many things changed after that incident, the law eventually was changed as regarding access to the land, five of those Manchester men were arrested and were sent to trial and with the magistrates of three local landowners they were sent to prison. And a funny thing, one of the men, in defending himself in the flagrant flouting of the law with regards to private property, he said this: “It don’t ought to be that one man could own the land, it should be that all men should belong to the land.” A fair point for us. But then he said something more enigmatic, he said: “Before us, there were other folk in this land and maybe we’ve forgotten them but they haven’t forgotten us.”
[Drum beat.]
Martin carries on telling the story over the drumbeat.
Before this land was our land, this land belonged to the Giants. The Isle of Albion it was flat and featureless without shape or form in those days but the Giants they were enthusiastic and industrious in their topographic transformations. They dug in the ground, they crushed rocks, they rolled boulders, they tunneled, they piled up the earth into peaks and ridges, they made mountains out of molehills. On the Scottish coast they gathered together one day for a boulder-throwing competition, hurling great big hunks of granite out into the sea, to see who could throw it the furthest and of course creating the Western Highlands. They built a bridge between Scotland and Ireland, a basalt bridge, and the foundations can still be seen on either side of the Irish Sea. In the North, Fingle carved out a cave for his home, in the South, Michael made a Mount. And in a place, not yet called Bristol, there were two Giants, two brothers, Vincent and Goran and they were caught in a love triangle. A Giant’s love triangle with a beautiful Giantess by the name of Evona. And while those two brothers were feuding away to try and get the attentions of Evona, after lots of fraternal violence, they decided the one who married Evona would be the one who could drain the water from her lands. And they built their ditches and their tunnels to take the water away but to cut a longer story short it was Vincent who won the hand in marriage and now Goran is furious, with a great stride across the land, with a fist big as a chair he went to hit his brother but he fell backwards into the sea, into the Bristol Channel where he still is today, his flat chest is called Flatholm, his big nose Seaholm Steepholm?. It’s true I came across the bridge today, I saw them both. The Giants are long gone now, some dead, but others sleeping. Their buried bodies form the bones of this land.
[Music]
This land wasn’t always ours, this land once belonged to the Fair Folk, to the shining ones, to the hidden ones. They always loved the wild places, the deep woods, the mountain moors, the fragrant lakes and the bubbling springs. They’re like the genii loci, the spirits of place, infusing their sensual magic and their atmospheric charms into the vibrancy of nature. When we first came along they were happy to live alongside us in the field and farm, by the garden gate, underneath the bridge, at the bottom of the well, even in the heart of our own home. Unseen, they did untold good, agricultural assistance, tweaked the buds to make the flowers open, they tickled the leaves so they uncurled, they helped the corn to ripen, they helped the milk to flow. And if ever a field had fairies dwelling upon it, well, that field was fertile and produced beyond any other. And the old folks back in those days, well they didn’t see the Fair Folk very often, perhaps just out of the corner of their eye, perhaps in a gleam of sunlight reflected in a stream but they knew they were there. They followed the fairy customs, they left offerings of thanks, just a slice of new baked bread, a little thimble of thick cream, a cup of freshly picked berries, a pot of harvest ale, a wee dram. But in time we forgot, or we got arrogant, or anyhow we just didn’t do it. And at first the Fair Folk well, they took offence, and after taking offence they took revenge and now it was that milk soured in the dairy, now it was that the fields were blighted, the corn wouldn’t ripen, the milk stopped flowing. But the Fair Folk they weren’t in for malicious, vicious actions for too long, soon they started to drift away, to go within, into the hidden places, the deepest parts of the woods, the tops of mountains, underneath logs, but they were still there. Just because we can’t see them doesn't mean to say they aren’t there.
This land of ours, it wasn’t always ours. It once belonged to the Devil and a merry old time he had of it too with the British Isles as his personal playground. Well he was late to get up was the lazy old Devil and he made his way down to Cornwall for a full English Breakfast in the Devil’s Frying Pan. And after that he liked to look the part, of course, so he went to the Devil’s Dressing Room in Staffordshire. After that he made his way down the Devil’s Road in Sussex until he came to the South Downs and there well, he wasn’t averse to a bit of physical action he was as strong as one of them Giants and there he was digging the Devil’s Dyke on the South Downs when he stubbed his toe on a stubborn rock. And he kicked it, out it came from the land out into the sea where it became the Isle of ……[looks to audience, who answer]…Wight. Well after all those exertions the Old Devil he needed something to resuscitate himself and down he went to the Devil’s Punchbowl in Surrey for a wee drink or two and perhaps up to the Devil’s Chimney in Cheltenham for a few puffs. And then off to Tintern there to the Devil’s Pulpit to preach his profane sermons. And after that to the Devil’s Hole on Dartmoor where he made a sleeping potion. And when he was tired, well there’s the Devil’s Den in Kent, but at night we all know that the Devil sleeps at the Devil’s Bed in Boscombe (??)…. Well eventually, you may be glad or you may not be glad to hear, the Devil died.
[Phew….Audience member]
Phew?! You are glad! [inaudible comment] saved by St Michael or perhaps Jack who was already honing his skills from slaying Giants. But the Devil being dead didn’t mean the Devil disappeared. He left his body parts scattered around the countryside. You will know that the Devil’s Nostrils are right up in Shetland. You’ll know that the Devil’s Throat is in Norfolk, the Devil’s Toenails scattered all up along the Severn Estuary. Well the Devil’s Arse is back down in Derbyshire, still known to emit foul flatulence. Don’t take my word for it. The Devil’s Penis is up in Sotland in the Cairngorms, changed after a visit by Queen Victoria to the Devil’s Point…(singing….We know what it really is…). Well, the Devil, as well as giving us quite graphic anatomical landscape features, he left us in the British Isles with his music. And we all know that the Devil’s got the best tunes.
[Music – violin - by Fiona Barrow]
Applause
That tune of course speaks of the Devil’s Interval – can you just show us what the Devil’s Interval is?
[Fiona plays]
And we thought we’d just take this point to say thank you for coming. When we imagined having a little tent at Beyond the Border it was just this number of people we had in our mind, mostly gathered round here and just a few at the back, friends and [inaudible]. So…er…thank you, welcome to this evening. Thank you to Beyond the Border for having us here…um… my name is Martin Maudesley and Fiona Barrow from Bristol. And we’ve just realized actually, just coming in here and talking and saying to our lovely compere our names was [sic] Barrow and Maudesley are both names given to mental asylums….[audience laughter]…an interesting connection we hadn't figured out before….[more audience laughter]…but we’ve been pondering, and meandering, and musing on a question, a question that we were slightly influenced by the popular TV quiz show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ So we framed it as ‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’ And in our meanderings around that question three stories have come to us, three stories that we’d like to share with you tonight, they’re quite short stories…don’t start panicking at this late hour…three stories, one is from West Wales…anybody here from West Wales…the ones that are, are looking around behind them, welcome and thank you. We’re from the West Country and so we have a story from the West Country and finally a story from the Far East, from Kazakhstan. And we were really sad because we were hoping that this tent would be thriving and thronging with Kasakh music from the Steppes for us. But sadly they can’t be with us here for this festival, hopefully the next one.
So let’s start where we are in Wales, with a tale from ….[big bang heard from outside]…always starts with a big bang…
Music [continues throughout the story]
There was once a woman who knew her place, she knew the ground beneath her feet, …the bare bones of the land, she knew the mountains above, the Black Mountains, puncturing the sky so they were almost holding up the clouds. She knew the forests and the trees around her, able to identify each type of tree just by the noise the wind makes in its leaves. But most of all she knew the river that tumbled and roared by her house, the White River it was called. She knew the river in the Wintertime with its frozen fringes of ice-restricted flow. She knew the river in the Spring, swollen with melt water, rushing and roaring, the air moist with mist. She knew the river in the Summer, in a gentler mood, where the deeper pools and the riffles reflected the blue sky above. The river provided the woman with everything she needed: it provided drinking water of course, a place to bathe, a place to wash her clothes, a place to catch fish, at the narrowest part of the river she’d strung across a little net for salmon and trout. And she gathered wild plants for both food and medicine. But most of all the river gave her companionship, with its constant motions, changing moods. She lived in a small wooden cabin beside that river far from the hustle and bustle of the village and there were some in the village who thought she was odd, there were some in the village who used the word witch. But there were some who beat a path to her door, and everyone who beat a path to that door she opened that door and she let them in and she sat unhurried and she listened. And after listening she gave them perhaps a herbal remedy to take away with them or perhaps some earthly wisdom. By living close to nature she saw deeply into human nature. So like the river, the years rolled by, each new season bringing new inspiration until one year came that brought new life. The woman was expecting a baby. No one knew who the father was; there was plenty of talk in the tavern and gossip at the gate. If anyone asked her she said the river was bringing her this baby. In Midsummer he was born, Midsummer’s Day and she called him Owen, well born, and if a child was ever well born it was Owen, surrounded by the constant love of his mother. And there with nature’s playground at his feet and fingertips and with the freedom to explore, to go out into the wild world to discover a self within. For Owen time stretched slowly changing emotions and new experiences everyday, but for his mother the time was like a flash of light, too soon it was gone. The little piggy (??? Can’t be this but can’t make out what!) boy in her arms now grown up with broad shoulders, had eyes that glinted with his own ideas and with his own ambitions. After twenty Summers and twenty Winters came a Spring where he sat down by the river with the dangling catkins of alder and willow and there he stayed a little longer sitting by the river bank, enjoying the tune that the river was playing, lost in his own thoughts. Febrile daydreams of feminine forms. Then he noticed a change in the tune of the river and when he looked up, there was a beautiful woman standing in the shallows of the river and he was mesmerized. He bent down and he stood up and he went to look but then she was gone – was it a dream? Was it a shifting shadow? But his heart told him that she was real. That heart was now doing catapults inside his chest. But she was gone, what should he do? He did what any young man would do, run home to see your mother. She was there as she always was, her eyes wrinkled with wisdom as she spoke to him and she said: “You have seen one of the Tulluth Teg, one of the Fair Folk and as much as my head would tell you to stay clear my heart knows that you wouldn't listen, so I give you this advice. Give a gift to the river, but not a trinket or treasure, give her something of yourself, something homemade.” Owen spent the morning thinking and in the afternoon the kitchen was filled with flying flour. He made a loaf of bread, a lovely loaf of bread, a barley wheat barley bread, and he took that barley bread loaf and down to the river he went. He placed it on a flat stone and sat down by the river and waited. But nothing happened. So he picked up the bread and put the loaf into the river itself, watched it tumble a few times and then off and down and away. Then there was a different tune in the river, then a little light laughter and then the sound of a female voice: “Half baked is your bread, Owen, and not for the likes of me.” Well Owen was disappointed but not despondent, he’d put a lot of love into that loaf. The next thing he knew what to do, he went into the forest, he went to an old sycamore tree and he cut a switch and there for the rest of the day he spent carving that little piece of wood into the shape of a spoon. Intricately carved it was in the bowl of the spoon in the shape of a heart. He took that love spoon down to the river he went and with a hope and a wish he threw it into the water and immediately the river changed its tune. There was a little light laughter and then came a female voice: “Well made is your spoon, Owen, but harder to catch am I than that.” Now Owen was crestfallen, he wasn’t sure what to do, a sleepless night followed an early morning, and there he was walking the banks of the river up and down, and as he walked he found he started to talk, and as he talked he found that his heart began to speak through his mouth, began to tell a story, he began to tell his own story of living by the river. He told of his own first memory of being bathed by his mother in that soft cool water. He told of his experiences as a toddler, picking up stones and making dams and seeing the little water creatures duck and dive around in the water. He told of long lazy Summers days fishing and that first experience of catching his first salmon. He told of the day when he dived into one of the deeper pools and he caught his head on a rock and he lost consciousness but he woke to find himself lying on the bank as if placed there by invisible hands. He told of meeting someone by the river, he told of a love for a woman he didn't yet know. As he looked up she was there. She was smiling at him. She took his hand went towards him and as she did then the river began to roar and roll, it began to boil and bubble and there out of the water came another shape, out of the water came her father the River God, with boulders for bones, muscles of mud, sinews of silt, green dripping hair of river weed, his fingers and toes were the twisted roots of willow and alder and his eyes flashed angrily as two little fishes. “This is my daughter,” said the River God, “and she’s one of the Talluth Teg and she’s not for the likes of you, not for the taking of a mortal man.” And then with a great watery arm around his daughter he pulled them both down into the depths and was gone. Now Owen is heartbroken, his dreams are shattered. He ran back home to see his mother once more and she saw from her eyes through his eyes into his heart. She knew there was nothing to be said but she held him for a while just like she’d done since he was a baby. The next day she came to him and said: “I want to give you a gift, a musical instrument, a harp that I myself made before you were born from a branch that was blown down in a storm from a willow by the river. Take this harp and play it. Maybe it will give voice to how you feel.” That’s what he did, he went down to the point in the river where he’s met the maiden and he played. He played the harp as if plucking his own heart strings, his mind filled with images of wood and water and woman. And he began to sing to the river…
[sings] River roll, water flow, swelling waters tumbling slow. Always finding your way through, rushing down to the sea….
