DigiStory

Back for Estonia

2010-08-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

I have just come back from a wonderful time in Estonia soaking up the peace of the forests and the water. All renewwed for the final elements of my report on storytelling and science. I am breaming with ideas and materials with which I shalll now be posting.

Back from the Blues

2010-06-16T03:52:00.001-07:00

I have not been posting for a very long time but this was mostly becuase I established a facebook page and also have been quite busy attending workshops on storytelling skills at new battle Abbey College and giving storytelling sessions. I was lucky enought to be able to give 2 storytelling sessions this summer. One at the St. Mungo's Museum in Glasgow and the other at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The focus was Science Stories. Both sessions were given in conjunction with William Docherty another storyteller from Glasgow.

The focus of the session was to showcase storytelling as a suitable medium to enthuse children about science. I have been working on this for quite a while and will hope to be able to do a workshop on this topic later on in the future. I will be posting the stories which we wrote, as well as adapted for the session plus the activities we designed to get children to interact with the stories and with scientific processes.

I have had good feedback on this.

Science and Storytelling

2009-12-29T05:34:00.000-08:00

I have been working for a while together with William Docherty, a storyteller from St Mungo's Museum in Glasgow on a storytelling event that showcases the narrative aspects of science and I ran accross this video from MIT talking about the way science uses a narrative to convey its messages. I found the article fascinating becuase it is so much at the heart of our current work. Science Stories will be presented at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on April 16th 2010 from 4-6 pm. Children will hear stories from scientific and technological developments and will be encouraged to create their own science stgories using a variety of media. It is aimed at children from 7-11 years olf. The event is spondored by St Mungo's Museum and the Science, Religion and Technology Project, Church and Society Council.

Contemporary Storytelling Course

2009-12-26T04:37:00.000-08:00

I have been away from the blog for quite a while but not wawy from storytelling. I have taken a full time job and this inevitably impinges on the time I can spend writing and learning about storytelling, however, my love for storytelling has not decreased. I have continued taking workshops here and there. More importantly I have started telling stories to adults within the context of the Storytelling Cafe which meets every month at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. I am slowly working on my repertoire and with this in mind, I decided to enrol in the Contemporary Storytelling Course given at Newbattle Abbey College.

Formal and Informal Learning.
I found the experience really invigorating. The weekend from the 25-27 September was run by Donald Smith and Bea Ferguson. The weekend gave us an opportunity to work in groups having the advice and feedback of both tutors and this was invaluable.

I met and worked with people who specialise in ghost stories running storytelling tours in the dark streets and alley-ways of Edinburgh; people who specialise in stories from The Orkney Islands; people who specialise in writing and telling stories with a religious context. There were also academics from abroad using stories as a teaching aid to teach and learn English as a foreign language. There were early years teachers and people who work with young people in a variety of challenging environments. I was able to compare ways of working with children, particularly some of the techniques that I honed in within the DigiStory Club. All in all, I realised how fantastically varied are the applications of storytelling.

The first weekend was stuctured as a workshop in the morning, with opportunities for groupwork and feedback time. Afternoons gave further opportunities to work on specific stories. The second day we worked more in fleshing out individual projects either based on the work done in the previous day, or our own personal project. I worked on a project about bringing together the stories embedded within scientific discoveries with the magic of storytelling. This project is fleshing itself more and more and I will be able to share more of this as the project develops further.

The final day was for actual performance with group feedback and later on, individual feedback by the tutors. I was able to present a story based on mythology from the region of Oaxaca in Mexico. I had already told this story at the Storytelling Cafe in Edinburgh, but through the work at the workshop I was able to develop it to a much finer point, taking in side characters and descriptions that helped the audience understand the context of the story. All in all very satisfying.

What did I learned?
My repertoire of stories was enlarged. I explored different methodologies with which to study the core of each story. I became aware of the very wide applications that storytelling has. I saw the importance of freeing my body and my voice in order to make the story a more "lived-in" experience. I am working on a project that works with science narratives and storytelling. I made friends and established working partnerships with a number of people and I had 2 glorious evenings of endless storytelling.

However, for me the most important thing was the close cooperation and feedback from fellow storytellers. It was wonderful to meet up and get to work on projects with people who have woven storytelling within their professional activities. Every evening we met by the huge fireplace in the medieval part of the college and told stories. This was a fantastic learning experience for me. The feedback, advice and encouragement I got from my colleagues was invaluable. So, after the first part of the course, I am back with renewed energy for more writing about storytelling.

The landscape as a metaphor for context within a story

2009-06-12T01:40:00.000-07:00

I have recenlty become interested in the work of Patrick Gedes because it shows the ways in which our environment, whether a rural landscape, or a city dwelling influences our creativity, whether in our manufacturing of technology or in the creation of artistic works. He had a tremendous influence on the development of the city of Edinburgh. The natural features of the city influenced his architectural work as well as his ideas about town planning.

As I was listening to all of this at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in a joint workshop lead by Donald Smith and Bob Pegg it dawned on me that most of my preocupation had so far been on finding techniques to sketch out the macrostructure of stories to the detriment of the context of the story. I resonated very much with the need we have as storytellers to get our audiences to "see" the location where the story takes place. How to use our voice, our gestures and our body language to aid this visualisation is definitely a whole area of inquiry but, and perhaps more poignately, how do we as storytellers work our stories and develop a sense for "seeing" for ourselves, the landscape of our stories?

The physical landscape map
During the workshop we were encouraged to visualise, smell and feel the scenery. We were asked to concentrate on particular elements of the landscape that could have an influence in the visualisation that the audience would have. I found this particular exercise very fruitful, since at the moment I am working on a story from the Aztecs and I needed to visualise the famous city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). I was taken as a child by my grandmother to Zocalo, (the central square, as it was rebuilt by the Spaniards after the fall of Tenochtitlan) however, I had not really thought about how the square would have looked at the time of the Aztecs.

We were then asked to draw a map of the physical landscape of our story. I found that exercise particularly powerful. I realised that a crucial element of my story would have to be a depiction of the central square of Tenochtitlan. Just as crucial would be the canals, circling the city and providing major commercial waterways connecting the city, which was built on an island on a lake, to the mainland.
I also realised that the market was crucial to the story because the smells and sounds of the market should permeate the story.

After I finished my physical map, I could actually see the central square, with the two main pyramids and the surrounding waterways with barges. The drawing of the map, embedded the square in my mind to the point that all I have to do now, is close my eyes and "see" it. I think that I can now tell what I "see" of this once great but destroyed city, to anyone that listens to my story.

The action map
We were then asked to use our physical map, and incorporate within it specific actions or sound elements (i.e. movements, music etc) that might help the audience to visualise the environment of the story. I used this opportunity to develop the idea of using clay flutes and perhaps small percussion instruments to introduce a feeling of mystery and hussle and bussle of the market streets adjacent to the ceremonial square.
I also thought of using scented copal or incense at a specific time within the story to illustrate the significane fo the religious activities being performed at the central square. the action map became a fantastic visual image helping me prepare and "own" my story.

CreditsThe photograph of the clay plaque of Patrick Geddes was taken by Gary Thomson. The photograph of a painting of Tenochtitlan was taken by Steve Cadman. The picture of a small representation of the market was taken by Senor Codo.

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Flesh & Bones: different types of macrostructures

2009-06-01T01:57:00.000-07:00

I attended on Saturday at workshop at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. The workshop was called "Connecting with stories". It was an interesting workshop conducted with Sarah Perceval. Throughout the workshop we were presented with different ways of connecting with the story which we had chosen to tell.

I have often been puzzled by the constant tugg of war between learning by heart every minute detail of the story or the opposite approach, which is to determine the basics of the story and then depending on your life experience and the audience, let your imagination embroider around the story. The workshop addressed these tow questions in a useful manner although the topics got explored somewhat indirectly.

