One of the group had a brain wave for a new game called 'Head's for Tales' and everyone else was happy to give it a go. So someone starts a tale and when they have told enough they flip a coin and if it’s heads something good happens in the story or if tails, something bad.  Then the next person takes up the tale and when they have told enough they flip the coin. 'Head's for Tales' – a fun game of free form storytelling that really gets the imagination going. 

So we had the story of Shy Jack with the amazing singing voice and his competition with nasty Nigel the Tax inspector. 

Followed by an old man who goes on a very strange journey with a collection of animal friends. 

We then experimented with some different rules and outcomes. 

Some also had a story they wanted to try or tell. It’s strange. You can read a story, you can hear a story but you only know if it really works and how it feels when you tell it yourself to appreciative ears. 

Mary told the beautiful story of Two Shepherds, which comes from the West of Ireland. An amazing story which sticks in the brain with some great images and no moral. 

Wooden Frock was told by Maggie. Another one of Calvino's weird and wonderful Italian tales. A long story that needs good concentration to tell. 

And rapping it all up was Chris with the story of the Strange Dream. Although when the poor hero of the story wakes up I think it was more of a nightmare. 

Just a reminder that our last meeting before the summer break is 20^th July.

We begin again on 14^th September. In the Autumn season we will have some storytelling master classes led by professional storyteller June Peters. More details to come. 

Next Week: More fun and games

Five of us present – Chris, Mary, Maggie, Deirdre and Tony.

Discussed the forthcoming storytelling session at Lewisham Hospital on Thursday 17 June.– Chris, Tony and De and Mary.

• Chris told the Little man on the Little island, our pass-it-round story where each teller adds their own ending.  It was great.
• Deirdre told The Dead Moon – the story from the English Fens where the moon is captured by the Bogles and Boggarts and the fens loose their night light. The moon is saved in the end.
• Tony told a Polynesian story – Saving Time – a young boy Maui confronts the speeding sun and bargains with it to slow down, thus giving more hours of daylight.
• Mary told a story about a many-coloured coat that was re-cut into a jacket, then into a waistcoat, to a cap and then a bow-tie. All this during the growing up of a man’s family, each item for a new member of the family.
• Maggie told a true story about a kitten stuck in a tree, saved by a vicar and a woman’s moment of conversion with a gift from God! 

Well Parish news and exciting details of forthcoming events were dealt with as quick as possible so we could get on with some storytelling. 

We kicked off with Deirdre telling her version of our 'tell it and pass it on story' the Little Island. It’s really great to hear the same story told over and over, evolving as it goes. Will we ever agree on what the end should be? Come along and find out. 

Now as is often the case one story leads to another and the story of the Little Island reminded Debbie (great to see you back) of a Japanese story that she had been told while she was in Indonesia, The Golden Sea. It had resonance with the Little Island and after Debbie had told it, it resonated with the whole group. 

And then we were really going with Chris and the Mouse Princess, a couple of true stories from Tom and Claire. Followed by Ben reworking an old tale to fit a new situation and giving it some local colour. Anne told us a wonderful story of Scottish Kelpies (which are water spirits that take the form of horses and like to drown their riders! Not to be confused with an Australian breed of sheep dog that has pointed ears!!). And it was all wrapped up by Tony telling the Hunting of Death a Rwandan tale.

Wow after that we all went home and slept soundly dreaming of other worlds and other lives.

 Next Week: Stories on the the theme of The Moon. It should be an illuminating evening. Oh and Chris will have a go at The Little Island, perhaps the moon will play a role in its new ending?

We kicked of with trying to come up with the Top Ten children’s stories that a teller really should know and inevitably we couldn’t agree and came up with a longer list than ten. Here it is – in no particular order:

• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Three Little Pigs
• Goldilocks
• Little Red Riding Hood
• The Princess and the Pea – but told along with The Paper Bag Princess
• Rapunzel
• Billy Goats Gruff
• Hansel and Gretel
• Aladdin
• Rumplestiltskin
• Ginger Bread Man
• The Ugly Duckling
• Cinderella
• Beauty and the Beast
• Snow White

 Well that’s what we came up with. Anyone want to try a list of stories for adults?  You can use the Comment link at the bottom of this post to give us your ideas for essential stories for children or adults, or any other feedback on TnB.

What do you do when you don’t have an ending for a story? You bring it along to SiH and start a ‘Tell it and pass it on’. So one of our tellers had an original story that he didn’t know how to end, he brought it along told it to the group and passed it on. So next time we meet Deirdre is going to have a bash at re-telling it and putting on her ending and so it will go until we reach a suitable conclusion.