As he played the notes on the harp they hovered in the air above and then like pebbles they fell down through the surface of the river, down to the riverbed, to where the River God was lying and he heard them. He heard that music and he was moved. And the water stirred and tumbled. And there out of the water came the River God and by his side the River Maiden. “Your music is unlike any other mortal’s that I have heard. And I will give you now if she is willing, my daughter, to be married but I also give you a warning. You must never strike her, with anything made of metal.” Owen was shocked, he would never dream of hitting a woman, never hit the person he loved and certainly not with metal but he promised not to do so. And the woman stepped out of the water and the River God returned to the riverbed. There by the banks they made love that was wild wonderful and watery. So they lived together they married not long later, they sparked in each other such inspiration, they created for each other such contentment, they cheered for them and soon they had a new life of their own and a new baby boy was born. And the following year another baby boy, a brother was born. And like the river, the years rolled by. They moved downstream away from his mother to a little mill house and there they made a living by dyeing fabric and woollen garments to take to the villages and nearby towns. And then one year came by in the Autumn time. It was a wild and windy day but Owen he had to ride out to a nearby town to deliver some cloth. So he went into the stable to get the horse. And as he came out the weather spooked him and it reared up in the air and neighed loudly Owen’s wife came out of the house to see what the commotion was and it was then that Owen reached out to grab the bridle and the bit from the horse came loose in his hand and released suddenly an arc came forward, and he caught the temple of his wife and she screamed, but not with pain, with dismay. She turned to look at him one last look with tear-filled eyes and then she turned and before he could do anything about it she ran away, far from his house down to the riverbank. Owen spent the rest of that day wandering the rest of that bank and the rest of the night. For the days after he became a hollow man, a wraith, a shadow, with empty eyes. He knew he could not find her. His children they went to live with his mother. Then one day he went down to the river to the spot where he’d first met the River Maiden. He called out to the River God: “If you will not give back my wife to me, then take me to her.” There was a rolling and a stirring of the water and out came the River God with boulders for bones, muscles of mud, sinews of silt, toes and fingers of twisted roots and eyes not flashing with anger but swimming with pity. The River God reached down with his hand to the tip of his head and for a moment Owen he turned translucent then shimmered as his body lost its form and poured down to the ground as water. The water ran trickled over the land where he once had stood on the river banks into the water mingling and mixing with the quiet river rolling and flowing down to the sea. Owen was finally reunited with his bride…
[sings] Oh river, swirling, tumbling waters, always finding your own way through, washing……[inaudible] down to the sea…….
[Applause]
We’re going to change tone and we’re going to change tune because the music’s (in another nearby tent] going to get louder than I anticipated…so we’ll have some music of our own and we’ve got a song to match the story we have from the West Country. And it’s a cider song. And it’s a thing that can be joined in with if you fancy. It’s a song that fits in really well with the first quarter of the story but if we prelude it now you’ll get to lie down with a bottle of beer or you can imagine it’s cider….then you can get the drift of it. We’ll teach it to you, we’ll sing it through a couple of times but them you can join in with it all together when it’s the right moment. How about that? Right let’s get the right key…
[Music begins; they sing:]
Sunshine goes into the apples
Flowers they love the bees
I find my heart beat a-skipping
When apples fall down from the trees
(don’t pick them till they’re ready)
I like to drink rough cider – oo arrr
Till I fall down on my knees
Because if sunshine goes into them apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Do you want the words? Repeats words…when I say drink rough cider you say oo-arr. Let’s try it.
Audience join in with the song.
Jack and Jill went up the hill and bought a piece of Gloucestershire, four or five acres of fertile farmland all around the sides of a hill, that on the ordnance survey says Fair Hill. But that all the old folk still called the Hill of the Fairies. Well they bought that land to grow trees, apple trees to make juice to turn into cider and to turn a tidy profit for themselves. They planted the latest varieties of cider apple trees – Kingston Black, Red Streak, Gloucestershire Gold. And in that warm and wet West Country weather the trees survived and thrived. In a few years the orchard was filled with the perfume and the sound of the bees going about their pollinatory beesness. Two years later when those trees were strong and straight and with apples aplenty, and so they picked the apples themselves but soon they had to go and buy an apple press, a gurt big apple press and then a gurt big barn as well, to store the apples but also to store the wooden barrels, the cider. It was good stuff. Jack and Jill’s Loopy Juice, they called it and they sent it out of the villages down through Gloucester as far as Bristol and people liked it, soon supply was outstripping demand (sic) and so they needed help, they hired agricultural workers to come and help pick the apples and make the cider. Villagers who were steeped in the traditions of apple picking and cider making and if we’d have been there in the Autumn, perhaps on an October’s night, a mild night, we’d had a few ciders ourselves some of us and were laying down on our back, some of us still alert, some of us telling stories, some of us listening and all of us singing songs about them apples, here we go…[sings]…
Sunshine goes into the apples
Flowers they love the bees
I find my heart beat a-skipping
When apples fall down from the trees
(Don’t pick them till they’re ready)
I like to drink rough cider – oo arrr
Till I fall down on my knees
Because if sunshine goes into the apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Repeat the last line…
Because if sunshine goes into the apples
Then sunshine goes into me.
Well the apple trees were burgeoning, the land was lush, the cider was flowing out and the profits were pouring in, business was booming for Jack and Jill. But, sad to say, that for some people, sometimes, need can turn to greed. By having plenty can make some people want to keep more of it for themselves. Success can turn to selfishness and so it was with Jack and Jill. Even though their profits were piling high, they paid their workers an absolute pittance, way below the minimum agricultural wage and soon things were so bad they couldn’t even afford to buy a pint of their own juice in the local pub. Hard times in old England, in old England it was very hard times. Well then they started to think that all this money that somehow we can make more, somehow we can force the land to produce more. They began to think about intensification. They went and bought chemicals, the latest in herbicide and pesticide and fertilizer as well. If there were a few more apples on the trees there was a lot less of everything else. Fewer flowers in the meadows, fewer birds in the branches, fewer bees between the trees. Then they got mechanized methods of getting the apples off the trees. They could sack half the workers straight away and they made sure with those mechanized methods that every single apple was taken from the trees. They ignored the old traditions of leaving two apples on every apple tree in the orchard, one for the birds, the other for the Fairies. Soon they had pushed the land as hard as they could, pushed their workers as hard as they could, they drained the profits from land and now after intensification they began to think about extensification: they started to think about planting more trees, up and around the Hill of the Fairies, on land that was common land, common grazing land. At first people didn’t mind to see trees being planted, especially apple trees, it’s the West Country. But after the trees came fences, barbed wire, and signs – Private Property Keep Out - Jack and Jill. And one day Jack he was wandering over the top of the Hill of the Fairies looking for some more land. He went to the far side of the hill, down towards the village, he’d never been there before, and there on the lower slopes there was a fruit tree, not an apple tree but a pear tree. He went down to the pear tree and picked one and bit through the thin skin into the delicious white flesh, the juice drizzled and did a little dance in the middle of his taste buds [inaudible] such a fine pear. Then as he was enjoying that pear he noticed there was a little tent, just at the bottom of the slope, just a little way from the tree and out of the tent came an old man with hair as white as birch bark but his body was well toned and well tanned. He had a tight white t-shirt with the words “Occupy” written across them [audience laughter]. He came over to the tree, the pear tree, he came over to Jack and he said: “Plenty of fruit for everyone, Jack. If we only take our fair pear share.” Jack wasn’t interested in this. “I’ll tell you what, we should be grateful for this pear tree, because this pear didn’t always used to grow here. This pear tree once grew in Somerset. It grew on a farm. There was a farmer, and he loved the pear tree and he loved the pears but he didn’t like the rooks who used to shit in his tree. And he took a gun and he used to fire at the rooks and the birds in the top of the tree. But they saw him coming out with the gun and they flew away way before he could shoot at them. But then he had an idea. He painted the branches with horse glue. Next time the rooks came to land they clenched on and they were stuck. Now he goes in and gets his gun and now he points it at the tree and BANG! But it still wasn’t much of a good shot because it goes up over the top of the tree. But the birds they lift up their wings in shock and they start to flap at the sound of the gun. …….[makes noise of flapping wings and tree being uprooted]….[audience laughter]…the sound you are familiar with, the sound of a tree being uprooted…by birds…and there he looks up in the air and the whole tree is flying, flying across the land. And from Somerset, across the city and county of Bristol, and there it comes into Gloucestershire, and in Gloucestershire, as it often does, it started to rain. As it rained the glue was loosened, down came the tree into the very moist muddy ground [squelching sound] it landed down there and there it is growing and that’s why it’s growing here right in front of us so we should be grateful. ”
Psshhhhawwpfui [noise to indicate that Jack thinks the story is rubbish] do you think he was going to believe a story like that? Jack started to gather more pears, more armfuls of pears, put them in his pockets, carried them in his arms and he started to think about perry production as well as cider production. Back he went over the hill. That night when Jack and Jill were in their counting house, counting out their money there was a knock at the door. He opened the door and there was an old man with his hat tilted down upon his head. You could just see two little green glinting eyes.
“Business seems to be doing well, “ says the old fella.
“What business is of yours is my business?” says Jack
“I’m just here to buy a barrel of cider.”
“Well that’s different,” says Jack.
“What d’you want? Big barrel, little barrel.”
“Oh a little barrel I reckon, a little barrell’ll do, but I want you to do me a favour. I want you to take that little barrel and I want you to take it up to the old hill, the one they call the Hill of the Fairies, you know the one I mean, take it up to the hill and pour the cider into the ground, to say thanks for all the blessings the land has been giving us.”
“What!?” says Jack, “waste my cider pouring it into the ground …?”