Deconstructing the Story. The workshop leader distributed stories to read and then made us select what she termed "the bones of the story". "Bones" are those elements without which the story would collapse or make no sense at all". "Flesh" are those elements that add context, or meaning, or embellish the story. I find the analogy of bones and flesh rather confusing becuase a squeleton would not be able to walk if the muscles would not be there to prop-up the bones.... but... nevermind. Each team had to work together to select the "bones" and the "flesh" and to our amazement, there was often quite abit of controversy over what was considered "bones" and what was considered "flesh". Some people felt very strongly that some "bones" were actually "flesh" and vice-versa. It also became very clear that depending on the audience, sometimes, "flesh" would be turned into "bones". All this discussion exemplified very clearly to me the need to work throuogh your story quite thoroughly and adapt it before presentation to an audience.

Storyboarding. After the discussion of "Bones & Flesh" we moved into representing the story linearly through storyboards. It was quite interesting to have the linear representation converge (or not) into the skeletal elements of the story. Several elements of my story for example fitted into just one or two main skeletal branches. The discussion then centred on the extent to which a storyteller can tap into personal experiences in order to unpack these "fleshy-contextual-embroidery" elements to an audience. Some people felt that the story had to have fidelity to factual elements. For example, if the story takes place in an an onlive grove and we feel that this embellishment is appropriate to the story and we have never been to an onlive grove, is it appropriate to use experiences of a Scottish pine-forest? here is where adaptation comes into play. I tend to favour throughough research. Having been both in olive groves and Scottish pine-forests, the experience is quite different in both, so although we are speaking of masses of trees, both experiences are definitely not interchangeable.... None-the-less, I found the use of storyboarding and "flesh & bones deconstruction" quite useful in helping me connect not just to the story, but to an audience.

Visualisation. Finally, we worked on visualisation of one of the elements of the story. This helped quite a lot becuase suddenly the imagination came into play and sensory elements like sound, taste, and feelings came into play. All in all, I thought that visualistion provided an emotional way of connecting to the materials within the story, and storyboards and "skeletons and flesh" techniques provided an analytical way of connecting to the story and the audiences.

Credits. The picture of the skeletons was taken by Wonderlane.

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Searching for stories

2009-05-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have not written for a while, mostly because I have been busy attending workshops at the Edinburgh’s Storytelling Centre, and also because I have been busy looking for stories to tell my audience of children and adults during my children’s address time.

I have looked at a number of websites and have become member of a number of podcasting services like Brother Wolf (which is wonderful) but I have not yet found my ideal combination of short, meaningful stories. I have been working on some of the stories of the Lion’s Book of Tales and Legends and I think I can indeed use some of them, but I would love to be able to incorporate stories where the meaning is indeed more subtle. I find it difficult to locate stories that can capture the attention of children and adults, convey a thoughtful message and do not sound moralizing. I suppose it is an exercise of constantly being in search of stories and creating a repertoire.

Some weeks ago, I attended a storytelling workshop where some participants were speaking passionately about working with a story for years. I think this is a wonderful idea, because the story, like good wine will mature an grow on you. I can see that you can develop different ways of telling the story and experiment with emphasis on different parts of the story. However, if you have the same audience every month, or every two weeks, how can you let the story work on you? Can you develop the story over time without an audience? How can you do that…. The audience participates so much to any storyteller… they provide ambience, interest.. etc. I wish I could find a way of developing and working on my stories without having the need to have an audience. I currently rehearse on my own, or go to the garden and speak the story out loud, however, nothing beats trying things out with a live, responding audience.

Memory work or Re-inventing the story each time...

2009-03-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

I had not been able to write on the blog because I have taken a full time job, and somehow have felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to learn. There was also sheer exhaustion and having to work with a very old computer.... so things got somewhat put in the back burner... however, as many blog writers know, soon the blog-bugg bites again, and here I am, with new energy and fever wanting to share with you more about my wanderings through storytelling.

Today after several weeks away from the world of storytelling, I became a teller of stories once more. This time it was in front of an audience of about 15 children and 50 adults in St Andrew's Parish Church. I told the Story of the Bamboo. It is a wonderful story of solidarity where a bamboo agrees to be cut down in order to serve his master who will use the bamboo to water a field. A colleague of mine sent me the story through the email on Saturday afternoon and I had little time to research it.

Memory work or re-invention....
When I started storytelling, I felt that I could never remember everything about a story. I was afraid of getting lost in the detail. Storyboarding worked wonders to help me pin thedown the important elements of the story, but now, with some storytelling years down my belt, I understand that a story is never the same, no matter how many times you tell it. No single storyteller will tell the story in exactly the same way to different audiences. A process of adaptation and incantation and improvisation occurs each time.

I am placing the story at the end of my commentary exactly as this friend emailed it to me. I tried to locate it on the Internet in order to give its full provenance, but I have not been able to find it. I am placing it for you to see, because it is an example of the work that goes on upon the transformation of the bare bones of the story into the art of storytelling. I think that in the process of taking possession of the story, or rather, allowing the story to dictate its meaning and poetry to the storyteller, each story takes on a different feel and personality.

In my case I chose to place the story in China, because our children would have seen bamboo when visiting either the Chinese garden in the Royal Botanical Gardens or the Edinburgh Zoo and the Pandas... anyway, as it so happens, we grow bamboo in our own garden in Bo'ness and I was able to get a few bamboo leaves to show to the children.

Let the characters speak through you.

I went to the garden for inspiration. It was cold but there was still light. the story was resonating in my head and I looked for a while at the bamboo and sat next to the rose bushes which are close-by. The bamboo spoke to me and I wanted to convey the sense of wonder whenever I see and feel the rustle of the wind go through the bamboo leaves in our garden. I wanted my bamboo to have a real voice in the story... so I started by giving a name to the bamboo.... Bak Choy (reminiscences of Chinese cabbage no doubt).

I also decided to develop a relationship between the bamboo and its master, so I invented a little ritual where the master would come every morning to great the bamboo as he took his morning walk through the garden. Bak Choy would be eagerly awaiting the visit of the master and would call in to his friend the wind, so that the leaves would rustle in welcome as the master approached. I also started making the sounds of the wind and swaying softly the leaves of the bamboo, so that the children would get an idea of the tree dancing through its leaves whilest waiting to meet the master. The visual and sound imagery worked really well. The children and the adults were enthralled.

Create a mood and wellcome the audience
Storytellers I admire, invite you into their world, and enthrall you within. I have learnt that props, simple props can help in this. I use a Turkish hat. I call it my storytelling hat and put it on as I sit on the floor amongst the children. This is my way to give them the idea that we were entering a different world, where, I am no longer me, and they are no longer themselves and we are about to embark on a magical world where, for example, bamboos can speak and their friend is the wind. In this particular story I used some bamboo leaves to give the children the sense of the plant and they way it could rustle in the wind. In other stories I have used percussion instruments, or little whistles that sound like pre-hispanic flutes. I use props to help me create a world of magic. I do not want to prop to be central to the story, just to help the audience to imagine a scene, or a sound or a mood.

Maintain the momentum
I only had 8 minutes for my story so things had to be quick. I was however keen to keep my audience with me, so i constantly keep eye contact with the children and the adults, to make sure that I am being followed. It is a wonderful thrill to see the children's eyes light up in amazement, or their faces drop in sadness if the story takes on a sad turn. I have also experiences panic when I know that I am losing the audience and this is a terrible position to be in. In those cases, I try to use my voice to bring them back, but, I have not always been successful. I need to work more and more on my voice. This time however, I was lucky and I had my audience with me all the way.

My endings aim at resolution
This is scary, but I sometimes change the endings of the story in order to fit with the mood of the moment. So much for accuracy; however, I feel justified because, depending on the audience, the setting and their response tothe story and to you as a storyteller, the ending can vary. What I try to keep in mind however, is that endings should bring peace and a resolution to the conflict created at the centre of the story. Maybe I am very traditional, but I yearn for resolution. This does not mean that the ending always has to be a happy one... it merely means that you might need to have several endings up your sleeve and select your ending to suit your audience and their moods. This is why it is so important to make sure that your audience is with you at all times, so that you can gage the mood and adapt and improvise as needed. storytelling then becomes perpetual improvisation.

