I had a marvellous time in Edinburgh going to the storytelling festival there. I saw many wonderful traditional storytellers. There were traveller storytellers, tellers from the Lowlands and tellers from the Highlands and Islands. Great diversity. Unlike England where the storytelling is a revival, in Scotland the tradition is still alive and many of the tellers have learnt much of their material orally. It was a marvellous experience seeing so much talent.
My friend Stanley was there for the final event so we had a wee blether. Good to see an old friend! Good to make some new ones too - I was starting to make friends with some tellers who are based in Edinburgh. I hope to go up to Edinburgh again once in a while, so it's great that I am going to see a few familiar faces when I return.
I got up and did and riddle and two stories at the Festival Club. It was hosted by Duncan W, a master storyteller and very inspiring. Duncan was very encouraging. After I'd told my story he came up and patted me on the shoulder and gave me a peck on the cheek. He said my story was lovely. Quite a number of other tellers complimented me on my telling. Very encouraging. I still have to put in a great deal of hard work building up my repertoire but it is extremely encouraging that people are enjoying my telling already.
No more festivals till the spring I think, but I may go away for the occasional night or two to go to workshops or storytelling circles. Going away to see experienced professionals, and trying out my wings at different venues is really helpful for me!
This message was edited Nov 2, 2005 9:56 AM
Enjoyed storytelling festival in Edinburgh
Great that you had a good weekend, do you keep in touch with these new friends after the festivals?
Where do you get your stories from? Books, other story tellers, it must be hard when the art nearly died out, you have to hope that someone had made an 3effort to actually put pen to paper to preserve them for future generations.
Hello Sueone.
Keeping in touch with new friends? Well, mainly I will simply be seeing them again at another event. Of course, when I do bump into them again we have a little natter. Occasionally we exhange emails. I email some of the students who were with me on the Bleddfa course. I am in regular email contact with one of them. Storytellers are very huggy and kissy - we love seeing our old friends again. When you bump into an old friend it's hugs and kisses!
Mainly we learn our stories from books. There are a number of traditional tellers though, mainly in Scotland, who have learnt their stories from family and friends. In England, unhappily, we are mainly revivalist storytellers who obtain our material from books. But sometimes storytellers will swap stories - we ask a teller for a story and hope that the teller will oblige - I've already given my sources for a story to one teller who asked for them. Some people with good memories can learn a story simply from hearing it told - my memory just isn't good enough for that though. If you're very fortunate you may be able to obtain stories from a kindly traditional teller. As it happens I have a friend who IS a traditional teller; at the moment though I would be reluctant to ask him for stories as I am a beginner and don't think I would do them justice yet.
It's great to hear of this wonderful new world opening up for you Diane!
So glad you enjoyed the Edinburgh festival and hope to hear of many more :)