But then the old man opened a hand. It was a clean gold sovereign. Jack took it “That’ll do nicely, I’ll do what you say tomorrow,” he shut the door and off he went. The next day came and he was busy, ordering people around, counting money, forcing the land to grow more. It wasn’t till the end of the afternoon when he remembered about the barrel. He told his wife Jill and Jill said: “Hey, hang on a minute, hang on a minute, what d’you mean about taking cider up to the top of the hill? Why not take an old barrel over there and go to the stream and fill it up with water and take the water up to the hill and pour it into the ground and then we can see what we’re doing and they won’t know and we can sell the cider again and make double the profits.” Jack looked at Jill. ‘That’s why I married you,” he said. And that’s what they did, they took a barrel, took it down to the river, they filled it up with water and rolled it up to the top of the hill and poured it down into the ground…glug glug glug… That night they came back and as they prepared to go to bed the weather turned wild. They could hear the rain, they could hear the wind whistling around the eaves of the house…
[music begins]
wild [inaudible] a storm was raging outside. Soon they could hear the sounds of the branches of their precious apple trees breaking, they could hear the sounds of the wooden barns slowly splintering, hear them being torn apart. They lay in their beds cold, shivering, afraid of what devastation was going on outside. It got worse and worse they didn’t sleep a wink until the morning. The storm had blown out, they came outside their house to see the destruction. Trees uprooted and sent out at all angle branches broke, apples flung to all the corners of the fields. What could they do? Well Jack he decided he was going to go up to the trees and trim off those broken branches to stop any infection. He goes up to the tree and climbs up into the branches, he’s got his billhook. As he starts to prune those branches, he trips, his muddy feet slipping on a branch and that billhook bites into the deep fleshy part between thumb and finger and the blood starts to pour. He yells out and manages to get himself down. And Jill comes over she takes some moss from the base of the tree and presses it in to try and stem the flow but it’s still trickling down his hand and onto the floor. “We’ve got to take you to the doctor in the village on the other side of the hill,” and so she holds his arm, the other arm and takes him out of the house and through the orchard to the hill. But just before they reach the peak of the hill she’s so busy watching and holding him, she trips herself and she falls down, there’s a jagged rock and it cuts into her leg and the blood starts to pour from her too. They didn’t make it that much further until they sat down on the top of the hill to catch their breath. Now the wounds are open and pouring, the blood trickling down onto the ground, eventually they lie down, eventually they close their eyes as the blood pumps from their bodies. Eight pints of blood each, sixteen pints altogether, the same volume as a small barrel of cider.
[Music]
Jack and Jill went up the hill to empty the barrel of water
Jack fell down, his blood on the ground
And Jill’s came trickling after..
[Applause]
Don't mess with the Fairies….and we’re going to finish…thank you very much for coming……we’re going to finish with a story from Kazakhstan…
(2) St Donats Storytelling Festival June 29th – July 1st, 2012
A note to think about: just realizing as I start to transcribe Malcolm’s story how important the visuals are for adding atmosphere, clues, cues – surroundings, objects as well as cues, gestures and movements given by the storyteller, such as calling on and pointing to members of the audience to participate, for example.
Malcolm Green Storywalk: Saturday June 30th
Malcolm: We won’t start our stories here until we start on the track….
(Lots of tramping through woods noises…bits of conversation that aren’t Malcolm’s story….)
Malcolm: Is this a Stinking Iris? Aha…good.
Malcolm: So let’s have a gather here…at the crossroads…the fork in the …oh my goodness
Audience member: this is a dangerous place to hang out…
Malcolm: ….crossroads. (Pause) So we’re going on our little walk into the woods…and maybe at this place we should start with a teeny story, shall we? Do you know In old days two people thought they owned these woods…..that’s why we’ve got a cross roads here…the Lord of the castle, he thought he owned the woods and do you know what he liked doing? He liked hunting. He liked hunting foxes, rabbits, deer…anything. He would have his guns and his spears, his knives …he liked blood on the ground and he used to like taking his friends hunting. But up over there, there was a little hut and there’s always an old woman who lives there and that old woman she owned the woods too, because she could talk to the fairies. And she knew what plants to cook, and what plants to eat, what plants made you better, what plants would make you sick. And the man in the manor and the woman in the hut, they didn’t like each other very much. They came from different places and one day the Lord of the Manor he’d been out hunting day after day with his friends and they hadn’t caught a thing. There was no animals in the woods, and our lady, who was called Nancy Scott, she was leaning against a tree and she was chewing. And the Lord of the Manor, he came past on his horse, and he saw Nancy Scott there and she looked mischievous. And he looked up at Nancy Scott and he said, “Nancy Scott, there’s no beasts in this wood. D’you know where they’re gone?” She said “I might do (audience laughter) and I might not”. And he got off his horse and he said: “Nancy Scott, you tell me where all the beasts have gone!” And she said: “Umm…how about a bit of silver in me hand? That might loosen me tongue, Yer Lordship!” Oh man, he was resentful! Didn’t he hate that Nancy Scott? He took half a crown out of his pocket and he put it in her hand and he said: “Well, Nancy, where are the beasts?” and she said: “Well, if you rode thought there and went on top of that hill there, ye might find a white hare. And ye might be able to chase it.” Well the Lord of the Manor he had nothing else to hunt and he had a big party of guests he had to show them something, didn’t he? So he took them right up the top of the hill, and my God, was she right! Was she right? SHE WAS RIGHT! Of course she was right! There was a white hare. And it was big. (To the audience) “Have you ever seen a white hare?” (Asking individuals in audience) “No.” “Have you ever seen a white hare?” I’ve got a friend who’s got a white hare living in Wales. It leaps around his farm. They are special. Anyway, as soon as they saw that white hare, my God, that thing took off – whooooosh! Like lightning it was running across the corn fields, it was running up the hills and there was the Lord with all his men and they were all on their horses and they were all going like bats out of hell after that white hare. And you know what? They couldn’t catch it. It was too bloomin’ fast. And people dropped back and dropped back and dropped back until the only person left hunting was that Lord of the Manor himself and he was going to catch that thing if it was the last thing he did. And he was riding and riding and riding after that white hare and he had his one dog with him. And the white hare was beginning to tire and he thought: “I’m going to get it!” And he came around the back of the wood here and the dog got a march on the white hare and grabbed it by the back of the leg. It had it! And you know what happened next? That white hare kicked with its other leg and it was off. Leaving specks of blood all the way along the ground. Well, they lost the sight of it. But the Lord, he followed those specks of blood and so did that dog. (Sniffs as a dog). Right to the back o’ Nancy Scott’s house. And when he knocked on the door, she smiled and she said: “Welcome, Yer Lordship. Did ye find the hare?” (Audience chuckles). “You know I did, Nancy Scott. And that hare’s in here.” “Search all ye like,” she said. And he did. And when he left, scowling, she shut the door behind her. But there was a little crack and the Lord peeped through. And he saw Nancy Scott go by the fire and lift up the bottom of her skirt and start rubbing a sore patch, with teeth marks, on the back of her leg. (Pause). That’s what happens when you eat Enchanter’s Nightshade. Don’t take too much of it. Is that the magic plant in here?
An audience member: I think it is, Enchanters
Malcolm: Enchanter’s Nightshade, can you show us some as we go along?
Same audience member: “Yes.”
Malcolm: Is there any here?
Same audience member: Yes, I think there’s some here.
Malcolm: Is this not it here, with the little white flowers? A magic wood with magic flowers. Enchanter’s Nightshade, my boys, and to prove it, the flowers are white. And do you know what that means? You’ll turn into a white hare. Not a brown one. (to younger audience members) Can you run fast? Try it, up this way.
(The group walk on; walking and rustling sounds)
Malcolm: You know, there’s a bench here you can sit on. You know, if you’d come here about….ooooh….how long ago? About 2000 years…that was before your Mummy was born, maybe even your Grandmother…if you had come here then, what animals would there have been that aren’t here now? Does anybody know? If you had wandered around this wood, apart from this wood being a lot bigger, what would have had here then that aren’t here now?
Audience member: Lions?
Malcolm: Lions…we’re talking probably 700, 000 years…
Audience member: A wolf…
Malcolm: A wolf, you’d have had a wolf, thank you very much, Chris. Good cue. And if you go back 3000 years you’d probably have bears too. And two and a half thousand years, you’d probably have had those wildcats, you know those slinky ones with the pointy ears….lynxes? But we’re only going to go back 2000 years to the time when there was wolves. And there was a gang of gypsies, you can see ‘em down there….ancestors… you can see the caravans down there but they weren’t Belgian gypsies, they were Welsh gypsies. And they’re the travelling people they used to go round in caravans from place to place to place and there was this one little band of gypsies on the side of the wood and in one of the caravans was the old gypsy leader. Now the old gypsy leader her sat in his caravan and he looked in his mirror, his little bit of glass mirror he had and he saw the lines on his face and the cracks round his eyes and his teeth were loose and the old gypsy leader he shook his head and he knew that he wasn’t going to last another season before the young bucks booted him out. And that night he lay in his bed and he thought, he thought of all the great things he had done as a leader: all the battles he had won, all the women he had flirted with, all the people he had conquered and how the people had loved him. But he knew his time was up. The young bucks were coming, they were scenting, they were scenting he didn’t have the strength any more. So before the light of day came, that old gypsy leader, he took his bag from his peg and he put a knife and some twine and a lamp and two stones to light a fire. And he left the camp. And he didn’t look back. Because he was never gonna go back. And he walked into the forest. As he walked into the forest he heard the last call of the owl as the dawn came, he heard the song of the blackbird, he heard the song of the robin. And then he walked and he walked and he walked and the further he walked the more he knew he was never gonna go back. But he knew how to live in the woods. And then he heard a sound he hadn’t expected. He heard the crying of wolves. And he knew the crying of wolves because he had heard them many times before. But this was the cry of hunting wolves. And he felt a shiver through his body and he knew his time was up. He had nothing to defend himself with. And then he saw them coming closer, he heard them first, the sound of their soft feet on the ground and then the shadows and shapes as they came through the forest, so quiet. And they came right up close to him and then he saw the leader of the pack. She looked straight into his eyes and what she saw was a bent man with a cracked face and what he saw was an old wolf wounded with broken ear. And the old man and the old wolf looked at each other and she turned and she ran the other way. Now the younger wolves behind her they were hungry for blood but she still had the power and she took them away and the old gypsy leader he stood there and he couldn’t believe it. He was already resigned to death and that night he walked into the forest and he was puzzled. And he made himself a little camp, he cut some wood and he slept under the wood. The next few days he made himself a little hut, a little shelter and he put out snares and he caught small animals. And he went into the forest and he knew what to eat and so he had enough to eat and enough to drink in the forest and he had a little hut and he even made a little door. And then one night, he heard it again, that same call (howls as wolf) - OOOOWWWW-WOOOOOH - OOOOWWWW-WOOOOOH coming through the forest and he knew they were hunting, that pack of wolves, and he heard them coming closer and closer and closer but now he was safe. He had his hut and he had his door. And he opened the door a crack and he put out the light and he could see the shapes of them in the trees. And in front there’s the old female leader, but this time she wasn’t leading, she was being hunted. She could see all the other wolves after her. Her time had come. And he opened the door and he called her in. She jumped into the hut and he shut the door behind her. That’s the end of that story. Where shall we go now?
Let’s go. You lead the way Gillian…Belinda!
(More tramping through woods noises…bits of conversation)
Malcolm: This is a lovely tree, isn’t it? Who knows what kind of tree this is? Now you can tell it because it’s got very smooth bark and beautiful arms going up into the sky. (to an audience member) Touch the tree, give it a stroke, tell us what it feels like.
An audience member: The leaves look very much like hazel, don’t they?