Credits
The bamboo photo was taken by CheGuevara Paul

"The Story of the Bamboo Tree -- A traditional story from China

The Bamboo tree stood tall and straight, holding up its head proudly because it knew that it was the master’s favourite tree. When the master walked in his garden the Bamboo would bow its proud head in greeting.

One day the master stood before the Bamboo and said, ‘Bamboo, Bamboo, I must cut you down.’
‘Cut me down! Oh no, master! No!’
‘Yes,’ said the master. ‘You cannot serve me unless you let me cut you down.’ The Bamboo bowed its proud head, saying sadly, ‘Very well, master, cut me down if that is the only way I can serve you.’
‘That is the only way,’ said the master. And so he cut the Bamboo down.

The next day the master stood looking down at the proud Bamboo Tree lying on the ground, its trunk long and straight and its branches spread out. ‘Bamboo, Bamboo,’ said the master, ‘I must cut off your branches.’
‘All of them?’ cried the Bamboo.
‘All of them,’ said the master, ‘or you cannot serve me.’
‘Very well,’ sighed the Bamboo, ‘Cut all my branches off, for I would serve you!’ So the master cut off all the branches. The Bamboo lay alone for a time thinking sadly of its lost beauty, and wondering what else the master had in store for it.

Presently the master returned and said, ‘Bamboo, Bamboo, you have a fine, strong, straight trunk. I must split you in half from top to bottom and take out your pith.’
‘Oh no, no, master!’ wailed the bamboo. ‘I shall die if you do that. I will serve any way I can, but do not split me!’
‘Bamboo, Bamboo, you cannot serve me if I do not split you in two and take out your pith.’ ‘As you will, master,’ whispered the Bamboo.

So the master split the Bamboo from end to end and took out all the pith. Then he laid the two halves of the trunk end to end and fastened them firmly together. One end he laid at the mouth of a little spring of water, which bubbled out of the ground and lost itself among the moss and stones. The other end he placed in his rice field, which was parched and dry. Soon the clear spring water was running from the spring down the channel made by the Bamboo trunk into the dry rice field, bringing refreshment to the drooping, dying plants. So the Bamboo died and brought new life to the master’s rice field. The rice grew tall and strong and brought life to many hungry people."

Use of the storyboad when children create stories

2009-02-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

So far in DigiStory we have experimented with two types of techniques to get children to invent a story. One of them is allowing them to work individually, developing their own characters and drawing the plot up within storyboards. I have developed a little video that illustrates the practice. The advantage of this approach is that the children develop their imagination and zero in on the characters that they like. We have found the use of storyboards highly effective for this because the storyboard presents a sequence where the children can develop a plot in an orderly sequential manner. Using blank pages does not seem to be as conducive to sequential plot development as children seem to then concentrate on doing just one illustration. Story boarding seems to be more conducive for the children to think in terms of small sequences of events tied together which then they can illustrate.

Individual work also allows children to explore the situations that are of importance or relevant to them. I had for example a little girl developing a story about a crab caught in a fishing net, and this story meant something to her because her father took her fishing frequently and her father was abroad and she missed him. Individual work therefore seems to allow children to explore their own emotional issues within a safe environment. Group work seems to do different things.... More about this later on.

The legend of the tree and the moon: the mate tree

2009-02-14T16:39:00.000-08:00

Having a mate is one of the pleasures of spending time in Argentina. I have had the fortune of visiting this country a number of times and have always been fascinated by the pungent, strong and very very invigorating mate tea. It is much healthier and nicer than coffee. It is also drunk socially sharing from a gourd. I can still feel the strength coming into my tired jet-lagged body as an Argentinean friend prepared it for me, or as they say...'cebar el mate". The story that I have just placed on the Stories from the Americas is coming from the Guarani Indians and is a wonderful story combining, magic, a lost child, a tiger and the moon.

Why does the melipona bee love the scent of vanilla?

2009-02-04T03:01:00.001-08:00

Well, you guessed it, vanilla, also comes from the Americas and is another one of the wonderful gifts from this continent to the rest of the world.

I researched a number of legends and eventually settled on the story of the love
between Xanath and her artist lover Tzarahuin (beautiful goldfinch). It is a lovely story with magical transformations, an irate god and a bee. Interestingly, apparently when the Spaniards came to Mexico, they were soon enchanted by the flavour and wonderful smell of this plant, however, although they took the plant back to Spain, they could not pollinate the plant. It needed the magic of a very special insect which only grew in Veracruz. John Todd junior has a wonderful website called Adventures detailing the pollination of this wonderful plant. . However, if what you want is to read the legend of the vainilla, as told by the Totonaca people, the builders of the pyramid of the niches in Tajin, look no further and take yourself to Stories from the Americas.

The wondeful image of the "danzantes" the flying dancers in Tajin was taken by AboGabo.

Holocaust Memorial Day

2009-01-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

I have been researching appropriate stories to tell children from 5-12 about the Holocaust. I am aware that this is a difficult topic particularly because some of the the children are so very young and might be far too impressionable. However, I feel very strongly that this is a topic that should be addressed within storytelling clubs and that potentially hard issues, like racism, discrimination, respect for others should be tackled in a sensitive and creative manner. I have researched the Holocaust Memorial Day website and have found wonderful resources there. I was particularly inspired by the drama activity suggested for an assembly. However, some of my colleagues at the club felt the material and the content was too strong to address in only 1 hour. I wonder if other people have had similar problems to mine. I would love to hear some possible suggestions. I have also read "Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust" by Jaffa Eliach and have been tremendously inspired by some of the stories of courage, determination, humanity and faith... However, I am still not sure on the way of adapting one of those stories for an audience of 5-12.

Credits.
The image of the shoes was taken by Laura at Yad Vashem

The legend of the Potatoe

2009-01-20T01:15:00.000-08:00

Following on the post about Burn's night, I am now preparing a story on the legend of the potatoe. I did quite a bit of research and found about 10 websites mostly in Spanish with different legends of the story of the potatoe. Some of the legends take us back to Inca, and Aymara mythology; others, are contemporary stories that show the love that people from Latin America have for this delicious tuber. The story I chose comes from the Andean mythology, but specifically from Bolivia and tells of the way the potatoe was given to their people the Sapallas by their god to help them fight against their enemies, the Caris. The plant is given to Choque, a prince who is defiant of the ruling of the Caris. Choque will eventually become the ruler of the Sapallas and he demonstrates his cunning in his handling the gift that the god Pacha Camac will grant him and his people. There is an interesting twist in the story which makes you become really aware of the edible parts of some plants, and that not all that looks like appetising fruits can be edible by humans! I have translated and adapted the story based on an audio file of the project Todas las Voces. Click on the link to listen to the story of the potatoe in Spanish. This project sponsored by Unesco and the Dutch government is capturing traditional myths and legends from Latin America and making them available in audio files in Spanish. The photograph of this shadowy potatoe was done by Babraindette. The full story translated into English and adapted is now available in the Stories from the Americas. Read and enjoy.

Burns Night

2009-01-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

Well, January 25th is upon us and Burns' night is galloping towards our storytelling club at amazing speed. For everyone outside the Scottish arena, Burns night is the night where all self-respecting Scottish persons celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, with a night of storytelling, poem reading, eating, drinking and merrymaking. The traditional food served at Burn's suppers is haggis, tatties and neeps . The picture illustrating this Scottish delicacy was done by Matt Hamm . There are rituals surrounding the ceremony concerning the presentation of the food and drink; for example the haggis gets presented to the sound of bagpipes and clapping! Have a look at a film about Burns' night done by Kirkmichael Tinwald & Torthorwald Church in Dumfries & Galloway, the region of Robbie Burns. The photograph of the piper was done by Thomas Ormston.

I wonder, however, how many Scottish children would know that the humble potatoe does not come from Scotland, but from Latin America? So, my proposition for Burn's night on DigiStory is to celebrate Burn's birth with poems and songs, but also with a tale of the travelling of a humble potatoe from Peru, to Europe. Wouldn't that make a splendid addition to multiculturalism?

