And now for my final story before Christmas – Why The Robin Has A Red Breast (and became a hero).
Hope you all have an enchanting Christmas of love, happiness and good old overindulgence and check back on New Year’s Eve for something to see you through into 2016…
Hey ho (ho, ho)! To brighten up your Christmas, I thought I’d share a couple of stories with you. Today’s is called Big Cattle, Little Cattle and is a traditional Russian Christmas tale with hearty borscht, glad tidings and an obscene amount of rats…
Check back for more tales of snow and mayhem and don’t forget to let me know your favourite Christmas story in the comments – you never know, it could be the next one I tell…! Enjoy!
A New Project, a new (old) story!
So, a BBC World Service journalist called Richard Hamilton, working in Morocco, has discovered and fallen in love with the public, open air storytelling traditions of Marrakesh and has discovered the tradition is under threat. For years, storytellers have been able to perform in a particular square and this is how they have earned their living for generations. Guess what? The citizen’s friend, DEVELOPMENT, has now deprived these storytellers of anywhere to work, to earn. Richard has started a labour of love to bring this tradition and the plight of these tradition keepers to a wider audience and, as part of this project, he is launching a YouTube channel to showcase as many stories and storytellers as possible. He and his assistant Nigel came to my flat and, despite an egregious cold, I told some stories for them. The first of them to be published is now online, a short Norwegian tale, and you can enjoy it here….
Stay tuned to this list for further stories in the weeks and months to come.
My story is based on the extraordinary life of Richard Burton; it is a story that runs to the heart of Empire and travel. Beginning at the foot of his peculiar mausoleum in the form of a Bedouin tent in a Catholic church, my tale of the great and enigmatical explorer becomes a journey to the edge of the known world.
Burton was an Englishman fluent in over 40 languages, with the support of the The Royal Geographical Society he led an expedition to the true source of the Nile; he was the first non-Muslim to enter the holy city of Harar and he completed the Haj from Suez to Mecca. ……..Burton turned exploration into a practice of human freedom. These stories are complemented by the soaring, melancholic, and yearning vocals of the Iraqi Kurdish singer Nawroz Oramari.
‘Tongues of Flame’ was one of the highlights of a great storytelling year in Cambridge…. They [the audience] were enthralled by the vibrant colours of the piece, and the masterly crafting of the material….. Its picture of a colonial past has an immediacy for modern culture and the 21st century legacy of British colonialism…Best of all it held me riveted, laughing, appalled – what more can I ask from a storytelling show?
2014, Marion Leeper, Cambridge Storytellers Programmer
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My story is based on the extraordinary life of Richard Burton; it is a story that runs to the heart of Empire and travel. Beginning at the foot of his peculiar mausoleum in the form of a Bedouin tent in a Catholic church, my tale of the great and enigmatical explorer becomes a journey to the edge of the known world.