Malcolm: Aaah, if it was a hazel it would be the biggest hazel in the world. (audience laughter) You could make one hell of a walking stick. This would be a giant’s walking stick, wouldn’t it? (more laughter) So…do you know what that kind of tree that is? That soft, curvy tree…Shall I tell you a secret about this tree? Do you see how there is nothing growing around the bottom of it? This tree casts so much shade nothing can grow round the bottom. And that is called a….what do you call what you play on by the sea…a place full of sand, what do you call it? A bucket….not a bucket tree…what do you call that bit of sand that goes along by the sea that you can make sandcastles….zombie?? A beach! This is the name of this tree…it’s a beech tree, but there’s not a lot of sand around it…ok I want you to huddle in a bit, come round here, ’cos I’m going to ask you to make some stories up in a minute…come a bit closer, come on Belinda you gotta get in…ladies, I want you here, you right at the front here so I can see your face, that’s Oliver, Oliver and Leon, well you know, this story you’re gonna have now is about an old fella who was called….well he wasn’t that old actually…he was called Lusmoore, do you know about Lusmoore? You might, you might…..Lusmoore was fantastic at making baskets he had the most delicate fingers you’ve ever seen and he could make the most beautiful baskets in the world, in fact people came from far and wide to get Lusmoore baskets and he used to come to the forest and he knew exactly what plants used to make what colour. And he used to dye them reds and blues and greens and yellows…oh, have you ever seen one of Lusmoore’s baskets?
Audience member: No, I’d love to…
Malcolm: …much better than those ones down in the fair (pointing to the craft area of the Festival). But Lusmoore….Lusmoore he was sad, he was very sad . He was sad because though he made beautiful baskets, he had a big lump on his back. He was a hunchback, and each day his body got heavier and heavier and heavier and he could hardly walk and you know where he lived? He lived just down there…(pointing) and one day he thought: “I’m going to go for a walk through the woods to see my friend on the other side.” And he walked up the hill over there and he came up and he got to just here, oh my goodness, that lump on his back was so heavy. You know what he did? He lay down over there and he thought: “I’m gonna have a little rest…aawwwrgh.” And as he was lying a tear came out of his eye. And he was just nodding off when he heard a little song. It’s a very complicated song, Leon, we need your help…and the song went like this, you know this song? It goes….(singing) one two, one two…can you do that? It’s really difficult…(audience joins in) one two, one two, one two….actually it went like this…Monday Tuesday, Monday Tuesday, (audience continues to sing, Malcolm goes back to telling the story) and he was listening to this lovely song, and oh, it made him feel happy, he wiped the tear, oooh, he started sort of lying there…listening to this lovely song…he had no idea where it was coming from…(yawning) and after a while it got a bit dull, and he thought: “Maybe I could add something to this song…Wednesday…” (singing) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (repeats) and it wasn’t long before he had lulled himself to sleep. And the next thing he knew…this is a true story….he felt these soft little fingers lifting him up…out from the ivy….out from the roots they lifted him up…and he felt them carrying him, down into the undergrowth, down into a dark, dark place….and it felt like he was going into a cave, and there were lights of glowworms lighting the way and he went deep into the cave…and he was laid down on the softest bed you could imagine…and he woke up and he saw he was in a huge cavern with these beautiful shining lights and there sitting, you can see her, (pointing at audience member) with red hair, can you see her? She had a little yellow bit at the front and red hair, was the Queen of the Fairies, look at her, can you see the stature, the Queen of the Fairies, and the Queen of the Fairies, just do a bit more of Queen of the Fairies, yes, she was so beautiful, and she was so elegant and regal…and so queen-like with her beautiful gown, red gown…and the Queen of the Fairies looked at Lusmoore and she said: “Thank you” (to the ‘queen’: can we have that again?)
Audience member as Queen: “Thank you!”
Malcolm continues: He said: “What for?” “For improving our song. We’ve been singing that for millennia and now we have the gift you’ve given us…of song...the Wednesday” and she looked down at him lying on the bed and she said: “Lusmoore, I know you’re suffering…and whatever you sleep [sic] on that feather bed tonight may it come true….” And Lusmoore was lulled into a deep sleep and as he slept he dreamt of lots of little people with lots of little hammers and little chisels and they were cutting into that hump on his back (sound effects of little hammers and chisels) and (swwerch) lifting it off and then he woke up and he was in a ditch (audience: oooh) and he was in the ivy and he was wet…tut…it was all a dream and he stood up…(yawn, standing up…looking around) YES!! YES!! He couldn’t quite believe it…he sang three times…just to make sure, can we do that together…one, two, three (audience joins in) YES!! And he ran all the way to his friends house and when he got there he spun around and his friend said: “Lusmoore what’s happened?” “The fairies…and it was all because of a Wednesday” (audience laughter) “now if you wanted to go away really happy we could end the story there…(audience..Yes….Mmmm)Who wants happy? This is the other bit of the story…Lusmoore knew somebody called Archie, they knew each other because Archie had a humpback too. Archie was miserable and mean, he used to spit a lot and pick his nose. And he heard that Lusmoore didn’t have a h ump. And so he said: “What happened? Where did it go?” And he said: “It was the fairies, I added something to their song and look?!” “Well,” said Archie “Where’s that?” “Just by the Stinking Iris, by the beech trees” he said. And so it was that Archie was up there as quick as he could with the hump on his back he lay down in the ivy and there by the Stinking Iris under the big beech tree he lay down and he listened and he heard (all singing) “Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Monday Tuesday Wednesday….oh he was bored really quickly… (shouting) THURSDAY…..Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Monday Tuesday…THURSDAY…HURRY UP!…..and the next thing he knew he felt these kind of sharp fingers and claws in his back…..and he was carried down into the undergrowth into a cavern and there was the Queen of the Fairies not looking very happy at all, she was looking really annoyed (Audience member as Queen of Fairies makes growling annoyed sounds) the Queen of the Fairies looked at Archie and said: “You just ruined our song!” And Archie was put to sleep on a bed of thorns. “Whatever you may dream may it come true.” And that night Archie dreamt, and he dreamt that somebody was sticking another hump on top of his hump and you’ll never guess whose it was. Well I’m very sorry, he woke up in a ditch the next morning and said: “Thank goodness that was a dream” but it wasn’t and if you want the really mean bit of the story on the way home his back broke but you could make it nice and say he was just very very very very miserable. Ok you’ve all got a little task, you’ve got to find something from here…you can find a stick or a anything…this is your chance to make a story. And you’ve got to tell me what this is…Oliver, what’s that? (Oliver: I don’t know) What d’you mean, you don’t know? What is it? (Someone else: It’s…ummm) The only thing it isn’t, is a stick…It can be anything in the world except a stick. Horns?
Audience member: Deer horns…sort of ….antlers
Malcolm: Antlers? Ok if this is a deer’s antler, then tell us about the deer, what’s special about the antlers….
Audience member: It’s…it’s fallen off because the deer was getting older…
Malcolm: It was an old deer…
Audience member: …and when they get older they drop off…
Malcolm: …this is…a magic one…
Audience member: …but because it was dropping off he thought he was getting older but actually because it was magic he was getting younger…
Malcolm: So this is a magic antler that makes you get younger?
Audience member: That’s right.
Malcolm: And did you find it in the woods?
Audience member: I did.
Malcolm: And what did you do with the magic younger-getting antler?
Audience member: I tried it but it didn’t work.
(audience laughter)
Malcolm: Well, it’s not very magic then, is it?
Audience member: Not really, no…
Other audience members: It only works on deers…
Audience member: Possibly….and I’m not a deer, an old deer….
Malcolm (to all in group): I’m going to give you thirty seconds to find something and then come up here and tell me what it isn’t.
Audience member: Uh..er…what it isn’t?
Malcolm: Yes.
Noises of people walking around in woods looking for something….chatting aongst themselves
Malcolm: And when you’ve got it, go and tell someone else what it is, just in pairs. And the other person will help you develop your story buy asking you good questions.
(asking one person) So what have you got there?
Audience member: It’s a leaf…
(lots of murmurings and rustlings, people talking to one another)
Audience member 1: What have you got
Audience member 2: Umm..what have I got? Well, it’s not a fern….What have you got?
Audience member 3: I’ve not got a fern either.
Audience member 1: I haven’t got a dried (inaudible)…
Audience member 2: I think this is the tongue of one of the fairies.
Audience member 1: Ooh, a big fairy?
Audience member 2: Very small fairy but she had a very long tongue.
Audience member 1: So why have you got the tongue?
Audience member 2: She gave it to me.
Audience members 2 & 3: Aa-aah!
Audience member 3: Where did you meet her?
Audience member 2: Down by the stream and she was washing it. ‘Cos she had her head in the water. And I saw her…doing this thing….and I said what are you doing? She came out and she had this long tongue.
Audience member 3: Okay.
Audience member 1: How did it come out?
Audience member 3: Is it detachable?
Audience member 2: No, no…because I didn’t realize…it looked just like a fern to me….so I grabbed hold of it because it looked very pretty in the stream and then I heard this scream…
Audience members 1 & 3: Aaah…Oooh…
Audience member 2: ...and I realized it was attached to a small person
Audience member 3: Oh wow
Audience member 2: So that’s that….anyhow…what about yours
Audience member 1: Who’s this small person…I’m a bit concerned….
Audience member 1: Mine’s not a fern either…it’s a goblin’s hair
Audience member 2: Aaaah…and how come you have got a goblin’s hair?
Audience member 1: Because I was in the fairy woods and not just fairies live there, other little creatures..umm…live there too…and he was near…the stream, sort of near stream….may be the same stream as yours…and he was brushing his hair...it was very very long…and very fern-like, I thought. And as it floated down the stream I gathered some, what I thought were bits of fern…I could see that it would come from his head…so I collected some and he got very annoyed because you’re not supposed to collect goblin’s hair…
Audience members 2 & 3: (knowlingly) Ahhhmmmm….
Audience member 3: But I didn’t know that
Audience members 2& 3: (knowlingly) Ahhhmmmm…
Audience member: So I pretended to put it all back and now I’ve got some
Audience members 2 & 3: Uh huh..mmm..so you’ve got to hide it, have you….
Audience member 1: So I don’t know what’s going to happen now, he said: Don’t take goblin’s hair
Audience members 2 & 3: Mmmmm.
Audience member 2:And how about you then?
Audience member 3: I haven’t got a brown dried leaf.
Audience member 1: What is it then?
Audience member 3: It’s a…cleaning rag
Audience member 1: For anything special?
Audience member 3: It belongs to a colony of ants…the worker ants….and they use it to clean before the rest of the ant army comes in, the paths, so they clear them and they use this particular rag to clean it…and I just happened to pick it up and I’m very worried that they won’t have a track any more…
Audience member 1: ..would be looking for it?
Audience member 3: They would be looking for it…
Audience member 2: They will…maybe they’ll be coming towards you…
Audience member 3: Oh dear…
Audience member 2: …asking about it.
Audience member 3: I can…I can deposit it back…
Audience member 2: Yeah.
(These storytellers have finished their stories)
(In the distance, coming towards us, other storytellers, still telling their stories….)
Audience members….the fairies….yeah, maybe they will sing this song, yeah…you’re going to make your soup…
Malcolm: Everybody come round now, this is the ultimate installment of this little story. You now …everybody’s got to say one title for their story that came out from their object. Or they can just say what it is…so you got to say in three…not more than three words, what it is…ok you start.
Audience member 2: The Fairy’s Tongue
Malcolm: My God, we’ve got tongues everywhere
(General laughter)
Malcolm: And yours?
Audience member 1: The Goblin’s Hair
Malcolm: The Goblin’s Hair – eeuurgh! What’ve you got?
Audience member: The Poisoned Tongue
Malcolm: Oh my goodness…the Poisoned Tongue…this is obviously a thtorytelling fethtival…what have you got there?
Audience member 3: Ant’s Rag
Malcolm: A rag?
Audience members 1 & 3: It’s a cleaning rag
Malcolm: A cleaning rag….it’s got a bit dirty
Audience member 2: That’s why, it’s a cleaning rag! It’s a used one.
Malcolm: This is the tongue for cleaning girls’ feet….dirty feet in the woods….it’s a penance…very handy…what have you got?
Audience member: A fairy’s bell
Malcolm: She hasn’t decided what it does yet.
Audience member: Yeah.
Malcolm: And what’ve you got?
Audience member: A flying fish.