Chili-Pepper Man, Another Aztec story

2009-01-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

I found this and other Aztec stories in a website by Lorna Dills. Please check out her lesson plans for primary school children based on her stories and on Aztec mythology. I could not resist copying it here since it ties in soooo well with the earlier story of chocolate give to the people of Tula. Here we have another Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca, falling in love with a maiden from Tula.... The chili photograph done by Marzbars. Chilies are an important component of the story... read on....

" Tezcatlipoca and the King of Tula

As Obsidian Snake lay on his reed mat, he awoke to the sound of Turquoise Maize Flower and Speaking Eagle, his mother and father, moving about preparing for the day. Through his squinting eyes he could see that it was still very dark outside. He could smell the wood smoke of the fire his mother had rekindled and heard scraping sounds as she ground maize for tortillas. Outside, his father moved around in the darkness searching for a few more sticks for the fire. Why, he wondered, are mother and father awake so early? Suddenly his eyes opened wide as he remembered that today was market day. Before the sun came back around to light up the day, he and his mother and father would be on their way to the market to sell the many fine cloths Turquoise Maize Flower had woven.

Obsidian Snake loved the market where people crowded together to bargain with the women who sat behind their piles of peppers, onions, maize, beans, fruits, animal furs, cocoa and pottery. There would be others there ready to trade wood for building and frogs to eat that had come from the lake. Obsidian Snake especially liked to look at the obsidian mirrors whose polished black surfaces would shine in the sunlight. When he looked at them he could see the reflections of a small brown face framed in straight black hair whose eyes squinted when smiling and whose cheeks were round and full. Perhaps at the market he would see Eagle Snake, son of his mother’s sister, and together they could travel through the rows and rows of goods for sale. If his mother sold her cloths, perhaps he would be able to buy tamales or spicy maize porridge.

Soon night was fading away and Obsidian Snake was on his way to the market, his mothers cloths tied securely to his back. Speaking Eagle and Turquoise Maize Flower both carried cloths, too. As they walked, Speaking Eagle began to talk, his quiet voice carrying in the early morning silence.

“Our trip today reminds me of a story that took place in another market place a long time ago. This is a story about Tezcatlipoca, the Mirror that Smokes, the god of the night sky. He is a sorcerer and the god of evil. What happened, Obsidian Snake, was that Tezoatlicpoca, turned himself into a wild, crazy man who walked naked around the city of Tula’s marketplace selling chili peppers.

At this same time, the king of Tula had a beautiful daughter who was sought after by many men. The king, however, would not let her marry any of them. One day, however, the daughter saw the chili pepper man in the market and immediately fell in love with him. Day after day, she yearned so much for a glimpse of the wild man that she became sick. The king, who loved his daughter very much and could not stand to see her so sick, had all of his men search for the chili pepper man. Finally they found him, wild and dirty, in the market place right where the king’s daughter had first seen him. They took him back to the king where he was washed, given new clothes and made to look very presentable. When the princess saw the chili pepper man again, she was immediately cured of her illness. The king was so happy to see his daughter well again that he gave his daughter to the man to be married.”

With this, Speaking Eagle stopped walking and talking and paused on the road to adjust his bundle of cloths. “That is not the end of the story, Obsidian Snake,” he said as he once again began walking towards the market. “It turned out that the people of Tula had started laughing at the king for allowing his daughter to be married to a crazy man.. The king, of course, was embarrassed and did not like being laughed at. He began plotting a way to get rid of his new son-in-law.

Here is the plan he devised. He had his men take the chili pepper man to fight in a war against Tula’s enemies. They put the man in charge of some dwarfs, thinking that when the fighting started and the king’s men left, he would be killed. However, when the fighting did started, the pepper man encouraged the dwarfs with inspiring words and before long, the pepper man and the dwarfs had killed all of the enemy.

When word of the chili pepper man’s victory got back to the king of Tula, the king knew he had to greet his son-in-law as a hero when he returned from the battle. This time, when the pepper man entered the market place, people danced and sang songs of praise instead of laughing at him. At the palace of the king, the people crowned him with a headdress made of quetzal feathers and gave him a turquoise shield. The king announced that the people of Tula had been satisfied and that the one-time wild chili pepper man was indeed his son-in-law.”

Speaking Eagle stopped and pointed down the road. “Tezcatlipoca continued to work his sorcery against the people of Tula and even some of the other gods,” he began again. “But I will have to save those stories for another time. Look, Obsidian Snake, the market place is just ahead.”

Maps as an organising structure for a story

2009-01-16T05:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I am back in the UK after having spent one month in Mexico, and we have started the new session of DigiStory. It was quite hard coming back from the sun into darkness and rain, but the children, and the challenge of preparing materials for 6 new sessions of storytelling soon put back the spring in my step.

Andrea Wollard, my collegue and co-conspirator in DigiStory came up with the brilliant idea of using maps as a natural way to help children structure their story. We soon started researching appropriate maps and got 5 maps of popular characters for the children to chose from. Some of the maps were from well know stories such as Narnia, or Winnie the Pooh and Pokemon. The map of this imaginary world was done by Christing-o. To our amazement the children soon took to the idea of using the maps as a natural way to structure the stories that they are creating. It is early days in our exploration of the use of maps, but this little trial certainly looked promising. I am thinking of making a comparison between storyboarding which has been our tried and tested way of helping the children organise their materials and ideas into an ordered sequence, and maps as an organising structure.

I have joined the Professional Storyteller network

2009-01-06T21:32:00.001-08:00

I decided to join a storytelling network in order to learn from people who are interested in the same things I am. I also want to find out more about social online networks. I am new to the world of online networking but I am eager to learn. So far, I have joined some discussion groups and signed up for some free online training. So far so good...

Chocolatl and the Storyline approach

2009-01-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

I have been researching the story of chocolatl, (chocolate in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs) because this is one of Mexico's contributions to the world. I think the story of the cacao bean and its transformation into a frothy, rich drink and wonderful dessert that delights millions of people would make a lovely to tell children in Europe. Children would be able to use the story as a launching-pad to research the history of chocolate and of the ancient people that drank it in Mexico; recipes both old, and new, as well as botanical and environmental issues surrounding the use of chocolate in the world. The image on the left of a cacao pod and beans was taken by Nicole Henning and the one on the right of a Mexican chocolate tablet was taken by Rachel A.K. I have personally made myself cups of steaming frothy chocolate using tablets like the ones in the photograph.

Chocolatl was a drink which was consumed by royalty and the elite in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs, before the Spanish conquered Mexico. It was served with water (i.e.without milk), flavoured with vanilla, spices, chili and sometimes honey; it was a bitter drink. Have a look at this wonderful recipe from the Vanilla Company. Cacao beans were currency throughout the Mesoamerican world (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize). There is an ancient Mayan myth that says that cacao beans were given to men by the Gods. The Mayas celebrated the new year with the Possum God carrying on its back the Rain God with an offering of cacao beans. A representation of the Possum God and of the cacao beans as taken from the Dresden Codex can be seen here. The Dresden Codex is one of the very few examples of Mayan books that escaped the burning of Mayan libraries performed by Spanish conquistadores....

But, back to chocolatl.... Sophie and Michael Coe have written a fantastically interesting book on the history of chocolate. Sandra Andrews-Strasko blog Chocolate Speak, presents an extensive review of the book and provides all sorts of interesting bits of information on the uses of chocolate in Mexico. But now, to the story....

Once upon a time Quetzalcóatl descended to earth by the rays of a morning star leaving all the Toltecs surprised by his coming down to earth. Everyone understood that this new comer was not a simple mortal and they broke their ugly dark clay gods, to worship him. They built for him a very large 5 storied temple with staircases. The roof was held up by four monumental stone columns carved in the shape of men. The outside of the house was decorated with large butterflies and a long line of tigers who seemed to be searching for the god. The Toltecs called Quetzalcóatl Tlahuizcalpantecutli, which means, the star that comes in the afternoon. This name was quite appropriate because the star sometimes rises in the morning and others in the afternoon. Today we call this star by the name of Venus.