We also reviewed some of the video from the last Group performance which was Parzival.  This was a good exercise and quite reassuring for a number of tellers.  Its good to be able to look back on an event with a bit more of a detached critical eye.  We hope we may be able to post some clips up on this website if we can secure the performers permission. Keep your eyes open. 

And then some more stories:

Vanessa told the Calvino story ‘Mr Crocodile’ and gave it a bit of local colour.  It was a good chance to run through a new story that she was telling to a group of 8 year olds the next day.

The Green Ladies of One Tree Hill from the book Folk Tales of the British Isles, edited by Michael Foss was told by Deirdre, a beautiful and classic tale.

Next Week: No SiH as its half-term. Next meeting 08.06.10 -  Which will be a straight forward evening of storytelling. Bring one along.  Oh and don’t forget an object to go in the ‘Story Bag’.

We got physical! How much should we use our bodies in telling? How can we use gesture to greater effect? And an experiment in storytelling to help us do this! 

Well once we got going it was another lively night. I must find a better word than lively otherwise I'm doomed to repeat it every week.  So first we had a discussion about Gestures,  what they are and if we should or need to use them, did I say discussion perhaps I should say a debate! We then considered Descriptive & Emphatic gestures and how we should think about how we can fit them naturally to our own style. And then after Tea and bickys we had a bash at 'Shadow' telling. Hum what's that?

 Well the audience faces a wall (Stay with it) and the story teller stands behind the audience and is lit from behind (Get it?). So what the audience watches is the tellers shadow.  This means that if you are nervous about telling or just want to experiment with a story the audience isn't watching you. They are watching your shadow, taking a lot of the pressure off.  Also the story teller can watch his own performance and see how static his telling is – this is much easier and nicer than telling to a mirror. Telling into a mirror is like listening to your own voice on a tape – Horrible! This was a fun exercise, probably because folks were prepared to give it a go. 

So we had Mary tell a great version of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' – what a great story this is, you might think that everybody knows it, but it really stands up in the telling. Great. Maggie did the story of the 'King March' with some real use of shadow and Tony gave us the 'Gold Coins' which was his usual expansive self.

Watching the shadows did make me wonder what it would be like for a real performance and how much you could do with it. I wonder if anyone will take up the challenge? 

Next Week: Stories on the Theme of Trees. Bring one along and share it with the group.  Story that is not a tree! Mind you we have been known to share rhubarb on a Tuesday night. In more ways than one. Oh and don't forget an object to donate to the story bag.

A night of just good old random storytelling and story chatter. Amongst the tales, we heard from Tony an Italian folk tale ‘Quack Quack!’ Stick to my back!  A story about a very strange duck. A Chinese story from Ben - ‘The Jar’. An Urban legend in the form of the ‘Cat in the safe’ from Tom and to round it up from Deirdre a Duncan Williamson story of the Seal folk of Ireland - “Mary and The Seal”. A nice relaxing evening of stories. Great fun.

Well what a lively night looking at how varying our Pitch, Pace & Power can help to bring a story alive. The alternative of course is to keep an even pitch throughout the sentence, which at best sounds odd and at worst dull, boring or confusing. We all modulate our voice naturally while we are speaking to fit the mood or emotion of what we are saying. However put an audience in front of us and nerves and anxiety can take over draining our voice of its life and spark, modulation puts the life in. The ‘Devil’s Breeches’ story from Italo Calvino gave us a chance to analyse what parts of a story call for modulation and then to have a go at using some of the techniques we discussed. Great to see engaged and ready to have a go.

‘The Devil’s Breeches’ gave us all an introduction to the Italian folk tales collected by Italo Calvino.

Italo Calvino: One of the most inventive of European writers and a master of allegorical fantasy, Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 but grew up in Italy and spent most of his life there. An essayist and journalist, as well as a writer of fiction, he was awarded the prestigious Italian literary award, the Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985.

Italian Folktales: Meticulously selected and artfully recreated, the selection of stories in Italian is vast and ranges geographically from Corsica and Sicily to Venice and the Alps.

This is a really interesting collection of folk tales, better, some would say, than the brothers Grimms'. The flavour of raw, hard peasant life comes through on every page, and very little imagination is needed to transport you back to 17th century taverns where story-tellers spellbound their listeners with these even more ancient stories of ogres, bandits, princes, witches, priests, kings and thieves. Some are ghost stories, meant to curdle the blood, while others are cheery tales of youngest daughters outwitting the bandits and marrying the prince that would charm any child. Some are witty, knowing tales of corrupt priests, or bandits competing with each other for title of best thief. They are all deeply moral, if sometimes heavy on the retribution and revenge. These are earthy, funny, tragic, witty tales which have not been "tidied up", censored for sex or violence, or otherwise bowdlerized.

Next Week: Modulation and the use of our voice.