Malcolm: Tell us why the flying fish comes into the woods
Audience member: umm..to eat….ummm I can’t remember
Malcolm: Who is its friend?
Audience member: A slug
(Laughter)
Malcolm: It comes in to see its friend the slug and they eat together, they go out for dinner parties, the flying fish and the slug have great dinner parties togehter…is that true? Well, I’m very happy about that. So…I don’t know how we’re doing for time…it’s ten to seven, shall we go on a bit further? It’s getting a bit on the chilly side, there’s many stories as we wander…have you got a story you’d like to share with us, Chris?
Chris: No, I haven’t got one.
Malcolm: Then we’ll wander on, get someone somewhere else…come on then, run a bit…don’t get lost…
(sounds of walking)
Raksha (to Malcolm): So whereabouts in the North East are you from?
Malcolm: Well, I’m not from but I live in Newcastle on Tyne.
Raksha: Oh, I went to university there and I live in Durham.
Malcolm: You live in Durham?
Raksha: Well, in a village near Durham
Malcolm: Which village?
Raksha: West Rainton
Malcolm: West?
Raksha: Rainton….
Malcolm: Oh West Rainton I know that…there’s (inaudible)
Raksha: There’s Rainton Meadows there
Malcolm: What were you studying there?
Raksha: Oh, well I’m a Research Associate and I decided to finish my PhD in Newcastle and now I work in Durham, Durham University.
Malcolm: Oh great. In what?
Raksha: In Geography.
Malcolm: Shall we sing: Monday (all join in singing)
All: Tuesday, Monday Tuesday, Monday Tuesday…Thursday (harmonies start, they continue singing)
Malcolm: Sit down, lie down, you can stand on your head….
(everyone gradually sits down)
Malcolm: Since we're talking about elves, and fairies I want to tell you the tragic tale…there are lots of happy stories in the wood…I want to tell you the tragic tale of Serenin…(to someone) now come over here for a minute I need you for this one. Serenin was a half elf. Have you ever met an elf? He wasn’t properly elf and he wasn’t actually…can you see him over there? Meet Serenin. The half elf, now doesn’t he look a bit elfish? He’s got very elfish qualities there. Serenin, a half elf under the tree. But Serenin is sad. He’s sad ‘cos he doesn’t quite fit in the land of humans where he’s a bit small and weak and he’s too clumsy to be an elf. So he sits in this world between the human world and the elf world and he’s not big enough and strong enough for a person and he’s not light enough and bright enough to be an elf. But you know what he can do? He can make people laugh. So he will go to festivals and parties and Serenin will be there with his funny face and his crooked ears and everybody will laugh. But you know at the end of the party he’ll go out and he’ll be all on his…?
Audience: …own.
Malcolm: Do you know about the pool on top of the hill? Do you know about it? If you haven’t been there you should go. (to audience member) have you been to the pool on the top of the hill?
Audience member: Yeees.
Malcolm asks others whether they have been to the pool on the top of the hill.
Malcolm: So if you go to the pool on the top of the hill at Beltane…who knows what Beltane is? Nothing to do with belts….(ask one audience member) Do you know what Beltane is? (to someone else) You’re only half an elf…a pure elf would know…Beltane is…..the Spring…..Equinox.
Audience: Aaaah…
Malcolm: If you go up to the pool on the top of the hill at Spring Equinox in the dark by yourself… listen to this carefully you might need it sometime, you might not, but if you go up to the pool at the top of the hill at the Spring Equinox when the moon is high and you stare into the rippling water d’you know what you’ll see? Well, first of all you’ll see your….?
Audience: self..
Malcolm: …reflection…but if you stare at your reflection, you’ll see the face of the one who’ll be your true love. And so sad Serenin, not in this world and not in the other, went up to the pool on the top of the hill and stared and he looked and he saw his funny quizzical face with one ear higher than the other and the stronger he stared into the water, the more he saw the most surprising thing in the world. He saw the famous wood nymph who was the daughter of the King and Queen of the Fairies (inaudible..the most beautiful) and Serenin looked and looked….”Oh….” down his back “Oh she won’t marry me with lopsided ears and me funny face and I’m not strong” and do you know what he did? You know that little hut down there? That’s where the Shapeshifter lived, and he went straight to the door of the shapeshifter and said: “I wanna new face. I wanna marry Queen Czigane and she’ll never marry a weird looking guy like me. I need a new face.” And the Shapeshifter said: “Serenin, are you sure?” He said “Yes.” She said: “Once you’ve got a new face you can’t change it.” He said: “I’m sure, she’ll never look at me.” “Alright,” said the Shapeshifter, “Come in,” and she lay him down and she gave him a choice of many faces and he just picked (inaudible) and he got a new face and he looked in the mirror and he saw this handsome hero looking back. It was very strange but he walked straight to Princess Czigane’s palace. (Pointing) It’s down there, you see? And he knocked on the door and there she was, the beautiful Princess Czigane and she said, “What do you want now?” And he said: “Princess Czigane,” and he tried to his best with his handsome hero look, “I want to marry you.” She said, “I have a hundred handsome heroes come here everyday and I tell you what they all want to marry me and there’s only one thing they’re interested in, themselves. No. Anyway,” she said, “I saw in the pool a face of the person I was going to marry the other day and he wasn’t handsome but he made me laugh.” And Serenin, he ran out of the palace straight to the Shapeshifter and he said, “Take it off.” …(inaudible but something like, you’ve done it). And that was the end of the story.
We’ll go on somewhere else for the end of the story. Come on then, we’re going to the last place.
(conversations…walking…..)
I thought I better take you here as a warning, this is the Shapeshifter’s house. Alright you can see it’s a bit ruined, uumm, so Ladies, you are now entering the zone of the Shapeshifter the one in the woods, she’s very powerful, you have to be very careful going anywhere near this place because if you wish for something it may come true and it might be a new face and might be not what you’re wishing. So he went back to the Shapeshifter’s house and she said, “Sorry buddy, too late.” But all he wanted was to be near Princess Czigane so he went back to the palace and he hired himself out as a cleaner and he mopped the floors and he washed the dishes and all the handsome heroes that came by laughed at him. This hero mopping the dishes, this man with the most beautiful, exquisite face brushing the floor. It went on for a whole year, he was broken, and then it was Beltane again and he went up to the pool and he looked into the pool and he saw this face he didn’t recognize glistening back at him and he was so full of grief for the first time in his life he cried. And he cried and cried the saltiest tears you’ve ever seen. And they eked down between his old face and his new one…and it peeled off, and it splashed into the water and that splash disturbed Princess Czigane who was on the other side of the pool, who was also weeping. And they looked up and there was Serenin with his funny face and there was Princess Czigane and the rest I’ll leave to your imaginations. That’s a bit lucky that was, wasn’t it…haha…Heyyyy, shall we have one more verse of Monday Tuesday then? (all sing) Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday, Thursday Friday
Once upon a time we’ll have the last story here and now...all the birds met in the forest and they were going to choose who was going to be the King of the Birds and the Owl said: “I will choose the one of you that can fly the highest.” And you (pointing to audience member) can be the Wren, and you (pointing to another audience member) can be the Eagle. And so the Owl said: “When I clap my wings all fly up and the one who flies the highest will get to be the King of the Birds.” So he clapped his wings and up they went and – woooooh - ,those crows, the pheasants, the peacocks, the woodpeckers, the cranes…the….every all of them, they went up into the sky and there was a little Blue Tit and the Blue Tit said: “I’m going to be King of the birds, I wanna be King of the birds…” and the Blue Tit went right above the trees, “I’m going to be King of the Birds, I’m going to be King of the Birds, I’m going to be King of the Birds,”….and then he saw a caterpillar….(audience groans) and he said: “Dash being a King, I wanna caterpillar.” So he didn’t bother. And then above the Blue Tit…there was a…ooh, you can be this Belinda…there was the black Crow. And the black Crow flew up and up and up and up n up n up n up ….go on, (to Belinda) higher than that…up n up n up…come on then (to Belinda) get yer wings out….up n up n up n up …..GET YER WINGS OUT Leon you’ll get stuck…and he went up and up and up oh he’s not getting his wings out…and up and up…when the Crow so high in the sky…you can hardly see it and then it made a mistake, you know what it did? It looked down….KAARK, KAARK, KAARK, KAARK and you know what? It lost its nerve. Never look down if you want to be King of the Birds. It lost its nerve and it came tumbling out of the sky and from that day to this crows have always gone KAARK, KAARK and tumbled out the sky, and when he got to the bottom he pretended he meant to do that all along. You know how crows always look like they know what they’re doing. And above the Crow was (to another audience member) this is your job ‘coz I heard how beautifully you sang, the Skylark (audience oohs and aahs) and the Skylark flew into the sky and started singing. The skylark knew if you sing and fly at the same time then you can go higher…started singing….prrrrtttteetee, keerkeer kikikik tikatikatikatikatika kikikik keerkeer kigik kigik kigik kigik krrrrrrrr kikikik kigik kigik tikitikitikitikitiki went right up into the clouds krrrrrrrr kikikik kigik krrrrrrrr kigik higher than the…..up n up it went krrrrrrrr kikikik…you know what happened? It heard its baby hatching from down in the nest below.What’s more important babies or Kings? Folded its wings, dropped out the sky like a stone…wheeeeeeeee….and everybody thought it was going to die, and then it fluttered down…onto the nest, and Skylarks have done that ever since. You go out on a Spring morning and you see them go high in the sky….then drop down remembering the day they didn’t get to be King…(some exchange with an audience member about skylarks)…and then above the Skylark was, you’ll never guess who, it was the mighty…..(audience supply answer: Eagle) Eagle. The Eagle soared up into the sky and said (screeching): “I don’t think much of this,” and shoutedup to the gods above and said: “I’m King of the Birds!” “No you’re not,” said a voice. Then fluttering along his head was a Wren, “I’m flying with you, “ said the Wren. “How did you get there?” “Never you mind.” “Bloomin’ heck,” thought the Eagle, I better carry on and go higher…so the Eagle started flapping higher…and he went up and up and didn’t notice the Wren snuggling into its neck feathers. Up and up and up and up and up and up and it got so high it could swear it could see God. “God!” “Yes, Eagle,” “I’m King of the Birds!” “No you’re not, I’m higher than you.” The little Wren was fluttering above its head. “Ooooooh,” said the Eagle, “I’m really fed up now. You little Wren, I’m gonna make you mincemeat.” The little Wren knew it was in trouble, so there’s only one place you gonna be safe if you’re a Wren and there’s an Eagle around, that’s a bramble bush. So the little Wren hightailed it back down to earth, get yer little wings out…brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrwheeeeeeeeee……..all the way down to earth and the Eagle got out its big claws……neeeeorrrrrrrr….(to audience member as he is the Eagle bearing down on the Wren) you’re the Wren, sorry…..and just as the Wren was getting into the bramble bush….Wren’s used to have long tails, did you know that? No, you didn’t, well they did. Well the Eagle got out its claws and went – Jzzackk – and cut of the end of its tail. And that’s why if you see a Wren in a bush today it’s always going like this (makes some action???) remembering when it had a long tail, ‘cos it doesn’t anymore. So it went into a bush and the Eagle didn’t catch it. And then the Owl sat there and said, “Well who went the highest?” “I did,” said the Eagle.” “ I did,” said the Wren. “She cheated,” said the Eagle. “And I went the highest.” So they decided to put the crown on the Wren. It was a bit big, rather a large fit, but the Wren didn’t care, ‘cos the Wren sings louder than anybody else and it went into the bushes and sang and sang and sang and sang. Well it actually made everybody nearly deaf….so loud because it was so pleased with being the King and the Eagle said: “Alright Wren,” no it didn’t, it didn’t say alright, it said: “you and you and you and you and you and you….that Wren was nothing be trouble, you know he cheated…put a tear in that cup, ‘cos you can only drown Wrens with tears,…I’m glad you’re complicit…..