The temple was located in a central square around which the city of Tollan (now Tula) was built. Tollan was a very important city in the 11th and 12th century. The main gods of the city were Quetzalcóatl-Tlahuizcalpantecutli, and the god Tláloc ("the lord that comes from the earth"), the giver of rain and life and the owner of souls estranged from their bodies. The city also had a goddess, Xochiquetzal ("plumed flower"), goddess of happiness and love. She was the wife of Tlaloc and the giver of pulque (an alcoholic drink). All the gods were good and following the leadership of Quetzalcóatl, they taught the Toltec people all their knowledge, until they were wise in the arts and sciences, and could recognise the march of the stars. The Toltecs were then able to measure time and determine the change of the seasons to plant, and harvest. The Toltecs planted corn, beans, yucca, all sorts of cereals and fruits and spend their free time studying. In time they were wonderful architects, artists, masons and delicate moulders of clay.

Quetzalcóatl, who loved them deeply gave the Toltecs, the gift of a very special plant. This plant had been jealously guarded by the other gods because they extracted a drink which was reserved only for the gods themselves. Quetzalcóatl stole the small bush with dark red flowers which later became dark fruits. He planted the bush and asked Tláloc to feed it with water and , asked Xochiquetzal to tend to it and make it beautiful with flowers. The little tree flowered incessantly and Quetzalcóatl picked up the pods, roasted the kernels and taught the Toltec women to grind them into a fine powder. The women then mixed the powder with water from their jars and whipped it into a frothy drink which they called chocolatl. In the beginning it was only drunk by priests and royalty. It was drunk bitter and the mayas called it kahau, (bitter).

The Toltecs became so wise, so learned in the arts and sciences and so prosperous that the gods became jealous at first, and then, angry when they discovered that their chocolatl had been stolen from them. They vowed to make war on Quetzalcóatl and the Toltecs. They called on Tezcatlipoca -"the fuming mirror"-, the god of darkness and the night. This god was the sworn enemy of Quetzalcóatl, who was the god of the morning star. Tezcatlipoca came down to earth on the thread of a spider and taking on the guise of a merchant, approached Quetzalcóatl determined to cause his downfall. The god of the morning star was in his palace that day very sad. He had dreamt that the gods were plotting against him and he was worried for his people the Toltecs.

The false merchant, got close to Quetzalcóatl and asked - Why are you so sad my Lord? - Because the gods have ordered my downfall and the death of my people, answered Quetzalcóatl-.
- I offer you this drink. It is the drink of happiness. Take it, give it to the people, and they will be happy too!

Quetzalcóatl, who loved the Toltecs, believed the false merchant and drank the juice offered to him. The juice was pulque a drink made from fermented agave. He drank and drank and drank until he was completely drunk. He danced, and jumped about, and made all sorts of hand gestures to the people outside the palace who did not know what to make of the strange behaviour 0f their beloved god. Quetzalcoatl was so drunk that he did not notice he was losing the respect of his people. Finally, exhausted, he fell asleep.

The following morning, Quetzalcóatl woke up with a bad headache and a foul, foul breath. He knew that the gods had made fun of him and ridiculed him. He had lost face. He then knew that the end of Tollan, the glorious city of the Toltecs was near. He could not face the destruction of his city, nor the death of his people. He was deeply ashamed....so, he left Tollan, walking in the direction of the evening star. As he started his walk, he noticed that the little bushes he had planted that gave the chocolatl, had transformed themselves into dry plants with thorns. They had transformed themselves into agaves. He saw that the agave was the plant that made the juice that got him drunk in the first place. He cried and cried and walked for days on end.

He walked all the way to the land of Tabasco, close to the sea. When he reached the shore, and before he left the land forever by just walking unto the sea, he placed unto the ground the last seeds of cacao he had left in this hand. The seeds, with time, flourished and became the last gift of the god of the morning star to the people of Mexico.

Stories from Bhutan

2009-01-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

I have been lucky enough to have gone to the Kingdom of Bhutan twice. It is a wonderful experience to visit a place so full of history, tradition and alive with folklore. I have been in the capital Thimphu when there are important celebrations and it was a privilege to see priests and dancers walking towards a public arena where the celebrations were to take place. The country's symbol, embedded in its flag is a dragon, and I have often wondered about the role of the dragon in Eastern mythology.

The picture I inserted in the blog was taken by Kevin H and I downloaded it from Flickr. His profile has wonderful images of Bhutan. Some of the links I have included in this post are providing some information about the image of the dragon in Bhutan, but what I would love to find are stories about dragons that I could tell to the Digistory Club. I am actively looking for stories from different parts of the world that I can adapt to the needs of the children in the club. A friend of mine in Bhutan Sonam Yudon a librarian at the Royal University of Bhutan was kind enough to send me these Bhutanese stories. I hope other storytellers might find them interesting and useful.

Here they are.

The Tiger and the Fox

One day, a long time ago, a fox stood atop a big rock, scratching the sand and dust that had settled on it.

Just then, an arrogant tiger emerged from the woods and saw the fox. “Hello Mrs. fox, what are you doing scrutinizing the ground on such a windy day?” asked the tiger in a tone that seemed to suggest he was making fun of her.

“Please mind your own business,” the fox replied curtly.

This made the tiger angry. He told the fox she had better be polite to him because he could gobble her up in a single mouthful and disgorge her in a second.

“Why, you have no cause to do something like that to me,” the fox said to him, alarmed. The tiger, now quite carried away, roared: “Sure I have. The sand from your rock is getting into my eyes!!”

When she heard this, the fox became very frightened and ran away as fast as she could. On the way she met a pheasant. Gasping, and out of breath, she told the pheasant about the tiger.

Then they both ran for their lives.

That night the pheasant and the fox stayed together. When they were hungry, pheasant laid an egg and they share it between two of them. They ran again the following day, and did the same thing at night.

On the third day the fox told the pheasant, “The tiger will catch up with us soon. We should leave egg for him today so that he doesn’t eat us instead.” The pheasant agreed and promptly laid an egg.

As it grew dark, they prepared themselves for the tiger’s arrival. As was its habit, the pheasant climbed a up tree and went to sleep on a branch. Meanwhile, the fox carefully hid the egg among the dying embers of the fire.

Then she made her bed and, placing a sharp needle standing up right on the pillow and another one similarly under the blanket, went up the tree to join the pheasant. They waited quietly for the tiger to come.

Much later, the tiger appeared through the darkness and began looking around the camp for the fox..Not finding her there, he saw the fire and decided to warm himself.

With his face close to the dying embers they began to blow hard. But the moment he did this, the egg blew up violently in his face, scalding him. “Help me, oh god, my face is burnt!” cried the tiger. “There must have been something horrible in the fire.”

Swearing at himself in pain, he lay down to rest on the readymade bed. There too, the pin on the pillow poked his ears and the pin in the blanket pierced his side.

By this time the tiger was very frighten. “Oh god, have mercy on me!” he cried, “I have surely been cursed. My face is burn and I am being pierced on all sides.” Blinded by the pain, he stumbled on to the tree and attempted to climb to safety. But the half way of the tree, the tiger lost his grip and fall, hit his head on a rock at the foot of the tree, and never opened his eyes again.

How a bull becomes a Tiger.

There once was a family: a father, a mother, a son, and daughter. Sadly, they were all more than a little hard of hearing.

One day the father went to gather firewood in the forest while the son went to work in the fields. And so the boy had been ploughing the fields for some time when a stranger came by and told him that he had lost his bull. “Did you see my bull by any chance?” the man asked.

Now the boy did not hear the man well enough, and thought that he was asking him to sell the family’s only bull.

He refused, shaking his head vigorously.

At noon, when his sister brought him lunch, she found her brother in a foul mood. “A man came by here and made me very angry,” he said to her. “he kept asking me to sell him our precious bull.”

The sister, who was hard of hearing too, thought he was complaining about the food. When she got back home she told their mother that the boy was angry because he did not like the food.

To the mother it seemed that the daughter was telling her the boy was injured by the bull and, without a second thought, she went running off into the forest to fetch the father.

When she found him, she breathlessly told him he must hurry. The bull had injured their son!

The husband, seeing her frantic gestures, thought she was telling him there was a fierce tiger coming their way, and that they should run for their lives. Frightened, he began scrambling up a tree. And that was how the bull became a tiger.

The Cat and the Trader’s Wife.

Once upon a time there lived a travelling trader and his wife. The trader had a cat. Every time he went away the trader always made sure to tell his wife to take special care of the cat, never to leave it thirsty, and never to let it go hungry.

Once it so happened that both the trader’s wife and the cat became pregnant at the same time. However, it was time for the trader to leave on a business trip and, once again, he made his wife promise she would look after the cat well.

He remained her that if it was not for the cat the rats in their stores would have eaten up all the goods he had kept for sale, and his hard labours of trading in distant places like India and Tibet would have gone to waste.

Shortly after the trader left on his trip, the wife brought a lover home and feasted on the best foods from the trader’s store. She even forgot to feed the cat, leave alone treat her well.

One day, in extreme hunger, the cat search all over the house for something to eat. Soon, she spied a small string of dried beef poking out from the edge of a basket, and began to pull on it. But, alas, the wife came into the room, and making a huge fuss, threw her out of the house. Saddened by this cruel treatment the cat hid herself in some bushes not far from the trader’s house and waited for his returns.

Soon, the trader came back. No sooner had he settle in than he began calling for the cat.

When he saw it was not home, he asked his wife for an explanation.

The cunning woman told him that she had fed the cat meat and butter everyday and yet it had shamelessly stolen the special meat from the stock they kept for the king. She said she had chased the cat away as she had feared it might bring trouble from the palace.

Shortly after, the cat came in expecting to be fed and welcomed now that her master was home. But instead, the trader began beating her viciously with a cane! He chased after her shouting madly, “You ungrateful wretch! You have always been given good food and meat and yet you dare to steal from the king’s stock!!”

Seeing that the trader was beyond reason the cat ran up a ladder, and sitting atop the leader, begged with folded hands for the man to listen to what she had to say. The cat told him understood that it was very difficult for him to see who was the liar, her or the woman. But, she said, if he would wait for a few more months he would see for himself. If his wife was speaking the truth, she would have a normal childbirth, the cat said. “But If I’m true,” she added ominously, “I will give birth to human children, and she will have kittens instead.”

Then she jumped down the ladder and ran away. The cat went for days, weeks, and months over mountain after high Mountain, through valley after valley. Finally, when she could not walk any more on account of her advancing maternity she found a small clearing and decided to rest there a while. Gathering twigs and dry grass, she built herself a comfortable shelter. Exhausted, she lay down and, soon, gave birth to two beautiful baby girls.

Back in the trader’s house, after nine months of pregnancy, the woman gave birth to two black and ugly kittens.

The disgusted trader banished his wife and buried the kittens under a three forked path [as was the custom of burying all ill-omened things in the old days].

The Boy and the King.

Long ago there lived a poor boy in a certain village. All the other boys in the village looked down on him and made fun of him. But, unknown to them, he was really quite clever and brave.

One day the king summoned all the boys to the palace.

“Boys,” the king asked, “Who among you can tell me what is the fastest and the quickest thing in all the world?”

A rich man’s son promptly replied that, of all the things in the world, horses were the fastest. An-other said it was the wind. In this fashion, all the other boys had made their answers. Now only the poor boy was left. When their answers. Now only the poor boy was left. When the king turned to him, he said meekly: “your majesty, some people say that there is no comparison to the speed of a river when it comes to fastest thing in the world. There are others who say that birds are faster. But as far as I am concerned, I think there is nothing quicker than the maids of humans.”
“So you think it is the human mind,” the king said looking strangely interested. “We’ll soon see about that. Send your father to me tomorrow.” Early next morning the boy’s father was at the palace. “Your son says it is the mind of humans that is the fastest of all things, and I agree with him,” the king said to him. “However, I have summoned you here because I want to give you a specific task. Here, take these pebbles, sew them together and bring them back to me tomorrow. If you fail you will be executed.”

The poor father was frightened and did not know what to do. “I don’t know what you told the king yesterday but you have made him very angry,” he told his son. “Now he has given me this impossible task. And I have to take back it to him tomorrow!” The boy consoled his father and assured him nothing would happen. “I will go to the king myself,” he said.

The following morning, the boy took a plate full of sand to the king. When the king asked him if his father had sewn the pebbles, the boy replied that his father had not been able to accomplish the task because he did not have the special kind of thread that would sew the pebbles.

But, he said, he would do it himself if the king would kindly make some thread from the sand in his plate.

“How can I make thread out of the sand?” the king asked the boy. The boy quickly replied that just as the king could not make thread from sand, his father too could not sew the pebbles. Amazed by the boy’s pluck, the king asked him to send his father to the palace again the following day. The father was told that since his son had been so impertinent, he would again be given another task, with the same conditions. This time the father was given a male horse and asked to bring a newborn foal the very next day. Once again the boy turned up at the place. This time the king was not pleased to see him. The king shouted at him and said that it was his father he wanted to see and not the impudent boy.

The boy quickly begged the king’s royal pardon and said his father was not able to be there in person because he had just given birth to a baby boy. This reply angered the king even more. “Do you take me for a fool?!!” the king raged. “How can a man give birth?” Quick came the reply: “Just as male horse gives birth to a foal, your majesty.”

When the king saw what the boy meant, he conceded defeat and acknowledged that he had truly been outwitted by the clever boy.

Fate and the Deer.

A long time ago, there lived a deer called Raley and his wife, the doe, Anzo.

Raley had grown old and his horns were large and heavy, on account of which it was hard for him to forage for grass in the forest. So now he spent most of his days just sleeping. But life was peaceful and they were happy when, one day, Nzo gave birth to a very beautiful baby doe. Now Raley had always longed to graze in the tall wheat fields far below in the valley. He smacked his lips and convinced himself that he would be happy only if he could visit those beautiful fields.

“Let’s go down to the warm valley,” he told Anzo one day. “Now that winter is here, it is cold and grass is becoming harder to find. Down there, I can see the wheat fields flourishing and the grains are laden heavily to the ground.”

“We might as well stay here where we belong and not go searching for trouble,” came Anzo’s reply. But in spite of her reservations, Raley would not give up and continued to pester his wife. He complained that up where they lived, he did not get enough food to satisfy his hunger. Down in the broad, flat valley, where it was warm, they [the family] could eat all those delicious grains at leisure. “But you never listen to me,” he accused her.

One night, following this discussion, Anzo dreamed she was a hunter cleaning a tangle of animal intestines in the pool of blood. She told Raley this was a bad omen and that they should keep away from the valley. But Ralay remained unconvinced and still entertained his fantasy of eating in the wheat fields. In fact he grew increasingly more insistent until, finally, she conceded. That night, Ralay, Anzo, and baby doe went down to the valley and entered the fields, eating to their heart’s content. In the early hours of the morning when the rooster began to crow, Anzo told Raley that the rooster had given the signal that they must now leave the fields. “Let’s hide in the bushes for the day and come back for more tonight,” she said to him. So they returned that night, and when they had eaten enough, retreated to the bushes again.

Some days later the local hunter, whose fields it was, came and saw that almost all his entire year’s crop was gone. When he saw the footprints of the three animals, he grew angry and set a trap using Sangda, the dreaded poison-tipped arrow used by hunters.

That night the three of them returned to the fields and ate their fill. But on their way back to the bushes, Raley stumbled onto the trap and released the poison arrow, which wounded him in the leg. The poison began to enter his blood, and he lay dying.

But although Anzo was grief stricken, she could not stay with him. “Look at what has happened,” she said sadly. “I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen. Now we have to leave you even though we are sad.” Then Anzo and the little doe fled into the hills.

Down in the valley, the hunter was happy he had finally caught the pest that had been eating his crops. He skinned the dead deer and cleaned it in a pool of blood, just as Anzo had seen in the dream.

A Few Magical Things

There was once was a difficult and troublesome man in a place Pemachen.he caused so much mischief in the land that, one day, the king grew furious and banished him.