Audience member: I don’t know…I don’t want to drown…(.inaudible)
Malcolm: Can I have a tear please? Thank you….So it got a little cup…put the cup in the ground….and the only one who hadn’t put the tear in was the Owl. So the Owl went up to the cup to put his tear in the cup and I don’t know if it was an accident or on purpose but its big hairy claw hit the side of the cup….all the tears drained into the ground. And you know what happened? The Eagle was so annoyed it banished the Owl only to come out at night. And that’s why when the Owl comes out during the day all the other birds mob it. “Get back into the night.” And actually the truth is the Skylark and the Lapwing and the Nuthatch and the Bluetit and the Blackbird and the Crane, they were all quite chuffed because they didn’t want a King anyway, ‘cos they’re all their own Kings. That's the end of the story. And that’s a Welsh story.
Audience member: Is it?
Malcolm: YEEEESSSSS! Hahahaha….Gosh, I knew I’d get one in somewhere. Oh well, thank you very much everyone.
Audience: Thank you!!
A note to think about: just realizing as I start to transcribe Malcolm’s story how important the visuals are for adding atmosphere, clues, cues – surroundings, objects as well as cues, gestures and movements given by the storyteller, such as calling on and pointing to members of the audience to participate, for example.
Malcolm Green Storywalk: Saturday June 30th
Malcolm: We won’t start our stories here until we start on the track….
(Lots of tramping through woods noises…bits of conversation that aren’t Malcolm’s story….)
Malcolm: Is this a Stinking Iris? Aha…good.
Malcolm: So let’s have a gather here…at the crossroads…the fork in the …oh my goodness
Audience member: this is a dangerous place to hang out…
Malcolm: ….crossroads. (Pause) So we’re going on our little walk into the woods…and maybe at this place we should start with a teeny story, shall we? Do you know In old days two people thought they owned these woods…..that’s why we’ve got a cross roads here…the Lord of the castle, he thought he owned the woods and do you know what he liked doing? He liked hunting. He liked hunting foxes, rabbits, deer…anything. He would have his guns and his spears, his knives …he liked blood on the ground and he used to like taking his friends hunting. But up over there, there was a little hut and there’s always an old woman who lives there and that old woman she owned the woods too, because she could talk to the fairies. And she knew what plants to cook, and what plants to eat, what plants made you better, what plants would make you sick. And the man in the manor and the woman in the hut, they didn’t like each other very much. They came from different places and one day the Lord of the Manor he’d been out hunting day after day with his friends and they hadn’t caught a thing. There was no animals in the woods, and our lady, who was called Nancy Scott, she was leaning against a tree and she was chewing. And the Lord of the Manor, he came past on his horse, and he saw Nancy Scott there and she looked mischievous. And he looked up at Nancy Scott and he said, “Nancy Scott, there’s no beasts in this wood. D’you know where they’re gone?” She said “I might do (audience laughter) and I might not”. And he got off his horse and he said: “Nancy Scott, you tell me where all the beasts have gone!” And she said: “Umm…how about a bit of silver in me hand? That might loosen me tongue, Yer Lordship!” Oh man, he was resentful! Didn’t he hate that Nancy Scott? He took half a crown out of his pocket and he put it in her hand and he said: “Well, Nancy, where are the beasts?” and she said: “Well, if you rode thought there and went on top of that hill there, ye might find a white hare. And ye might be able to chase it.” Well the Lord of the Manor he had nothing else to hunt and he had a big party of guests he had to show them something, didn’t he? So he took them right up the top of the hill, and my God, was she right! Was she right? SHE WAS RIGHT! Of course she was right! There was a white hare. And it was big. (To the audience) “Have you ever seen a white hare?” (Asking individuals in audience) “No.” “Have you ever seen a white hare?” I’ve got a friend who’s got a white hare living in Wales. It leaps around his farm. They are special. Anyway, as soon as they saw that white hare, my God, that thing took off – whooooosh! Like lightning it was running across the corn fields, it was running up the hills and there was the Lord with all his men and they were all on their horses and they were all going like bats out of hell after that white hare. And you know what? They couldn’t catch it. It was too bloomin’ fast. And people dropped back and dropped back and dropped back until the only person left hunting was that Lord of the Manor himself and he was going to catch that thing if it was the last thing he did. And he was riding and riding and riding after that white hare and he had his one dog with him. And the white hare was beginning to tire and he thought: “I’m going to get it!” And he came around the back of the wood here and the dog got a march on the white hare and grabbed it by the back of the leg. It had it! And you know what happened next? That white hare kicked with its other leg and it was off. Leaving specks of blood all the way along the ground. Well, they lost the sight of it. But the Lord, he followed those specks of blood and so did that dog. (Sniffs as a dog). Right to the back o’ Nancy Scott’s house. And when he knocked on the door, she smiled and she said: “Welcome, Yer Lordship. Did ye find the hare?” (Audience chuckles). “You know I did, Nancy Scott. And that hare’s in here.” “Search all ye like,” she said. And he did. And when he left, scowling, she shut the door behind her. But there was a little crack and the Lord peeped through. And he saw Nancy Scott go by the fire and lift up the bottom of her skirt and start rubbing a sore patch, with teeth marks, on the back of her leg. (Pause). That’s what happens when you eat Enchanter’s Nightshade. Don’t take too much of it. Is that the magic plant in here?
An audience member: I think it is, Enchanters
Malcolm: Enchanter’s Nightshade, can you show us some as we go along?
Same audience member: “Yes.”
Malcolm: Is there any here?
Same audience member: Yes, I think there’s some here.
Malcolm: Is this not it here, with the little white flowers? A magic wood with magic flowers. Enchanter’s Nightshade, my boys, and to prove it, the flowers are white. And do you know what that means? You’ll turn into a white hare. Not a brown one. (to younger audience members) Can you run fast? Try it, up this way.
(The group walk on; walking and rustling sounds)
Malcolm: You know, there’s a bench here you can sit on. You know, if you’d come here about….ooooh….how long ago? About 2000 years…that was before your Mummy was born, maybe even your Grandmother…if you had come here then, what animals would there have been that aren’t here now? Does anybody know? If you had wandered around this wood, apart from this wood being a lot bigger, what would have had here then that aren’t here now?
Audience member: Lions?
Malcolm: Lions…we’re talking probably 700, 000 years…
Audience member: A wolf…
Malcolm: A wolf, you’d have had a wolf, thank you very much, Chris. Good cue. And if you go back 3000 years you’d probably have bears too. And two and a half thousand years, you’d probably have had those wildcats, you know those slinky ones with the pointy ears….lynxes? But we’re only going to go back 2000 years to the time when there was wolves. And there was a gang of gypsies, you can see ‘em down there….ancestors… you can see the caravans down there but they weren’t Belgian gypsies, they were Welsh gypsies. And they’re the travelling people they used to go round in caravans from place to place to place and there was this one little band of gypsies on the side of the wood and in one of the caravans was the old gypsy leader. Now the old gypsy leader her sat in his caravan and he looked in his mirror, his little bit of glass mirror he had and he saw the lines on his face and the cracks round his eyes and his teeth were loose and the old gypsy leader he shook his head and he knew that he wasn’t going to last another season before the young bucks booted him out. And that night he lay in his bed and he thought, he thought of all the great things he had done as a leader: all the battles he had won, all the women he had flirted with, all the people he had conquered and how the people had loved him. But he knew his time was up. The young bucks were coming, they were scenting, they were scenting he didn’t have the strength any more. So before the light of day came, that old gypsy leader, he took his bag from his peg and he put a knife and some twine and a lamp and two stones to light a fire. And he left the camp. And he didn’t look back. Because he was never gonna go back. And he walked into the forest. As he walked into the forest he heard the last call of the owl as the dawn came, he heard the song of the blackbird, he heard the song of the robin. And then he walked and he walked and he walked and the further he walked the more he knew he was never gonna go back. But he knew how to live in the woods. And then he heard a sound he hadn’t expected. He heard the crying of wolves. And he knew the crying of wolves because he had heard them many times before. But this was the cry of hunting wolves. And he felt a shiver through his body and he knew his time was up. He had nothing to defend himself with. And then he saw them coming closer, he heard them first, the sound of their soft feet on the ground and then the shadows and shapes as they came through the forest, so quiet. And they came right up close to him and then he saw the leader of the pack. She looked straight into his eyes and what she saw was a bent man with a cracked face and what he saw was an old wolf wounded with broken ear. And the old man and the old wolf looked at each other and she turned and she ran the other way. Now the younger wolves behind her they were hungry for blood but she still had the power and she took them away and the old gypsy leader he stood there and he couldn’t believe it. He was already resigned to death and that night he walked into the forest and he was puzzled. And he made himself a little camp, he cut some wood and he slept under the wood. The next few days he made himself a little hut, a little shelter and he put out snares and he caught small animals. And he went into the forest and he knew what to eat and so he had enough to eat and enough to drink in the forest and he had a little hut and he even made a little door. And then one night, he heard it again, that same call (howls as wolf) - OOOOWWWW-WOOOOOH - OOOOWWWW-WOOOOOH coming through the forest and he knew they were hunting, that pack of wolves, and he heard them coming closer and closer and closer but now he was safe. He had his hut and he had his door. And he opened the door a crack and he put out the light and he could see the shapes of them in the trees. And in front there’s the old female leader, but this time she wasn’t leading, she was being hunted. She could see all the other wolves after her. Her time had come. And he opened the door and he called her in. She jumped into the hut and he shut the door behind her. That’s the end of that story. Where shall we go now?
Let’s go. You lead the way Gillian…Belinda!
(More tramping through woods noises…bits of conversation)
Malcolm: This is a lovely tree, isn’t it? Who knows what kind of tree this is? Now you can tell it because it’s got very smooth bark and beautiful arms going up into the sky. (to an audience member) Touch the tree, give it a stroke, tell us what it feels like.
An audience member: The leaves look very much like hazel, don’t they?
Malcolm: Aaah, if it was a hazel it would be the biggest hazel in the world. (audience laughter) You could make one hell of a walking stick. This would be a giant’s walking stick, wouldn’t it? (more laughter) So…do you know what that kind of tree that is? That soft, curvy tree…Shall I tell you a secret about this tree? Do you see how there is nothing growing around the bottom of it? This tree casts so much shade nothing can grow round the bottom. And that is called a….what do you call what you play on by the sea…a place full of sand, what do you call it? A bucket….not a bucket tree…what do you call that bit of sand that goes along by the sea that you can make sandcastles….zombie?? A beach! This is the name of this tree…it’s a beech tree, but there’s not a lot of sand around it…ok I want you to huddle in a bit, come round here, ’cos I’m going to ask you to make some stories up in a minute…come a bit closer, come on Belinda you gotta get in…ladies, I want you here, you right at the front here so I can see your face, that’s Oliver, Oliver and Leon, well you know, this story you’re gonna have now is about an old fella who was called….well he wasn’t that old actually…he was called Lusmoore, do you know about Lusmoore? You might, you might…..Lusmoore was fantastic at making baskets he had the most delicate fingers you’ve ever seen and he could make the most beautiful baskets in the world, in fact people came from far and wide to get Lusmoore baskets and he used to come to the forest and he knew exactly what plants used to make what colour. And he used to dye them reds and blues and greens and yellows…oh, have you ever seen one of Lusmoore’s baskets?