The man left, crossing several valleys and mountains, and by nightfall he came to a deserted field where a cold and chilly wind was blowing. In the middle of the field he saw a tree, the trunk of which was carved out in a hollow. In this hollow was dead horse. He served the horse’s head from its body, and tied it to his belt as provision for journey onward. Then he climbed up the tree to retire for night.

As darkness fell a group of demons appeared at the foot of the tree; they were wearing hats made from winnowed rice husk. Sometime later, they were joined by more demons riding paper horses and wearing papers hats.

Soon, the man looked down and saw that they had begun to have a feast. Now the man began to fear that he would be discovered, and he became so frightened that he let the horse’s head fall right into the midst of demons. Fortunately, it fell so suddenly that it frightened the demons and sent them scattering off in all directions into the forest.

The next morning he climbed down the tree and, being hungry, began to search for bits and scraps leftover from the earlier night’s feast. But everything was gone except for a cup made of purest gold, with some dregs of wine still left in it. The man gulped it down and left the cup over- turned on the ground while he explored the surroundings some more.

When he came back to retrieve the cup, he saw to his amazement that there, underneath it, was some meat and butter! Realishing that this was a magic cup, the man was very pleased with his find.

He congratulation himself and continued on his way, and, a while later, came across a man swinging a cane in his hand. “Hey there, what can your leather cane do?,” he asked the man. The man replied that his cane was called Corjuk, and that it could do wonders. “For example, you just have to say so and it can instantly make people give you whatever you want them,” he explained.

In turn, the man from Pemachen told the stranger that he had a golden cup that could provide a person with anything one desired to eat. Would the good man in anyway be interested in exchanging the cane for the cup? The owner of the cane said yes he would. But no sooner was the switch was made then the man from Pemachen asked the cane to make the other man give him back his cup. This was done.

Now the man walked happily along with both the magic cane and the magic cup in his hemchu*, and, shortly after, met a man slinging an iron hammer over his shoulder. He hailed the man and asked him if there was anything that the hammer could do. Oh yes, said the man, indeed it was a very special hammer for if you dropped it build you a nine-storied mansion.

Again, the man from Pemachen told the owner of hammer about the magic cup and said he willing to trade it for the hammer. As soon as they made exchange he sent Corjuk once again to bring him back the cup. Now he had the gold cup, the cane, and the hammer.

Satisfied with the state of affairs the man walked on until he came upon a man carrying a dried length of goat skin. He asked him what it could do, and other man explained that if you just tapped on the skin lightly it would begin drizzling. If you beat it hard, it would bring down rain.

Once more the man from Pemachen suggested that they exchange the man’s goat skin for his amazing, food-providing cup. The deal was struck, and, again, the magic cane flew off and made the man give him the cup. Now, he had a magic cup that provided food, a magic cane that made people do as he wanted, a hammer that could build him a house, and a goat-skin that could made it rain. He decided it was time to go back home.

On reaching Pemachen he dropped the hammer nine times on the ground and built him a beautiful nine-storied mansion from the thin air. He lived happily for a while, but when the king saw the mansion and learned whose it was, he became very angry. He did not like that man he had chased away had come back without his asking. So he sent orders that the house should be burnt down, but when the king’s men set the on fire the man began beating on the magical goat-skin gently at first, and a light rain fell from the sky and extinguished the fire. Then he began beating it harder, and it brought down so much rain that it threatened to wash away all the people and houses in Pemachen.

Needless to say, the king left him alone after that, and the man from Pemachen ceased to be troublemaker, living quietly in mansion, happy with his magical possessions.

*a fold in the Bhutanese dress that allows the people to carry all kinds of sundry things; something akin to a western pocket.

I will be introducing some of these stories within our next International Sessions of the DigiStory Club.It will be great to make some dragon masks, as some activities for the children as well as showing the children some pictures and handicrafts from Bhutan. I wonder if maybe a Bhutanese primary school would like to team up with our club and exchange stories?

Storytelling for a suncken landscape: Valle de Bravo, Mexico

2008-12-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

I have just come back from spending 4 days in Valle de Bravo, in the State of Mexico. This is a wonderful village nestled amongst mountains and pine forests. The village has a beautiful lake, and our house, was just a short walk from the lake, where hundreds of ducks, water hens and several herons waddled happily. The photograph of the lake was taken by Luck Mendez and he has wonderful images of Valle in his page.

Apparently, the area was flooded over 50 years ago to create a huge hydroelectric reservoir. I wished there had been back the possibility of digital storytelling to record the feelings of the people living back then, when their land was flooded and they were relocated. That area is now lost forever, and although what is now the "new" environment is lovely, I became nostalgic about a heritage of stories and memories that is slowly dying because it was not possible or noteworthy enough to record.

We often think that only important events are worth recording, and yet, this is no longer the case; with a video camera, some pictures and sound, anyone can make a story and publish it on the Internet. We can therefore all become digital storytellers, using our creativity to preserve our memories, our daily impressions and thoughts, and whatever strikes us as magical. On this vein, it is worth noting that there are several manuals available for digital storytelling. A recently updated one and freely available for downloading comes from the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative.

Christmas is here

2008-12-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am in sunny Mexico City thinking about storytelling and about the ways in which the story of Jesus' birth has been translated into different folkloric traditions. Here in my homeland, we celebrate the season with "posadas". The image on the right was taken in Colonia Roma, Villa Gustavo A. Madero, DF, Mexico by Esparta.

This is a party in which people re-enact the birth of Jesus by carrying images or little statues of Mary and Joseph around the street, (see the image o n Flickr by the Catholic Sun)and singing specific carols until reaching a designated house. The carols are a dialogue where the people in the street ask the people inside the house for permission to enter, and the people inside come up with excuses, why nobody can come in just yet, just yet.... the signing goes on and on and it is quite ritualized, with set tunes, and questions and answers, until finally, one house, opens the door, everyone gets in and then there is a grand party with the children breaking a pinata...
( a claypot, decorated into traditional images, like stars, or the sun, and filled with fruit and candy). The image of these wonderful star-shaped pinatas was taken by El Sol.

I have gotten quite sentimental thinking about this type of celebrations since I went every year until my 21st, to these parties and loved it. Sometimes I was part of the people singing outside the house, and other times, inside their house, readying everything to welcome the Holy family into our home. Feliz Navidad!

The Storyline approach and On-line learning design

2008-12-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

The Storyline approach was developed by Steve Bell, Sallie Harkness and Fred Rendell some years ago at the Department of Education of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. It places the teacher as a facilitator who designs learning opportunities using the wealth of information resources available within the context of a story. Learners develop their own learning, both through guided group-work and independent research. The groups get together with the results of their research and collectively construct a story. The thread that links the research and the learning is in fact the development of a story. This is powerful stuff. The learning is entirely self-motivated and the system encourages the development of information gathering and processing skills. In other words it is a system that promotes information literacy skills. The Storyline approach has been actively proposed by Teaching and Learning Scotland and is gradually being introduced throughout the land from pre-primary unto secondary school.

Another interesting thing about this approach is that it is extremely similar to the educational design underpinning the development of online learning where the design team constructs learning opportunities that encourage self-learning through independent inquiry. Discussion boards are then used to share results of research and to develop the learning of the group as a whole. The groups are motivated through the construction of a story. An example of such an implementation can be seen in the Hospiweb Project where students from 2 universities were asked to develop an investment strategy for a new business hotel venture in Scotland. each team was therefore constructing the story of their own imaginary business venture. The parallels with Sotryline are amazing, becuase within the Hospiweb Porject, we had parents contacting the team, inquiring whether their sons and daughters were indeed asked to create a business venture for real. there was excitement and awe combined with fear...

This is yet another application of storytelling. Who would have thought of storytelling entering the corporate world...? and yet, we have all encountered with a sense of amazement the stories of innovators and business men who against all odds, followed their dreams, and found riches, fame and glory for themselves and their countries.... the images are indeed mythical . Have a look at the stories of Akio Morita, the founder of the Sony Corporation, or the Asa Griggs Candler, the founder of CocaCola or Ray Krok the founder of McDonalds. They are all recounted using the macro-structure of children's folk stories.
What a wonder, that we never are tired of listening to stories.