Audience member: No, I’d love to…
Malcolm: …much better than those ones down in the fair (pointing to the craft area of the Festival). But Lusmoore….Lusmoore he was sad, he was very sad . He was sad because though he made beautiful baskets, he had a big lump on his back. He was a hunchback, and each day his body got heavier and heavier and heavier and he could hardly walk and you know where he lived? He lived just down there…(pointing) and one day he thought: “I’m going to go for a walk through the woods to see my friend on the other side.” And he walked up the hill over there and he came up and he got to just here, oh my goodness, that lump on his back was so heavy. You know what he did? He lay down over there and he thought: “I’m gonna have a little rest…aawwwrgh.” And as he was lying a tear came out of his eye. And he was just nodding off when he heard a little song. It’s a very complicated song, Leon, we need your help…and the song went like this, you know this song? It goes….(singing) one two, one two…can you do that? It’s really difficult…(audience joins in) one two, one two, one two….actually it went like this…Monday Tuesday, Monday Tuesday, (audience continues to sing, Malcolm goes back to telling the story) and he was listening to this lovely song, and oh, it made him feel happy, he wiped the tear, oooh, he started sort of lying there…listening to this lovely song…he had no idea where it was coming from…(yawning) and after a while it got a bit dull, and he thought: “Maybe I could add something to this song…Wednesday…” (singing) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (repeats) and it wasn’t long before he had lulled himself to sleep. And the next thing he knew…this is a true story….he felt these soft little fingers lifting him up…out from the ivy….out from the roots they lifted him up…and he felt them carrying him, down into the undergrowth, down into a dark, dark place….and it felt like he was going into a cave, and there were lights of glowworms lighting the way and he went deep into the cave…and he was laid down on the softest bed you could imagine…and he woke up and he saw he was in a huge cavern with these beautiful shining lights and there sitting, you can see her, (pointing at audience member) with red hair, can you see her? She had a little yellow bit at the front and red hair, was the Queen of the Fairies, look at her, can you see the stature, the Queen of the Fairies, and the Queen of the Fairies, just do a bit more of Queen of the Fairies, yes, she was so beautiful, and she was so elegant and regal…and so queen-like with her beautiful gown, red gown…and the Queen of the Fairies looked at Lusmoore and she said: “Thank you” (to the ‘queen’: can we have that again?)
Audience member as Queen: “Thank you!”
Malcolm continues: He said: “What for?” “For improving our song. We’ve been singing that for millennia and now we have the gift you’ve given us…of song...the Wednesday” and she looked down at him lying on the bed and she said: “Lusmoore, I know you’re suffering…and whatever you sleep [sic] on that feather bed tonight may it come true….” And Lusmoore was lulled into a deep sleep and as he slept he dreamt of lots of little people with lots of little hammers and little chisels and they were cutting into that hump on his back (sound effects of little hammers and chisels) and (swwerch) lifting it off and then he woke up and he was in a ditch (audience: oooh) and he was in the ivy and he was wet…tut…it was all a dream and he stood up…(yawn, standing up…looking around) YES!! YES!! He couldn’t quite believe it…he sang three times…just to make sure, can we do that together…one, two, three (audience joins in) YES!! And he ran all the way to his friends house and when he got there he spun around and his friend said: “Lusmoore what’s happened?” “The fairies…and it was all because of a Wednesday” (audience laughter) “now if you wanted to go away really happy we could end the story there…(audience..Yes….Mmmm)Who wants happy? This is the other bit of the story…Lusmoore knew somebody called Archie, they knew each other because Archie had a humpback too. Archie was miserable and mean, he used to spit a lot and pick his nose. And he heard that Lusmoore didn’t have a h ump. And so he said: “What happened? Where did it go?” And he said: “It was the fairies, I added something to their song and look?!” “Well,” said Archie “Where’s that?” “Just by the Stinking Iris, by the beech trees” he said. And so it was that Archie was up there as quick as he could with the hump on his back he lay down in the ivy and there by the Stinking Iris under the big beech tree he lay down and he listened and he heard (all singing) “Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Monday Tuesday Wednesday….oh he was bored really quickly… (shouting) THURSDAY…..Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Monday Tuesday…THURSDAY…HURRY UP!…..and the next thing he knew he felt these kind of sharp fingers and claws in his back…..and he was carried down into the undergrowth into a cavern and there was the Queen of the Fairies not looking very happy at all, she was looking really annoyed (Audience member as Queen of Fairies makes growling annoyed sounds) the Queen of the Fairies looked at Archie and said: “You just ruined our song!” And Archie was put to sleep on a bed of thorns. “Whatever you may dream may it come true.” And that night Archie dreamt, and he dreamt that somebody was sticking another hump on top of his hump and you’ll never guess whose it was. Well I’m very sorry, he woke up in a ditch the next morning and said: “Thank goodness that was a dream” but it wasn’t and if you want the really mean bit of the story on the way home his back broke but you could make it nice and say he was just very very very very miserable. Ok you’ve all got a little task, you’ve got to find something from here…you can find a stick or a anything…this is your chance to make a story. And you’ve got to tell me what this is…Oliver, what’s that? (Oliver: I don’t know) What d’you mean, you don’t know? What is it? (Someone else: It’s…ummm) The only thing it isn’t, is a stick…It can be anything in the world except a stick. Horns?
Audience member: Deer horns…sort of ….antlers
Malcolm: Antlers? Ok if this is a deer’s antler, then tell us about the deer, what’s special about the antlers….
Audience member: It’s…it’s fallen off because the deer was getting older…
Malcolm: It was an old deer…
Audience member: …and when they get older they drop off…
Malcolm: …this is…a magic one…
Audience member: …but because it was dropping off he thought he was getting older but actually because it was magic he was getting younger…
Malcolm: So this is a magic antler that makes you get younger?
Audience member: That’s right.
Malcolm: And did you find it in the woods?
Audience member: I did.
Malcolm: And what did you do with the magic younger-getting antler?
Audience member: I tried it but it didn’t work.
(audience laughter)
Malcolm: Well, it’s not very magic then, is it?
Audience member: Not really, no…
Other audience members: It only works on deers…
Audience member: Possibly….and I’m not a deer, an old deer….
Malcolm (to all in group): I’m going to give you thirty seconds to find something and then come up here and tell me what it isn’t.
Audience member: Uh..er…what it isn’t?
Malcolm: Yes.
Noises of people walking around in woods looking for something….chatting aongst themselves
Malcolm: And when you’ve got it, go and tell someone else what it is, just in pairs. And the other person will help you develop your story buy asking you good questions.
(asking one person) So what have you got there?
Audience member: It’s a leaf…
(lots of murmurings and rustlings, people talking to one another)
Audience member 1: What have you got
Audience member 2: Umm..what have I got? Well, it’s not a fern….What have you got?
Audience member 3: I’ve not got a fern either.
Audience member 1: I haven’t got a dried (inaudible)…
Audience member 2: I think this is the tongue of one of the fairies.
Audience member 1: Ooh, a big fairy?
Audience member 2: Very small fairy but she had a very long tongue.
Audience member 1: So why have you got the tongue?
Audience member 2: She gave it to me.
Audience members 2 & 3: Aa-aah!
Audience member 3: Where did you meet her?
Audience member 2: Down by the stream and she was washing it. ‘Cos she had her head in the water. And I saw her…doing this thing….and I said what are you doing? She came out and she had this long tongue.
Audience member 3: Okay.
Audience member 1: How did it come out?
Audience member 3: Is it detachable?
Audience member 2: No, no…because I didn’t realize…it looked just like a fern to me….so I grabbed hold of it because it looked very pretty in the stream and then I heard this scream…
Audience members 1 & 3: Aaah…Oooh…
Audience member 2: ...and I realized it was attached to a small person
Audience member 3: Oh wow
Audience member 2: So that’s that….anyhow…what about yours
Audience member 1: Who’s this small person…I’m a bit concerned….
Audience member 1: Mine’s not a fern either…it’s a goblin’s hair
Audience member 2: Aaaah…and how come you have got a goblin’s hair?
Audience member 1: Because I was in the fairy woods and not just fairies live there, other little creatures..umm…live there too…and he was near…the stream, sort of near stream….may be the same stream as yours…and he was brushing his hair...it was very very long…and very fern-like, I thought. And as it floated down the stream I gathered some, what I thought were bits of fern…I could see that it would come from his head…so I collected some and he got very annoyed because you’re not supposed to collect goblin’s hair…
Audience members 2 & 3: (knowlingly) Ahhhmmmm….
Audience member 3: But I didn’t know that
Audience members 2& 3: (knowlingly) Ahhhmmmm…
Audience member: So I pretended to put it all back and now I’ve got some
Audience members 2 & 3: Uh huh..mmm..so you’ve got to hide it, have you….
Audience member 1: So I don’t know what’s going to happen now, he said: Don’t take goblin’s hair
Audience members 2 & 3: Mmmmm.
Audience member 2:And how about you then?
Audience member 3: I haven’t got a brown dried leaf.
Audience member 1: What is it then?
Audience member 3: It’s a…cleaning rag
Audience member 1: For anything special?
Audience member 3: It belongs to a colony of ants…the worker ants….and they use it to clean before the rest of the ant army comes in, the paths, so they clear them and they use this particular rag to clean it…and I just happened to pick it up and I’m very worried that they won’t have a track any more…
Audience member 1: ..would be looking for it?
Audience member 3: They would be looking for it…
Audience member 2: They will…maybe they’ll be coming towards you…
Audience member 3: Oh dear…
Audience member 2: …asking about it.
Audience member 3: I can…I can deposit it back…
Audience member 2: Yeah.
(These storytellers have finished their stories)
(In the distance, coming towards us, other storytellers, still telling their stories….)
Audience members….the fairies….yeah, maybe they will sing this song, yeah…you’re going to make your soup…
Malcolm: Everybody come round now, this is the ultimate installment of this little story. You now …everybody’s got to say one title for their story that came out from their object. Or they can just say what it is…so you got to say in three…not more than three words, what it is…ok you start.
Audience member 2: The Fairy’s Tongue
Malcolm: My God, we’ve got tongues everywhere
(General laughter)
Malcolm: And yours?
Audience member 1: The Goblin’s Hair
Malcolm: The Goblin’s Hair – eeuurgh! What’ve you got?
Audience member: The Poisoned Tongue
Malcolm: Oh my goodness…the Poisoned Tongue…this is obviously a thtorytelling fethtival…what have you got there?
Audience member 3: Ant’s Rag
Malcolm: A rag?
Audience members 1 & 3: It’s a cleaning rag
Malcolm: A cleaning rag….it’s got a bit dirty
Audience member 2: That’s why, it’s a cleaning rag! It’s a used one.
Malcolm: This is the tongue for cleaning girls’ feet….dirty feet in the woods….it’s a penance…very handy…what have you got?
Audience member: A fairy’s bell
Malcolm: She hasn’t decided what it does yet.
Audience member: Yeah.
Malcolm: And what’ve you got?
Audience member: A flying fish.
Malcolm: Tell us why the flying fish comes into the woods
Audience member: umm..to eat….ummm I can’t remember
Malcolm: Who is its friend?
Audience member: A slug
(Laughter)
Malcolm: It comes in to see its friend the slug and they eat together, they go out for dinner parties, the flying fish and the slug have great dinner parties togehter…is that true? Well, I’m very happy about that. So…I don’t know how we’re doing for time…it’s ten to seven, shall we go on a bit further? It’s getting a bit on the chilly side, there’s many stories as we wander…have you got a story you’d like to share with us, Chris?
Chris: No, I haven’t got one.
Malcolm: Then we’ll wander on, get someone somewhere else…come on then, run a bit…don’t get lost…
(sounds of walking)
Raksha (to Malcolm): So whereabouts in the North East are you from?
Malcolm: Well, I’m not from but I live in Newcastle on Tyne.
Raksha: Oh, I went to university there and I live in Durham.
Malcolm: You live in Durham?
Raksha: Well, in a village near Durham
Malcolm: Which village?
Raksha: West Rainton
Malcolm: West?
Raksha: Rainton….
Malcolm: Oh West Rainton I know that…there’s (inaudible)
Raksha: There’s Rainton Meadows there
Malcolm: What were you studying there?
Raksha: Oh, well I’m a Research Associate and I decided to finish my PhD in Newcastle and now I work in Durham, Durham University.
Malcolm: Oh great. In what?
Raksha: In Geography.
Malcolm: Shall we sing: Monday (all join in singing)
All: Tuesday, Monday Tuesday, Monday Tuesday…Thursday (harmonies start, they continue singing)
Malcolm: Sit down, lie down, you can stand on your head….
(everyone gradually sits down)
Malcolm: Since we're talking about elves, and fairies I want to tell you the tragic tale…there are lots of happy stories in the wood…I want to tell you the tragic tale of Serenin…(to someone) now come over here for a minute I need you for this one. Serenin was a half elf. Have you ever met an elf? He wasn’t properly elf and he wasn’t actually…can you see him over there? Meet Serenin. The half elf, now doesn’t he look a bit elfish? He’s got very elfish qualities there. Serenin, a half elf under the tree. But Serenin is sad. He’s sad ‘cos he doesn’t quite fit in the land of humans where he’s a bit small and weak and he’s too clumsy to be an elf. So he sits in this world between the human world and the elf world and he’s not big enough and strong enough for a person and he’s not light enough and bright enough to be an elf. But you know what he can do? He can make people laugh. So he will go to festivals and parties and Serenin will be there with his funny face and his crooked ears and everybody will laugh. But you know at the end of the party he’ll go out and he’ll be all on his…?
Audience: …own.
Malcolm: Do you know about the pool on top of the hill? Do you know about it? If you haven’t been there you should go. (to audience member) have you been to the pool on the top of the hill?
Audience member: Yeees.
Malcolm asks others whether they have been to the pool on the top of the hill.
Malcolm: So if you go to the pool on the top of the hill at Beltane…who knows what Beltane is? Nothing to do with belts….(ask one audience member) Do you know what Beltane is? (to someone else) You’re only half an elf…a pure elf would know…Beltane is…..the Spring…..Equinox.
Audience: Aaaah…
Malcolm: If you go up to the pool on the top of the hill at Spring Equinox in the dark by yourself… listen to this carefully you might need it sometime, you might not, but if you go up to the pool at the top of the hill at the Spring Equinox when the moon is high and you stare into the rippling water d’you know what you’ll see? Well, first of all you’ll see your….?
Audience: self..
Malcolm: …reflection…but if you stare at your reflection, you’ll see the face of the one who’ll be your true love. And so sad Serenin, not in this world and not in the other, went up to the pool on the top of the hill and stared and he looked and he saw his funny quizzical face with one ear higher than the other and the stronger he stared into the water, the more he saw the most surprising thing in the world. He saw the famous wood nymph who was the daughter of the King and Queen of the Fairies (inaudible..the most beautiful) and Serenin looked and looked….”Oh….” down his back “Oh she won’t marry me with lopsided ears and me funny face and I’m not strong” and do you know what he did? You know that little hut down there? That’s where the Shapeshifter lived, and he went straight to the door of the shapeshifter and said: “I wanna new face. I wanna marry Queen Czigane and she’ll never marry a weird looking guy like me. I need a new face.” And the Shapeshifter said: “Serenin, are you sure?” He said “Yes.” She said: “Once you’ve got a new face you can’t change it.” He said: “I’m sure, she’ll never look at me.” “Alright,” said the Shapeshifter, “Come in,” and she lay him down and she gave him a choice of many faces and he just picked (inaudible) and he got a new face and he looked in the mirror and he saw this handsome hero looking back. It was very strange but he walked straight to Princess Czigane’s palace. (Pointing) It’s down there, you see? And he knocked on the door and there she was, the beautiful Princess Czigane and she said, “What do you want now?” And he said: “Princess Czigane,” and he tried to his best with his handsome hero look, “I want to marry you.” She said, “I have a hundred handsome heroes come here everyday and I tell you what they all want to marry me and there’s only one thing they’re interested in, themselves. No. Anyway,” she said, “I saw in the pool a face of the person I was going to marry the other day and he wasn’t handsome but he made me laugh.” And Serenin, he ran out of the palace straight to the Shapeshifter and he said, “Take it off.” …(inaudible but something like, you’ve done it). And that was the end of the story.
We’ll go on somewhere else for the end of the story. Come on then, we’re going to the last place.
(conversations…walking…..)
I thought I better take you here as a warning, this is the Shapeshifter’s house. Alright you can see it’s a bit ruined, uumm, so Ladies, you are now entering the zone of the Shapeshifter the one in the woods, she’s very powerful, you have to be very careful going anywhere near this place because if you wish for something it may come true and it might be a new face and might be not what you’re wishing. So he went back to the Shapeshifter’s house and she said, “Sorry buddy, too late.” But all he wanted was to be near Princess Czigane so he went back to the palace and he hired himself out as a cleaner and he mopped the floors and he washed the dishes and all the handsome heroes that came by laughed at him. This hero mopping the dishes, this man with the most beautiful, exquisite face brushing the floor. It went on for a whole year, he was broken, and then it was Beltane again and he went up to the pool and he looked into the pool and he saw this face he didn’t recognize glistening back at him and he was so full of grief for the first time in his life he cried. And he cried and cried the saltiest tears you’ve ever seen. And they eked down between his old face and his new one…and it peeled off, and it splashed into the water and that splash disturbed Princess Czigane who was on the other side of the pool, who was also weeping. And they looked up and there was Serenin with his funny face and there was Princess Czigane and the rest I’ll leave to your imaginations. That’s a bit lucky that was, wasn’t it…haha…Heyyyy, shall we have one more verse of Monday Tuesday then? (all sing) Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Monday, Thursday Friday
Once upon a time we’ll have the last story here and now...all the birds met in the forest and they were going to choose who was going to be the King of the Birds and the Owl said: “I will choose the one of you that can fly the highest.” And you (pointing to audience member) can be the Wren, and you (pointing to another audience member) can be the Eagle. And so the Owl said: “When I clap my wings all fly up and the one who flies the highest will get to be the King of the Birds.” So he clapped his wings and up they went and – woooooh - ,those crows, the pheasants, the peacocks, the woodpeckers, the cranes…the….every all of them, they went up into the sky and there was a little Blue Tit and the Blue Tit said: “I’m going to be King of the birds, I wanna be King of the birds…” and the Blue Tit went right above the trees, “I’m going to be King of the Birds, I’m going to be King of the Birds, I’m going to be King of the Birds,”….and then he saw a caterpillar….(audience groans) and he said: “Dash being a King, I wanna caterpillar.” So he didn’t bother. And then above the Blue Tit…there was a…ooh, you can be this Belinda…there was the black Crow. And the black Crow flew up and up and up and up n up n up n up ….go on, (to Belinda) higher than that…up n up n up…come on then (to Belinda) get yer wings out….up n up n up n up …..GET YER WINGS OUT Leon you’ll get stuck…and he went up and up and up oh he’s not getting his wings out…and up and up…when the Crow so high in the sky…you can hardly see it and then it made a mistake, you know what it did? It looked down….KAARK, KAARK, KAARK, KAARK and you know what? It lost its nerve. Never look down if you want to be King of the Birds. It lost its nerve and it came tumbling out of the sky and from that day to this crows have always gone KAARK, KAARK and tumbled out the sky, and when he got to the bottom he pretended he meant to do that all along. You know how crows always look like they know what they’re doing. And above the Crow was (to another audience member) this is your job ‘coz I heard how beautifully you sang, the Skylark (audience oohs and aahs) and the Skylark flew into the sky and started singing. The skylark knew if you sing and fly at the same time then you can go higher…started singing….prrrrtttteetee, keerkeer kikikik tikatikatikatikatika kikikik keerkeer kigik kigik kigik kigik krrrrrrrr kikikik kigik kigik tikitikitikitikitiki went right up into the clouds krrrrrrrr kikikik kigik krrrrrrrr kigik higher than the…..up n up it went krrrrrrrr kikikik…you know what happened? It heard its baby hatching from down in the nest below.What’s more important babies or Kings? Folded its wings, dropped out the sky like a stone…wheeeeeeeee….and everybody thought it was going to die, and then it fluttered down…onto the nest, and Skylarks have done that ever since. You go out on a Spring morning and you see them go high in the sky….then drop down remembering the day they didn’t get to be King…(some exchange with an audience member about skylarks)…and then above the Skylark was, you’ll never guess who, it was the mighty…..(audience supply answer: Eagle) Eagle. The Eagle soared up into the sky and said (screeching): “I don’t think much of this,” and shoutedup to the gods above and said: “I’m King of the Birds!” “No you’re not,” said a voice. Then fluttering along his head was a Wren, “I’m flying with you, “ said the Wren. “How did you get there?” “Never you mind.” “Bloomin’ heck,” thought the Eagle, I better carry on and go higher…so the Eagle started flapping higher…and he went up and up and didn’t notice the Wren snuggling into its neck feathers. Up and up and up and up and up and up and it got so high it could swear it could see God. “God!” “Yes, Eagle,” “I’m King of the Birds!” “No you’re not, I’m higher than you.” The little Wren was fluttering above its head. “Ooooooh,” said the Eagle, “I’m really fed up now. You little Wren, I’m gonna make you mincemeat.” The little Wren knew it was in trouble, so there’s only one place you gonna be safe if you’re a Wren and there’s an Eagle around, that’s a bramble bush. So the little Wren hightailed it back down to earth, get yer little wings out…brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrwheeeeeeeeee……..all the way down to earth and the Eagle got out its big claws……neeeeorrrrrrrr….(to audience member as he is the Eagle bearing down on the Wren) you’re the Wren, sorry…..and just as the Wren was getting into the bramble bush….Wren’s used to have long tails, did you know that? No, you didn’t, well they did. Well the Eagle got out its claws and went – Jzzackk – and cut of the end of its tail. And that’s why if you see a Wren in a bush today it’s always going like this (makes some action???) remembering when it had a long tail, ‘cos it doesn’t anymore. So it went into a bush and the Eagle didn’t catch it. And then the Owl sat there and said, “Well who went the highest?” “I did,” said the Eagle.” “ I did,” said the Wren. “She cheated,” said the Eagle. “And I went the highest.” So they decided to put the crown on the Wren. It was a bit big, rather a large fit, but the Wren didn’t care, ‘cos the Wren sings louder than anybody else and it went into the bushes and sang and sang and sang and sang. Well it actually made everybody nearly deaf….so loud because it was so pleased with being the King and the Eagle said: “Alright Wren,” no it didn’t, it didn’t say alright, it said: “you and you and you and you and you and you….that Wren was nothing be trouble, you know he cheated…put a tear in that cup, ‘cos you can only drown Wrens with tears,…I’m glad you’re complicit…..
Audience member: I don’t know…I don’t want to drown…(.inaudible)
Malcolm: Can I have a tear please? Thank you….So it got a little cup…put the cup in the ground….and the only one who hadn’t put the tear in was the Owl. So the Owl went up to the cup to put his tear in the cup and I don’t know if it was an accident or on purpose but its big hairy claw hit the side of the cup….all the tears drained into the ground. And you know what happened? The Eagle was so annoyed it banished the Owl only to come out at night. And that’s why when the Owl comes out during the day all the other birds mob it. “Get back into the night.” And actually the truth is the Skylark and the Lapwing and the Nuthatch and the Bluetit and the Blackbird and the Crane, they were all quite chuffed because they didn’t want a King anyway, ‘cos they’re all their own Kings. That's the end of the story. And that’s a Welsh story.
Audience member: Is it?
Malcolm: YEEEESSSSS! Hahahaha….Gosh, I knew I’d get one in somewhere. Oh well, thank you very much everyone.
Audience: Thank you!!