Why do computer games have weak stories?

2008-12-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Some years ago, I began to read that parents were really scared that children would spend all their time playing computer games and would lose out on the fun things of childhood, like playing in a park, doing sports, mucking about with paints and mud, or, yes, you guessed it... reading a book or listening/inventing to a story. As it turns out, research has pointed out that out children are in fact quite actively pursuing what interest them, and that on average, they are not spending an inordinate amount of time playing computer games. In fact, most very young children spend quite a bit of their time engaged in fantasy play where they are, yes, indeed, inventing and acting out stories.

It must be a sign of ageism, because I love computers and digital technology but fail to get totally captivated by computer games. Probably because the plots are mostly predictable and in many cases violent. Jesper Julles at the Digital Arts and Culture Conference in Norway in 1998 made a direct comparison between computer games and stories. I am quoting verbatim from his full presentation which you can read here. He came up with this neat comparison table..

"This leads us to a final comparison of the relationship between narratives and computer games:

Narratives	Computer games
Fixed sequence	Flexible sequence
Variable speed (usually compressed)	Fixed speed
Story/discourse	Program/material
Past	Present
Needs human or anthropomorphic actors	Can be abstract
Narrative desire	Desire for understanding & performance
Consume once	Play many times

Narratives are fixed sequences, games are flexible sequences.
Narratives vary in the speed with which they are told; uninteresting periods of time are skipped; the movie 48 hours doesn't last 48 hours. Computer games, especially the action game, are fixed speed, real time.
A narrative has a dualism between the story and the discourse, the computer game is divided between the formal program and the material.
A narrative is basically something past, a computer game something present.
A narrative needs human or anthropomorphic actors, a game can be abstract. You can’t imagine a narrative as abstract as Tetris.
In a narrative, the reader desires to know the ending. In a game, the player wants to understand the structure of the game and to acquire the skills to use this knowledge.
A narrative is something you consume once, a game is something you play many times.

To sum it up. Computer games and narratives are very different phenomena. Two phenomena that fight each other. Two phenomena that you basically cannot have at the same time. Any interactive narrative or attempt at interactive storytelling is a zigzag between these two columns".

I liked his comparison table very much and mostly agree with his premises, but I do not think that a narrative is always something in the past. In storytelling, the teller is indeed recounting a past event, but everytime the story is told, even by the same person, the story metamorphoses a little and it is never the same. In this case, the story is always present and never in the past. Even narratives recorded in books, are not quite static because the reader absorbs different elements of the narrative and therefore transforms it in his or her own mind. whenever I read, I never absorb everything; my mind takes what I can absorb, disregards what I cannot comprehend and discards what is trivial to my state of mind although, maybe what I have discarded is curcially important to the author. This happened to me once, when I was giving a lecture in Colombia and a person waited until coffee time to discuss line by line one of my papers. He had read into my work, much more depth than what I had originally intended. The text is there, immobile and fixed, but the mind of the reader assigns depth and meaning completely out of the control of the author of the text. This is why I beleive firmly that a printed narrative is as fluid as a story germinating in the imagination of a listener.

Storytelling as an organisational medium for information

2008-12-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

I was a former librarian. Perhaps it is therefore not surprising that something about storytelling immediately captivated my imagination. It was not just the plots, and the characters and the voices and the acting, there is something deeply satisfying in identifying the key characteristics of a story and organising them in your mind without the need to commit each element of the story to our minds. The skeleton of the story is what should be remembered, we can then clothe the story with different minutiae as we go along... in this case, each time we tell a story it is fresh, and slightly different, because our, audiences, our voices, our imagination and our feelings will be different each time. There is real beauty in this, because, in a sense, each storyteller is a little bit like a virtuoso improviser, with an outline to guide the heart and the voice. Dr. Sturm from the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill has researched some of the organisational principles behind storytelling as a mechanism to store and retrieve information to memory and I find his presentation in YouTube fascinating. Dr Sturm is also researching the trance-like state hat people experience when listening to stories. I am particularly interested in this because sometimes, some of the children in the audience can be really captivated and attentive to the sotry unfolding in their imagination, through my voice and actions. His article on trance and storytelling is really fascinating.

Training the Voice

2008-12-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

It has taken me a while to realize that the voice is an instrument, and the words within the story are the music which a storyteller brings to life. I attended a workshop called "Training the Voice" at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh and it was quite clear that I had never felt or tasted words for the music within them. It was a very interesting workshop because a number of the participants were not native English speakers, but Norwegians students of drama; the workshop leader was very quick to get everyone into doing physical exercises with which to relax our bodies and our voices. I enjoyed the workshop very much, since we had to act, improvise and develop the strength of our voices using our diaphragms. It reminded me of the times when I was a singer at the Convivium Musicum in Mexico City singing at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Comic Life

2008-12-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to work on Comic Life to show everyone how easy it is to create a comic out of a series of photographs. I spent a bit of time choosing the layout but after that it was relatively simple stuff. I will show it to the children since they are the main characters in the comic about the rise and shine of DigiStory. I could only upload the comic as a film for the blog but within the comi Life software it is possible to print it directly.

Training, training and more training

2008-12-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

Last month we were very busy training new volunteers for the next batch of storytelling sessions. We did training on storytelling techniques as well as on the ethics of being a volunteer at St. Andrew's. It is the first time that we were able to conduct formal training with our local volunteers and it was a very fruitful experience for everyone involved. We hope to be able to get more volunteers involved as we intend to increase the number of storytelling sessions for 2009.

The training should be done at regular intervals so that people can have a chance to increase their skills on a regular basis. I hope to be able to develop my own skills further so that I can train volunteers more fully into crafting stories and voicing stories. This is something that interests me very much. Particularly how to attract the children's attention by incorporating a number of elements from their own environments. This is an area that is mentioned in a recent article by Jeremy Hsu where he explores why it is that we are fascinated by stories. His article looks at why we love a good yarn. This is one article I recommend to everyone training as a volunteer in DigiStory. It certainly inspires discussion.

Another area of training will definitely be in using Comic Life which is a software that allows children to change their photographs into a comic-strip. Older children love to be given a camera and then upload their photos to the computer to create their own comics. I anticipate much more interest in this in the future.

DigiStory presentation for local teachers

2008-12-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

Last month we were invited to give a presentation on the concept of DigiStory to teachers within Falkirk Council. We were very excited by this opportunity to work with teachers within our area. I did an hour of presentations and then tackled some questions. We were fortunate to be able to count with the cooperation of the Educational Services in Falkirk. Hopefully we will be able to run storytelling sessions in schools in the near future.

DigiStory in the local Press

2008-12-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

The word has gotten around about our storytelling club and a local reporter did a news feature before the end of the year. The children were really excited and sometimes were almost posing for the photographer but in the end everything went very well. The last session for this year of 2008 was a story from Norway which was translated by Andrea Wollard. The story is about three trees that want to go and visit the new king who has just been born. The children really enjoyed it because the trees were producing fruits that they would give as gifts to the new baby king, and the fruits were dates and olives. We had some tasters of both and it went really really well.

The DigiStory Blog. or Hello World!

2008-12-16T15:25:00.000-08:00

This is a blog dedicated to digital storytelling. I intend to speak about my experiences in storytelling, interesting storytellers I meet and techniques I have used with children learning to tell and illustrate their own stories.

I started being interested in storytelling about 3 years ago and thanks to some work I had been doing as part of the World without Walls team in St Andrew's Parish Church in Bo'ness, Scotland I was able to explore the concepts of digital storytelling more fully. We were able to run a pilot project where with the help of a professional storyteller, Michael Williams, we managed to train around 12 people in digital storytelling. This is how the adventure started and we have never stopped.

We are currently running storytelling sessions quite regularly for 4 blocks of 6 session each during the year. The sessions explore different topics, such as healthy eating, global citizenship, environmental issues and citizenship. However, the children that come to our session, just come to have fun. We have children from 5-12 years old for 1 1/2 hours a week. During this time, we hear stories, play games, learn tonguetwisters, draw, film and have lots of fun. Check out some of the pictures form our most recent sessions.